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# Lessons from Ashkan Karbasfrooshan
- URL: https://www.antoinebuteau.com/lessons-from-ashkan-karbasfrooshan/
- Published: 2025-09-06T23:20:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-28T02:51:35.000Z
- Description: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan on building WatchMojo: persistence, bootstrapping, evergreen content, audience strategy, principles, and sustainable success.
- Author: Antoine Buteau
- Tags: Profile, #Media, Venture Capital Profiles

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan founded WatchMojo, a digital-media company built around video. Before WatchMojo, he worked at AskMen; he describes bootstrapping WatchMojo to profitability. He is also the author of *The 10-Year Overnight Success*. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).

![Infographic for "Lessons from Ashkan Karbasfrooshan".](https://www.antoinebuteau.com/content/images/2026/07/lessons-from-ashkan-karbasfrooshan-optimized.webp)

## On Entrepreneurship & Success

1. **On Overnight Success:** An early hit can make the work look easier than it is. Karbasfrooshan warns that building a lasting company still requires years of commitment, even when an initial success arrives quickly. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
2. **The Recipe for Success:** Karbasfrooshan lists vision, ambition, execution, persistence, luck, timing, focus and resilience as ingredients in entrepreneurial success. His formula includes circumstances as well as effort; it is a personal framework, not a guarantee. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
3. **The Entrepreneur's Mindset:** A startup repeatedly runs into obstacles. Karbasfrooshan compares the work to finding a way through a maze: keep trying alternative paths rather than assuming the first blocked route ends the journey. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
4. **On Being a Reluctant Entrepreneur:** Karbasfrooshan describes himself as a reluctant entrepreneur. He came to see that an employer would not necessarily reorganize its priorities around his principles, so starting a company gave him greater control over how he worked. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
5. **The Genesis of WatchMojo:** WatchMojo was a vehicle for building the kind of workplace he wanted, including treating employees as he wished to be treated. Video and YouTube were ways to pursue that purpose, rather than the purpose itself. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
6. **On Taking Risks:** He started WatchMojo after marrying, with some savings and before having children. In his account, those circumstances made the risk workable; waiting for an ideal moment would not have removed the uncertainty. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
7. **The Importance of Getting Out There:** Online distribution can make a business global, but Karbasfrooshan still stresses meeting people away from the desk. Digital reach does not replace the relationships needed to build the business. — [Startup Canada Podcast](https://www.startupcan.ca/may-16-2017/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
8. **On Finding Your Calling:** Before committing to a venture, he asks whether he would work on it in his spare time without pay and make sacrifices over a substantial period. A calling has to sustain the work, not just the attraction of eventual success. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
9. **Success is Subjective:** He treats success as relative, changing and subjective. A useful definition therefore depends on the person and the stage of the journey, rather than a single comparison with someone else’s business. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
10. **The Underdog Advantage:** Karbasfrooshan describes prejudice, rejection and the feeling of being an outsider after 9/11 as part of his own entrepreneurial motivation. That experience gave him something to prove; it is his account, not a claim that adversity helps everyone. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).

