Spacestation is funding the next generation of YouTubers: The company went from a viral Snapchat sensation to an incubator for future influencers.

• Author: Swanson, Jacob

A SINGLE SNAPCHAT IN 2014 spawned billions of YouTube views, millions of dollars in investment into dozens of companies, and 180 people on the payroll of what might be the coolest company in Utah.

Shaun McBride was working in the snowboard and skateboard industries until, on a random flight, a drawing on his phone started the dominos in motion. "We have a saying here: 'Take every small opportunity and try and turn it into a big one,"' says McBride, better known as his uber-popular internet personality Shonduras.

That first small opportunity was a doodle of a woman sleeping on a plane. She had colored hair, and Shonduras doodled a My Little Pony body with her head on it. Someone posted it to Reddit, and soon after, he had 500 followers on his Snapchat account.

From there, McBride started filming his life and posting it to YouTube, which then exploded into multiple YouTube accounts and more than five billion views. He was onto something.

STARTING A COMPANY

Spacestation, founded in 2017 by McBride and Sean Holladay, is parent to Spacestation Gaming (a professional eSports team), Spacestation Integrations Can influencer marketing operation), Spacestation Investments, and many other spinoffs. But it all started with a question: which company would work better--gaming or influencer marketing?

The team launched both arms simultaneously, deciding they would go after whichever one worked. Both did. They were soon helping influencers and YouTubers build out the creator economy while simultaneously riding the eSports wave. "This was before Fortnite was mainstream," McBride says. "Once Fortnite hit like a year later, it was full speed ahead."

On the influencer side, the company was making mega-stars out of creators. For example, the photographer and videographer Peter McKinnon has grown from 100,000 YouTube subscribers to 8.5 million under Spacestation's care--which all started with one introduction to the more prolific YouTuber Casey Neistat.

That single connection Shawn made grew Pete's subscribers by 100,000 in a day. So from Casey came Pete, then all of a sudden, we set Pete off on this really great trajectory. But then we helped Shawn, not just with follower growth, but to build a business around it.

Today, not only have McKinnon's follower totals exploded, but he also has his own line of camera backpacks with Nomatic, Adobe Lightroom presets for easy photo editing, camera filters that bear his name, and many more opportunities.

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