Thread by @kevinleeme

1/ Marshmello is the 2nd highest paid DJ in the world and rakes in $40mm per year while wearing a marshmallow helmet. His secret? His brilliant, unknown manager, Moe Shalizi.

This is a lesson in how creative approaches in the music industry built a global phenomenon.

2/ Moe Shalizi grew up in Section Eight low income housing. When he was 17, his dad died and he was forced to do whatever it took to provide for his mom and sister. He bought candy and sold it to other kids. He started fixing cars and flipping them on Craigslist.

3/ He discovered the music industry which played to his strengths. If you don't have street smarts to know the game, you get run over. You have to know how to apply creativity to catch culture. No textbook will capture that, because culture changes every single day.

4/ For 2 years, he manages artists with no pay while sustaining himself with other hustles. Every dollar he makes, he re-invests back into the business. He preaches the importance of investing in yourself, and that theme of ownership comes into play throughout his career.

5/ After some moderate success with managing artists, he creates his own management group called Shalizi Group and begins to work with a friend and artist named Christopher Comstock. This is where the interesting part begins.

6/ Moe recognizes Chris's talent, but he wants to manage Chris differently. He sits down with Chris and deconstructs the typical path of other dance DJs throughout history. Many become popular, seem untouchable, but get sucked into the fame and then fade off in the public eye.

7/ He wants Chris to create an accessible brand to everyone that isn't driven by ego.

They begin tossing out names. At the time, Chris is making mellow music, so they come up with the name Marshmello. Chris's parents say it's the stupidest name they've ever heard.

8/ Moe studies the market and knows that dance music lives on Soundcloud. He takes Chris's music and begins to release one Marshmello track for free, every single week on Soundcloud. He asks a few other artists he manages to help promote these tracks.

9/ Moe needs a logo for Marshmello so he sits and looks at anime characters for hours. He finds one character who stands out and he asks a graphic designer friend to make a logo that looks like the character.

10/ He also reaches out to someone who builds physical helmets and the guy sends back a rolled yoga mat that's cement glued on the back with a signature criss cross eye design on the front.

11/ The two of them are still poor, and they have no money for PR. Coachella, a world famous music festival, comes around and Moe thinks of a creative way to get eyeballs on Marshmello, even though Marshmello isn't even playing at the festival. He decides to take a gamble.

12/ He invests $5k into a single billboard off the highway exit to Coachella. The billboard has a photo of Marshmello with his helmet, his Instagram handle and the words, "I'm working hard now so that my future daughter doesn't have to sell detox tea on social media."

13/ For those who don't remember, Detox Tea was a popular network marketing item on Instagram, where aspiring influencers promoted the tea on behalf of brands and peer-pressured their friends into buying. Some of these tea companies were accused of being pyramid schemes.

14/ While it doesn't sound like much, the timing of the billboard was brilliant. It required an understanding of who attended Coachella, the hipsters and the millennial crowd. At that time, Instagram models were at peak.

15/ Everybody was trying to be a model with bios that said ‘wanderlust.’ Moe wanted a billboard that would make people say "That's hilarious because I know a girl at school who sells detox tea."

16/ Within a week, the billboard went viral. The kicker was that everyone was desperate to solve the mystery of who was behind the helmet. People thought that Marshmello was a famous DJ using an alter-ego. The speculation only brought more popularity to Marshmello's music.

17/ Keeping Marshmello anonymous was one of the most brilliant creative moves of all time. By hiding Chris behind the helmet, Moe created a movement for people to connect through the music vs. a false idol. People built their own interpretations of why they liked Marshmello.

18/ Fans begin to make their own Marshmello helmets to wear. Kids who have been bullied or gone through depression wear Marshmello helmets and other people stop to take photos with them which makes them feel like heroes. The Marshmello brand grows organically in a positive light.

19/ Moe then takes a deeper look into their biggest fan bases: Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil. He realizes that he needs to help Marshmello form a deeper cultural connection with these global audiences. And what bridges cultures more than anything else? Food.

20/ Moe works with Chris to start their own Youtube channel called Cooking with Marshmello. In each video, Marshmello cooks in the kitchen with his helmet on, and makes representative dishes from each country.

21/ For Indonesians, they make Nasi Goreng, an Indonesian fried rice. Their hope is that kids in Indonesia are excited that Marshmello knows their culture.

22/ By cooking unique dishes for each country, Marshmello is no longer tied to a single race. It doesn't matter if you're a fan from Malaysia or Croatia - you're able to see yourself in Marshmello, which evokes a stronger emotional connection.

23/ Their Youtube channel now has 47 million subscribers and they rank on the first page for unique food dishes of every culture.

24/ Moe's not your typical music manager. At the time, he's still in his late 20s (he's 30 this year) and he doesn't stop there. He looks for more creative opportunities to grow Marshmello's global audience.

25/ While other managers look at traditional music festivals and concerts, Moe negotiates a deal with Epic Games to have Marshmello play an exclusive in-game concert for 10 million global concurrent users.

26/ He then negotiates with Artists Original, the in-house record label of Spotify rival JioSaavn, which is one of India's biggest streaming services. As part of this deal, Marshmello does a collaboration with Bollywood composer Pritam for a new single, BIBA.

27/ He encourages Chris to incorporate authentic, cultural music that generations in India grew up listening to. His goal was to have Marshmello be a part of the culture - not just feature in it, and that meant a lot to the fans.

28/ Moe believes deeply in the necessity of genuine emotional connection between artists and fans. He says: "Everything we’ve done has been organic. You can’t fool culture. You can’t fool people. They can sense when it’s not authentic."

29/ Moe's creative genius and Chris's incredible music make the perfect pair. But there's another unifying trait I love that has made them so successful: they are both fundamentally good people at heart. They use their global popularity to spread positivity through their work.

30/ Marshmello's most popular music video is called Alone with 1.7bn views on Youtube. The video tells the story of a lonely, bullied boy who focuses on self expression by creating music, which causes other students to embrace his authenticity.

31/ It's a powerful message of anti-bullying, investing in yourself, and transformation.

32/ Chris doesn't care about fame. He loves the anonymity because he enjoys walking down the street without hoards of people crowding around him. He can live his life and produce the music he loves. People who work with him praise his humility and love of music.

33/ Moe knows what's important. In interviews, he says:

"Money doesn't bring happiness. Success and money – in the end, you lose when you allow that to change you. This could all be gone tomorrow. If you burn everybody on the way up, the way down is gonna be terrible for you."

34/ "I meet people, especially in L.A, that are like, ‘Do you know who I am?’. And I’m like, no – I really don’t care. You’re no different than anybody else. You could be the President of whoever and whatever. It honestly doesn’t matter. We all bleed the same blood."

35/ Watch @marshmellomusic and @shalizi carefully. There's a lot more they've accomplished (if you're interested, check out Mellodees and Stuffed Puffs) that I couldn't fit here and they're just getting started.

Shoutout to @TZhongg who inspired this thread 🔥. I've dubbed her the Mary Meeker of Gen-Z because that's what she is.