The Ultimate Side Hustle | Inside The Millionaire Empire Of FroKnowsPhoto

Welcome back to the iced coffee hour. I'm Jared Poland from Froosphoto.com and this podcast has made $227,000 uh $227,000 12. Close. Uh $190,000. That's the closest one we've had yet, actually. All right. Good. That was better than what my first guess was going to be. It was going to be about 137,000, but I'm like two years roughly a little more. Nice. Good. Thanks so much for making it out, man. We really appreciate it. No problem. This is also the latest podcast we have ever filmed. It's 10:15 p.m. on a Friday night. We really appreciate it. Friday night in Vegas. This is what we do. Have you seen my room? No. At the Can I So, yeah, it's it's at the Rio. Okay. Which is not It It's an older hotel. It's a Yeah, you're getting a good deal. We'll put it that way. No, I didn't pay for it, though. But, you know, that's the perks of being a making connections. But they have villas over there. Okay. The palazzo suite, I think it's like four or 5,000 ft². There's five bathrooms. There's uh four showers and they all have uh saunas in them. There's two hot tubs, one on each balcony. It's It's stupid. But you have that all to yourself. Yeah, it's just me. One one backpack and a roller bag with camera gear. Who gave you this room? Uh the Caesar's people. I reached out and I was this is how I've done a lot of things. You ask and it's not the typical I'm an influencer. Give me free [ __ ] stuff. It's hey I'm coming to town. I asked a friend and they connected me with these people and they have a whole influencer department. They're like oh well where would you like to stay? I'm like well the thing that I'm doing is over by the Rio and they're like that's perfect. Well we'll see what we can do. And they're like here's a villa and it's massive. It's the coolest thing ever. So what do you have to do in return for that? I I did some Insta stories and I'll and just for fun, I'll I'll make a crib style video. They're not paying me, but it says it's a $15,000 night room. $15,000 on the door. You know, that's how they say it. No one pays that though cuz gamblers. Yes, it's for the the high rollers or the the concierge lady was like, "Well, for celebrities like you." I'm like, "I'm not a celebrity. I make YouTube videos. Um, what do I have to do?" So, the making a crib style video is good. I can say, "What? Let's think of some clickbay titles, right? What a 15 thou $15,000 a night tour of a Vegas hotel room?" I mean, people will watch that stuff all day. And so, how did you get the influencer department? Are you reaching out to hotels or is there like some like So, I asked a a friend Maverick, you see the Maverick helicopter stuff lying around there. So, they've always been awesome. and we flew with them for Canon was doing an event and they put us up there to fly and to to doors open and shooting photos out of it. Um, so I reached out to the guy from there cuz he was a follower of my channel as well and I was like, "Do you know anybody that would have rooms that wants to do some content?" And he got back to me and he's like, "I know these people." They got on the phone and I'm like, "Look, I I don't I don't gamble. I don't drink. I'm looking for a cool spot. I don't mind paying like give me a You want a discount for a cool room? I don't I don't care. That's cool. That's fine. I'll make some content. They're like, well, we love doing this stuff, so how about we do this and you'll just make some some videos? And I'm like, some Insta stories? I'm like, yeah, sure. [clears throat] I've been doing it all wrong. It's all about asking. I look, it's about, for me, it's been building a network of people so you can always be like a super connector and know someone who knows someone and knows someone. And it's not about I hate that I'm an influencer, you know, on Instagram thing and give me free [ __ ] It's it's not it's not about that. I just asked. So, I'm like, I I would like a cool room. If if you give [snorts] me a discount, I'll be fine. I was so worried I'd come off the wrong way. Like, I'd be getting pokey with Jack and I'd be like, "Hey, by the way, here's my follower count on Instagram." You did that. You literally did that. I didn't say that, though. No, but we went to Pokey and you're like, "I'm posting you up on my Instagram. You should check it out." He gave me a free Poké Ball. I forget why. It was It was free. Yeah. Yeah, it was free. And then I said, "I'll tag you." Because I was like, "That's really cool." And they said, "I don't have an Instagram." I see. And you should say I think you said something like to the tune of just get an Instagram. I'll tag you and just check it the next day. Yeah, that's what you said because you It's fun to see the comments because every time I'll tag a place I look at their latest picture and everyone's like, "Who's here from Graham? Graham sent me." It's like, you know, 50 comments like that. It's It's cool. And I go and like all of them. Yeah. So, [laughter] it's Before Before we get too ahead of ourselves, guys, you have a microphone. Yeah. Can you believe the treatment I get here? When I had a podcast, when when we used to do the live podcast, we always never gave our guy over there a microphone just for