Joy Cho started Oh Joy! 20 years ago. She was named one of TIME's most influential people on the internet twice, holds the Guinness World Record for the most followed account on Pinterest, published 7 books, and built over 50 licensing partnerships with brands like Target, Band-Aid, and Keds.
At the peak of all of it, she wasn't happy. She was projecting colorful, happy Oh Joy! to the world while privately wanting to get off the internet entirely.
Instead of quitting, she redesigned everything. She scaled her team from 8 people down to just herself and rebuilt her business around the life she actually wanted to live.
In this conversation, Ronit and Joy get into how she pitched her way into every major opportunity of her career, the licensing playbook almost no creator knows exists, the moment she realized success had stopped meaning what she thought it meant, and what 20 years on the internet teaches you about lasting.
Follow Joy at @ohjoy. Subscribe to The Creator Class for more conversations with the creators shaping the industry.
Chapters
00:00 — "How does one of the most influential people on the internet want to get off the internet?"
00:50 — "I had built what I think was a dream situation"
02:37 — Reconnecting after 8 years
03:46 — 20 years of Oh Joy!: the records, the books, 50+ partnerships
04:16 — When success started meaning something different
04:57 — Hitting every goal and never celebrating
05:42 — The 4,000 square foot studio and the team of 8
06:36 — "I was realizing I wasn't happy"
07:58 — The flu in January 2020 that changed everything
08:43 — The advice to take funding and blow it out
09:27 — Scaling from 8 people to 2, then to just her
10:04 — The hardest thing to let go of
11:06 — Letting go of a team you love
12:48 — Getting the fun parts of the job back
13:31 — Designing work around her kids' remaining years at home
14:26 — The hustle that built everything
15:54 — Why waiting to be discovered doesn't work
16:36 — Landing jobs at companies that weren't hiring
17:43 — The Target pitch built overnight
19:21 — Showing up 15 minutes late to the biggest meeting of her career
20:49 — Pitching the bigger vision
21:10 — The best time to pitch the 2.0
23:33 — What a bad pitch looks like
25:01 — What a good pitch looks like
26:07 — "You have to serve it all up on a platter"
27:10 — The blog as a marketing vehicle
29:00 — The heyday of getting paid to post
29:29 — When content turned into commercials
30:49 — Creativity watered down
31:28 — The hamster wheel
33:39 — Creative lulls and the 2-year funk
34:43 — Nothing stays exciting forever
35:46 — "What do I really stand for now?"
36:54 — Why she got rid of her content calendar
37:12 — Wanting off the internet
38:02 — Thinking about getting a regular job
38:52 — "My name is Joy and everyone thinks I have to be happy all the time"
39:35 — Watching the numbers drop when you take a break
40:36 — If her daughters wanted to become creators
41:30 — The hardest part: online criticism
43:11 — How to protect young creators while they learn
44:43 — Licensing 101
46:57 — The anatomy of a licensing deal
48:04 — Royalties from 2.5% to 25%
49:36 — Minimum guarantees and why to always ask for one
51:30 — Do you need to be big for brands to take you seriously?
53:36 — When a deal goes wrong mid-contract
55:05 — "You have to trust me": pushing back on a brand
55:55 — See something, say something
57:21 — What she'd tell her 2005 self
58:41 — What she tells herself now
59:31 — Where to follow Joy
