Latest / Art of the Question / How to Make Money From Content (Without a Big Following) - Alex Ulbin - #3

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How to Make Money From Content (Without a Big Following) - Alex Ulbin - #3 · Art of the Question

• speaker-0: How did you start making content? When did you start and why? speaker-1: I started like 10 years old probably. The first content I ever made was back in the day Call of Duty videos. We would record our screens and then we would make montages of like the best clips we had in the Call of Duty game. So there was like this whole phase called like trick-shotting where you would play in Modern Warfare 2 and you would do like crazy spins and then try to get the best kill cam basically. speaker-0: That's 360 no scopes. speaker-1: Yeah, dude, 360 no scope era. that's where I started. I bought this like a PVR, which was like a recording device for your for your Xbox to go into your computer. And I basically started my content journey, essentially from recording my Xbox screen and then editing videos at like 10, 11 years old from those like montages. And nothing ever really came of it. But it was like the first time I ever really got into making videos. was first time I learned how to edit on Sony Vegas Pro, which is like super old software from back in the day. And it was a really good exposure into like now that looking back on where I am now to just like getting into content. And a lot of people from that ⁓ time are actually like crazy successful now, like all of the face clan guys, I was playing with them. It was that area. that era. So, yeah, that was the that was like what started it. And then essentially over the years, I always documented my life, like any interest that I had, any hobbies after the video game stuff, it was skateboarding. So I bought a camera and I would make skate edits very similar to the Call of Duty stuff and post those on YouTube. And then in high school, university, it became more business. content because I started getting into like different types of like online business, watching guys like Gary V. Dropshipping was like the hot new business at the time. And so I was watching a bunch of content centered around that. And I basically just since I was nine, ten years old, I've always been documenting every hobby, everything that I've ever been into. And I've just been drawn to posting it online and editing it and ⁓ I don't know where it came from or why I'm so like attracted to doing that, but it's kind of been a thing that's always followed me and I don't think I'll ever stop. speaker-0: That's so funny. mean, one of my best friends, his name is Axel Jolink and he used to be like really into into Call of Duty as well. Call of Duty 4 is what he started playing, I believe. And he was also doing a bunch of trick shots and stuff. He actually became like really successful on YouTube, but way before YouTube even started paying their creators. So he had like 20,000 subscribers. And he was like so popular that ⁓ some kids from schools, when we were just gaming in front of the window, people would just go to my house and then just knock on the window to see him play. even like he quit, he doesn't make any content anymore. But even many, many years later, sometimes still people message him on Instagram and say, Hey man, are you you D Axel? Axel Jolie from the, from the call of duty days. So, um, yeah, I, I wasn't playing myself, but I definitely remember the era with people like Zier Grizz and, and, and, and of figures. So that's funny. I didn't, I didn't know you were, you were that that's how you started. Um, and yeah, the skateboarding thing is also, also very similar. I, I always took my camera to the skate park basically, and I was just having fun. with it, just trying to record my progress. And when I was learning new tricks, always just recording my friends, recording myself and then put some music on there and throw it on YouTube. And I was also like, I believe like 12 years ago, 15 years ago. So that's, that's pretty similar. I didn't do the whole drop shipping thing though. But tell me about that moment. When you realize that you could actually make money from content, because I believe you started making some, some like more business videos and then like one video like really took off and that basically set the tone for everything you're doing right now. speaker-1: Yeah, so like my... I always wanted to make money from content. Like it was always a big goal of mine. But I always found that you had to be like really good at something or you had to be extremely knowledgeable about something for people to actually listen to you. Or you needed to be extremely funny or charismatic or you needed to have a huge budget to make a video that people wanted to watch. And so that always just kind of... made me not take it seriously because it just felt way too daunting of a task to get to the point that you can actually go full time with content, actually make enough money to quit your job and make a lot of money from it. Until I started watching a lot of online money finance content, I started watching some of these like 16 year olds, 17 year olds who were making a bunch of money drop shipping and selling products online. And so that took me down this path of trying to start these online businesses. I tried a bunch of dropshipping stores. I tried eBay reselling where I was going like thrift stores and trying to buy clothes and reselling it. Like I knew anything about that. I lost so much money buying stupid clothes, man. So I went down that path for a while. what was very interesting about that was I wanted to become like these YouTubers who are making this finance content, but I wasn't an expert in any of this business stuff. I had no success in the businesses, but I still wanted to document it. I still wanted to talk about these businesses. So I started just documenting my failures basically. Like I just made videos about how I lost a bunch of money trying this this third dropshipping store this month and how that kind of sucks and how I started all these different businesses and Some of them, you know, some of them were actually decent. Some of them made me money. Like I had this detailing business where I was cleaning people's cars on their driveways and I made a video about that. Just making like a five minute video on how to start a mobile detailing business that makes you six hundred dollars a day for under five hundred dollars, which was goaded business model at the time, by the way. I think I put a lot of people on because I never saw anyone doing that. And then that video got eight hundred thousand views in less than six months. And then the next summer that I went out to try to do that business, I saw a ton of detailers out there doing door door sales, cleaning people's cars on driveways. So all that is to say that I kind of found this like alternative path to making money through content, which was not being an expert or anything, but just documenting the journey. Even if that meant failures, even if that meant I'm not an expert or anything, I just wanted to authentically talk about the things that I was interested in, even if I wasn't, you know, a millionaire or making a bunch of money from it. speaker-0: Yeah, which is way more relatable to most people. Right. mean, if I watch someone who makes a million dollars and tells me how easy it is, feel like, all right, well, easy after I buy their course or whatever. Like, OK, this is is one of those guys. But someone who is actually trying to make a living out of the things everyone is recommending and then struggling, seeing that it's not that easy as people make it seem. I understand why that performed really well because people like to watch relatable stuff. think that's why social media became so popular. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, and a big point. was a big part of the those original videos as well. I the first dropshipping video that I made was a video about how I failed this dropshipping store. But the beginning part of it of that video was me saying, I see all of these guys starting these dropshipping stores, making a bunch of money, and it seems super unrelatable. So I'm going to try this business as a guy who has a thousand dollars in his bank account. I'm in my mom's basement. All I have is this computer and I'm going to try this business and I'm going to tell you what happened, whether I make money with it or I don't. And that video guy, I think it's at over 900,000 views now. speaker-0: Yeah. That's yeah. And I think is that the video that like absolutely blew up on your YouTube channel and made you a bunch of money and also made you realize like, all right, this is actually possible. I can I might be able to do this full time. speaker-1: Yeah, so the progression was I first, so I was making YouTube videos for a while. I stopped because I went to school and I kind of gave up on the dream. And then during COVID, I was like, I'm bored. I really want to make this content thing work. I'm going to start posting on YouTube again. So my first videos back were the first one was me doing like Uber Eats. I was like an Uber Eats driver and I gave my thoughts on is this worth it to make money with this this business or this side hustle. The next video was my video about how to start a mobile detailing business. And that video blew up to 800,000 views. That got me monetized for the first time, got me my first thousand subscribers. And then a couple of videos after that, I posted the drop shipping video, which took things to the next level. Cause with the mobile detailing video, was like first viral thing ever. And it was like the first sign to actually take it seriously. Then I posted the drop streaming video. That video got about 500,000 views in three months and made me over $20,000 on one YouTube video. speaker-0: Wow. speaker-1: And so that was like, okay, I should probably take this seriously. speaker-0: Yeah. And what happened when you started taking it seriously? What did that look like for you? speaker-1: It was, well, it went from, I'm just going to make a video and I feel like it, to I'm going to show up every single week and I'm always constantly working on something. So the first part was just always actively making content, thinking about content, researching content, looking into what actually makes videos perform, what is the structure of a video, like what are the outliers, why does Mr. Beast... Lost the mic. Why does Mr. B's have, you know, a hundred million subscribers? What separates him from someone who has a hundred thousand subscribers? So it was a lot of just studying, researching, trying things and like just creatively having fun with the content as well and just giving it my all. Looking back on it now, there was so many mistakes that I made that I kind of missed out on a lot of growth because I didn't know what I was doing. Well, the main one is not. doubling down on what was working. I thought at that time when I had two videos that worked that were pretty, pretty different videos. One was about starting a detailing business. The other was about a dropshipping business. I thought I could just make content about anything to do with business or finance or money. And like, I'm like a star, like every video is going to blow up. And I quickly realized that that's just not how it works. When you have something that works, you should absolutely just double down on it and just keep giving people what they want, what they're there for. Because when you try to diversify too early, you haven't built up an audience. You don't really have people who are there for you. They're usually just there for the topic. And if you have a good video this month, but then you drop a video next month that is like completely a different topic or something completely different, most people are not going to resonate with it. really kills that momentum. Like a lot. It really instantly kills the momentum. And so it's tough because as creators, we want to be creative. Like it's literally in the name. We want to work on the stuff that we want to work on. We want to make videos that we feel passionate about. And sometimes doing the same thing that you did last month is not creatively fulfilling and it's not challenging. So you're kind of left with this this decision to make with should I do what's smart from the business perspective or should I do what I feel creatively as an artist would be most fulfilling? And so it's a tough thing that I think every creator has to go through. speaker-0: Yeah, this is very recognizable for me. I relate to this a lot because I remember like posting started posting on YouTube ⁓ for I decided I wanted to start making like explainer documentary type videos on YouTube. And I was doing this while I was working full time as a journalist for the Dutch news. And I said, like, I'm going to publish a new video every two weeks, no matter what. So I gave myself that time constraint and I worked in the evening. I worked for the weekends and ⁓ after two weeks it just had to be done. That's it. The first few videos got like zero, zero views, like maybe 20 views, 30 views, like nothing. And then I believe it was after four months or something. ⁓ I published a couple of videos, a couple months. Then boom, my video blows up like I will never forget this feeling. I used to like post it in the evening and go to bed and then like as a child, like waking up for Christmas morning, just hope like what did Santa bring? then I'd be disappointed. Yeah. Disappointed every single time. was like, fuck, 20 views. Shit. All right. We'll get it next time. We'll get it next time. And then I wake up and this video like 20,000 views overnight. And I was like, what? And I gained like 600 subscribers. I went from like 40 subscribers to like almost monetized within 24 hours. And I was just like, I was feeling so good. Like it was the best day ever. Like every time I was refreshing YouTube Studio, like my subscribers would go up and the notifications would like... be nine plus again and it was just such a good day and also that's when I felt like dude this content shit is easy I I've only tried for a couple couple months and I've cracked the code you know ⁓ and then I decided to make something completely different the next time and that didn't work at all I was expecting to get like similar views but it just like it didn't work at all Then I did something different again and then I started doing some research. I ⁓ crap, I should have done the same thing, but slightly different. And then I tried, but by that time it was too late. I lost most of that audience. So very, very relatable there. speaker-1: Yeah, man, the momentum thing is huge and it's like one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my career, whatever you want to call it with content is I've had so many different interests, so many things I like to talk about and so many things that I would like to document and that I want to put out there. it's you're left in like this really tough place a lot of times when, especially when you have something that does well because you're on top of the world and you have a few different decisions as do I double down on this? Do I keep doing this? And a lot of times it's even like, what does that even look like to double down on it? Especially in your case, like that was a, that was a video and like technology was ClickBanks one, right? speaker-0: Yeah, the clip firms when you. speaker-1: Yeah, so, you know, for that, it's like, you know, kind of the topic that did well, but also what is it about that content that did well? You could even try to double down on it, but then it doesn't hit. And then it's a very, it's an emotional roller coaster creating content, especially when you tie a lot of the emotion to the views, to the response that you're getting in the content. And it's tough, man. I don't think that it's for everyone because you have to kind of be willing and able to show up every single week, constantly working on this thing, put hours and hours in and post it, put it out there and have no reception, get no views, make no money for months or for years. And so the thing that I think separates people who actually win in this and people who don't is just like that constant persistence. They're just like literally never stopping. like constantly believing that what you're doing is the right thing and going for it and really detaching yourself from the outcome. speaker-0: Yeah, but I do think as you demonstrated, if you keep at it long enough, you'll gain a lot of knowledge. ⁓ so, know how to make shit work because I remember when I met you in Bali for the first time and I believe he had like 800 followers on Instagram. And this was like two years ago. you had like 800 followers and like, yeah, I came to Bali to Um, yeah, I make some YouTube videos, but also maybe start posting on Instagram a bit more. And literally within, I don't know, weeks, months, you had like 40 K. You went from 800 to 40 K. Um, so a lot of people would call it like overnight success, you know, but they hadn't seen like the 10 years that went into those few weeks of making killer content. Can you take me