Meet The Most Interesting Person In New York City | Elliot Choy

Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. I'm Ellie Choy and so far this podcast has made $230,000. Very close. That was a fantastic guess. It's $247,000. That was good. You're one of the closest we've ever had, I think. That's true. So, I I kind of like watched one from like a month ago. So, yeah, that was that was a good guess. Thank you. Welcome to Vegas. Thank you. What are you doing here? I'm here for trade show, actually. A clothing a clothing trade show. It's called magic sourcing. So here to like talk to manufacturers. So I was here for like the past few days doing that. Is that manufacturers for like a personal brand or something like that for clothing? For clothing. Yeah. So just trying to find new manufacturers and factories. That's your merch line. Yeah. For copyright. So we've seen your videos from back in the day. I remember when it was a big thing to do like a day in the life of a Harvard student. Uh day in the life of Yale student. And then there's you day in the life at Vanderbilt. Yeah. And that video got how many was it? 5 million views, 4 million? No, not that much. That was Yeah, around two, I think. Last I checked. Yeah. And that was your Was that your first video ever? So that's my first public video. Uhhuh. But maybe overall like my seventh video. Seventh video. Was that like the first video you took seriously or was it like Yeah, that was like Okay. So I made a few videos about like flipping and reselling because I used to do that in high school. Very Gary Vee inspired. And then I I made some videos about like selling on Amazon because I used to do that and that was terrible. And then I took a year off and then my first real attempt back was that day in the life video and it just absolutely popped off. It did it did really well for like my first real attempt at YouTube and honestly I think like having the other videos beforehand kind of helped with that though. It's pretty amazing because like you gained 50,000 subscribers in just like two months, right? I think I have a video named something like that. Yeah. What was so special about that Vanderbilt video? Why do you think so many people watched it? Yeah, there was like a ton of day in the life videos at the time. Like Harvard, like you said, Harvard, Princeton, like any other college, there was like a ton of viral videos. And then with my school, Vanderbilt, there was only like one video, day in the life video, and it had 10K views. So, I was like, okay, like if I make a decent video, it'll probably do well. And I got lucky, and it it ended up doing well. though. Um I spent like a week like researching cuz at the time this is 2018 at the time the only thing you needed was good watch time and good good clickthrough rate and it's like a viral video. Nowadays it's a little different. Tell us about that video. What did you do in that video? In that video specifically that made it Yeah. do perform well. Yeah. Like how was your day? Oh, how was my day? Um it's a really like regular video. Just like wake up, breakfast, I read a book maybe like went to classes, went to the gym, hung out with friends. very normal average day. Um, I think what made it like do well was a lot of the other videos, uh, day in the life videos, there's a lot of people kind of talking and not showing and I was like kind of bothered by that. I was like, "Oh, I want to know like how long are your classes or like how nice are the amenities there like at at your college campus." Um, so I try to like lean into that and fix some of those things that I saw as problems. day in the life videos. I have a feeling that someone picks like if you're going to make one of those day in the life videos, you're going to pick out a day that you have a lot of exciting things going on. Did you do that or did you just do like a So you you picked out a day where you're like, [laughter] "Okay, I'm going to read. It's my first time reading in two months, but I'm going to read today. Do like a cold shower and journal." But yeah, some of it is definitely like hyped up a little bit. I think that's also just like my effort to like really show like a variety of things that maybe it wouldn't just go into one day, but like an an average of of multiple different days. So, I was really thinking about like myself as like a high school student looking up day in the life videos for my school and not finding anything that was like actually relevant or actually that informational. So, do you think that goes into a high schooler's decision? Oh yeah. Do they YouTube like day in the life of you know when I was making college videos like guaranteed a ton of those viewers were high schoolers really? Yeah. Just and even myself like when I got accepted into Vandy I was like looking up day in the life videos and there was none that was like super super good or well produced or anything. So even myself I was like looking at stuff like that. How did you pick Vanderbilt? Vanderbilt they gave me good financial aid. Okay. So they threw me a lot of money and I said okay I'll go. Did you apply to like Harvard, Yale? No. No, not really. Um, I only applied to mostly state schools. Okay. Like maybe like USC, Cornell, Vanderbilt, like those are the ones, you know, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And that video did extremely well. Did it do well out the gate or did it take a while to like start catching on? I have some like screenshots. I don't remember exactly. Um, maybe like I want to say like 10k views in the first week, which was crazy for me coming from 100 views max on some of those older videos. So 10k views off the gate and then within the span of a few months like and that probably 20 30 40 up to maybe 100. Wow. How much clout do you get at a college campus after that? I'm I've been so curious. Everyone must be like, "Yo, that's Ellie that he had that video." That's funny. No, I feel like my peers like didn't didn't know at all like anyone in my grade. It was more so like I really noticed it when a new freshman class came in because every single one of those freshman coming into the school like had watched that video because they were just like just like me when I was a senior in high school just curious about like what is college life like and like what am I going to expect like what do I what am I going to experience? They're just like so curious. So that was weird. And then the next freshman class after that it was even more so that's the first week of like a new semester was always pretty interesting. Really? Yeah, but definitely not like my people in my grade. What did you go to study there? I studied business. Yeah. Just like general business. So, was your expectation you were going to graduate and then just go in the field of of like what did you want to be? Freshman year I wanted to go into IB like investment banking. Uh sophomore I wanted to be in like in consulting and I'm like so glad I did. Like I'm so glad I escaped that. But I was very much just like um I was kind of brainwashed. It's really like oh that's like what I'm supposed to do. That's like the best job you can get. It's like IB or or consulting. So how many of your friends went into investment banking? A good amount actually. Right around like my year investment banking was becoming less popular and consulting was becoming more popular mostly probably because of like the work culture and that type of thing. So, a lot of people, a lot of my friends are in consulting and then a good amount are also in like tech, like from college specifically. Sounds stupid. What does a consultant do? Because I I would have a hard time imagining like what a fresh college graduate, no offense, could could consult on for like a large company. You would think that they would just hire people with prior experience in the industry to consult. Right. Right. Yeah. I don't I I mean, I never worked a consulting job, so I couldn't tell you. Um, I guess my friends would say they just like apply problem solving like frameworks. I guess I don't I don't know. I I was never a consultant, so I don't know. The exact same way, man. I never knew what it was cuz I was studying econ at UCSB and I was like I was like, "Okay, like I go into consulting." [laughter] Uh, what is that? Like I have no idea. I feel like consulting is one of those buzzwords now. It's like democratizing whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like it means a lot of other things that are under consulting. But people throw that in to confuse you. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I do consult thing. All right. It's one of those things that just like I do real estate. Okay. But it could mean anything. Yeah, it really could. That's interesting. But at what point then did you realize it's like I'm not going to do consulting. I'm not going to do investment banking. The YouTube channel's popping off. I'm going to be a YouTuber. It was like a very gradual process for me. I definitely started off like not really convinced that YouTube was going to work out. Like I was still like trying to get summer internships and that type of thing. And then I remember like there being a little bit of a turning point which was I made like this viral video and it ended up like making a lot of revenue like off that from AdSense. And then that that was like really a turning point cuz I had I hadn't really made money from YouTube before that and then at that point I was like oh like you can actually like make money from YouTube like you know comparable to what I might make at like a consulting job or a finance job. know for me I was like okay like I'll always like do YouTube on the side right like that's what I was doing at the time full-time student YouTube on the side maybe I was like oh maybe I'll just like go work a normal job do YouTube on the side but yeah definitely at a point kind of like which what was that video that was giving Harvard students an iPhone um giving away I saw that video yeah giving away a iPhone at Harvard or something yeah that was like a very different video but I was in a group chat with like with like Jimmy Mr. beast like Ryan and a few other friends and like it was called I forget what it was called 10 million bangers or something and we were just focused on making a video with 10 million views and so I was very influenced by them and I was like oh I need to make a viral video I need to make a viral video so uh that was my effort at that and yeah I think it got like 24 million views or something wait what goes on in this this secret world that [laughter] is that group chat dead now is it it's totally dead now yeah it's totally dead I feel like they just like start up and and then like they kind of die. But what was going on in there? Like how did you get access to that? I was friends with Ryan. So Ryan Tran, great YouTuber. Um yeah, I met Ryan like at a talk that I gave with him at my other friend um friends conference and yeah, that was how I met Ryan and then Ryan kind of invited me in. But what goes on in there like just conversations about like oh this video is it going to do well? Like why is it going to do well? Um, a lot of like thumbnail comparisons, like what's the what's the better thumbnail and why? Um, a lot of times like previewing each other's videos and like we used to do like a weekly call where we just like gave feedback and like kind of roasted each other. How long ago was that? This was a while ago. This was like my sophomore junior year of college. Was it intimidating to be in that group? Um, not intimidating. Um, it was just like super exciting just cuz yeah, it was just fun to like learn. Whose idea was it to go to Harvard and give away iPhones? Whose idea was it? Yeah. Was it yours? Okay. Yeah. I um so at the time, like when I made this video, there were a ton of really viral videos where people were giving away iPhones