Trying to make a name for oneself isn’t an easy feat. Combining hard work with resilience, passion and chance opportunities can help turn the most wildest of dreams into a reality, especially for one Illinois State alumnus.
With five million subscribers, up to 11 million views on videos and more projects on the way, YouTube’s The Try Guys are a growing channel and Keith Habersberger continues to try in a number of ways.
An ISU 2008 graduate, Habersberger always dreamed of entertaining in a way that directly communicated with audiences.
Growing up in Tennessee, his only option to entertain was with his school band until he finished out his senior year of high school at Neuqua Valley in Naperville, Illinois, where Habersberger was then able to participate in theater performances.
Habersberger was admitted to Illinois State on a scholarship and found that ISU had a decent selection of hobbies that sparked his interest.
As a freshman in theater school, Habersberger explained that being able to audition for production was not an option at the time, but that auditioning for various RSOs was allowed. Finding Improv Mafia, Habersberger decided to put himself out there.
“...that was really a big turning point,” Habersberger explained. “ I really fell in love with doing improv and the group. When I started, they were mostly doing short form and some early stages of long form improv, and at the time that I was there, it grew from a very basic improv group. It was good, but it grew to a really great group. We practiced twice a week and we’d do a show every week.”
The practicing and new experiences he gained for each performance truly paid off. While Habersberger was in Improv Mafia, they won the College Improv Tournament and helped further generations grow to national winning excellence.
Eventually, Habersberger had to graduate, but he took what he learned at ISU and worked towards something bigger and better. Fresh out of college, he moved to Chicago to continue pursuing improv, forming a group called Octavarius with some friends from Improv Mafia.
In July 2009, Habersberger then auditioned for an improv group called Mission Improvable.
“I got in and then I immediately started touring full time for about two years doing improv and then when I was back in Chicago I would do improv with Octavarius,” Habersberger said.
After two years of full-time touring, Habersberger took to part-time touring to harden his focus on Octavarius.
“We did tons of sold out shows at the ComedySportz Theater and we had a podcast and we did sketches and at some point in the last two years, we made a web series that was called ‘I Made America’ and it was sort of us really trying to focus on how to make digital video and be a successful online comedy company, so we made this web series about the Founding Fathers being kidnapped from the past and being trapped in 2012 Chicago, it did pretty well,” Habersberger said.
The concept of viral videos was starting to develop during this time and through his web series, he was able to grasp video editing and what made videos viral until he and his crew drained Chicago dry.
“We had done all these sold out shows in Chicago, we had done over 100 original sketch shows, we had a podcast, we had a webseries, we had viral sketches, but we couldn’t breakthrough any further in Chicago because we were an independent team, we weren’t in Second City or IO [ImprovOlympic] and we had a really hard time getting agents to come see our shows. We just had a hard time moving forward and there was also not a ton of jobs for actors [or] improvisors in Chicago that can pay and be a sustainable artistic growth in life, so we decided to take a risk on California.”
Packing up and moving can be terrifying, especially from the comforts of the midwest, but Habersberger explained that when taking risks, it’s easier to do so with friends.
“I always say it’s so much easier to surround yourself with people who are like minded and have goals like you, then to try and move to L.A. by yourself, for instance. That’s really hard. It’s an abrasive city, it’s full of strangers and there’s no public transit, so it’s a very weird place to move if you’re from the Midwest but you can do it with two to three other friends, that’s a real helpful thing that will allow you to find success easier, I think.”
And success he surely did find. After cramming into an apartment with four other people in L.A., Habersberger continued to develop video editing and idea making when he secured an internship with BuzzFeed in January 2014. It was during this time that the other members of The Try Guys, Ned Fulmer, Eugene Lee Yang and Zach Kornfield, also began at the company.
“We were all interns which meant we did kind of anything that [BuzzFeed] wanted, so we would set up lights for shoots, or we would do rough edits for other producers, or we would do research, or we would just write closed captions on YouTube videos, or we would do YouTube videos or we would go on prop runs,” Habersberger said.
Pretty soon, Habersberger became a “fella,” which is BuzzFeed talk for a junior, junior producer.
“You had to make one of every kind of video that BuzzFeed was making at that time, whether it be hack videos, facts videos, taste test videos, moment inventories which is what they call like, ‘Six Things Girls With Curly Hair Understand’.”
It was not until early autumn that the first Try Guy video unknowingly came to be.
“We knew each other and we were friends and coworkers, but we weren’t incredibly, incredibly close. We just knew each other. We hung out, for sure, but then we did the first ‘try on ladies’ underwear’ video and a little bit of it was that no one else wanted to do it except for the four of us and were all just willing to do it. We were like, ‘Yeah, it’ll be fine. It’ll be funny.’ It was probably something poignant to say out of it all. We did that video and it was very successful and then we were like, ‘OK, could we do another onesimilarly?’,” Habersberger said.
Soon the four guys were on their way testing different formats and trying different concepts before settling on a format that included trying various things that involved speaking with an expert in that particular field.
But The Try Guys were restricted. With BuzzFeed being a “viral video laboratory,” it worked to sell brands and sponsorships while developing viral formats which allowed no room for the group to grow and reach their true potential.
“They were really interested in developing formats but we were interested in developing a show, and multiple show properties, and merchandising for the show and it really wasn’t what the company wanted to do,” Habersberger explained.
Leaving BuzzFeed last April, the four men bought The Try Guys name and are currently working on many new developments.
“We have about three T.V. shows that we are trying to pitch to networks. We’re trying to continue to grow our YouTube, we’re at five million subscribers now, but we want to get that even bigger. We’re trying to develop new digital shows on our YouTube channel. We’re trying to grow our social media following, both independently and for The Try Guys. We’re trying to make a live tour at some point. We’re really trying to flex every expression of The Try Guys brand that we can,” Habersberger said.
There’s even a new book coming out in June titled, “The Hidden Power of F*cking Up.”
With the immense success Habersberger has had for the last several years, he believes much of it can be attributed to the friends and clubs he found at ISU.
“I think ISU is a really great place for students to carve their own path. I think that the RSOs at the school, and the ability for students to just make clubs and make performances, and between the theater school having free stage and having Theatre of Tedand Improv Mafia, you know, all these things are things that were created by students, so it’s just a really great school where students are really part of other student’s success, and not to say that the professors there aren’t great as well, but I just found that so much of ISU is about students helping each other succeed and I really enjoyed that,” Habersberger said.
To Habersberger, The Try Guys message is to be “secure in our insecurities.” Growing and learning through mistakes, and gaining knowledge in those mistakes, is what they Try Guys represent. It is about encouraging one another to step out of comfort zones.
“So Theatre [of] Ted has the motto of ‘dare to suck’ which is very similar to The Try Guys’ motto of, like, ‘don’t fear failure.’ ‘Dare to suck’ means that dare to try something new with the chance that you might fail and that you might fail in front of a crowd of people. But, that shouldn’t ever stop you from taking the risk because failure is just a part of life.”
Something that everyone can learn from The Try Guys is to just keep trying, despite failures or lost paths. Habersberger puts it like this:
“It’s a goofy analogy, but I like to think of it as a tree. Trees have lots of branches, and branches, they sort of separate, but, they still go up. So, you don’t always know which direction you’re going or which thing you should follow, as long as the thing you’re following is going up. Branches always intertwine and re-meet one another so you always have an opportunity to take something that may not make sense, but as long as it’s going to forward your career in some way, you should probably do it because it won’t hurt your other aspirations, it’ll only help to learn more skills and more things.”
