Sam talks with Bret about an upcoming Hustle newsletter piece on Daniel Chan, a magician who has performed over 5,000 shows for Silicon Valley tech companies. The conversation covers how Chan built his career by working up the magic “food chain” — from library shows to corporate events — and how COVID-19 forced him to pivot to Zoom performances, confronting both the technical challenges of remote magic and the poetic irony that magic celebrates the unknown at a moment when the unknown is everyone’s greatest fear.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Bret (writer/reporter)
Introduction [00:00:00]
Sam: Welcome back. Earlier this week we talked about business models of businesses that you don’t always normally think of as businesses. This week you have a piece on a guy who’s a magician in Silicon Valley. Tell us a little bit about his business model and what you learned.
Daniel Chan: Silicon Valley’s Favorite Magician [00:00:20]
Bret: Sure. So this guy, Daniel Chan — he brands himself as Silicon Valley’s favorite magician, and there’s some credence to that branding. He’s performed over 5,000 shows all over Silicon Valley for pretty much every big tech company you can think of.
He has this really interesting story of working his way slowly up the magic food chain. It starts with these little library shows for, you know, $50–$100 a pop. Then you work up to children’s birthday parties, then executives’ home parties, then corporate events. So it’s a kind of structured chain in the magic world, and once you make it, it can pay pretty decently.
He’s one of many creative people we’ve been thinking about and talking to recently who you might not think of when you hear the word “entrepreneur” — but they require every ounce of business savviness that a tech entrepreneur might require. They spend a lot of time thinking about their business models as well as their tricks.
Pivoting Magic to Zoom During COVID-19 [00:01:30]
Sam: His business model has obviously been disrupted by COVID-19. So how do you do magic tricks behind a Zoom camera lens?
Bret: I mean, a lot of magicians are doing it. You see it happening with a lot of other creative professions — fitness instructors are pivoting to Zoom right now.
Magic is tough, though, because it’s a personal, visceral thing. There’s sleight of hand involved. People want the assurance of being there next to you to see the trick happen. When you introduce a barrier of technology, it’s just another layer of the unknown introduced to the trick — you could manipulate things in thousands of different ways over a Zoom call.
So he’s had to rejigger his routine and go back to simpler tricks, things that you might be able to pull off on camera. He brought up an interesting point: magicians had to go through the same thing when they started doing television shows years ago. So the lesson is don’t over-complicate things — just find different ways to present things to the audience.
The Poetic Irony: Magic and the Unknown [00:02:30]
Bret: And then there’s this other challenge: the unknown is a universal enemy right now. We don’t know what’s going to happen with COVID-19. We don’t know how it’s going to impact our future or our economy. And magic is a celebration of the unknown.
So in a poetic way, he’s battling that greater fear of mystery and the unknown at exactly the moment when mystery and the unknown are what people fear most.
Sam: Fascinating. I’m looking forward to reading this, and I know everybody else is too. Make sure you open your email on Sunday — you’ll learn a little bit more about how to do magic on Zoom, and a little bit more about this business and how a solopreneur is adjusting to these really difficult times. Thanks everybody. We’ll see you on Sunday.