fun. So, we could always say, "You don't have a microphone. You're not allowed to talk." I think I like that better, actually. [laughter] Be a lot quieter, wouldn't you? I actually like the chiming in off from the side. I have the worst camera though, and people always complain about this thing. We purposely don't put a card in the camera cuz this is a really old camera and uh it aggravates the audience. Actually, Alex is a huge fan of yours. Huge. You say this every time. I don't. But this is the truth. I I think he was most excited to see you. We were all excited to see you. Were you? Yes. Did you Google me? Yes. Just kidding. I did. Um No, that's cool. He asked Jeeves. You I I reached Alex a while back and it was cool that he's like, "Oh, I've been following you for a long time." Like like when I started in 2010, he's almost as long as that. I I want to um actually say something really cool here. Uh so Jared used to have a podcast called Raw Talk and I was a huge fan. I I I was like, "Hey man, why aren't you doing the podcast anymore?" And we can get into that later, but uh something cool that maybe Jared doesn't know. Um he came to Chicago to do a a live uh episode. Yeah. At some some uh comedy place. Yeah. Yeah. And I was actually uh I was like 18 or something. and like I didn't have a credit card and so like I emailed Jared. I was like, "Hey Jared, like I want to come to your thing, but like I don't have a credit card. Can I give you cash?" And Jared, to my surprise, he responded and he said, "Um, hey, yeah. Yeah, man. Just uh, you know, show them the email or whatever." And uh, I think it was like 10 bucks to get in. And uh, he I think I made it eight. He came out or Yeah, I can explain why later. And uh, long story short, I gave you a free ticket. I hope he he gave me a free ticket and thank God I helped uh switch the cameras. You did? Yes. So, look at me now, guys. Look look look at me now. You were the one that that I yelled at probably 15 times like, "Are you recording?" Yes. Are you recording? Cuz I always do that. I'm like, "Are you sure?" You hit the button [laughter] cuz it cuz if you hit it too quick on those Nikons back in the day, it would not actually hit record. It would not do it. Well, that's cool. God, thank thankfully I gave him a ticket. [laughter] He never got in. No, imagine he I charged him $8. be like, "What an asshole." You got cash dollar short and you'll be like, "There's an ATM right here. This is my lunch money." [laughter] So, yeah. Anyway, short. So, for those who don't know Jared, he makes content online about photography, video, uh what the latest cameras are coming out, anything uh to do with, you know, [snorts] creating on a camera, Jared basically covers it all. And you've been doing it for like 13 years. That was when your first or first ever video was uploaded to YouTube, which is a long 20 2010 was the first well that's when I officially launched but yeah I I you know how you do that started it gives you that starter you start in 2008 I'm like no I I started on YouTube in 2008 because I thought with this thing called YouTube I could get porn on it did you really yeah I thought that's what it was I mean I didn't know you search first before making an account but that's what I searched for you made an account first like I'm [laughter] going to sign up first and then I'm going to find I don't remember I honestly don't remember but I that was my first recollection of YouTube was like can you find porn on And that was back then. That was a long time ago. Um, but no, I started in 2010. Yeah. Did you find the right websites though after that? I mean, that was easy. [laughter] Look, I up until that point. Yeah. I bought a computer with my bar mitzvah money when I was 13. Um, and I got really good at AOL and chat rooms and all that stuff. That was before your time. Like all that. How old are you? Uh, 41. Okay. No, unfortunately. Not unfortunately, but you know. Um, you could have told me 30. I would have guessed that. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's Yeah, if I shaved my head, [laughter] it's it's the fitness routine. I don't know. No, I I appreciate that. But yeah. Yeah, lot lots of videos. 2010. Um it's been good. It's been good. How do you get started doing that? YouTube. So, yeah. No, photography in general is always a passion of yours. The same reason as I started YouTube. So, I'll start with the photography thing. I I was in junior high school, 13 years old, and I was watching one of the basketball games, and there there the yearbook photographers were taking pictures during practice, and nothing was actually happening. And I'm like, why are they taking pictures now? Like, there's no action going on. And so instead of telling them that they suck, I went home, I borrowed my mom's pointand-oot camera, came back to the next game, sat on the baseline, and did what I thought would work. And I just had the timing. I could anticipate the moment and capture it. and we got the roll of film back and it was like, oh, even with a point andoot camera, I was like able to anticipate because there's a delay and I I worked with the delay and boom, got the shots. And so that's how I started taking pictures and it just built from there. Before, you know, you