and I had done like a Harvard day in the life video and that had done like super well, like a few million views. So I was like, okay, like trivia, giving away iPhones already hitting 10 millions of views or whatever. And then like my day in the life video at Harvard already had like a few million views and I was like let me just combine the two and like do that so it's kind of like on brand and like I don't know. Video. Did you know it was going to be a banger? Yeah. When I was planning it I was like oh this is going to go viral like this is going to be this is going to be big. Um people Oh, sorry. Go for it. Yeah. No, I I thought it was going to reach like a few few million views but um it did like way better than that. So how much did that video make you? Okay, so this is a really interesting story. Um, I basically had $3,000 in my bank account when I made that video. Uh, I spent $2,000 on the two iPhones that I gave away, $500 on a roundtrip flight to Boston from Vanderbilt. And so, I had like $500 in my bank account when I went to Boston. And I was like I was really like I put all my chips on on on one thing. I was just like, "Okay, this is going to this has to do well or else I'm like I'm screwed." Um, the video made like I think like right now it's close to 100K. So maybe around like 98 99 in that r. I don't I don't know. I don't know the last time I checked. Hopefully that makes sense. Incredible ROI. Yeah, it was like I can't tell you guys like how insane that feeling was because remember I had like $500 left in my bank account and the first week I think in the first six days it had six million views or something like that. Holy cow. And then the AdSense hit, like the first check for AdSense was like 20 or 30 or 40, something like that. And so imagine going from like 500, never having more than 4,000, $5,000 in my bank account ever to now having like my first check of that 100K was 20, 30, 40K. And so like I it literally felt I I can imagine like what it feels like to win the lottery because it it literally felt like that. It was like the most insane high I've ever felt in my life. Yeah. And like even just talking about it right now, I'm like kind of like bringing myself back and like, oh my god, like sophomore year, junior year, Elliot was just like I was just off the walls. So, how do you not then just go back to Harvard and do it again? Why not just repeat? You found a winning thing, just keep doing that. Yeah. I didn't like want to end up being one of those creators that like just did interviews and stuff. Um, I get that question a lot like why didn't I just go back and do it? But at the end of the day, like I love making vlogs. like I like making videos about my life and you know like that type of video is more of like a hosting role than like a main character role if you want to make that comparison. So for me it's like I really cared about like sharing stories about my life and sharing my perspective and although like that type of video does well and makes a lot of money like makes you successful because you get a get a lot of subscribers. I got like 400k subscribers for that video. Um yeah it just like wasn't what I wanted. So I went back to like just making normal like vlogs. Yeah. What's amazing to me is that you gained 400,000 subscribers from that video, but still you were somehow able to pivot to vlogging where usually like you see someone grow and then they pivot and then their child their channel dies, but you also have amazing engagement for the amount of subscribers that you have. You have like 1.2 million subscribers, but each of your videos gets like 200k views, which is like nearly 20% engagement, which is fantastic. So, how were you able to pivot in such a successful way, do you think? Yeah, actually it's funny because like I went from having a few million views on that video and then the next video I posted it like just went back to my normal viewership. I thought my life was like totally changed after I hit that viral video. I was like, "Oh my god, all my views are going to do super well now." So I I experienced like a lot of burnout after because I was like, "Okay, that's not the case." I think how it ends up working out is usually like that's the top of the funnel. like people might find your channel that way and they might subscribe for that type of content. And then the videos I was making like not really the type of content that people subscribe for, but there's still some a little bit of overlap. People interested in college or people interested in like college life in general. So yeah, I think that kind of helped. But um I was trying to find this like I'm sure you guys do this too, but like find this fine balance between making videos that bring new people in and then making videos that also kind of like keep people in the ecosystem and keep people engaged. Now, was that the time you decided to go full-time? I I really didn't decide to do full-time YouTube until like my second semester senior year of college, like three years in, and still was like, uh should I go like apply for a job? Um, I come from like a pretty like conservative family and so they were definitely like pushing for me to just like go get a job. So it took a lot of like I don't know even though it was like a no-brainer for most people like I feel like it would be a no-brainer for me it was still a very like last minute decision of like okay I'm just like I'm going to do YouTube like after I graduate college. So yeah. How much were you making at the time where you decided all right I'm doing this? I decided to do YouTube full-time, like that that full-time decision was when I was making as much as I would at like a consulting job. And so I was like, if I'm going to make the same amount, but I can do what I love, then there's no there's no opportunity cost in like going to go work a corporate job because it's not like I'd be making more money there. It's not like I'd be having more fun. It's not like at the time it wasn't like I was getting more opportunities. So for me it was just like okay when the pendulum kind of like switched over to okay most of the opportunity is on on the YouTube side that's when it made sense for me to like really commit to that. So was that like 100 100 grand a month or a year or something like that? 100 grand a month. Yeah 100 grand a month. I was like I might want to be a consultant. So the finance niche [laughter] 100 grand a year. Yeah. Sorry guys. I don't have a finance channel. Not like that. Your threshold is not like that. I I just misspoke. year. It's funny now when people say like uh when sometimes we'll ask like how much you make. They'll be like 80 grand. I'm like I always think a month. Everything is now a month. It's so bad. Oh, 80 grand a month. That's not bad at all. That's okay. That double it. Yeah, we can work on it. Um no, that was that was huge for me. Like the six figure threshold um was definitely like, okay, I can I can do this like full time. Yeah. What did your parents think about it? Um at first they were like very very hesitant, very reluctant. They definitely were like every time I went back home for break, they're like, "So, where are you working next year? Where you where you getting that internship?" Um, but over time they I'm kind of like I'm very stubborn and especially with my parents, I'm very stubborn. Um, they know now like if I if I'm going to do something, I'm just going to do it. Like, they can't really change my mind. So, over time, they just gave up and yeah, they're very supportive now. Like, of course. What do you vlog now? If someone asks like what your style is or why people watch. Yeah. What would you say? Um, you mentioned like day in the life videos. It's kind of like day in the It's just like honestly like a bunch of day in the life videos, but they're just vlogs. And now I live in New York instead of on a college campus. And so a lot of it is just like me hanging out with my friends, getting coffee. And that just sounds like life to me. That sounds like the life. You go out, you hang out with your friends, you just film it, right? Like everyone already does like on Snapchat and stuff like that. Yeah, you post it, you make a bunch of money. How is that? Are you just like on cloud N? I mean, lifestyle content is great in that like yeah, you can just live your life and then document it and that's like very natural and organic. I would say like it has its own consequences and like its own I don't know there's there's sacrifices that you make because your work and your life are so intertwined and sometimes I wish that I could just like have work mode which is like going in and like making a video, producing a video and then like getting off and then like just kind of being on personal time if that makes sense. So yeah, it's hard because like if you So in college like I was making videos about being in college and so once I graduated college like I had to make videos about being someone who makes videos and so it's a very like weird loop where you're like okay if if most of my day is consumed by like thinking about how to make videos like what are you actually making videos about? So that's like a very like challenging thing as a lifestyle creator is like okay then you have to go make your life interesting. you have to go like do things that are interesting otherwise it's not going to be entertaining to watch. So yeah, you hear that from a lot of vloggers. But what about like the David Dori kind of vlogs? Do you think that you could produce something similar to that? I don't think so. You don't think you want to go? I definitely would not. It's just like too produced for me and like Yeah. You know what's crazy? I just realized that style has officially died out. David's not posting. No, but Logan Paul was doing that. Remember that? Yeah. Logan quit before David though, didn't he? I think so. But there was that that brief period of time where everybody I feel like did the David Dori route as like five minutee videos just clip clip with high retention and I have not seen a video like that. And then but then now I feel like we went the Emma Chamberlain route of just like these long 20 minute vlogs very low editing just very personal. I don't think we're there yet. I think we're not at I don't think we're at the Emma Chamberlain. Emma pulls it off really well. Yeah. But I think like it is a it is a bit of a pendulum. I don't know. There's still I feel like the dominant thing is still like fast-paced. It's not as like it's not like David Dori style, but it's still I agree. It's fast paced and also like challenges. Like that's kind of what's like popping off. Yeah. But you also can't compare like 10 million views on a challenge video to like an Emma Chamberlain video. It's like totally different. Yeah. But first, we want to thank today's sponsor, Short Form. Reading is really one of the best ways to understand complex and confusing financial topics. But one of the really difficult parts is just finding the time, especially when books are like 500 pages long. Thankfully though, it's nice to get some of that time back with Short Form. Short Form is an amazing book guide that not only gives you comprehensive book summaries, but also expert analysis with very useful comprehension exercises. 