## On Business Strategy & Growth

1. **Patience and Sustainability:** Fast growth is not necessarily durable growth. He argues that persistence matters because a sustainable business can take time to scale, while something that expands overnight may not last. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
2. **The Reality of Startups:** His advice is to expect a startup to take longer, cost more and bring in revenue more slowly than hoped. Recognizing those possibilities makes the early difficulties less surprising. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
3. **On Being Ahead of the Market:** Being slightly ahead of a market can help, but being far ahead can leave a business waiting for demand. His one-or-two-steps versus eight-steps comparison is a warning about timing, not a precise forecasting rule. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
4. **Bootstrapping and Creativity:** Limited funds pushed WatchMojo to find less expensive ways to produce video. For travel content, he describes arranging access to tourism footage instead of paying to create every shot from scratch. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
5. **Vision vs. Mission:** He distinguishes the enduring why from the changing how. WatchMojo’s purpose was to inform and entertain; the formats and distribution methods could change without abandoning that purpose. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
6. **Finding Your Competitive Advantage:** Look for the combination of skills and interests in which you have a relative advantage. His sports-star comparison encourages concentrating effort where you are unusually well suited, rather than promising that everyone will dominate a field. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
7. **The Power of Evergreen Content:** Because producing content takes work, he favors material that remains useful beyond the moment of publication. A longer shelf life gives that production effort more opportunities to reach an audience. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
8. **Strategy for Viewership:** He separates discovery from search. Some viewers need a useful topic put in front of them; others already know what they want, so WatchMojo aims to be well positioned when they look for it. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
9. **Horizontal to Vertical Strategy:** WatchMojo initially explored many topics and partnerships, then used what it learned to narrow its focus. He describes a broad beginning as a way to find stable footing before choosing the areas in which to go deeper. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
10. **On Venture Capital:** Preserving his principles was one reason he gives for not raising venture capital. He worried that investor priorities could crowd out his intended treatment of employees, clients and the community; this was a concern about alignment, not a claim that every investor behaves that way. — [Gen X MVC Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0PvHoEKv8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
11. **Protect Equilibrium While You Grow:** In the official episode summary, business growth is compared with balancing a doctor’s scale. The point is to avoid overstretching through fundraising or overinvestment and to correct course as the business grows. — [Context Is King — Business Growth](https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/why-growing-a-business-is-like-stepping-on-a-doctor-s-scale?ref=antoinebuteau.com).

## On Content & Media

1. **Build Clicks Around Watch Time:** In his 2022 interview, he described pairing clickable topics with roughly ten-minute Top 10 videos that could accumulate watch time. He identified watch time as central to the approach; that is his historical account, not a statement of YouTube’s current ranking rules. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
2. **The Shift from Text to Video:** He did not need to be the video editor himself to build a video company. He brought storytelling, sales, marketing and partnership skills to a format he believed would increasingly matter online. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
3. **Use Top 10 Lists to Distill Information:** A Top 10 list can condense information or an argument into an accessible format. He contrasts an expansive biography with a focused list that gives an audience a clear reason to watch. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
4. **On Staying Fresh in Media:** Keeping a media brand fresh requires making room for younger tastes. He describes giving younger colleagues and fans a voice instead of making his own preferences the limit of the channel. — [Gen X MVC Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0PvHoEKv8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
5. **The Value of 'Infotainment':** WatchMojo combines information with entertainment. That combination lets a video teach viewers about a topic while also giving them a reason to watch for enjoyment. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
6. **Content That Solves a Pain Point:** A viewer’s need can be as simple as passing time or as specific as answering a question. He frames discovery around those motivations, so useful content does not have to solve a narrowly practical problem. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
7. **Authenticity in Content:** WatchMojo generally makes the topic the attraction rather than relying heavily on a creator’s personality. He explains that fans may want the subject itself, while leaving room for collaborations where they fit. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
8. **Adapting to Challenges:** During the pandemic, he saw more viewing but also more competing content. WatchMojo had to adapt to both, including the gap in movie-related material when releases slowed. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
9. **The News Business is Thankless:** He distinguishes enjoying news as a consumer from wanting to produce it as a business. His preference for longer-lived content reflects the demands and short shelf life of news production. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).