could search online and I was not smart enough to be like, oh, there's a library, a thing called a library. I could go there and get books on photography. I I didn't. So, it was all selftaught. It was film. It was just trial and error. just slow. You know, you take a roll of film, takes you a week to shoot it, then you get it developed, and then you don't remember what settings you had, so you don't know how to actually get better. So, it was a lot of auto shooting, and it was all training me to get to the YouTube world, I guess. Got it. Oh, go for it. Go. I was going to say the reason I started YouTube is I was I was watching uh a video that came up about a lens and I thought the guy gave absolutely terrible information. I'm like, you this has 36,000 views and you gave this information. And so instead of telling him he sucked in the comments, which is what most people do today, I was like, I have a camera. It shoots video. I can sit in front of it and do this. Let me let me try. Which is what we tell everybody when they say things in comments, like, let me actually try to do this. And I did. And that was one of the reasons I started. And my hope was that I would actually get more jobs out of it. And what ended up happening is I got a lot of questions. Every time I got a question, I'm like, "Well, if this person has this question, that means a ton of other people do. YouTube is not for porn. It's for searching for for information." And I'm going to put this stuff up there. And so every day I started making videos just one a day or two a day. And it averaged out to one a day for seven years. Wow. But it was a different world. Like YouTube in 2010 was it was about putting out a lot of content. I was basically a daily vlogger before vlogging was even a thing. And how long did it take until you started seeing substantial growth and realizing that like, okay, this maybe monetarily is something that I can do as a career. Like what were you doing for money? I was shooting weddings. I was living at home, which was helpful, right? I'm I'm 30. No, not 30 yet. I was like 28, 29, living at home and struggling as a photographer through my 20s. And I shot weddings, which I'm not a big fan of weddings, but shooting them is can be lucrative. You know, you you clear 2500 to $3,000 on a on a on a wedding. And you're like, I got paid this much money to go take pictures. That's great. But I never made a lot of money. Um, and I that's why I started. It's a you partly starting YouTube to try to get more jobs and that didn't happen. I got more followers. Um, the the growth was slow. I didn't hit a million subscribers until like a couple years ago. It was a slow growth, but I I still thought, you know, 800 views on a video, well, that's pretty good. 1,000 views, and it it just climbed slowly. 25,000 subscribers, you know, 26,000 subscribers. And it just was a slow build. And I think it was probably good that I didn't ever have a video hit a million until about 7 years in. Because if you got a million on your first video and then you try to chase that every time, you're chasing the wrong thing. And so it was a slow build. And I thought I was hot at 25,000 subscribers. And there was no money at the beginning. It was 2010. They didn't have a a program yet. Yeah. And the the story of how when they announced it, I was like top 2500 YouTube channels at the time. And with there weren't a lot of us. They announced the the the partner program and I submitted and I got denied. I got an email back and they're like, "No." And I'm like, "What do you mean? I've got 26,000 subscribers. I'm one of the largest photo channels out there. I really think you should reconsider." And this I just hit reply to the email. The day later, came back was like, "Okay." And I was like, [snorts] "Oh, I'm I'm a YouTube partner. I made 18 cents on something." And so it just I just started making a couple bucks there. But the the biggest uh influx was I I worked at a store called Allen's Camera. Um a mom and pop camera store that still exists today, been around since the '7s. Okay. 4401 New Falls Road. I used to work there. Um and Allan, who passed away a couple years ago, um there was always this advertising money. So when he would buy gear like from Canon, every $3 he would spend he would get or yeah he would get a dollar back to do newspaper ads or something and he would never use it. So it was just sitting there and he's like if you can get them to approve Canon to approve online ads which they didn't at the time in 2010 they were like they didn't believe that that was a good way of advertising which was how dumb can you be? Why would you? They they would spend like $5,000 doing an ad in a newspaper. It's like that's not targeted. That's you're pissing into the wind. And so I was able to talk them into it. And he said, "If you can get them to approve it, we can split all of the money." And I got a $24,000 check the first time that happened. So he had like $48,000 in ad money that would end up going away if he didn't use it in time. And so now I did the work. He signed off on it. They approved it. And I mean to get 24 grand at the beginning was just awesome. Plus he allowed me to go to the store and do unboxings and sniff test. I started sniffing gear. Explain