Try Guys' Keith Habersberger Eats His Last Meal
Quick Read
Summary
Takeaways
- ❖Keith's childhood in Carthage, Tennessee, with limited entertainment, forced him to develop a creative imagination and a strong desire to perform.
- ❖His early career involved touring improv, which taught him to adapt performances for diverse audiences and 'win over' skeptics.
- ❖The Try Guys originated from a Buzzfeed initiative to create viral Facebook videos, with the initial members being those who simply said 'yes' to trying things.
- ❖He views career progression as a 'tree' with many branching paths, rather than a linear trajectory, advocating for continuous upward movement through various opportunities.
- ❖Keith faced significant challenges, including a company scandal and a complete business model pivot to a subscription service, driven by a sense of responsibility to his staff and audience.
- ❖Fatherhood has reshaped his priorities, leading him to see his child as an 'extension' of himself, an opportunity to create the 'best next version' of his lineage.
- ❖He actively seeks personal experiences (like playing synthesizers) that are not turned into content, finding self-care in non-performative creative outlets.
- ❖Keith believes in the value of paying for content, comparing it to paying for physical goods like Coca-Cola or movies.
Insights
1Small-Town Roots and the Drive to Perform
Growing up in Carthage, Tennessee, a small town with limited entertainment options, Keith developed a profound need to entertain himself and others. This environment, where the only stages were local churches, cultivated his innate desire to perform, leading him to acquire various 'tricks' like juggling and unicycling. He was often cast as the 'villain' in Baptist church plays, a role he now sees as a unique early performance opportunity.
2The Accidental Genesis of The Try Guys
The Try Guys concept emerged from a Buzzfeed initiative to brainstorm videos that would perform well on Facebook. Keith, Zach, and others were part of a small team tasked with this. The initial members of The Try Guys were simply the people who said 'yes' to trying out the video ideas, highlighting how an open attitude to unexpected opportunities can lead to significant ventures.
3The Tokyo Fried Chicken Co. Story: A Personal Connection to Food
Keith's choice of Tokyo Fried Chicken Co. for his 'last meal' was deeply personal. He discovered the restaurant while working at Buzzfeed and formed a relationship with the sweet couple who ran it, witnessing their life updates. When the restaurant announced its closure, he was unable to visit one last time. His desire to include it in his last meal was a way to revisit a beloved, lost food experience, underscoring the emotional ties people have to specific culinary establishments.
4Navigating Career Pivots and Responsibility
After a significant company scandal and the need to pivot their business model entirely from ad-supported content to a subscription service (Second Try), Keith felt a strong responsibility to his staff and audience. He chose to continue, not wanting 'what somebody else did' to stop his work or punish his employees. This commitment, alongside the challenges of fatherhood, meant stopping was 'not really even an option,' requiring sustained hard work.
5Fatherhood as an Extension of Self and Legacy
Having a child, Henry, reshaped Keith's priorities. He views his son not just as a new person with his genes but as an 'extension' of himself, and in turn, he sees himself as an extension of his parents. This perspective frames parenting as an opportunity to create the 'best next version' of himself, arming his child with the tools needed to 'attack life,' while also acknowledging the child's unique development.
Bottom Line
The most effective way to introduce new experiences to people is by framing them as 'familiar, but just a little different.' This 'one layer of new' approach reduces resistance and encourages adoption.
This insight is valuable for product development, marketing, and cultural exchange, suggesting that incremental innovation or familiar packaging for novel concepts can significantly increase acceptance.
Businesses can apply this by designing products or services that leverage existing user habits or cultural touchstones while introducing a single, compelling new feature or twist.
Personal well-being in a content-driven career requires intentionally engaging in activities that are *not* for public consumption or monetization.
For creators, the constant pressure to turn every experience into 'content' can lead to burnout and a loss of personal joy. Deliberately pursuing hobbies like playing synthesizers without recording them, or taking vacations without vlogging, serves as a vital form of self-care and helps maintain a distinction between work and personal life.
Content creators and companies employing them should foster environments that encourage non-monetized creative outlets and personal time, potentially leading to more sustainable careers and authentic content when they *do* create.
The concept of 'drunk girls get surprised by bats' was a rejected viral video idea at Buzzfeed due to health concerns, but highlights a creative approach to unexpected humor.