## On Principles & Personal Philosophy

1. **Don't Get Emotionally Attached:** He advises founders not to make any idea a sacred cow. Emotional attachment can make it harder to reconsider a choice when the business needs something different. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
2. **It's Not About You:** When something goes wrong, he cautions against automatically treating it as a personal attack. Other people have their own problems, and a founder may not be the cause or target of their behavior. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
3. **On Creating Value:** He starts with how his position can create value for others. In his account, building something useful gives him a basis for earning value for himself and his family, without treating personal gain as the first question. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
4. **The 'King Solomon Complex':** He describes being drawn to the problems people bring to him, using the King Solomon comparison as a metaphor. The motivation is to resolve competing needs and pain points, not merely to hold a position of authority. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
5. **Business as a Tool:** Business training gave him tools for understanding numbers and making practical arguments. He sees those skills as useful for pursuing good intentions, rather than treating business itself as either inherently good or bad. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
6. **Aligning with Principles:** A workplace can fit someone’s skills yet conflict with their principles. He learned to notice whether an organization’s priorities aligned with the way he wanted to work and treat people. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
7. **Best Ideas Can Come from Anywhere:** He advises staying open to ideas regardless of where they originate. A useful suggestion should not be dismissed simply because it comes from someone without a senior position. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
8. **Don't Expect Others to Share Your Values:** Do not assume other people share your principles merely because they work with you. He warns that treating this as a given can set a founder up for disappointment. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
9. **The Intersection of Creativity and Business:** He enjoys working where creativity and business meet. For him, building the organization is rewarding partly because it lets him work on creative subjects, not just because it produces a financial result. — [Gen X MVC Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0PvHoEKv8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
10. **On Addressing Criticism:** After some viewers objected to monetized celebrity tributes, WatchMojo connected selected videos with donations to relevant causes. He describes this as a response that fit the channel’s work and addressed the audience’s concern. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).

## Learnings from His Journey

1. **From Finance to Media:** His finance education remained useful after moving into media: it helped him understand the numbers and make logical business arguments. Changing industries did not mean discarding those skills. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
2. **Experience at AskMen:** At AskMen he worked on content, interviews and partnership sales while learning what audiences wanted. Those experiences gave him useful editorial and commercial foundations for WatchMojo. — [NetInfluencer Interview](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
3. **The Dot-Com Bubble Burst:** He graduated in finance in 1999 and describes the subsequent market downturn as making his intended finance career harder to pursue. Media became an alternative path; the account does not establish that the crash eliminated finance jobs generally. — [Authority Magazine Interview](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com).
4. **Non-Compete Led to Innovation:** A non-compete limited his ability to start another online men’s magazine after AskMen. He describes that constraint as one reason to pursue video instead of repeating the same text-based model. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
5. **Persistence is #1:** He puts persistence at the center of the entrepreneurial journey. His advice is to keep working through a long period of uncertainty rather than assuming ability or an encouraging start will carry the venture on its own. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
6. **Life is Short:** The pandemic reinforced his sense that time is limited. He encourages taking a practical step toward the work or life one wants, while acknowledging the privilege of being able to make those choices. — [Gen X MVC Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0PvHoEKv8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
7. **The Power of Interviews:** Early interviews with artists helped him form relationships in the music industry. He explains that those relationships later made it easier to discuss using material with rights holders. — [Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com).
8. **Embrace Your Strengths, Acknowledge Your Weaknesses:** His IKEA-versus-jungle story is a metaphor for uneven strengths: detailed assembly instructions frustrate him, while improvising and rallying people feels more natural. Knowing that difference helps him recognize both aptitude and limits. — [The Playbook Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com).

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Learn more:

1. [WatchMojo Founder on the Best YouTube Content — Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — Innovation City Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr87%5Fma3cL8&ref=antoinebuteau.com)
2. [Ashkan Karbasfrooshan of WatchMojo: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Founder — Charlie Katz, Authority Magazine](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/ashkan-karbasfrooshan-of-watchmojo-5-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-became-a-founder-63b89c1aaec4?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. [The #1 Thing to Focus on in Business — David Meltzer Interviews WatchMojo Founder Ashkan Karbasfrooshan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esWkcHbPYA&ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. [The Entrepreneur’s Mojo with Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — Startup Canada Podcast, May 16, 2017](https://www.startupcan.ca/may-16-2017/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. [Ashkan Karbasfrooshan on WatchMojo Strategy & Brand Journey — Amy DeYoung, NetInfluencer](https://www.netinfluencer.com/ashkan-karbasfrooshan/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. [Ashkan Karbasfrooshan — Founder of WatchMojo.com — Gen X MVC Interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td0PvHoEKv8&ref=antoinebuteau.com)
7. [Why Growing a Business Is Like Stepping on a Doctor’s Scale — WatchMojo, Context Is King](https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/why-growing-a-business-is-like-stepping-on-a-doctor-s-scale?ref=antoinebuteau.com)