Ballen Studios is building a business that turns creators into career storytellers. Its next star? Nexpo.

As the creator industry grows ever more entrepreneurial, we see more and more creators becoming pros and launching their own studios–not just to support their own personal production efforts, but also the efforts of fellow creators. One of those pro creators is MrBallen (aka John Allen), the Navy Seal turned storyteller whose “strange, dark, and mysterious” videos have netted him 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

In 2022, Allen and his manager Nick Witters parlayed his success into opening Ballen Studios. With the production company, they had one core goal: to be the campfire around which storytelling-savvy creators gather, hone their craft, and expand their reach to new audiences.

Now, just over two years later, Ballen Studios produces seven creator-led podcasts–and just introduced its newest, Late Nights with Nexpo.

Hosted by titular YouTuber Nexpo–who has 3.6 million subscribers tuning in for his in-depth, documentary-style videos about all things eerie–Late Nights with Nexpo will chronicle “some of the most bizarre and chilling true stories and mysteries from around the world,” Ballen Studios says.

“Storytelling has always been at the core of what I do, and a podcast feels like the perfect way to push that even further,” Nexpo (who signed with Ballen Studios’ management arm in 2023) tells Tubefilter. “My YouTube content is all about diving deep into eerie mysteries, psychological horror, and the unexplained, but there’s always more to uncover–more layers to the stories, more chilling details, and more ways to immerse the audience.”

He adds that he wanted to expand into podcasting because “there’s something about the podcast format that creates an entirely different kind of connection.”

“It’s intimate,” he says. “You’re right there with the listener, walking them through these stories in a way that feels immersive and atmospheric. I also love that it gives me the flexibility to dive deeper into topics and really build a world around these mysteries in a way that complements what I do on YouTube. For my audience, I think it’s going to feel like an extension of everything they already love–just in a format that lets them experience it in a whole new way.”

Ballen Studios has seen success with its other creator-led podcasts. Last year, it tapped Marine veteran Luka Lamana to host Wartime Stories and REDACTED: Declassified with Luke Lamana. The former went on to become one of 2024’s top ten new podcasts (per data from Edison Research), and the latter was picked by Amazon-owned Wondery for a video partnership.

Witters, who’s Ballen Studios’ CEO as well as Allen’s manager, says, “Ballen Studios isn’t just producing podcasts–it’s shaping the future of the digital landscape and turning the industry upside down by empowering the next wave of digital creators to take over the charts and redefine what success looks like in the podcasting space.”

The debut episode of Late Nights with Nexpo dropped as a special video edition on Nexpo’s channel, but future episodes will live (for now) as audio-only presentations on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. In this episode (embedded above), Nexpo chronicles a 1993 hiking incident where seven people left home to adventure in the Khamar-Daban mountain range, and only one returned alive.

Ballen Studios has big hopes for Late Nights with Nexpo: the series as a whole is repped by its management division and United Talent Agency worldwide in all areas.

“Since its inception, Ballen Studios set out to find, sign, and amplify the voices of the world’s best storytellers, and Nexpo is a perfect example of that,” Witters says. “It’s an honor to help expand his universe of content, bringing his unique storytelling to an even broader audience through podcasting. Late Nights with Nexpo is just one of many more to come, and we can’t wait for fans to experience this next evolution of him as a storyteller, and trust me, you won’t want to miss this one.”