that. I would uh you know how people sniff wine and like Gary Vee would sniff wine. I borrowed it from him. Okay. He sniffed wine. I'm like I'm going to sniff gear and say it smells like something. So I I would smell a lens and be like you know it smells like a Lincoln log. You know it's a really good smell. It passes the sniff test. Or once I did it smells like uh don't buy it. which which I didn't make too. I know that smell all too well. Yeah. He's like he didn't Everything smells like that. He didn't he didn't like when I said don't buy it, but I was being honest. Yeah. So, yeah, that's that's that money wasn't there wasn't a lot of money at the beginning. Did you go to college or did you go straight from high school wedding photography? I did a two-year photography school. Okay. Uh I was a I was a homebody. I wasn't I wasn't ready to go away. I wish the parents maybe would have pushed me. M but I don't regret past things ever. I don't like playing revisionist history cuz you don't know where you would have ended up otherwise. So I'm not a big fan of being like, well, I should have done this. I You chose to do this. You go with it. Are you really doing that, Ellen? Are you really making overinker? I'm listen. So, okay. Bailey chewed a wire and there's been like no you guys have probably noticed at the audience there's been noise on the podcast a little bit and I'm trying to finish you know mess around with stuff so the noise goes away and you know what I think I finally got it to go away so I think you were you were getting to the point of okay you were talking about college and then also maybe like when the money on YouTube started getting to be pretty rolling in rolling in $26 you know it was it wasn't a lot of money at the beginning but uh there were some the Allen's camera thing helped a lot. 24 grand right up front was was pretty helpful. Uh companies start coming out of the woodworks, they want to pay you. I really didn't accept much back then. It was like, you can give me gear to review and I'll review it, but I'm going to say what I want to say and you have no say in what's happening. Um, so there wasn't there wasn't a ton of money. I think the first year I may have made $48,000 or something or 50 grand and that came from a lot of the Allen stuff. And I started selling t-shirts 10 days in. Yeah. Now I'm thinking back, it's a long time ago. Um 10 days in I'm like, I'm going to start selling merch cuz I used to tour with bands and that's how they made money. So I'm like, I'm going to make a shirt. I got I shoot RAW and I would I I would have the shirts made. I would only charge like $11.99. I may have made three or four bucks, but I took all of the profits, put it back in the shirts because when you can order more shirts, it costs less money. You make more money in the long run. So, I started to add a shirt color or two. And I would set it all up in my brother's bedroom cuz he moved out. He was he got married. He was gone. And I had my bedroom. And then over here, I use this as my office. And um and and I would I would ship everything myself. Fold the shirts, write the the envelopes out, go to the post office, ship everything. And I just started making a little bit of money here and there. How many shirts were you shipping out every day? At the beginning, it was maybe five a week. Okay. Um, not a lot. You know, it's kind of funny because I I had a printer. I I drilled a hole. I cut a hole in the wall so I could pass the cable. It was before wireless print and I had the printer run from the iMac in the other room, the the cable and it would automatically print when a sale came in. So, it's like 2:00 in the morning and I'm getting woken up and I'm like, "This is amazing. This is awesome." And then what would happen is you start selling five a night and then you would I'm like, "Yeah, I need to move the printer." So I moved the printer back into the into my brother's room. And my dad used to like walking down the hallway in the morning just to see because he didn't understand what a YouTuber did. Like how do you make money? He's like, "I don't know what to do." He's like, "I I don't know what you should be doing." I'm like, "This is what I do." And then he would physically see an order come out and be like, "Wow, you're actually making money." And so it started to be like 20 shirts, 100 shirts. And we started to sell I started to sell a lot of shirts because I would promote it in the video. I'm like, "Guys, you want to show the world that you shoot RAW?" It was a controversial thing controversial thing about back then with RAW versus JPEG. People embraced it and they ordered it. And then I moved the entire I I went from one shirt to three shirts, different colors. Then I put racks in the basement and I expanded how many shirts I had. And for my 30th birthday, I did a three-shirt deal for 30 bucks. And and I and I printed all the orders out and I put all the envelopes on the floor and my dad would throw me shirts. I would be like, I need a large blue. I need a like give me three large blues or whatever. And we had like a hundred different packages on the floor. So it was just making money and selling doing merch. How much were you making? I mean, so I started to sell the shirts for $11.99. Then