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Get started and save tons of time today. And with that said, back to the podcast. How are you able to cultivate such a dedicated audience? I still can't wrap my head around it because like like I said, you have like what 200,000 followers on Instagram, but you have videos that get or photos that get like 50,000 likes. Those ratios are insane. Like the people that follow you, they actually watch all of your content. It's not like they just like hit subscribe and they don't stick around. How are you able to keep these people around? Is it just because you're very personal in your videos? I think it it is that like when you spend 10 minutes a week with someone and like you share kind of like what's going on in your mind. Um, a lot of times I think the the relationship that I like compared to is like if I was like facetiming my friend like and I'm updating them on like what my week looks like or like what I'm up to and just like having almost like if you're hanging out like the way we're hanging out, but then imagine there's like I mean this it's kind of like this actually where you have like another person just kind of sitting in on on that conversation and you can directly address that person if you want sometimes and that's pretty much like they're a part of this friend group and they're just like hanging out with you. So, in that way, I think a lot of times people come up to me and they're like, "Hey, like, hey, it's me." Like, you know me, right? Like, but I I have no idea who they are, but I get it because like I I sometimes watch creators and I've also like been like had that feeling of like, "Oh, it's me." Like, we're friends. Like, you know, like Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, I think like that creates a very strong bond because in a way like they don't feel like just a fan, but they just feel like a friend. So, I think that's like a huge I don't know. For me, it's like a a great part about making like personal videos is that you get to develop like a personal relationship with your viewer. And would you say you're very genuine in your YouTube videos? And can viewers sense people being genuine or not? Of course, he's going to say yes. He's genuine. I'm actually fake as [laughter] hell no man. Actually, everything actually everything is just fake. You know, [laughter] viewers can tell if a creator is being genuine or not. Yeah, 100%. Like it's uncanny how viewers know like certain things like we like I never talk about sometimes they just know like they can sense like the craziest things like that they they would have no idea what's going on but like sometimes they'll DM me and they're like hey Ellie you okay like you look a little down today. I was like, or like they're like, is there something going on between like you and a friend? Like, you know, they're just I'm just like, how could you know that? Like it makes no sense. But there are some smart there are some smart people out there. Highly like emotionally intelligent. Just it's crazy. People tell me all the time, Graham, you look tired. You look tired. Like I am. [laughter] Half the time it's the lighting. It's the lighting. Bad lighting makes me tired. Are [laughter] you tired? Sometimes some videos I'm not tired and people like, oh man, you look tired. I'm like, it's the lighting. It's the lighting. That's why that's why Graham's so particular about the lighting. I'm sick of the tired comments. Tired to counteract the lack of sleep. That's funny. How is your business broken down now? Like YouTube in general. Um, I mean, a lot of it is so for a long time, I used copyrighted music for a while. So, AdSense is like I still mostly use like nowadays I do use non-copyrighted, but it's I've never like relied on AdSense. um it's just like not as high for lifestyle creators and so mostly like brand deals for sure. Um, and then a huge part is like the clothing copyright. Um, sorry that's confusing because I just talked about copyright, but um, no, the clothing is called copyright. And then, yeah, so clothing, brand deals, AdSense, it's kind of like the mix for YouTube. Um, and then of course just like random things on the side, but yeah. Can you give us a rough like, you know, estimate on on what your income would be every month? It fluctuates a lot. Um, because some months I'll do drop, some months I don't do drop. So that makes a huge difference because I only like do drop every few months. Um it really varies like yeah I will say like I have seen it like for for some reason I always imagine that like my my channel is dying and like my career is [snorts] going to die. That's every single day. Every single day I'm like oh my god this is it. Like we just hit the apex and like we're going downhill now. Um but you know you had Shelby on here a few months or maybe a month ago or whatever. We were talking because we had like a we went on like a trip together and she was like, "Yeah, like you know, like my income just keeps growing." And I'm like, "Okay." Like, [laughter] you know, she's a little bit more has a few more years on me. I'm like, "Okay, like I'm just going to keep it up because like hopefully it'll just like keep growing." It really is like interesting how more opportunities just like keep coming up and sometimes that's like a problem because you don't really know which ones to choose uh just because you have so many. But it's a great problem to have, but it gets distracting sometimes for sure. So, it's extremely variable basically. It is. It is. Um, yeah. I feel like I don't know if you guys feel that, but mine's extremely variable in general. Literally will go like 2x and then like 50%. Yeah, cuz you could have a great like brand deal or you could have like a good month in views. Um, you can't you can control it a little bit, but sometimes you I mean I don't know. Sometimes you can't. So, do you ever worry that making more money is going to make you seem less relatable? That all of a sudden you're like a rich guy who's like he's pretending to be, you know, a certain way. Yeah. Or if you get, you know, too flashy, then it's like, oh, he doesn't get it anymore. Yeah. It's definitely like a risk. Like you've I've seen it happen to like a lot of people where they become very successful and then they're like suddenly out of touch. Um it's a thing like especially for lifestyle creators. I think for me like my goal is just to like be genuine, be authentic. Like if I am like making more, like I'm not I'm not going to hide it. Like I'm not going to like go some people like I don't know. I'm not calling anyone out. But um you might like go like live in like a small apartment cuz you're like oh like um you know I don't make any money or sometimes people just be like oh I don't make money like I'm broke. They're clearly not broke. Um I'm never going to be like oh I'm broke and like when I'm not broke but um I think that's that's important like that trust in like a viewer like as long as you're being honest is like fine. I think like I know I I follow some creators that like I know make a lot of money and like it's not like I like them any less cuz they make more. Like I'm happy for them. like I root like I think true fans they like root for your success. Um so I've never been like oh I need to like hide like if I'm making money. Of course there is a risk of like you don't want to like this is just me as a person like I don't want to be overly flashy like I don't want to like flex on anyone like that's not the goal. So yeah I think just being like being yourself with it like and if you're just like a person about it then it'll probably just bite you in the butt. I agree. I think it depends on how you use it, right? Like if you're making a bunch of money and you're like, "Guys, I'm like, I can't believe it. This is amazing. Like, I'm so fortunate to be in the position I'm in." Uh, then people are rooting for you. But if you're if you're just like, "Oh, yeah. I just got this new car. I got this ice." You know what I mean? Like, you know, there's stuff on you. Yeah. Danny Duncan was a great example of that. I remember when I first met Danny, he was living, I think it was a one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. I knew he was making a killing. Guy didn't spend money, and that was just him. I mean, but he invested so well, too. Oh, really? Yeah. That's awesome. He's so He's so smart behind the scenes. But yeah, he's just one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. He just went there every now and then. Uh I think he like trashed it. I've seen some of the videos. He's like throwing people against the wall. I feel bad for the landlord. But yeah, I mean it goes to show you. I mean, it was he was really authentic with a lot of like his spending in his his videos. I think I was like just chatting with him like I think he's like a very just downer like he's a real guy, you know, like Yeah. doesn't try to like just like shows it as it is. And I think that's the best way to do it. eventually, if you just are faking it, it'll eventually like bite you in the butt. So, yeah. Now, you were mentioning that your phone is black and white. Is there a reason for that? Like, you you've said you never saw the colors of the podcast room. Yeah. Yeah, it's Well, I maybe I've seen it, but like maybe it's just cuz I walked in and it was like in person. Um, yeah, my phone isn't black and white. It's just uh that's just the way. Is it healthy? Is it better or like that? What does it what does that do? Is there I bet there's a study. There's got to be a Vanderbilt study done that like said [laughter] black and white is better on the eyes smarter or something like that. Yeah. I don't I don't know the study and I don't know where I start like when I started doing this in college I think and I don't know if I read it somewhere probably like you had it for a little bit. Yeah. I mean sometimes like I go through phases where it's color but like I'm in a good phase right now where it's been black and white for a while. Good phase. Yeah. This one's a good one. What does it do? It just like keeps me off my phone if you um I have this I'm I'm just like very addicted to my phone because Well, everyone is. And then also like we do it for our job, so it's also there's that factor. Um I just when I'm scrolling through Instagram stories, like it doesn't it's just not Yeah, it's just not as like fun to look at. So then you end up putting it down versus if you um are scrolling with color, it's just like I don't know, you can scroll for hours. But what about for things like if you're studying someone else's YouTube thumbnail, you know, you you want to look at their colors or you're taking photos. How how does that work out? Yeah, it's funny. Like I take all my photos in black and white and then like sometimes I like send them over to like my friend and it's terrible. Like the lighting is so bad. That would be a great way to test thumbnails though is do it black and white and see if it if if you could get it to stand out in terms of just the visuals alone and then you could add Yeah, cuz that will also show you contrast pretty well. Honestly, like not not that well. Like sometimes I'm like this is a great photo and then it's just like terrible. Terrible. Yeah, but that makes sense. I don't know. It's a small price to pay to just stay off my phone. I I get very like jittery if I like spend too much time on my phone. Um I don't have Tik Tok on my phone. I just like I don't know. Tik Tok is way too addicting. I feel like every episode I I talk You love talking about Tik Tok. Tik Tok. Yeah. It's bad. Yeah. It's It's gotten to the point I I've been trash talkinging it for such a long time, but now uh anytime I have like just downtime where I know I just want to like my mind is going to go to mush for five minutes, I'm like, "All right, open Tik Tok and just see what's up there." And uh yeah, 20 minutes goes by. It's so bad. Yeah, 20 minutes not bad. No, 20 minutes is not bad. That means you have a lot of self-control. You know what? Actually, we could look at the I turned on the um the screen time. Oh, nice. Oh, okay. So, a long time ago, we had someone on the on the podcast and we were talking about screen time and I was so curious what Grahams was cuz he's like working all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Let's recmp, guys. Should we guess? Can I guess? Guess. Four and a half hours. Too much. Wow. 4 hours and 42 minutes. Oh, yeah. But okay, now let's see. YouTube. Yeah. Oh god. Oh, this isn't terrible. I don't think it's that. Well, that's Yeah, that's not per day. Okay. No. So, this is uh what is this? In the last week, I've spent 7 hours and 30 minutes on YouTube. 