This demonstrates how some highly creative, potentially viral ideas might be constrained by practical or ethical considerations. It also showcases a specific, unexecuted concept from a successful content creator's past.
While directly executing this specific idea might be problematic, the underlying principle of surprising people with unexpected, humorous, or slightly absurd elements could be adapted for safer, more ethical content creation, or even as a hypothetical case study in creative brainstorming.
Opportunities
Revive Tokyo Fried Chicken Co. as a National Chain
Keith expresses a desire to revive Tokyo Fried Chicken Co., a beloved, now-closed restaurant, and wonders if his fame could help make it a national chain. The restaurant was known for its unique Japanese-Southern fusion fried chicken, TFC sauce, and a distinctive 'chicken glove' serving style.
Korean Pastrami Brisket
The podcast hosts created a 'Korean pastrami style brisket' by curing brisket in a bulgogi marinade for two weeks, coating it in sesame, kukaru, and Asian pear puree, then slow-smoking it for 10 hours. This fusion dish was described as 'nuts' and 'insane' by Keith, suggesting a unique culinary product.
Key Concepts
The Trajectory Tree
Instead of viewing a career or life path as a linear trajectory, Keith conceptualizes it as a tree with many branches. This model suggests that even if one chooses a specific branch (opportunity), it can still lead upwards in unexpected directions, emphasizing adaptability and the potential for growth across diverse paths rather than a single, predetermined line.
Lessons
- Say 'yes' to opportunities, even if they don't seem directly aligned with your path or involve working for free initially; they can lead to unexpected, lucrative connections or skill development.
- Cultivate a 'trajectory is a tree' mindset: recognize that career growth isn't always linear, and diverse experiences on different 'branches' can still lead upwards.
- Actively pursue personal creative outlets and experiences that are *not* intended for content creation or public consumption to maintain mental well-being and genuine joy.
- When introducing new concepts or products, aim for 'one layer of new' – make it familiar enough to be approachable, but with one exciting, novel element to pique interest.
Notable Moments
The '60 Seconds of Malort' Challenge
Keith and the host attempt the '60 Seconds of Malort' challenge, a Chicago tradition where one takes a shot of the bitter liquor and cannot chase it for a full minute. This moment vividly illustrates the unique, almost masochistic, cultural experiences tied to certain places and highlights Keith's willingness to engage in challenging performances, even for personal amusement.
Working with The Muppets
Keith recounts meeting Miss Piggy and working with The Muppets early in his career, noting that the interaction felt genuinely like working with the characters, not just the puppeteers. This experience, which he initially downplayed, highlights the surreal and high-profile opportunities that arose from his early content creation, and how quickly such 'bucket list' items became commonplace in his extraordinary life.
Anthony Bourdain Sighting at Thanksgiving KBBQ
Keith shares a story of having Korean BBQ for Thanksgiving dinner in New York and spotting Anthony Bourdain eating at the same restaurant. This moment served as a profound affirmation of his culinary choices and highlights the unexpected, validating encounters that can occur when one embraces unique experiences.
Quotes
"If there's something after this, I think if I want to be a part of it, all that their rules should be are don't be a piece of shit to each other. You should just be nice, try your best. And if that doesn't earn me into the next category, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it'll be that great anyway."
"I think trajectory is like a tree and there's lots of options and I felt as long as I was going up the tree if I took a chose something to go down one branch that branch like still changes direction once you go down it. So it's not like I was going to be destined to do the thing that I branched off and doing. I felt like you could still go up the tree in some other way."
"I didn't want what somebody else did to... I didn't want to let that stop me from being able to do what I want to do and what I could do. I didn't want to... I also didn't want the audience to be punished to not have the thing they liked because of that. And then I also think I didn't want our staff to be punished for that because like if if I stop making stuff then 20 people don't have jobs."
"Having a kid is not just making a new person that is like got your genes and there's some things about you that's in them. It's like, no, actually, weirdly enough, Henry is also me. Like, he is an extension of me. And I realized, actually, no, I'm actually just an extension of my mom and dad and and their parents. And like, I'm actually just still the living proof. He is a living proof of me. I'm the living proof of other people before me."
Q&A
Recent Questions
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