Jake Paul: How He Made The Career Transition From Social Media To TV

Credit: Jake Paul

I spoke to Jake Paul, a social media superstar, actor and entrepreneur, about how he overcame his childhood struggles, why he started building his career on Vine, why he feels that Instagram is the most relevant social network, how he made the transition from YouTube to acting, why being an entrepreneur is important to him and his best advice to you. His first book is called You Gotta Want It.

Paul was as one of the first of the social media people to transition into acting. Jake has racked up over 15 million social media followers, and 3.5 billion video views, categorizing him as one of the top 20 social media influencers and a leading brand ambassador. Paul began his career in September 2013 posting videos on Vines. In 2015, it was announced the Paul would be starring as Dirk, alongside Olivia Rodrigo and Madison Hu in Disney Channel's new sitcom Bizaardvark. He also stars as “Lance” in the YouTube Red Original Movie Dance Camp and Dugan on Fox Digital's new movie Mono. As of 2016, he has starred in a variety of other independent films as well. Follow him on Twitter @jakepaul, Instagram @jakepaul and on Facebook.

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Dan Schawbel: Of your childhood struggles and how did you overcome them to eventually step into the spotlight?

Jake Paul: I overcame a lot of things growing up as everyone does. Nobody's life is perfect and each individual will have their own struggles and stipulations. I had to overcome bullies and other people who didn’t like me and tormented me. I overcame those things with positive affirmations and setting goals. When I would set goals I wouldn't let anything get in the way of me breaking them. As I found success a lot of those things subsided and became less important. I realized that if I just focused on myself and what I was doing, everything became easier and had bigger returns.

Schawbel: Why did you select Vine as your original social media platform and how were you able to leverage it into bigger career opportunities?

Paul: I started on Vine because it was such an engaging platform that was the most popular at the time. It came natural to me and I understood the type of content I needed to make on it so that people could enjoy it. I knew it was a great start, but I had to spread my wings and create something that would last forever - a career. In doing so I grew my other social media platforms into the millions so that if one day Vine wasn’t around anymore, I would be fine. From there I dove into acting and film creation. I started taking tons of acting lessons, improv classes and going on auditions. I knew that if I had the talent, casting directors would love that I had a built-in audience.

Eventually these auditions led to me being in YouTube Red's first ever movie, Fox's movie Mono, Disney Channel's Bizaardvark, etc. After I started becoming successful in the acting world, I really wanted to get into the business world. I figured having as much support as possible would be a good place to start so I decided to create a social media label called Team 10 where I found and cultivated other social media talent and grew their following into the millions. It was something that hadn’t been done before and has turned out to be really successful. We now receive a multitude of opportunities and are constantly expanding more and more each day.

Schawbel: Which social networks do you feel are the most relevant today, have lost relevance and will become more relevant in the future? Explain.

Paul: I think the most relevant is Instagram - it seems to be everyone’s favorite and people from all age demographics are enjoying it. I think Facebook and YouTube are coming back stronger than ever with the Gen-Z crowd. I’ve found that people want to watch and even create their own videos as much as possible so any platforms that focus on that will definitely thrive.

Schawbel: Tell me about your transition from social media to acting. Why do you think many influencers struggle to make the jump?

Paul: The transition was exciting and a lot of hard work. Acting is a whole different ball game and requires years of training. I had to put in the hours off screen to be successful on screen. Filming 21 episodes of a TV show isn’t easy and I really learned a lot from the process. I HAD to become better each day to keep up. I think many influencers struggle because of the amount of work it takes to do acting and social media. Both are full time jobs, so it all comes down to who wants it more. A lot of influencers have great potential to become actors because they're naturally good on camera, but it takes training and some people just aren't ready for that kind of work load. Remember, potential is only potential potential.

Schawbel: Why is being an entrepreneur important to you?

Paul: It is important to me because it gives me the ability to help others grow and reach their full potential. The most rewarding thing for me is being able to inspire kids from small towns like I was and show them that anything is possible. If someone else can do it, so can you.

Schawbel: What are your top three pieces of career advice?


1. Work hard. If you're working hard, success will come regardless.

2. Surround yourself with like-minded people. This will push your limits and create friendly competition which will make working harder easier.

3. Consistency. You have to keep pushing. Whether its making videos or going on auditions, if you are consistent you will be successful.