2 hours 14 minutes on maps, but that doesn't really count that. Like, if we get rid of 2 hours on iMessage, but sometimes I just leave it open. Like I'll two hours. Oh, okay. I'll respond to a text, but then I'll leave my phone like that. What? Why? I don't know. Cuz sometimes someone's typing and I just don't want to click out of it. I'm like a little bubble. An hour on Instagram. Wow. This is actually higher than I expected. An hour on Tik Tok in 4 days. So, what is that? Uh little under 20 minutes a day. 6 hours and 9 minutes. Yeah. And I have three hours on YouTube, two hours, three hours on Safari, two and a half hours on Instagram, two hours on Google Maps. Yeah. An hour and a half on Tik Tok. It's bad. An hour. I'm right around like four hours. Like under four daily average. I try that black and white thing, which is still not great, but I was It was a lot worse. Like 6 to 8 hours at one point. Now, switching topics here. You were saying that you watched Jack's video. Oh, yeah. You saw Okay. Well, it came up like on my way here. It came up on your way here. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see it. I haven't clicked on it yet. I haven't clicked it. Yeah. Let me say first off, shout out to Sean Rizwan. Okay. Gave me I know Sean. Yeah, I know that you know him. I'm good friends with Sean. You guys hang out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he gave me that thumbnail suggestion and it was a banger thumbnail and I liked it a lot. But yeah, like the the asking strangers like money questions. That stuff's just like popping off right now. And I thought to myself, I think I could do this. Okay. So, I went out to like downtown Vegas and went but for some reason it's like blowing up on Tik Tok. People on Tik Tok like eat it up. It's good. It's a good format. My I mean my most viral video is me asking questions to strangers. I like the idea of being able to get content just kind of like letting strangers be strange. Yeah. You know what I mean? Just going up to them and letting like you know what I mean? Like instigating some weird conversation, seeing where they take it. It's not a new thing either. You guys know like Humans of New York. like it's like a blog and it used to be very very popular. I don't know if it's as popular anymore, but it's a similar concept like going out and like interviewing just random strangers in New York and it was like it was huge and like this is like the next generation of that. It's always like there have always been pranks like that's always been huge on YouTube like telling jokes to people stuff like that that's always been huge but it's just showing up right now finally for like finance like people are like talking about their income and stuff. Yeah, you could one up this by going to Fremont Street at night on a weekend. You need to do this at night. Great idea. I feel like you Jack Manley but money. Yes, because [laughter] you know what? You went you went in the middle of the day. You went in the middle of the day. Yeah, that place gets crazy at night. And just imagine the interactions you have. It would be 10 times what you did. 30% of the people I interacted with during the day were already drunk. Imagine night. Imagine. And how about this? You pay people $5 to tell you their net worth. Oh, they would just tell me anyways, man. Really? You think? Yeah, that was They'll just tell you. Yeah, I just went out to people. They were all cool. Like I Some people rejected me, but overall I would say like 80 75% of people were okay with it. If they're wasted though, like I don't know. You can if you can like really assess the credibility of the Oh, that's true. Yeah. If you're just like really drunk and someone's like, "What's your net worth?" I don't know how honest that is. I would do that at night. Yeah, I would try it at night. Maybe the net worth question people are gonna be like, "What's a net worth?" Yeah, [laughter] that would be good. That's good content, you know. But a really simple qu like a finance question. Really easy. I I love those videos where people go up and like, "All right, how many continents are there?" And people say, "Oh, continent. What's a 35?" Like favorite videos. I want to do something like that. I have a great idea. I love the videos where uh the the news reporter, whoever make up a fact. So you should just make up a crazy fact like, "So did you hear that the president just raised the interest rates by 20%." And just see what people say. That's good, too. Yeah. Somebody's gonna be like, "Oh, I expected it from that guy." Yeah, that's good. Did you Oh, you say, "Did you hear about this?" And then they say, "Oh, yeah. I heard about it." Completely false. There's like a statistic. It's like um or like not a stat. There's a study, maybe some Vanderbilt study, I don't know. They're like, "Oh, just say any if you say a fact, it's it doesn't have to be true. not a fact. I guess if you say any general statement about anything, but you add like a little bit of specificity to it, people will 90% of the time say like it's okay. Yeah, I believe that. That's that's real. Yeah. So, you could probably pull that off. Be a good piece of content. Yeah. You know, you know what, man? What? Go to Fremont at night on a weekend. Ask people what their thoughts are on Andrew Tate. You [laughter] would get some wild answers. That's a good idea. Wilders done. I get credit for that one. See you tonight at free. [laughter] You run into me and I'm like I'm just like I thought you were leaving. [laughter] Oh no. I had to go to free and get but but get like everyone from like old, young men, women, professional like just I just got to go and like collect footage for like 5 hours. Just go and just get as much as I can. But realistically that's what you should be doing is spending like you know 8 hours from honestly from 6:00 p.m. to probably 2:00 a.m. if you can. Yeah. And get a wide range of questions. Spend three hours. Andrew Tate, three hours network, three hours something else. That's what I did. Yeah. When I shot the first time, I probably shot for nearly 5 hours. And it was like midday. It was burning hot. It was really hot. A lot. Yeah. And I mean the end product was like a 9-minute video. Yeah. So, why did it take so long? Was that because a lot of people said no or they their answers weren't interesting? Uh, a lot of people said I was extremely anxious to be honest. It was very hard for me to go up to people uh and like ask them personal questions in general. [clears throat] Just like for me going up to someone's very challenging. So a lot of the times if you look at the raw footage it's just like I can't do this JJ I can't do it. And JJ's like you got it man just one more. We need one more. I'm like okay I think I got it. And then I'd walk up to someone I like immediately turn around. Nope. I can't do it. I can't do it JJ. But that was a lot of the raw footage to be honest. But it it was very draining. Yeah. But that's why it took so long. So at the end the security guard came up and gave you guys a bit of a hard time what happened. Yeah. Okay. So I got in trouble. I was like approaching these this couple and the security guard came up to me on a bike and he's saying, "Oh, you can't do that. You can't do that." And I cut the video and then I went back in and I was just finishing the interview with the people. So, the guy came up to me. He's like, "Okay, these brands behind us, if you're making money off of this, they don't want their like logos shown." It was like White Castle and like other brands and I was like, "Oh, no. I'm not making money off that." Channel wasn't monetized when I said that. So, I wasn't technically lying. Sure. Now, it's monetized. Made like 40 bucks. Okay. So if these guys want to shoot 40, okay, they can have my $40. I I don't believe it either. It was a public space. Yeah. But you know, I'm not gonna I'm not going to like argue with a cop guy. You know what I mean? A bike. I don't know. I think you'll be fine. Yeah, I think so, too. I don't think White Castle is going to come after you. But it was funny cuz he comes up and he's like, "You can't do this." And he's like all mad. I'm trying to put He's like, "Don't put the camera." And he slaps my hand away. Then it cuts and I'm just asking the same people the question. He's just gone. You know what? It would have been funny to get him to answer if he went to college. Yeah, that would have [laughter] been really good. He was not in any good mood though. He was very upset. That's funny. Like you just got to push the boundaries. Like never stop recording and you just you just kind of go with it. I think I could I think I could do that, but I had like during hour four and five I was getting much more comfortable. So I probably have to be near the tail end. But I would I would love to do that. It's hard going up to people and just like it it takes some practice. It's really hard. Yeah, I once tried to film this video where I was uh selling like trying to go from like a dollar to like $100 or $1,000 in a weekend or a week and I just filmed the first day and for some reason I was filming 4K which is terrible. Um and I just like six hours of me trying to sell water bottles to people and I scrapped the video cuz it was so bad. It was so hard but um a lot of it was same exact thing me just being like I cannot do this. Like I do not want to go up to people and like ask them to buy this one water bottle that I have. part is when you're soliciting value out of people. Like you're like, you know what I mean? Like I'm asking people personal finance questions. Like they're not I'm not necessarily like like taking anything away from them except like maybe their like financial like privacy. Um but if you're like trying to sell something like a selling a water bottle like what Ryan Trean did. I was like there is no chance that I can do that. It's hard trying to get something out of random. What are your thoughts on the Ryan Trean uh penny challenge? I thought it was great. Like he basically daily vlogged, right? like that. I mean, I thought that you couldn't really do that anymore, but he did a great job. I think I'm I'm a huge fan of any content style where you have to like watch multiple videos. It's like an ongoing story line. Like, I love it when like most videos on YouTube, I feel like they're oneoff. It's not like you watch one and then you're waiting to see the next video. Like, normally on TV shows, it's kind of like that. There's like a cliffhanger and then you start it back up on the next episode and then there's another cliffhanger. So, it keeps you going. So, like I love that there's an overarching story line because I think like there is a place for that on YouTube. It's just like really hard to achieve because it just sometimes like your videos just don't do as well and so it's hard to like keep that if you have that's consistent viewership right there. So, I think it's great. It's like TV. Yeah. In a way, his ability to go up and be like, "Howdy, you want to buy some water?" And just like constant nose is incredible because I would imagine he has to approach 100 people for like every Oh, yeah. Five maybe that say yes. So one in 20. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, so uh speaking of making money, um I sold out. You sold out? How'd you sell out? Oh jeez. Here we go again. I'm going to have to tell you guys the story here. But uh you may notice something different about the camera angle. Wait a second. You don't have a uh you have a memory card in the camera. I actually just noticed that. This is the first time you Let me explain to you guys what happened. I was uh minding my own business on Instagram when I get this message from Lexar. Lexar, if you guys didn't know, is an SD card company and they said they wanted to send me a SD card. So, I stuck it in the camera and you know what else I said? I said, "Why don't you guys sponsor me and I don't give any of the profits to Graham and Jack and I stick a sign right here." I think that's a terrible idea. I think this is a really, really bad idea. But on the bright side, guys, they did send you guys some card readers, some cards, so I'll bless you guys for that. But uh so yeah, guys, the official memory sponsor of the podcast or myself is Have you guys Have you guys really not seen this? So Elliot, I was kind of aware of it, [laughter] but I'm still I'm still a little in shock that it's actually happening. That's so funny. We're going to [laughter] change the direction of this conversation back on Elliot. I can't believe that's that was that's funny. That's funny. You got to keep the side hustle up. One thing. Oh my gosh. Alex, we'll have it. We're going to have to talk about We're going to have a very very serious talk about this. Alex, as [laughter] you know what they pay you this we'll do this as a midweek episode to keep you guys watching. So you have to subscribe to see our our confrontation confrontation with Alex about what's going on here. So uh now we have a continuing story line. That's funny. And there you go. Gosh, Alex, that's funny. So how much it cost to sell out, Alex? Well, I guess just I I can't listen, man. I can't reveal my secrets, but if you're interested, hit me up on Instagram. Okay. Yeah. I don't know how. Yeah. In all serious, it would be funny if all of a sudden like everywhere [laughter] is sold out. Like there's multiple sponsors. I think it'd be funny if you had a hat with like a dangling thing on it. [laughter] Look. I mean, look how much retail space. I mean, there's a sign connect here, one up here. We got some space right here, too. We have a lot of Yeah, we could sell out really big, guys. You can't take my money. Wait a second. Is that the iced coffee hour? A fan sent a fan? Oh, yeah. And you're covering No, no. The other one behind the hard drive. Oh, no. No. There's that. No, there's No, there's nothing. A fan made us that thing. And you're covering it up with your sponsor. No, no, no. How does that feel? I don't know. Listen, the fans should be happy for me. Okay. I'm I'm making some Jack, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you? What are you doing? Come on. The fans The fans come first. Someone made that, man. The fans come first, guys. All right, guys. All right. I mean, that needs to be There we go. The fans come first. I just wanted to keep those there to let you guys know. That is so funny. I saw that and I was like, "Oh, nice. You guys got like, you know, likes are sponsor." Oh, no. They didn't. No, they they genuinely didn't. They didn't. I was like, "Oh, you guys are doing like sponsored uh segment here." That's funny. One thing that I wanted to talk about with you is that you're in a content house, aren't you? Yes. I'm uh in a creator house. It's called Your Mom's House. Your mom's house. Actually, is it actually called your mom's house? It's actually called your mom's house. Don't talk about my mom like that. [laughter] You're You're at my mom's house. Talk about your mom like that. Where are you? I'm going to your mom's house later, you know. [laughter] Save it for creator clash. There you go. Clash part two. So, you're in your mom's house? Yeah. Okay. [laughter] You're still You're still living with your mom? I'm I live in my mom's No, I live in your mom's house, actually. Not in your mom's house? No. No, I live in your mom's house. Your mom's house. I No, I do live in your mom's house. Yeah, there you go. Your mom's house. So, um Mom's [laughter] house seems pretty nice, though. Your mom's house? Yeah, it is. We're all getting confused. Your mom's house, but you live in a creator house, you said, right? And um what's like the reason behind that? And I've also noticed like all of these companies going and like sponsoring these houses. Yeah. And they're usually like mansions or super nice places. Do you have any like insider information on that or or how exactly did your mom's house come about? Yeah, it's not like a typical creator house. Like we don't have like brands sponsoring it and like we're not even making money off of it. like it's very much just friends that are creators that happen to live live with each other. Um actually not even in a house because we live in New York so in an apartment. So technically that name is not even right. Uh it should be your mom's apartment but yeah no we um we're just like group of friends and like we live together and we make videos together. It so I did this like month in LA where I like live with creators. It wasn't a creator house. It wasn't like a content house. Um, and and I mean it was in the sense of like creators living together, but it was very much just like super natural and organic and it was like the best month ever. Like we made videos together. It was like very organic collaboration. Um, and it was fun. It was just super fun and we learned a lot off of each other. And so like we went back I went back to college. A lot of people went back to school and I was like, "Okay, like how can we like do this again after college? It's like such a good environment to be in." Um, and so that's when we started the house. like I guess it's been a year now for uh yeah firstly uh Kelly Wakasa your mom Ashley so there's some inspiration for the name there we previously had a member her name was Ammer Chase she's no longer a part of the house and then we have like some new members coming so yeah it's very much just like an apartment living together for New York it's like spacious like it's really hard to find a lot of space in New York so for New York it's quite spacious So, it's not like a it's not a luxury high-rise. Like, it's not a it's not like nice. It's pretty good in the in the photos I've seen of it or the videos. Yeah, it's a little bit ratchet, actually. Like, but it's nice cuz like we beat it up a little bit. Like, we got a skate ramp in there and that's weird for New York for sure. Skate ramp in the place. Like a There's a halfpipe in there. Wow. Yeah. Reminds you of the movie Big. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just like I don't know, just kids like screwing around in there. So, how much is rent? rent, you know, you know, uh, you reacted to my what I spend in a week video and you, uh, were spot on. So, for me, I think it was, um, do you remember what you said? I probably said 7,500 bucks, 65. No, not for me. Uh, so me personally, a month. 4,000 bucks a month for me. Yeah. Do you have like the nicest room? I don't have the master. I I think I have the nicest room, low key, but they wouldn't agree. Uh, no. I think they would agree. I feel like I have the nicest room. Okay. I think I got lucky. But it's not the It's not the master. It's not the master. Master pays a little more. But so you got a good deal. Do the math then. Yeah. All right. Yeah. But yeah, in the what I spend in a week video, I'm spending a lot of money going out and uh you know, I think I gave you a lot of uh criticism that I think after speaking to you now was uh unwarranted. Oh yeah. Yeah. I do. I think it was warranted. you were going you were going to coffee shops, you're spending like $8 on designer coffee and $15 avocado toast. But now that I'm hearing about it that this is like your full-time thing and going out making content, you can't really make the content like that being like, "Hey guys, I'm going to make my coffee at home and have an avocado toast by myself and I'm going to invite someone over at the house today. We're going to It's more entertaining to watch you go somewhere even if it's at a cost because that cost is at that point just the the price of doing business. It's a little bit of both. Like I mean honestly, yeah, I could definitely cook a little bit more. Like that's I don't know. It's something I'm trying to work on. Um you inspire me to like try to cook more. But no, it is also like sometimes I'm like, "Okay, I can like film it if I'm like going out and like meeting up with a friend." I think New York is obviously like very glamorized. Like people like the idea of like going to New York and like what is life like? And if I just stay in my apartment all day, it's like I don't get to show off the city as much. So there's like that. But no, I should definitely be cooking more. I'm just like terrible at it. So, and when you're trying to figure out like which day you're going to vlog, is it based off of if you know something's going to happen that day or do you just pick a random day? I'm going to vlog today and then you try to create exciting stuff in that day. Yeah, that's that's pretty accurate. Like if I if something's going to happen already, like I might just like add in a few more things to like make it a little bit more interesting. That being said, like sometimes I just like commit to like I'm going to vlog that day and I have nothing planned. It's always a really tough vlogging day. But I only vlog like really one day out of the week. So, would you say you work a lot in general? Um, I do like I honestly used to work way more because I was in college. So, like balancing school and and YouTube. Um, nowadays I still do work a lot, but I also like hiring people and like working with more people like is definitely like I don't edit my own videos anymore. Like still a little bit of retouching, but yeah. So, like that saves a lot of time and like focus on more things. So, walk us through a normal day. What do you do? Because it seems like if you don't he doesn't want to watch [laughter] a video. He'd rather just keep going. Well, the thing is it's like if you if you don't edit the video and you spend one day a week vlogging. Yeah. What do you do? What What are you doing? That's a great question. It's just like so different every single day. Like usually I wake up, I go get some coffee, get some food in me, uh go to the computer, just like go through some emails. Um maybe I get lunch with someone. It's like a meeting. Um, yeah, think about like if I if I need to plan some videos, like I'll just like brainstorm some video ideas. Um, a lot of times I'm like working on copyright, so like talking to manufacturers or like talking to my team and it's just like all over the place like a lot of like meeting up with people, a lot of uh planning videos or like thinking about YouTube, but then also like planning um copyright and doing operation stuff there. It's really different like every day. I couldn't tell you. It's just like all over the place. And then sometimes I travel so that gets in the way. It's a lot. It's pretty amazing because you only had like four hours of screen time. So you're like not on your phone that much. No, I'm not on my phone too. Uh this is a good week. So it's a good week. Yeah, it's a good week. Yeah. Huh. Wow. Yeah. It's hard to be on your phone when you're at lunch every day, Jack. Yeah. Going out to breakfast every morning. Yeah. I I've been eating dinner every night. I've been eating out every single day. Have you really? Yeah, I have. Every single day. Every single day. Why? I get Chipotle every single day. Oh, you're doing the Alex Formosi? Nope. Okay, so let me explain. Let me You know who Alex Hormos is? No, I don't. He's like this like entrepreneur guy who only eats Chipotle. Uh kind of. He did. Yeah. For for a period of time, for a year or so. Uh I I decided I don't want to cook in the kitchen. Takes too long. It's exhausting. I always buy a bunch of stuff from the grocery store. It always goes bad. Feel like I'm wasting food. But if I just go to Chipotle, a bowl is like a meal and a half for me. Yeah. you know, and I make some overnight oats and that's pretty much I'm good for