Getting laid off is never fun. Or easy. But you can either get busy living or get busy dying. And Taylor Craig decided he’d create a new venture — Launch Live Now — instead of wallowing in self-pity.
As a former producer at CNBC, Craig had plenty of technical knowledge in the broadcast space. But when he was laid off by the company, he put that wisdom to use to help others interested in getting into content creation.
“Essentially, we’re a live-streaming production house,” said Taylor Craig. “Basically, I got laid off, and I didn’t really feel the urge to apply for any network positions. I talked to a lot of really smart people, and I realized social media platforms were pushing live video content onto their users. I just felt like it was the Wild Wild West, and it was our opportunity to bring the professionalism of TV to these new platforms. Because I think the way we consume content has drastically changed.”
Now more than ever, live video is accessible on a variety of platforms. What was once completely owned by over-the-air and cable television now features competition from apps like TikTok, Instagram Live, Facebook Live, and X, in addition to YouTube, Twitch, and Rumble, among others.
With those avenues comes an increase want and need for live video. Building out a studio with top of the line audio and video equipment, lights, and hardware/software needs isn’t simple or cheap. That’s where Launch Live Now comes into play, with Taylor Craig and co-founder Daniel Mesko helping aspiring content creators produce high-quality live shows.
“If you look at any of those broadcasts, they do not have dynamic banner changes, they don’t have chats that they can feature,” Craig said of some home-built programs. “Sure, you might go live on Twitch and then you can talk to the users. But we have software that can collect all the comments from all the platforms. I don’t care if you’re on Rumble, if you’re on X, if you’re on YouTube, we’re simulcasting everywhere at once, and we can collect all of those comments and put them up on screen seamlessly.
“So just the production value in general, this is just what I’ve done for seven, eight years. I really love everybody that has a vision to get online and to execute on that and have an awesome show. We are tailoring our products to people that are in the TV world and really are used to that level of production value.”
Launch Live Now is bucking some of the more traditional trends in the media space. For decades, the strategy has been to build fans and viewers of a network brand, rather than the individual hosts. But Taylor Craig and partner Daniel Mesko are more interested in creating communities around individuals and see it as the future of the media ecosystem.
“I think live streaming is the next great wave of content creation,” said Craig. “I’m absolutely huge on that, and I just know that we’re not focused on networks. We’re focused on individuals. I’ve seen our competition. There is nobody who can do it better, faster, and cheaper than we can. We are just so agile. We’re not seeking funding or anything like that, but we are just absolutely amped for the growth of this industry, and we want to get anyone who is excited about a show idea launched as soon as possible.”
The team at the digital start-up goes through an entire show build process with creators, beginning with ironing out a name for a show and moving from there.
“For the build out (we have as ) many meetings as we need to figure out exactly what that concept is going to be,” Craig stated. “Are you going to have guests? Are you going to have banner changes? Some people don’t want banners. Do you want chat? Do you want this? We’ll take you through those scenes. We have to build out like a two-box, two-box with video, three-box, solo spotlight. You name it, every possible scene.
“These were things that – when I was at other networks – you’d put in a request to the graphics department. They go to the engineering staff. They implement it into the system. We can do this in a matter of minutes. So I would say our buildout process is very fast. We work with designers to make sure that the client is extremely happy with the way the screen looks and how they’re represented. Then once we have that buildout that includes transitions, music, title screen, be right back if you want to take breaks, the screen comes on camera.”
Once creators have selected their packages, the final step is picking a timeslot. The company offers four live timeslots per day on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and three options on Thursdays and Fridays, with hosts having the option to work both in their Brooklyn studios or remotely.
For Taylor Craig and Mesko, the two former roommates are excited for what the future holds in the live video space and believe it can be primed to be a pioneer in the content creation production realm.
“I’m so excited about scale,” Craig admitted. “We’re not just building this to fill out. My partner, Dan, he’s a former blockchain engineer, left the software world, and was looking for a new, exciting opportunity. We both came up with this together. I always was looking for an excuse to work with him, because he’s such a smart guy. And we finally came together on this idea.
“We are building this — and Dan is integral in this — the company to be pretty much all remote. Where we can have a technical director and an executive producer, like a team of them doing a full schedule while another team is doing their full schedule,” concluded Taylor Craig. “And so the addressable market, when we get to that point, almost becomes anyone with a podcast, anyone that wants to do a live stream, which, by the way, we turn around into a podcast immediately. So you really get a good bang for your buck. But it’s just a massive market.
“We want to see this company go beyond just Dan and I schedule. We want to hire technical directors and producers at a time when legacy media are just laying them off. These are people I work with every single day. We’ve never consumed content at the level that we have now. We have very technical skills and there’s got to be a path to where we can use those skills in a new market, on a new platform.
“So that’s why I’m just super excited about this company. I want to help grow this new facet of the industry. Because I think, as I was talking about with networks and brand loyalty, it is sort of fading away a bit. Whereas individual communities are growing rapidly. That’s where we place our trust, and that’s who we want to build around.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
Incredible concept with unlimited growth potential!