I I just wanted See, it was more branding, right? Um I think one year when shirts were really good, it was like 200 grand. Wow. On onchit. It was not that wasn't all profit then. Got it. Um but it was generating that much in in selling shirts. That it was a it was a it was a slog, you know. I I promoted it quite a bit and I didn't want to just overpromote that. Um but I raised the price. I think I made them $14.99 and then I was able to get shirts uh get blanks for four bucks, get it directly sent to the printer, print at a local printer. That's a mistake a lot of people make is they print somewhere else and they have to ship them everything. Now you're spending $200 on shipping, it just eats away at your profit. So if you keep it local, you go pick it up or they drop it off to you, you're saving on shipping right there. So it's just every little buck you can save there was really helpful. Wow. Um I think I remember an interesting story about your shirt. Uh this is a long time ago, but didn't you get kicked out of Six Flags? I didn't get led into Six Flags in the first place. Why? Um, the woman at the gate that was running security was like, "That's a dirty shirt." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" I believe I'm an idiot, not an idiot. I understand there's a double entandra. It could go any different way. That's the whole point of it. But I'm like, "It's a photography term." And I have my logo is on the back. It says Froo's photo. She's like, "You know what's wrong with it." I'm like, "I I don't know what's wrong with it. You explain." And I filmed it. I was that guy. I filmed the whole thing and they got their supervisor and they're like, "Well, she says you can't come in." I'm like, they're like, "You could, you're more than welcome to go get another shirt from your car." I'm like, "Who travels with multiple shirts?" I'm like, "The multiple shirts in the car are all I shoot shirts." And my buddy had an I shoot Roll shirt on, too, cuz he liked it. And they're like, "Well, you can you're more than welcome to go buy another shirt in the store." Like, "All right, let's go buy a shirt in the store." And then I saw Let It Roll. I'm like, "That's a drug reference, guys. You have Let It Roll." You have I like it rough. Really? You're a kid. You're You're telling me I shoot raw is bad? Those are like guns. I'm like, but I'm telling you it's not guns. Like I It's an Google it. Like And so I go in there and I go to the kids rack, little girls rack, find the smallest shirt. It says it says uh what did it say? Prince something princess. Something perfect princess or something. And it had cupcakes on it. And so I wore that all day. I'm like, "You guys are just going to see me in a belly shirt all day if that's what you want." And so I did. I wore that all day. And then he gave me my shirt back at the end of the day. And then I I was hoping that I'd get an apology from them or something for putting them on blast. But no, it got picked up by a bunch of people. He did. It was just [ __ ] though. It's like it's a shirt. I'm like, I've been to Disney with this shirt. Couldn't you have just turned the shirt inside out? They wouldn't allow it. It was a great question that I was like, I'll just turn it inside. They're like, you might reverse it. I'm like, "Oh, now you're telling me I'm an like now you're telling me I'm I'm not [laughter] a man of my word." You go and you buy a tiny little B. I did. It said It said perfect little princess and it was a It was a a mint green. If you could pull that up on the internet, I don't think you can drill rogue in it, but it it's out there. Perfect. It was like perfect little princess and cupcakes on it with sparkles. I still have it. Jeez. Do you ever wear it still? Nah, it's not going to fit around the arms anymore. Oh, you should bring it back. I'll bring it back. It's in the closet. If you could return it, return it to them. I haven't been back. I don't like I don't like Six Flags. Never like Six Flags. How did your your business life progress? When did when did YouTube really the dose start to come in? Do you still do photography outside of YouTube? If so, why? Good question there, too. And also, I Okay, I'll I'll save those because they're good. Yeah. So, money. Um I I think second year was like $84,000 and that was a lot of merch and a couple of advertising things. But the real growth came two years in. Uh I created a product digital product education. The Froos photo guide to getting out of auto um was 3 hours of education that was fun and informative. It wasn't boring [ __ ] That was my whole thing. It's fun and informative. It has to be. and I wanted to create a product. And right around this time, I was looking to to buy a house. Uh my first my first property. I never wanted to rent because rent to me was like just lighting money on fire. I'm like, why would I just do that when I could save up and buy a house? So, it's 2012. Uh interest rates are super low at that time. Not as low as they were a couple months ago. It was like 3.375 on a on a 30-year fixed. And I didn't have enough money for the down payment. I had half. Mhm. My dad, my mom passed away a few years prior and she had a pension. He's like, "She would want this. I'm going to I'll help