the day. Overnight oats and like Chipotle bowl. Uh, and Alex Ramoszi said that his accountant came to him and was like, "Hey, it says here that you order Chipotle like 500 and so times this year. There must be some sort of error." And then Alex said like, "No, that's right." Yeah, that's right. So, why don't you try Chipotle catering because that would give you enough to make your own bowls for a whole week. That is a really good idea. That is an extremely good idea. You just need to win one of those. My friends, like one of my friends had the Chipotle card. It's like a year free Chipotle. Try to win that. He got it. Yeah, but he got it. Um, he just won it. It's like won it in a sweep stakes and he got like $50 of Chipotle every day. What was one? I I completely forgot. There was a Was it like a soup plantation thing or it was a all you could eat pasta from Olive Garden? That was it. That's a thing. Yep. And they gave away 500 of these, but you had to apply for it and then there's a lottery system where you have to sign in at a certain time to buy it. It was like a $100 for it was all you could eat at Olive Garden for like a year or something like that. Really? Yeah. And I thought I was going to buy it for a video and that morning like I had applied. I had secured a spot to go in and like buy it but you had to be really quick and I overslept. That's like uh that's like you know that old like American Airlines like free flight pass. It was what was it? 250 grand for free flights for a lifetime. Oh yeah. It's like that's like that but a little worse actually. But yeah. Well, what about you guys? Like what is your dayto-day like every typical day? Oh, Jack, you want to go first? Your busy schedule? Yeah. So, usually what I do is I wake up, right? And then I go to the gym. That's generally speaking like the first thing I do. Uh I come back home, eat a little bit of food, overnight oats maybe. and uh take a shower and then get ready, start working pretty much. So that would work. Work. Yeah, sometimes I have some stuff to do surprisingly. And I I'll usually take care of some work. Uh probably done by like done by [laughter] done by 11:00 a.m. probably done with all my work. No. Uh I keep working. Usually take some breaks. I play a lot of ping pong. Oh, really? Uh I just go back to work. I usually don't go out. It's pretty much just like I'm in my room on my computer basically all day. Yeah. Uh, and that's pretty much it. A lot of the times I come over here to film sponsors or we'll be filming podcasts and uh that's pretty much I I don't go out, right? I live in like a a suburban type of You live in a content house, Jack. I kind of do. Yeah. I mean, all five rooms are filled up with kids that are between the age of 20 kids with men. It feels [laughter] weird saying like adults, right? Like it feels weird saying that cuz I still feel like I'm a kid, but it's between the age of 21 and 23. So, And yeah, like a couple of us like making YouTube. I'm 23. 23. Okay. Yeah. So, kind of a content house. Yeah. But we we mess around, you know, we we have fun. Yeah. Be funny if you call it your dad's house. Your dad's [laughter] All right. My place is your dad's house. Yeah. The guys will love that one. Yeah. That's good. All right. Yeah. That's pretty much the average day. Your 10 grand. Oh, man. Every day is every day is different. Um depends if it's a posting day or a non-posting day, but usually like Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, I'll wake up, try to plan out a video. Alex comes between 12:00 and 1. We review the video that's posting that day. We'll spend two hours thinking title, thumbnail, answer comments for an hour afterwards. And then after that, usually we'll either be filming a podcast. I'll go to the gym. I'll react to a video for the second channel or I'll film what I planned out earlier. And then Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually planning days where I'll spend all day just trying to script out videos to then post the next day or that that following day. Cuz I was going to say you you pump out a lot of videos. Like I was going to say you have to just be filming a lot every day. Every day. Every day. Just one video a day cuz you have what, like three channels? Uh three channels posting seven days a week. So there's a video posting every day. And that and that's actually down at the peak. I think it was 12 videos a week. Wow. At the peak. And I did that for a few months. Uh actually it was nine videos a week for I think almost a year. A year, give or take. Nine videos a week. That's crazy. Went up to 12 for a month. And then now I'm back down to seven. And you think seven is where you're going to stay uh for as long as I can. Yeah. Yeah. Actually sometimes seven because we'll post a midweek episode. Seven is still a lot. Yeah. Do you ever feel like normal? Really? Yeah. Well, you're coming from 12. So yeah, exactly. So it's just whatever the threshold is, but like three of those videos don't count because I think those are the reaction videos. So that's just me like reacting to a video. Pretty easy. It's an hour title thumbnail. Not the end of the world. Uh the podcast is simple because it's just one day a week and that's usually something like this. It feels kind of like hanging out. It's the three main channel videos a week. Gotcha. That's that's a lot. Yeah. Still a lot. Like a lot. Every video is its own video. Like there's a lot. It's got to be its own topic. Yeah. And especially in times like this, there's not a lot to talk about that that that's that different. So, there's got to be topics that repeat because sometimes people don't watch they'll they'll there'll be a topic on a video and people won't watch that one, but they'll watch the next one. Sometimes it's just, you know, busy. Yeah. So, there's got to be some topics that repeat every now. Is that your biggest challenge? Like coming up with new video ideas. Yeah. If I had uh a list of topics where all I knew is just like, "All right, Graham, you got to plan out this video this day." Mhm. Uh I could I could do that so easily. They had the video just topic video topic title thumbnail done and then all I had to do is plan it out and film it would be so easy. But part of it is like trying to see what I watch so much YouTube videos to try to figure out like what people want to see and I'll create videos around that, right? Very little about like what I care about at this point. It's just whatever the viewers want to see and it's dictated by how many views uh each video gets. What is that different from in the beginning? In the beginning, were you just like making things that you wanted to make? Yeah. And then now is it like, okay, you feel a little bit more responsibility of like, no, I have to now create for like my viewers. Oh, totally. Yeah. In the beginning, it was really fun because these were videos that I wanted to make that didn't exist. And the finance space on YouTube was nothing. Yeah. And so when I saw it, I was like, "Oh, wow. Um, there's no videos on being a real estate agent. These are the videos that I wish were up there for me." And so I'd make all these videos. and financial independence very quickly became a thing in like 2017 on YouTube. Yeah. No one was making those videos except Beat the Bush and maybe like two other people, but they were they weren't doing well with title thumbnails. So, I thought, wow, uh we could make this so much bigger with a good title and a good thumbnail. House hacking was a was one of the first videos for me that did well. That didn't exist on YouTube with that sort of title thumbnail that would attract an audience, right? Um, but as the space grew, it became way more competitive because now everybody's doing the same videos the same day because there's nothing. So when you have a hundred creators all searching the internet for the same topics and there's one little nibble of something, they're going to hop on it fast. Yeah. And so if I don't cover a topic within 24 hours, everyone else has already covered it and there's no need for my take on that. So now you're you feel like you're more like almost like a news outlet, like you got to be fast with it. Yeah. Cuz I'm never going to be the fastest because you have other people who will literally live stream the event. Right. and they provide such great context on it. So, I know I can't compete with that. There are other people who will just freestyle a video within an hour afterwards. I can't do that. So, mine is always I'll come to it with the with as much perspective as possible. Yeah. In a way that's, you know, edited and informative and entertaining, but it's got to be within 24 hours. That's interesting. That's so interesting. I also feel that where like in the beginning it was like a huge gap and you're like, "Okay, I can fill this gap. There's a huge gap in the market." And now it's like super interesting where it's not so much of that. It's more of just like how do I keep growing like what I've built. Yeah. It's hard to see where the next gap is. Uh because for a while I think Jake Tran really got on that bandwagon. Do you watch his channel? Yeah. He got on that bandwagon of just the really cool like documentary style videos, but now I'm seeing everybody making documentary styles. Like um Moon is another channel I've been watching a lot of that makes similar videos just different topics. But it's like these documentary style videos are popping off. Same with like Patrick CC, Sunny V2, like the the rise and fall of Yeah. like narrated, very dramatic. They do so well, but so many channels now are popping up like that. It's hard to figure out like where's the need now in the marketplace and like what's next. Yeah. It's like that intersection of like what where's the gap and like what are you good at? Like for you was probably very clear. So I'm trying to find it too. I think there's a lot of like soularching on YouTube like who am I? like who am I, who do I want to be? Not to get so deep or whatever, but I think I think I don't know if you feel the same way, but just on YouTube, it's just a lot of like and I feel like are you like Jack, you're trying to like figure out your stride on YouTube as well or I suppose so. I mean, [clears throat] basically all my focus on is on the ice coffee hour and on my off time like I'm just kind of doing whatever I guess I have fun with. Yeah, I'm on my own personal channel. Uh, that's pretty much I guess I kind of in a in in a sense trying to find what I like because every single video I've posted has been a completely different format like a reaction versus like a challenge versus like a strangers question thing. You know what I mean? There's so many like different type of types of [clears throat] videos on YouTube. And I feel like a lot of people starting off are just like, okay, what's going to do well? Like how can I make something that does well? Um, but I think it's actually the opposite. Like what am I good at? Like who am I as a person? Like what can I bring to the platform? It's it's there's I don't know. It's a different game. I don't know. It's a different game. How often How often do you have those feelings or go through those moments? Oh, like all the time. Like I always have to do a ton of soulsearching like who am I? Like who do I want to be? Like what do I stand for or what am I good at? Um in the beginning it was so clear like okay college videos like I didn't like the ones that were being made but they were doing well. So like okay I can make ones that I like and they'll hopefully do well. Um but yeah now I'm like I really feel like I'm approaching a little bit of a pivot actually which is also kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just like trying to think of like what's prompted that. Um, just like being just not complacent, but just doing making similar videos and like not really innovating and growing. So, I