back to that moment and what happened there? speaker-1: Yeah, for sure. It's funny to hear from your perspective because, I definitely obviously remember that moment. For me, it was I was in a place for a really long time where I was scared to go all in. I kept having these little wins. I would have a video that would do well here. I would have a month where I made $6000 on YouTube, but then I would try to keep going. I would try to double down. I would try to keep posting content and The next month it would be like a thousand views, 3000 views. Right. And so I was on this like constant emotional roller coaster where I would have this high, where I would have this sign that showed me that I'm capable of doing this. And when I would put more effort into it and actually try things didn't continue down that path. And I was on that trajectory for like about a year where I was still working A job I was doing like a lot of videography stuff for real estate companies. was working with construction companies doing their social medias and I was in school as well at the same time. And I was just in this place where I was scared to go all in because I had some of this other stuff that was already working for me. I was already making money from content because I was helping other people with their content and I was making real estate tours for real estate agents and it was paying the bills. And I had this kind of YouTube thing that was sort of working. Like I've made some money with it, but there's no guarantee here. And the signs are showing me that this is not going to be a consistent path to take. And after about a year of that, I came to this place where I finished school. I was very certain that I did not want to try to find some job that I didn't care about. I didn't want to keep going down the path of building something for someone else that was very boring. for me, even though I did get to have a camera and I did spend a lot of my time editing and making videos, but it was for other people. And so I decided I was just going to go all in for once in my life and just like take a chance and try to make this happen for myself. And I saw Bali popping up on on social media. I saw this this crater house in Bali where there's like 20 craters living and just seemed like the Mecca for content creation. can see like this is like the promised land. If you're someone who wants to make content, you want to live in a beautiful tropical island and it's cheap. Like this is like the trifecta. And so I remember I was going back and forth on doing this for a while because I had never taken like a kind of like a chance or risk like this. And I spoke with someone at a party. It was this influencer couple. who started their whole brand in Bali. I asked them, what would you do if you were in my position? And they were killing it. They were at like a million followers or something on Instagram, living dream life, traveling the world. I said, what would you do if you were in my position? And they said, go to Bali, 100%. It's the place to be. You're gonna have so much growth. You're gonna make amazing friends. Just go. I booked a ticket the next day, flew out to Bali, moved into the creator house. And my singular focus was I just want to blow up on social media. Like I was literally just a for the numbers. Like I could give a fuck about anything else. I was like, I want to prove to myself that I know how to make content that people will like actually care about what I put out there, that I can get millions of views. I want to really test myself. And that's what I did. I went out there. I just made every video that I thought of and everything that interested me and Yeah, like you said, first month went from 900 to 20,000 followers. And then by the time I left Bali a few months later, I had 40,000 followers. So yeah, super, super quick progression in Bali. It was honestly life changing. speaker-0: Yeah, insane. those videos where, yeah, those real estate tours that you made to ⁓ go viral, how did you land ⁓ those videos? How did you get access to those videos when you didn't even have a big following to begin with? Like after they've gone viral, it must have been easy to... go to these villa owners and say, hey, look at this, I'm Alex, I can get you millions of views. But how did you get started with those first few ones when you didn't really have any evidence to show for it yet? speaker-1: Yeah, so this is, I mean, this is the perfect example of what happens if you just double down on what works. Because I went to Bali, I had no plan. I didn't know what kind of content I was going to make. I was still doing the finance content stuff, but I was kind of being, I was a little bit burnt out from it. I, I, the process of making YouTube videos and you know this is super grueling, takes a ton of time. It's a lot of work. And I just wanted to make short form content and just see what happened. And so I made every video that came to my mind. I've made a lot of travel stuff talking about how much it costs to live in Bali. And I made some cool cinematic stuff with inspirational quotes on the screen. Like anything that inspired me, I just made that content. One day we went to this on this trip in Bali. We rented this massive villa for like super cheap. was like two hundred dollars a night or something for this this villa that would be like a $15,000 mansion in the Hollywood Hills. I guess literally what it looked like, craziest place ever. I had never experienced anything like that. And we were just there with our friends. Like we literally paid to be there. I didn't get this place for free or anything, but I was like, I'm going to film as much as I can here. Like we were literally there for less than 24 hours because we were like, we were like, this is how much money we have. Like, can we get in and get out? We just want to get some shots. So I filmed everything I could while we were there. ended up making a video out of that. That was just like, this is what $200 can get you in Bali. And then just like drone shot of the villa, some cool aesthetic shots, ends up getting 15 million views. I was like, okay, that was crazy. Like, that's like my 10th video in Bali. We're hitting 15 million views. Like so absurd. And at that point I was like, okay, I'm not going to make the same mistake that I made on YouTube. I'm going to double down on this because obviously there's something that's working here. If 15 million people watch this video and liked it and shared it with their friends. And I was like, OK, how do I capitalize on this? I was like, OK, there's a ton of villas in Bali, ton of real estate owners who are trying to get their places rented out. I see like an actual business model here. If I can get millions of people to look at your your villa or your rental, your Airbnb. chances are a good amount of those people will be interested in booking that place and renting it and giving the owner money. And so that's a very valuable thing. And so I just started reaching out to tons of Villa owners in Bali, just saying, Hey, can I get a free night stay is how it started. Can I just get a free, you know, just hang out with my friends in your Villa? I'll make a video. Here's this one that did 15 million views. I'll do something similar for you. First one that I did. 20 million views. Work with this company Alex to us. Fucking sick return on investment for that man. Three nights stay. was like, what was their cost? $300 maybe. I think I made that company like hundreds of thousands of dollars because we had a 20 million view video and then we followed up with a 15 million view video and then I think a 10 million view video and then a few other ones that hovered around a million. So I got this company like speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: 40 to 50 million views of organic reach on Instagram, which they would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising to reach that kind of numbers. ⁓ So yeah, man, it was just from there, was just doubling down on the real estate stuff. Every single time that I saw some cool opportunity or something cool that was kind of in this real estate luxury travel niche, I would reach out to companies and say, I'll make a video for you. And it very naturally turned into this like really fun business essentially where I was just making content, traveling the world, living in mansions with my friends and going to cool parties and whatever, getting free stuff and eventually starting to get paid for it as well. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a crazy bargain for, for Alex villas, millions of views for, for a couple, a couple nights of free stays. But I, I, ⁓ so when you started, when you went to Bali, ⁓ you, went there a couple of times, saw that the Villa stuff was working. ⁓ you were like, as you told, when you started like solely focused on, getting as much views as possible, just to proof that you could go viral and get these numbers. But correct me if I'm wrong, but I do feel like you have kind of shifted away from trying to do millions of views every single time, which also has something to do between the difference between influencers and creators. I don't know if that's true, but maybe you want to elaborate on that. speaker-1: Yeah, so here's a thing I've learned from going down this path of chasing millions and millions of views and trying to grow a big brand is that not all creators are treated equally. Just because you have a hundred thousand followers or you get a video with a million views doesn't mean that you are automatically going to get $10,000 brand deals and you're going to work with the biggest companies and you're going to make a ton of money and you have this insane fan base that anytime you drop a product, people are going to send money to you because you, ⁓ my God, you're the guy on Instagram who has a bunch of followers. The way that I see it is there's two different paths or two different types of creators on social media. The first is the influencers. So that's the path that I just told you about first path that I took on social media, which is strictly trying to get views, trying to reach a big audience, trying to get as many followers and engagement as possible. The way that you monetize as an influencer is mostly brand deals and selling other people's products. And the amount of money that you're making and your livelihood and your business is all dependent on how much engagement and how hot you are right now to as many people as possible. My experience going down that path is that it feels really good if you feel like the man, because you have a bunch of people commenting and liking and following you, but you never feel like you're really building something. You feel like you're building something for someone else. I felt like I was just giving all this engagement to these companies like Alex Villas to Zuck. I'm giving Zuck all this engagement. I'm working with these brands and selling their products. And then what am I left with at the end of the day? Maybe a few thousand dollars in my pocket. But then you water down your worth as a creator and you never really build something outside of just that quick hit of a viral video. And it's extremely forgettable. It's extremely kind of here now gone tomorrow because no one really connects with you. They're just there for the viral video. So all that to say is that is the first type of creator and not saying that that's wrong. You can make a ton of money. can live a great life doing that. I obviously have, but it very much feels like a rat race. It very much feels like how happy I feel every single day or every single month is directly tied to how well my social media is doing, how well my videos are doing. Very similar to you. I wake up in the morning. I check how did my most recent video perform. If it's shit, I'm in a horrible mood and you don't talk to me for the rest of the day. And I just, after a while of that, I just felt like that was pretty unhealthy and I didn't see a path that I wanted to go down or that would really in the long run be rewarding for me. It just felt like something I could capitalize on right now and probably two years down the line when the algorithm shifts and the content that's working right now doesn't work anymore, then I have nothing to do anymore. I have no brand. have no equity really. I have nothing. So where I've been transitioning more into recently, and this is the second type of creator, is, and I'm trying to find the right word for it, in this case we'll call it an operator. This is someone who owns a business and content is just part of this machine, part of this business that you have. So think fitness creators, a lot of them are called influencers, but they should really be called operators. Think, the business guys that you see on Instagram, yeah, they make content. It's a big part of their business, but they're not influencers, right? They don't get paid based on how many videos that they're putting out. They don't get paid per video. They are running a business, they're selling a service, and content is just the engine for how they monetize that business. as I've kind of transitioned out of this influencer, influencer role have been moving more towards the operator because I want to feel like I'm actually building something. I want to feel like I'm growing a business. I want to actually be helping people. I want to create a service. I want to, you know, systemize this and make it, make it, you know, predictable, which is one of the things that being an influencer is really not good for. If you like predictability, do not go down the influencer route. But if you're running a business, you can easily calculate, you know, This is how many views I need to get to get this many leads, which leads to this many calls, which means to this many sales and this many dollars in my bank account. When you're an operator, it is much more predictable. It's much easier to make that calculation and therefore it's much less of an emotional roller coaster. You can take the emotion out of it and you can really approach it as a business owner and detach yourself from the outcome so much. ⁓ So that's the way that I've kind of transitioned my brand in the last six months or so, just because I saw the path that the influencer route was taking me down and I didn't want to keep going down that path. And I'm really just now much more interested in learning a new skill. I feel like I've kind of proven that I know how to make content that gets a lot of views. I know how to go viral. For me, the new skill now and what's exciting is all the other stuff with building a business, the sales, the, you know, how to get people to actually give you money, how to provide value to a lot of people, how to make a big impact. That's exciting. speaker-0: Yeah. And I also think an important difference there is you mentioned if you're like in full influencer mode, you very much tie your self-worth to how your social media is doing. ⁓ But also if you're in more an operator mode, as you call it, I can assume that you can be happy with a thousand views or maybe even a hundred views if those hundred views are from the right people. If a hundred people watch something, that's a lot of people. If you put a hundred people in a room, that's a crowded room. So if they are the right people that actually watch your stuff, ⁓ I feel like that can be way more valuable than 15 million people who don't care about you. speaker-1: It's very true because I have friends who have less than 10,000 followers that were making 10 times the amount of money that I was making with 20 million views. speaker-0: Yeah, this, I don't know if you can drop any of the numbers, but I remember being very impressed by this example of this guy doing like the refurbished iPhone thing. speaker-1: Yeah. What the numbers like the YouTube numbers? speaker-0: Yeah. I don't know, but ⁓ maybe you can speak about this friend of yours or maybe keep him anonymous. I don't know if you can name him or not, but I thought that was a very good example of someone who was doing very well for himself without actually ⁓ getting millions of views. speaker-1: Yeah, so you're talking about my buddy Christian. Christian started a YouTube channel, a very niche YouTube channel about how to make money selling iPhones locally on Facebook Marketplace. That was his business. Just teaching people how you can make like 10 grand a month by just like going on Facebook Marketplace, finding a cheap iPhone, buying it, and then selling it again on Facebook Marketplace. And he would just spend all day driving around selling these iPhones. He saw that no one was really talking about this and it was like really easy money for him and very consistent income because everyone has an iPhone. Most people who sell their iPhones are undervaluing it or you can get it for a good price. And so he started making a bunch of content about this business, about how he flips iPhones, how he turned this into a business that makes makes him I think was making over $10,000 a month. And then he grew that channel to probably around 10,000 subscribers. launched a school community teaching people how to do it. And then instantly got, I