you." And then I released the Froos Photo Guide to Getting Out of Auto. And after two weeks, the first check I got was $26,000. And I was like, "Dad, I got it." Like, I got it. And there were very few people doing online sales of digital products back in 2012, right? Um, I figured out how to do it. It was like only four gigabytes. You know, you got to keep it pretty small. People had dialup. We we I had DVDs produced that could The coolest thing was in the package there were two DVDs. You got two. You got one that was computer ready. So it was a ROM I guess. Is that what we called them back in the day? ROMs, readonly memory. So So that would play in the in the computer, but there was also one that would play in a DVD player because I would I was just like I need to do both just in case. So people could have the files and then they could have the actual DVD. And we were selling them on sale for everything was 47 bucks. 67 was the the launch what it was. Cross that out. 47. And it was just doing $2 to $5,000 a day through the end of the year. That's crazy. And it was just through my list. And I may have only had 25,000 follow uh Instagram. No, Instagram didn't exist. I only had uh 25,000 people on my email list at the time, but it was just through YouTube, right? I'd make a video. Every video is an advertisement for myself. I tell people that every video you make is an ad for you. And it's all right to ask for the sale. You have to at some point they understood. I'm like, "Guys, I'm giving you all this free content. If you want to support me, if you'd like to support me or you want to learn as well to help you get out of auto, I got this product." And so, a lot of people that have followed me for two years are like, I I don't need to know how to get out of auto. I'm already there, but I'll support you. I I ordered I ordered your digital download. And one of the things I also did is I did a camera giveaway, too. And I had to learn the whole raffle thing and what's legal and what's not because sweep stakes, right? Right. That whole thing is you have to do no purchase necessary option too. But I did do this and it just it helped influx sales because people like I have a chance of winning one of these awesome cameras and I get this education. And so it was just dude it was it was stupid. But I remember the making showing my dad my tax return and he's like I I've never made that in a year ever. And it's it's just crazy that it's a digital product. So what was it back then? 600 grand, 700 grand. You're doing like $2,000 a day. There's no overhead on that, right? Very little. Well, very little. It was all It was digital sales. I think I think I made like like 400,000 bucks or something at the end of the year. And he was just like, [snorts] "Holy shit." He's like, "What's the scam?" [laughter] No, he was he he's like, "I finally get it." He's like, "I didn't know what the hell you've been doing in your room all these, you know, in the backyard. I would sit in the backyard. I would I would tackle mannequins that said I shoot JPEG." I would take the mannequin to the firehouse and talk them into shooting it with a fire hose, you know, just doing weird other people weren't doing. Sniff test, wind. I didn't do wind tunnel tests yet at that point. I just literally blow on the lens and say it passes or fails. Just something stupid. Just something to make people go, "What the does that even mean?" Yeah. Right. because everybody else was doing boring [ __ ] and I'm just They would say I'm like the Howard Stern of the photo world. Yeah. Not Not afraid to say it like it is. I look like Howard Stern. [ __ ] you. No, no, it's a good thing [laughter] that come on. I I love Howard. His his sister is a follower. Ellen, his sister, watches my videos and is a really good photographer. And Howard became a photographer for a minute as well before he got into painting. He's taller. That's what I meant. Oh, I just thought the hair kind of Maybe not. I don't know. He's He has different features. He's taller than me. We're Jewish. I mean, if you're trying to I'm Jewish, too. And so is Graham. We're all Jewish. Yeah, I'm I'm half Alex is not. Sorry, guys. But anyways, uh so you were selling a course to go off of auto. What does to go off auto mean for those that don't? Get out of auto. So basically um you know that you you ever look at the the D80 or the 80D over there and you know the green mode up top this green square that's always auto on all the cameras. And so the whole point is to get people out of that mode and into manual so they understand shutter speed aperture ISO shutter speed. Do you want me to go into all this? Yes, I'll do it. Shutter speed controls uh like you have a a fast shutter speed is going to freeze motion. a slow shutter. We in in this in this video, we actually used a swing set as an example at the park while people looked at me. I'm like, "It's a [ __ ] park. I pay taxes. I can be here. Your little sh your kid, not shitty kid, your little kid can go swing over there. I got here first." Literally, I I said that to people. Slower shutter speeds give you some blur. So, I try to teach people the cause and effect. If you do this, this is going to happen. Aperture, how much light you're letting in. ISO is the