think it's like a constant cycle of like, okay, you're really happy with the videos you're making and then you're not so happy with them and then you change something up and like try to make them better and you become happy with them. Do you feel like you've stagnated in a way like you've kind of peaked and plateaued in terms of like what you are currently capable of? I think like I haven't been as like creative and I think part of it is actually also like having an editor now like not being as like not being able to like do as much creatively because like I there's only so much you can communicate like creatively and it is a challenge. Um and then I think YouTube also is a lot about like consistency over like trying to like change it up all the time. But a lot of times for myself like it comes from like making videos just comes from a place of like wanting to share something like creatively. So, it's a balance because like you don't want to switch it up too hard cuz then that kind of like is not good for your channel. But at the same time, I think it's like important to like think about how you want to innovate and like bring something new. I think you guys need a soundboard. Do you guys have a soundboard? Yeah. Yeah. We'll put one of those. But like right here and then you guys could be like sound effects like [laughter] that. Yeah. Like oh like how much you make this month. Yeah. Exactly. Say a low number, but we're already pressing it. Yeah, that'd be funny. No, just for comedic effect. No, I think you guys do great. Okay, this set is crazy. This something else, huh? What is something you think you can work on? Something I can work on. I can work on a lot of things. This could be business related, personal, anything. I think a lot of times I just need to remind myself to like be patient. I think I'm I'm 23, too. like I'm just very young and I think like YouTube is going well and there's a lot of great opportunities there and like I'm excited about it but I also like like you said Graham I want to like maximize my life experience still. Um I just like I don't know there's a lot of pressure because there's a lot of like opportunities and you want to make sure you're like making the most of it but at the same time I'm just I'm really young. Like I feel like I I am really young and still have a lot of um going to do. So I always feel like I need I need to be in a position where I'm learning the most. And early on on YouTube, that was YouTube, just like how do I learn how to like grow on YouTube, all that stuff. And I think like I'm learning different things nowadays. But yeah, I think like I really have to think critically about like what is going to make me kind of like a more well-rounded person. That's really interesting because I'm the same age as you, but I see it in a different way. I feel like like I'm going slow. I feel like I need to like speed things up. I feel like I'm too too old, you know what I mean? Like I don't like excuse my like naivity even though I am only 23. You know what I mean? Yeah. You feel like a sense of urgency. Like you're running out of time. Not that I'm running out of time, but like a sense of urgency in so far as that I'm like racing. You know what I mean? That I got to keep going. Like hit some goal, hit something. You know what I mean? Yeah. I [clears throat] mean, I've been there, too. like just trying to like reach the next milestone and reach the next milestone and I'm interested to hear Graham your perspective on this too but how you still just move the goalpost like I just keep moving it but after a while it's like just not the same as I don't know I would tell you to keep going and for Jack Jack I' I'd say I would double your output there's so much there's so much more I feel like there's so much more I' I'd say uh a lot more guest outreach I think [clears throat] a lot more um picking videos for second channel. I would say for the filming, I I don't know your filming schedule right now, but I I'd pick one day a week, like you know, Saturday or something like that where you just film for six to eight hours. Um, I'm fine if you outsource the editing on those videos. On what videos? The the you going in the public, like there's no sense of you editing those videos. I agree. Yeah, just it's just tough to find an editor. Well, I guarantee that it's not tough. There there are probably hundreds of people right now who would love to be your editor. The only thing that I'll say as a counterpoint to that is the fact that and I mean this in no offense. I mean this in the most respectful way every single every single time you seen that. I I I really mean it in a respectful way because I think that there's a lot about you that is extremely admirable. But when I look at you and I see that you're continuing to push and you're pushing and you're pushing and you're going to hold out for as long as you can and you've been saying the same thing for years, but it seems like like you haven't like traveled. you haven't like gone and do things that I would at least find enjoyable. Like maybe you find enjoyment in sitting down and working, but that's just not how I I find a lot of enjoyment. I I like trying out things and being creative and filming new videos and doing trying out new things, but when I see you, I'm like, God, I do not want to to like in 10 years, I don't want to be like that. But the thing is, it's like now is the opportunity. When you have that golden egg and you have that golden opportunity, you shouldn't waste it. When you think of how many people would would love to be in that position, if you don't give it 110%, you don't make the most of it, I feel like it's being wasted. I agree that it can easily be wasted, but I I think as it currently stands, I'm actually doing a very good job. I don't I think you're doing a good job, but I don't think it means taking it easy or being complacent or not pushing yourself even further because I' I've seen more people not give it 110% and and lose it then have pushed and and maybe gotten an extra few years. I just think it's such a volatile career in but you can say you keep pushing for an extra few years and then a few years pass and you're like keep pushing and it's just like a treadmill. There's going to be a point of diminishing returns at a certain point. it either your income scales at direct proportion to that or your other investments just become more to to offset everything. I I think there'll be a point of diminishing returns where all of a sudden I think life experience trumps the opportunity of of continuing as is. What do you think about this? I think it's really important to like know what your priorities are like what is important to you what are you willing to sacrifice. I think people are different. Like some people like a lot of it is like how you grew up or like what were your childhood influences or traumas or whatever. I think it matters a lot. Like you do have to like listen to yourself a little bit. I like for me I needed that push a lot. Like people just telling me like you're not working hard enough and it got me to like work harder and it got me to a place where I was happy. But I I do think like just depends on like what's important to you. Like just got to ask yourself that because different things are important to different people. So, I agree with that and I think I have a fairly good idea of what's important to me. But Graham likes [laughter] to continue to put his opinion over my shoulder. No, this is what's important to you, Jack. This is what's important to you. It helps to have someone pushing you. I agree. I agree. But I think that it's better when it comes from a more encouraging a place of encouragement for the the fact that I'm pushing means I believe that you have the potential. I wouldn't push someone who I don't think has the potential to do it. I'd be wasting my time. What's your personality type? Do you know? Uh, it's an introvert of some sort. I Yeah. How do you know that? Cuz we took a test on the podcast. I think it's super funny like seeing the interaction because so I'm like an ENFJ and I just took like I didn't take the test recently but I like looked it up recently and it was funny like one of the things that it said it was like oh likes to give advice to people that that um that he cares about or he or she cares about um but often too forceful in a way where it's not received the right way. And so I was just curious, but I've had this where like I've also been someone that like likes to push people to like work really hard and like go for it. And it's also like kind of backfired on me a little bit in some of like my personal relationships because I figure that everyone like wants the same level of success or like has the same drive or same priorities that I do. But then I come to find out that, you know, some people are just like interested in different things or like have different priorities. And I just think it's important to like listen to yourself and like really listen to how you feel. That being said, like I sometimes you need that push. So I do think like that question of like what do you do every day? You know, it's like such a hard question to answer because it's a very difficult question. It is like so different every day. Like you're right like I do feel sometimes like I'm really busy and then if I look back I'm like like what exactly am I doing? Like you know like I just like write it down almost or check my calendar just gets blurred. Yeah. There is a lot during the day though, even for myself, that you realize you waste doing stuff that doesn't really matter. Yeah. I'll I'll spend a lot of time sometimes. I'll be in the middle of planning, but my mind is just elsewhere, and I'll check my email for five minutes. Yeah. And then that leads to checking CNBC for 5 minutes, which leads to checking Reddit for five minutes, and then I get back to planning, but it takes me 20 minutes to get back into the zone. So, there's like 40 minutes. It's gone. Yeah. Um that didn't need to be gone. Yeah. Yeah, I used to think that like if I wasn't working from the moment that I woke up to to the moment that I fall asleep, then I wasn't working hard enough. But I really think that like quality work matters way more than the hours you put in. Like there's a lot that you can do. I agree 100%. I think that matters a lot. Yeah. It's it's tough for me because I just I've I've always had this mentality that your 20s could be like completely sacrificed to set yourself up for the rest of your life. And I think if if people just gave themselves from 18 to 30 just to put their head down and work and just bust their ass like all the time, maybe see, you know, the occasional weekend trip or whatever, but like the focus should be work for 12 years. I I I'm curious to see how many people would be um further ahead. Yeah. If if they really gave it 100%. Um, and that's and not to discredit people who, you know, are maybe in a job that they don't like and a bajillion other things could come up, but to really be like very dedicated, right, of like I'm going to spend these next 12 years and I'm going to work on myself every day. Yeah, I think it's great. Like I also think it's idealistic. Like a lot of people I think just don't don't care for it. Like that's fair. I'm a little bit more like work experience on that spectrum. Like I care about like experiencing like stuff like travel. It it seems like worth to me just to like go travel and like experience life. And just like how you said like oh 20s time to like work and like grind and like set yourself up for life. I could also be like oh 20s it's a time when like you're young and like you can travel and then you can tolerate like you know going to like different places like five different places in a week. You can't do that when you're you know a lot older. It's just like harder. So I don't know. It's a balance. I