think, 100 people at a $200 price point into the community and was now making $20,000 in this community teaching people how to sell iPhones. Like, who would have thought? Who would have thought? This guy was making so much more money than I was with 30 million views a month on my Instagram teaching people how to sell iPhones. And his videos were getting maybe 10,000 views, 20,000 views. But the reason that worked is because it was hyper specific audience. He solved a very specific issue and he was helping people solve this problem. It's very valuable. speaker-0: crazy. Yeah, that's insane. And I think this is also a nice segue into, yeah, one of the things I wanted to talk about. ⁓ Recently, you started working for School of Hard Knocks, where you help people to ⁓ create better content, ⁓ which I believe are most of the people you're helping are people that already have a business and want to add content into that business. ⁓ just curious, like, how did you end up working for for School of Hard Knocks? And what's that been like? speaker-1: Yeah, I just from a DM, I, my boy Jack, who me and now me and him now have become quite close friends. He is from my hometown in Canada. We followed each other about a year ago and just talked in DMs a little bit. And he makes a lot of content about, you know, how to make good content, how to make money from content. And somehow he got invited to this program and then referred me. I got on a call with the brother of James, who is the face of School of Hard Knocks. He said, yeah, you want to join? Like it was super simple, it's very easy. And basically just asked me like, how much work do I want to take on and what kind of business owners or creators do I think I could help? And I said, I've kind of worked in every niche. I've tried to monetize my brand in every way possible. And before that, I was working with real estate agents, worked with construction guys. I know a lot about social media. And so now what I do with them is we help six figure and seven figure entrepreneurs scale their businesses with social media and with content. So it's just a consulting program essentially. And we help these business owners who already have a successful business, but don't really understand the social media game. Because if you're 50 years old or whatever and you've been running this business for 10 years, social media is still something that for most of them is not on their radar. but they see how important it is. So our job is really just to help these business owners simplify that content strategy and use content efficiently to get more brand awareness and get more leads and clients through the door. It's been an incredible experience. It's been super fun, challenging sometimes because I'm working with business owners in so many different businesses, like all over the place. So it's very, it's been very challenging and it's been a fun way to kind of flex my creator muscle and like really test like, okay, do I actually know what I'm talking about? And it's been great. I have clients who are in real estate. I have a client who runs a nonprofit. I have a client who is in construction. I have clients in, what's the most recent one? Most recent one is, this one's funny. He does like, packaging for weed. Okay. For like dispensaries like edible packaging or like when you go buy some weed, he does like the crazy cool packaging and he's trying to get more sales and get more clients for his business. So it's been a lot of just like curve balls and crazy companies and working with them and using social media to grow them, which has been really fun. speaker-0: That's cool. think the weed one must be pretty easy to market or maybe difficult if the algo is blocking the weed stuff. don't know. But is there any ⁓ for maybe for people listening because you're helping a lot of clients now. So if someone wants to start with social media, ⁓ like you're helping your clients, ⁓ what's the first thing you do? ⁓ what what should people do in the first 50 days that they're starting out? speaker-1: Well, first thing is just get clear on what the goal is, right? So like, is the goal to just get a bunch of followers? Is it just to get views and brand awareness? Is the goal to just get clients through the door? Are you a physical location? Are you an online business? The strategy really changes depending on what kind of business you are and what the goals are. What I do with all of my clients is I get extremely, extremely clear from the very beginning on who they are, what their business is, what do you stand for. Who do you serve? Like what problem do you solve? And the more clear that you can get on all of these things, the easier it is to make content because then it doesn't feel like you're putting on a character anytime you get on camera. You're really just talking about the things that you're passionate about and you're helping solve the issues that your business already solves. And then from there, it's really like taking this clarity that you have about your business and about who you are or whose problems you solve. And then how can we create a content strategy around this that reaches the right kinds of people? And the best thing to do if you're a beginner is don't reinvent the wheels, like go out there and see what other people are doing and what's working for them. So I do a lot of just content research and content like strategizing essentially when I work with a new client, I will spend hours and hours, you know, in the case of Let's say it's one of my clients is they run a comedy podcast studio. So they like help run like some of the biggest comedy podcasts in the world. I don't think I could say their name, but like that kind of says a lot. So they've worked with a lot of really big brands and it's really interesting. There's a lot of cool content there, but there's really no competition out there. There's no other accounts that you can go to to look for like ⁓ this comedy podcast in California is crushing it on Instagram. Doesn't really exist. So what you do in that case is you get inspiration from other similar niches and other similar fields and you just pull from like the content formats that are working. What are the current trends that we're seeing? Like social media goes in trends. There's formats, there's topics that are working right now that probably won't be working in six months. So a lot of it is just doing research on seeing what is working for other people and then seeing how can we apply that to our current content strategy while at the same time speaking to the right audience and making sure that all of this is aligned with how we want to represent our brand. speaker-0: Cool. And ⁓ I can imagine that some of these business owners, might be very confident in business, in running a successful business. ⁓ But still something like starting to post on, starting posting on social media might still be scary for a lot of people. ⁓ What are some of the biggest fears that people have when it comes to making and posting content and ⁓ How can you overcome those? speaker-1: The biggest fear is like fear of being seen, I think. Like just the fear that... Which is the goal. I know, it is the goal. I had a call today with a client actually who posted a video that did well. It was like the first video that they posted and they had a ton of engagement on it and all these comments of people saying how much they love the video. And she goes, I'm kind of scared to post the next video because I feel like the expectation is so high now. And are people waiting for the next video? I don't want to let them down. And so a lot of it is just setting these expectations in your head that really don't exist. Like no one is really thinking about your content as much as you are. No one really cares as much as you do. And then a lot of these business owners, especially they, know, because they're not used to being so front facing and putting themselves out there, they think that everything that they put out there has to be the best thing ever or it has to 100 % be, you know, something that is completely aligned with their brand is it's a lot of overthinking is what I see. And the less that you can overthink and the more that you just push those feelings to the side, the better results you get. Like honestly, the less that you care with social media, the better. ⁓ what happened on my camera? That's such a sad. speaker-0: Shit. what's up? Welcome back. No, so I think it cuts somewhere where he is like, the less you think about it, the better. Nobody's thinking about you. speaker-1: Welcome back Yeah, yeah. think the best, if