Doug DeMuro is arguably the most successful automotive YouTuber in the relatively short history of this young medium. It has over 4. 5 million subscribers, and its 20- to 30-minute car reviews report over a million views, occasionally a week or two after publication. He has already become a central figure in American car culture, having shared screen time with Jay Leno while he was a recurring guest on major automotive blogs and getting involved in the annual Pebble Beach pageant. And now, with a $37 million investment from Chernin Group (TCG) in its auction site Cars.
Doug’s YouTube channel started in 2013, founded on comments from a reader of Jalopnik, where Doug was writing at the time. Doug started his chain as a kind of non-publicly-owned vlog of passenger cars he bought, the first being a Ferrari 360. “It’s the most exotic pedestrian car you can imagine, but at the time, nobody on YouTube owned a Ferrari. It was attractive to people. How does it feel to have a Ferrari?Doug did the same with an Aston Martin, a Hummer and a viper.
This format lasted around 3 years, but Doug learned that his audience was more interested in getting his attitude in many cars, rather than in-depth studies of just a few, so he devoted himself to examining cars of special interest and fashion vehicles, with the assistance of local homeowners or dealers who lend him the vehicles. intimidating or condescending to the conventional car buyer.
Doug’s YouTube business is still a key component of his workload, but now he has to split his time with Cars management.
Why Doug Cars?
Doug believes that the mid-2000s was a special moment in automotive history, represented through his Ford GT.
Doug teamed up with Blake Machado to launch Cars
Of course, the site worked, developing so quickly that Doug’s tension immediately passed from “will other people show up?”to having to rent equipment from other people to manage the avalanche of activity it generated from day one. Doug tells us, “On the first day, we received 900 submissions, and the guy who reviewed them just me, and I still have to shoot videos!”He immediately had to hire writers and auction assistants. And the next 2 years were a career. , looking to keep up with growth. ” That’s the nature of a startup. One hole appears and you rent to other people to cover it, and then another hole appears and you rent to more people.
Doug will continue to produce his videos and remain concerned about the day-to-day operations of Cars.
This immediate expansion from two auctions per day to 4 auctions per day to 10 auctions per day has attracted the interest of venture capitalists and personal equity firms. author-owned and managed companies, such as MeatEater and Barstool Sports,” says Doug. “We’ve heard about all those potential investors, but here’s one that understands. Maybe it’s not the way to achieve expansion. Maybe it’s going after other people who are naturally there because they love the author. Here’s an organization of other people I don’t have to do this to.
Doug felt it was time to hire someone who really knew how to take a business to the next level. “We hired a CEO who was once CEO. We received an investment from a company that has already invested in similar companies. I still have a smart component of the business and I will worry about it day by day,” Doug confided to us.
Working with The Chernin Group (TCG) will allow Doug to expand Cars’ content and promotion.
Steve Cousineau, Director of TCG, told us: “At TCG, we are excited about corporations created for passionate and highly engaged communities – the enthusiast fashion automotive sector is the best example. Doug has done a great job of connecting with this network through its exclusive content logo and creating a bespoke trading platform to serve them. We that Cars
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