just think it depends on what's important to you as a person. Yeah. I guess I've never had the urgency to to go and do those things because I feel like I could do them anytime. If I really place the importance on that, I could do it, right? And that's that's a conscious decision for you. That's like, okay, I could do that, but I don't want to because I would rather do this. So, that's like your values. And I think like that's that's what it is. It's too I think if you are as long as you're aligned like with your action and what you value then you're living a good life because like what more could you do is like if you if you are living out the life that's in line with your values. Yeah. I think that's that's really the goal. Do you guys live like living out here in Vegas? Love it. Really? Yeah. What do you like about it? I like that there's no traffic. I went across town the other day at uh was it 6:00 p.m. Mhm. was the same as driving in the morning on a Sunday or you know Saturday. No traffic tax and it was tax is fantastic. The food I had $25 all you can eat sushi the other day. Food is good. $25 for quality sushi with a good fish to rice ratio. Very good. Um and everything about it just the the people here are very friendly. Uh the neighbors now we know the neighbors. We we wave to the neighbors. There you go. Walk down and a neighbor will come up and say hi. Nice. Uh, Alex is working with uh some neighbors now, which is cool. Alex picked up some business from that. It's just really friendly. Really nice. Heat. Can you take the heat? Uh, heat's not bad cuz I'm inside all day. Ah, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. At night, it's really nice cuz you cuz you go out, it's kind of like a little warm, but it's like a comfortable warm at night. Yeah. Do you think you'll stay here for a while? I do. For many years, decades? Most likely. Decades. For the rest of your life. I mean, too early to tell, but I mean, where did you grow up? Los Angeles. Okay. So that's why you think the traffic is good because LA traffic is terrible. Yeah. Interesting. Have you lived anywhere else? Uh, nope. Are you willing to? I'd be open. You'd be open to it? Have you lived anywhere else? Uh, I grew up in Ventura, which is an hour north of LA. And then that's where you like grew up in Yeah. I grew up in Ventura and then I moved to UCSB and then from there I moved in with him in Santa Monica and then here. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I would say go go live somewhere for a year. I want to live in New York. Yeah. come to New York. New York for one year. I've told myself that. I think that everyone should try New York for a year. That's what a lot of people say. Yeah. I really feel like you learn a lot about yourself in New York. It's a really tough city and it's very uncomfortable, but that's what that's its charm actually. Yeah. What is it about New York though? It's uncomfortable. It's just like so it's everything's expensive. It's very like you don't get a lot of space. It's dirty. It smells. It's like the the the weather is like really harsh. And I kind of like that because it keeps me like on my toes and it kind of like keeps me I don't know. It's like a cold shower. It's the equivalent of like a cold shower. Like I don't know. It's hard to explain. That makes sense. You learn a lot about yourself when you're like under those conditions. I feel like all of the people that I know that have spoken about living in New York speak very fondly of it. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to live there, you know, past my after I turn 30, but I' probably going to spend my 20s in New York just because it's I don't know. There's, you know, there's plenty of things wrong with it. Tax is one of them. But, um, it's just, like I said, I'm someone who like maximizes like cares a lot about experiences and I I go through a lot there, like in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different areas of my life, personal, work, everything. So, I don't know. I've learned a lot about myself just because there's a lot of trials there. What about those experiences? Like what stands out to you? Um like this past year a lot of like personal experiences like dealing with friends like a lot of my personal relationships. Um part of that is also like living in a creator house like obviously very complicated but I've learned so much about like navigating some things like even stuff like me not being a confrontational person but then by then by nature of like trying to do business and then also live with friends like having to work on that skill. That's an example of like something in my personal life. um just areas of growth that like you would find you would not find unless you were fa like put in those specific situations. I think like every every few months like I go through like some stuff in New York and I learn a lot about like myself and I think I come out usually like a better person just having grown and it's not always just like career stuff a lot of personal stuff and um I care I care a lot about like the personal career work life balance so it's important to me to like focus on everything. Yeah. So we're going to be taking questions from our audience from the fans on Patreon. Okay. Here are some questions for you from Ben. What is your process from making videos to uploading videos? I feel like we answered that pretty well. Yeah. Uh, plan out a day, bring my camera around. Mhm. Is there anything in that day that you know hits with the audience? You're like, they love when I go to this one coffee shop. Not necessarily. I do try to fit in a talking segment into every video, which doesn't always work out because people click off of like talking segments usually in a vlog. Like you see the retention go like this when you start talking. But I do think like it's really important to build that audience relationship by talking to them directly. Like a lot of times it's more like the viewers just like sorry like watching in on you versus like you're actually there and they're talking directly to you. I think that's a different type of creator. Where do you source? Do you use stock B-roll? Stock B-roll? No. You don't stock B-roll? Yeah. No, you don't use any stock B-roll? No. Why would I use stock B-roll? What if there's a something you're trying to explain and there's a really nice, you know, stock footage or something? I don't know. I just never have used B-roll like that. I mean, I use my own B-roll. I don't use stock B-roll. Just not my style. That's interesting. I feel like all we use is stock B-roll pretty much. Pretty much. That's like every all of the Huh. I don't know. I just never have like I'm showing my life. It's weird if I kind of show someone else's footage. Shelby Church, I think, does the same. She films such good B-roll. I think she's got a backlog. She has to have a catalog. It just was like her walking in a hund different spots like her in a grocery store and like different buildings and stuff and then she could pull back from this, right? I also don't do voiceovers like Oh, yeah. So, that's a little different. Why not? Don't you think that would be a good idea? I'm I want to experiment more with voiceovers just cuz it's a little bit more versatile. I just like for the longest time I've been doing this and just talking. So, that's what I'm used to. But, I'm actually really interested in like experimenting more. What about walking around with that thing? Do you get embarrassed like filming out in public? Not anymore. Like in the beginning. Yeah. But I got over it real quick. Just a lot of just like loud and proud, you know? Just like really just you got for me it's like if I don't do it, no one's going to do it for me. If I don't do it right, then I'm if I don't get the high enough this is not a good shot, you know? Like this is the right shot. Yeah. Straight on. Like what about looks at you in public or do people ever try to interfere cuz yourself they like, "Hey." Yeah. Um, I read 4-hour work week my freshman year of college and in there there's a bunch of like uncomfortable exercises that you're supposed to do and one of them was like lying on the ground in a public area for like 5 minutes. So in the middle of uh lunch like in my college dining hall cafeteria dining hall I would just lie down in the middle like you know you you're scared of judgment you were doing it. No, I just do it like and people are just like what are you doing? um or just random stuff like p push-ups in the middle of nowhere and like weirdest looks obviously very judgmental looks and like a lot of judgment from my my friends and like people that I was like meeting because it's a freshman year of college. Um but it really trained me like super well to just like not care like I need what what I need to get done I get done. Like I don't care if it's like this and if I have to yell or whatever it's just like practice. It's cool. Yeah. What other like challenges did you do from the 4-hour work week? That was the one that was the most memorable. I don't really remember. I think there's one it was maintain eye contact until the other person looks away. Did I did that where you just maintain eye contact until other and then it gets very uncomfortable really fast with someone you're not talking to? Yeah. [laughter] I would So you're saying like you're sitting over here, there's someone else sitting over there and you just stare. No, even even during a conversation like you want to look away. We could do it right now. Like really? Yeah. G and I could have a little We both read the book. So So we're just going to go forever really. Like I can probably just go forever unless I just like keep talking and get you to look away. But yeah, we can just gaze into each other. You really want to look away. I know. Like right now, is that a point? [laughter] Now, now my eyes are just getting watery. So, I was like also not blinking. So, that wasn't helping. It's okay to blink. Yeah, it's okay to blink. It's actually weirder if you don't blink. That could be an added layer. [laughter] Try that and then report back on the next episode. Yeah. Just with a stranger. Yeah, it could be with a Chipotle tomorrow that you're talking to like the order Chipotle, but stare at them until they look away. Yeah. I mean, that's not hard cuz I mean, if I'm speaking to someone, I actually maintain I actually maintain eye contact. [laughter] I feel like I do it pretty well and I'm not really scared to look. You should do it with people that are just like walking by. I think would be harder. If I was just sitting down, you know, biting my burrito, just staring intently. Depends how you're eating the burrito. How [laughter] else would you eat it? Would you eat it sideways like this? The joke is lost. I got it, Graham. It's okay. [laughter] But yeah, I don't know. I think that's definitely something I try. Got a lollipop, a popsicle. Yeah, the the props might not really help, but no, it's great. I actually, you know, you were just talking about being uncomfortable in public. This will help like not uncomfort, sorry, not uncomfortable in public. Uncomfortable asking people questions in public settings. Yeah, it it'll actually [laughter] help a lot. Like um the eye contact thing is big. I got to practice that. You can lie down a lot actually. Okay, I'll report back. Yeah, I'll report back. All right. Well, cool. Well, thank you. I really appreciate this. Thanks for coming to Vegas. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. Uh, did you get your free stock in the description? I'm about to right now by going down there in the description and clicking it. Have you followed me on Instagram? So, with that said, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Ice Coffee Hour podcast. Thank you, Elliot, for coming over here. Very of you. With that said, you guys, until next time. Until next time. Cool.