you want to blow up on social media, care less. I think is the best advice ever. Just put stuff out there, try to get better 1 % every single time that you post and literally do not pay attention to the numbers, to the followers, to the engagement for at least the first like three months. You should just be completely focused on the input, which is making content, putting stuff out there, trying to find what works. And then you can Think about numbers and think about doubling down on the content that performed. But in the beginning, especially if you've never made content before, you're gonna suck. And the only way that you get better is not by spending 80 hours on your first video. It is by making 80 videos that took you one hour. speaker-0: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think this also is very different. It differs per person. But what you what you told me about the client earlier that she was scared when her video blow up blew up, that's very relatable because I remember when my first YouTube video got like half a million views, I was like, OK, it's. It sucks when your videos get like a hundred views, but it also feels pretty safe for some reason. It's like, doesn't really matter because no one is watching. And then one of them gets like half a million views and then you're like, okay, well, now we're doing something now. Then it starts to feel real or something. So I can definitely relate to, to her. But yeah, I, uh, I think it's better to just double down then and not really care about it. We've already briefly discussed this, but what are some of the errors people make other than not doubling down when something works? Are there more mistakes you see people make when it comes to making content when they're just starting out? speaker-1: I mean, yeah, there's a lot. There's a ton of mistakes, right? Like there's a ton of things that you can do wrong. I think, well, like I just said, the first is not like caring too much, but the second is also caring about the wrong things. What I find with a lot of my clients is they have a certain way that they think is the way to do it. Like everyone thinks that I know the right way to make this video. I know what people are going to like. I know how I want to represent myself. And the more like ego you have and the less you're willing to just like kind of make us a sacrifice sometimes whether it's in the production quality or it's in the way that you portray yourself. You have to make a sacrifice sometimes because there's just rules to follow in social media. And if you don't follow those rules very often, it's pretty predictable that the content is not going to do well. No one's going to care about you. And what I find a lot is like, you know, a lot of my clients will spend an entire call or will spend an entire ⁓ session talking about this is how we need to approach our structure for this video. This is how we need to approach our hook. Like a hook is very important. Kind of everyone knows this in social media now. Like if you don't have a good hook, especially on short form, very unlikely that anyone's going to watch that content. And what I find happens time and time again is for whatever reason, a lot of these clients, a lot of these people on social media, they think that this is like corny to do it this way, or they think that they know the right way and they'll just not listen to this thing that is proven to these, these like, As much as it is like a creative pursuit to make content, there are rules that you follow and if you follow them, you are statistically more likely to have an outlier and have a video that does well. And so I find time and time again, most of the people that do not get the results that they're looking for, it's usually because you're just not doing the things that you already know you should be doing. That's like 90 % of it. There's only so many, you know, personal brand videos and content strategy videos you can watch until you know like, pretty much the gist of what makes a good video. You just need to go out and do it and test stuff and try it and like actually be willing to fail and be willing to do something a different way than you think is the right way and see how that performs. I learned this a lot from my like ⁓ drop shipping finance days because I was doing a lot of advertising and with advertising there's no emotion involved. You just make a ton of ads and you test them against each other and you see which one performs the best. And whatever reason that one that performs the best does, doesn't matter. You just go all in on that one. Who cares if you like the one with the purple font instead of the yellow font? If that one did well, you should double down on the one that did well. And a lot of times people think that they know better than what actually works. speaker-0: Yeah, I think this reminds me of ⁓ A B testing on YouTube or even ABC testing nowadays. Sometimes you'll make a thumbnail and you're like super stoked on the way it looks and you feel like, okay, this one's going to murder. And then it like doesn't do well at all. And then I change it to something else. The one that I thought didn't look pretty at all. And then as soon as I change it, the video starts blowing up and it's just, it's, you think you know what works, but, you don't. It's, it's very difficult to predict what is going to work. So, ⁓ yeah, obviously the more you post, the more data you have, the more feeling you'll get for it. But, ⁓ even, even then, ⁓ I think the best the biggest creators out there. They're still always A-B testing, A-B-C-D testing. speaker-1: ⁓ you have to, you have to. Like it's, it's, comes to a point if you want to take this seriously, especially if you want to make money from this, it goes away from being a creative pursuit. It turns into business and you need to take the emotion out of business. So if that means that you need to test four versions of this video and you like version one, but version three is the one that way outperformed it. You have to figure out what you're willing to sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice your like creative liberty or are you willing to sacrifice the profit and the growth of this business? So it really depends on what your goals are but you know most people who are in this you're in this to make a living you're in this to make money and the creative pursuit is fun but you have to have both sides of it. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I agree. I think there's there's like two types of people. There's like the Mr. Beast who were like hyper optimizing and just studying the algorithm. Like every single microsecond of the video has to count and every cut is is fought. And even the ads ad breaks are super compelling. And it's it's just retention all the way through. And then you have like proper artists, don't really care as much and they might want to start out their YouTube video with like a three minutes of drone shots and I don't know, time lapses and some like slow music or whatever. But I think somewhere in the middle is probably where what I enjoy watching ⁓ the best, it is still optimized and ⁓ but it's, it's not like Mr. Beast shit gives me a headache. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, his audience is different, right? Like he's making content for kids. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, for sure. mean, that's a big difference. That's a big difference for sure. But yeah, I think if most of his audience are there that many kids, though, there must be some adults watching this. speaker-1: Like a billion views so is he making content for every I mean obviously this adults I think Mr. Beast is just a good example of just like how far we've gone down like the brain route brain rot routes Where like you need a cut every three seconds you need bright colors you need like even if it's not for kids like obviously a probably big Geordie of his audience is also adults and a lot of that is just like to do it's just where social media is now speaker-0: Yeah, but I will say, I will say, and I think Netflix has gotten better at this, ⁓ but I will, I remember just watching Netflix documentaries and I couldn't, I couldn't watch them anymore because they weren't built like a YouTuber really has to fight for every, for the retention. has to be interesting all the way through. So if there's any filler in the video that isn't like helping the story, it will get cut usually. And I feel like a lot of documentaries like Netflix, they would tell like a pretty, pretty interesting stories, but they would make like four episodes. And now I believe they've started like taking notes from like YouTube creators because there's a difference between like over editing, like hyper retention, Mr. B stuff and just making something that is boring. like some of the Netflix stuff. I feel like YouTube has had a positive influence on some of the more recent Netflix documentaries. speaker-1: Yeah, I actually agree with that. speaker-0: I also wanted to talk about the creator retreat you're hosting soon. ⁓ How did you come up with this idea and what will that look like? What can people expect? speaker-1: So the creator house in Bali that we met at that changed my life in every single way is gone now. We spent two seasons there, spent eight months of my life living in that house. And it was just such an incredible experience. It was exactly what I was looking for when I was, I was, you know, 23, wanted to blow up on social media and this, this house and this environment that it created was a thing that that gave me all the things that I wanted. And it's one of the biggest lessons I've learned doing this and growing my business and just going down this path is that you can watch all of the strategy videos, you can watch all of the content and consume as much information about how to grow a business and how to make good content, all this stuff. But there's nothing as powerful as being in an environment with other people who are also doing that, who will push you. to move forward, to take things to a bigger level and a lot of times dream bigger than you can even dream for yourself. And so ever since I've seen that house, that house is gone and that I don't have a place to go and I'm in Bali, I've wanted to just recreate that experience for other people. I think now, especially with AI and just how much time everyone is spending online and glued to our phones, I think more than ever right now there's hunger. for in-person interactions, in-person experiences, events where you're actually surrounded with other like-minded people and you're actually growing a community. I never felt like I had a community until I went to that house and now I have friends from all around the world who I know that I can stay at their house, they can stay at mine, I can text at any time, and that I actually feel like I'm part of a community. I feel like I have really incredible friends that I'm aligned with. And so I'm hosting a retreat in Bali. Basically, it's going to be five days. It's my first shot at it. I'm partnering with a good friend and business partner who's run tons of retreats as well. So we're going to have just an incredible experience, bring a community of other creators, other business owners for five days and essentially create this cool experience where we have a mastermind, talk about content, growth, you know, workout. It's going to be very health focused. and hopefully it goes well and we can kind of keep doing that throughout the years. My goal is to do four of those a year starting next year and just keep doing these in-person events because it's out of everything that I've done, it's been the most rewarding and the one that has like fed my soul the most. speaker-0: Yeah, I can relate to that because obviously we met in the creator house in Bali. And for me, it was the first time ⁓ living with people that had similar interests. And it was just crazy ⁓ because if you're doing it all by yourself, you have to think like, OK, what is this life going to look like? What should I do? And then you're surrounded with people like maybe someone is already doing it professionally. And then maybe someone is just starting out and doesn't really matter which level you're at, but just being surrounded by people who have similar interests was such a such an amazing experience for me. And also, you can learn so much about the most random stuff. Right. So, I mean, we we had ⁓ we had the the the German guy who went to film school for sound design. And then he would give workshops on how to make better sound effects. And you would analyze like Hollywood movies and then remove the audio and see, see how it affects the footage. It's like super niche. Like I knew how to make whoosh sounds underneath the edits, but it's like, you met, you meet these people who actually went to university for these like hyper specific things. So I think that's just, ⁓ Yeah, such a great way to ⁓ not only get into content, but just like stay in content is just every now and then try to surround yourself with people who are doing the same because it's really a shame that the Lost Creator House is gone for sure. think, yeah, it was something really special and ⁓ it will be missed for sure. But when is the retreat again? speaker-1: That's May 20th to the 25th. Bali, Indonesia. speaker-0: We'll put a link in the show notes. Finally, you're currently in Dubai. ⁓ Other than the, well, yeah, situation there before everything went down. ⁓ How's your experience been ⁓ content-wise and people-wise? Because you told me about some meetings that we're having and some sort of creative program. speaker-1: Hmm. Yeah, Dubai is really cool. It's I've never seen I mean, I've traveled the world in the past two years I've been to every country that I've wanted to take off the bucket list minus Australia basically and aside from Bali I Don't think that there's a better place to be as a to go to as a creator that I haven't seen any other country or city take content creators as seriously as they do in Dubai. There is a company here called Creators HQ and they are the ones who are running the yearly events here. They brought Mr. Beast this year and David Dobrik and a ton of other creators and they're just pumping a ton of money into the creator economy. There's a ton of opportunity here for creators and just the networking, like we're talking about community, like. not really much better place. Maybe Bali is like up there for just networking and meeting other people who are living this life, want freedom for themselves, want to build something cool. Everywhere you go, you're surrounded by entrepreneurs and creatives. And it's overall just been a really great place for me. It's been very just kind of lock in mode. honestly, I don't go out too much just because well, number one, like a big reason is This place is like super motivating. Like I go outside yesterday, man, we walk past this restaurant, I see three Rolls Royces, ⁓ dude who looks like he's in his early 20s driving a Lamborghini Aventador. It just, it makes you want to, to think bigger, to take things to a bigger level. It really pushes you and drives you. And so that was one of the biggest reasons that I came here. And I feel like I've definitely got a lot of that inspiration and I feel like a fire under my ass that I've never had before, just being in that environment. I think the more and more as a creator especially that you can put yourself around other people who are in a place that you wanna be, the better. It's very easy to get content and just surround yourself with people who like maybe you're more successful with or you have more experience then, cause it kind of feels good. to like be like top dog or whatever, but it's not good for your growth. It's not good for, know, if you truly want to take things to a big level and you want to grow a big business or you want to have a lot of freedom in life. I always want to be like the stupidest person in the room. And I absolutely feel that here. So that's kind of the main reason that I came here. Obviously situation here sucks right now from like a perspective of what is the future hold? We have no idea, but it's a great place. think, you know, if you're a creator or someone who is in that position where, you know, maybe you're in your mom's house or you're stuck in your hometown, coming to places like Bali, coming to places like Dubai, you will not regret that experience. Like you just won't. It's even if you lose a few thousand dollars in the process, the people that you meet, the experiences that you have. You're not going to miss the $3,000 in three years, but you'll be happy that you put yourself out there. You made that connection and you tried to make it happen for yourself. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I completely agree. mean, I have only briefly been to Dubai and it will probably be a while before I can go back. I mean, hopefully it will be over soon that I can go back there. But I can definitely agree regarding the whole situation in Bali because that was literally life changing. ⁓ and I, I don't think there's, ⁓ many, many places like that out there. ⁓ is there, is there any, any, anything, ⁓ we missed anything you'd still like to emphasize or discuss when we're discussing the topic of, ⁓ yeah, how to, how to actually make money with, ⁓ content. speaker-1: I mean, we talked about, you know, from like the business perspective, I guess one thing we could touch on would be how to find the right path for you because there's a lot of different ways to make money with social media. And if you don't know which one is like most aligned with you, then there's a good chance that you'll go down the wrong path and probably waste a lot of time. So maybe we can go down that. don't know how you speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah. ⁓ I'm interested. So you mean, you mean other than finding a niche or ⁓ do you mean more in the creator versus or the influencer versus operator mode? speaker-1: Yeah, so I think what I like, you know, it's very, what I see oftentimes, especially with people who are in a similar position to where I was a few years ago, which I'm not, I wasn't a business owner. I didn't really have any incredible skills in anything, but I wanted to make money from content and I wanted to find a way to do that. So how do you do that as someone who... You know, just wants to make content. How do you make money from it? How do you grow an audience? How do you grow a brand and how do you grow a business? Most importantly, that actually makes you money. Very similar to what I mentioned with the clients. A lot of it comes down to clarity. Like if I had extreme clarity when I first got started about where I actually wanted to take this, I would have been much further than I am now because I had point A, which was I want to make content and I had point Z, which was I want to make money. And the connection there, I thought I just make content and I'll figure it out along the way. If you're someone who wants to treat content as a business and you want to take it seriously, you should think about that from the very beginning. You should be thinking about the money and thinking about how to actually turn this into a source of income and monetization from the very beginning. And it might change over time. There's a lot of people who think that they're going to go into coaching or think they're going to monetize through brand deals or think that they're going to sell a product and then they change their mind later. But you should have some kind of path. in the beginning that you're focused on. Otherwise, you don't know where you're going. And then it's very easy to get sucked into measuring views, measuring engagement, measuring followers, measuring all these vanity metrics as your source of fulfillment and using that as the proof that you're going down the right direction. And I'll tell you from experience, that's not the right path to take. Do not go down the followers and likes path if you want to make money. and want to grow a business. It's cool. It'll feel cool. It'll feel good. And if you want to do it just to look cool to your friends on your friends from high school, then go down that path. But if you want to go down the business route, think about that from day one and then use the content as, as the engine for driving revenue for the business. speaker-0: Yeah. And for people, I think that might be easy for people who are, already have a business. ⁓ so if, if you are, I don't know, maybe you're a comedian and you want to get more people to buy tickets to your show, then of course you'll, you'll post highlights and then people think you're funny and then they'll, they'll go to their show or maybe, ⁓ you have a diner or a restaurant or whatever. So if you already have an existing business, can imagine that's easier to do. ⁓ What can it look like for people who don't already have a business but also don't want to become like a major influencer per se? speaker-1: You have to be interesting or interested in something. Usually, especially now, what I see in social media, the trend is that people are really going away from these big influencers that people just follow because they like their personality. People are being much more gravitated towards micro-influencers who focus on one specific thing and that's what their entire brand is about. A good example is there's this like beekeeper. She's like super viral and she just makes videos about bees and she's like been on Joe Rogan now and probably makes a ton of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just like super niche interests that you wouldn't think that you can monetize or wouldn't think that there's any anything to grow outside of maybe just like some some interesting honey. Yeah, honey. Some interesting followers and honey. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah speaker-1: But like the more, if you have a niche interest or something that is something that you're very interested in that isn't like this big broad topic, then you're going to naturally attract other people in that because usually there's not much competition. And so it makes it much easier to just find the right people. Very similar to what we spoke about with the reselling the iPhones. He didn't need 100,000 followers. He didn't need millions of views. He just needed, you know, a thousand or less of the right people who followed him. So if you're someone who doesn't have a business and you're not an expert in anything, would, number one, I would lean into your niche interests. would double down on those and document as much as you can about it and get good at it, right? The more that you document the things that you're interested in, the more that you learn about them, that is naturally going to turn into something that is valuable. because people who are also interested in that thing will want to learn from you and they'll want to follow you and they'll want to be involved in a community because chances are a lot of people, like if you're talking about, ⁓ you know, a very, let's say like you're into cars from like Southern Korea and like a car community or whatever, just a very niche interest, like how many people are going to be interested in that? Like probably some small community in South Korea, but those guys are going to be super stoked on that subject. And so there's, anytime that there's a big passion, there's a lot of emotion tied to an interest, there's an opportunity for a business and to monetize it. And you don't have to do it in a way that's salesy or that makes you a sellout. You are just basically a facilitator of other people who are interested in this thing. So ⁓ yeah, long story short, I think community is a really great avenue to go down if you aren't like a... professional, know, in business and you don't have a ton of success and experience, just really double down on your niche interests and form a community around that and the business opportunities will open up. speaker-0: And how does B B Lady B woman make money from from her content? Do you know? speaker-1: That's a good question. have no idea. She probably does brand deals, I would assume, and then maybe has a community. That's probably what I would advise her to do if I was her strategist. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's crazy. I remember like some of the examples that come to mind. ⁓ Like some girl, I forgot her name, but Lauren, Lauren jumps, I believe is her name. And she started posting like jump rope videos during Covid. And she was like super shitty when she started out, like when she started posting videos of her jumping rope, she she couldn't really do it. She was just like. filming the progression of her getting better every single video. And now, I mean, that's years ago. She's, I believe she's one of like the top jump ropers on the planet right now. Like she's insanely skilled and she's, she has her own, she has her own jump rope that you can buy. And, and I dunno, she, she has a bunch of ways to, monetize it, but I think that's a good example of someone who was just passionate about something that's very niche, but started recording the entire process even before she was good at it. And now, yeah, has been doing this professionally since over four years now. speaker-1: Yeah, sick. speaker-0: Yeah. So, ⁓ bro, I think that was awesome. I think I learned a lot. It's always good speaking to you. Where should people go if they want to keep up with your stuff and potentially, ⁓ join that filler retreat. speaker-1: Hey, I'm just Instagram, Alex Alban, U-L-B-I-N. That's it. Yeah. speaker-0: Okay. Just, just, just plugging the inside. All right. Well, ⁓ thank you, bro. And, ⁓ yeah, speak soon. This was awesome. speaker-1: Thanks dude.