bright. Teach all that stuff. So, helping people take control of their camera, get into manual so that they can control the light. I didn't understand this. It took me a decade to get out of auto with film. So, my whole selling point was, look, I've done all the damn hard work and I've condensed this into something that I guarantee you, you will get out of auto after 3 hours of watching this. And you can get your money back if you really want your money back. Like, I don't care. Someone asked for their money back, give them their money back, right? Um, and so that does that explain what get out of auto is? It gets people out of auto so that they can take control of their camera. And they did. There's people that that always say that like I started with that because I wanted to make it I like to say that I'm you know the mix of Howard Stern and Bob Ross uh meets Mr. Rogers cuz I love Mr. Rogers was he he showed things. He he didn't just say it, he showed it. And I I was a Monasuri kid when growing up like you know Monasuri school. It's a great way of learning. It's hands-on. You don't know that you're learning because it's it's a different classroom environment. You learn through play. You learn through like, "Okay, you Jared, go get a bowl of giving out snacks, right? You got the the the pretzels." They're like, "Okay, give two to each person." Okay, so now you have to go talk to the person in the class. Now you have to say, "Okay, you can have two of those." Then you have to make sure they have two of those. And if they don't, you get to punch them. Not true. You didn't get to punch them. But just monatory school stuff like that. It's like you learn by doing. So I learn that's how I learn. I learned by watching and doing. And so that's how I wanted to teach. And so that's how I got people out of auto. And it works. They don't have to go to college really. I put I basically put my college out of business. People I I like to say I put them out but people like me on the internet who did education and sold education basically put vote schools for photography out of business. Why spend 20 40 $50,000 to learn the teaching you for 67? Why? But why spend two years in school to learn things that you could Google? It's a Yes, it's a good question. It doesn't make any sense. People think that they they need to go because that's what everybody's done before them. People say, "Should I go to college for photography?" And my answer is no. You shouldn't go just for photography. If you are going to go to a school, go to the biggest four-year school that you can find because they have the most athletics. You can get involved. You can travel with them. But don't go for photography. Minor in photography. Do video. Do audio engineering. Do advertising. Do marketing. Learn all of this that you can because when you come out of school, when someone says, "Can you shoot video?" Yeah. Can you edit video? Yeah. Do you know how to take photos? I do. They're going to they're going to hire you cuz you you're you're a quadruple so many threats. You can do it all. And so that's that's what I tell people for going to school. But I would never just go for a two-year photography school anymore. How much was that for you? You said 50 grand. It was 20 grand at the time. It was 1999 to 2001. So that's when I went. It was a two-ear school and I think it was $21,000 total. My parents a lot of money back then. Yeah. I had student loans and thankfully it wasn't a ton and I did end up paying them all off. Um but yeah, you wanted to ask about the price of the house. You you were talking about Yeah. Yeah. Because you bought in 2012 which was like the low I mean you could say low. I So I bought into a place called Fishtown. It's like the Brooklyn of of Philly. It's just exploded 20% a year for like many years now. Um, and I had a I wanted to spend like $400,000 on a place and it came down they were at like $450 and we ended up at four and a quarter and uh I stretched because my dad always said to me I I you know $25,000 extra is like 80 bucks a month in the grand scheme of things. So don't don't skimp out. And so I got this place. It was the most expensive place on the block at the time. And now it's it's worth close to eight. Um because that area just has exploded. And now I rent that because I um I ended up buying another place during the pandemic getting super low interest rate. It was like 3.275 or something and then refied eight months later because I got 2.7 on a 30. Wow. I used you got 27. Yeah. How? I don't know. I asked. Did you have to put any money down or anything or No, I just refied. It was 27. It was a jumbo and someone took the jumbo at 27 and I refi. I don't They keep It was Chase. Okay. Yeah, the original one was Wells Fargo. Chase on this one. Yeah. Yeah. The original was Wells Fargo. Um and then we we redid it and got 2.7. It was what? Talk about a savings. It was like 8 800 bucks a month or so. Um, and yeah, I basically refied every property because I I I bought the Froacactory a couple years about six years ago because I never wanted to rent I we we literally worked out of my loft the the house that I bought or it's a loft. So, it's a 120 year old 130y old factory now that was an elevator factory and I had the upstairs place that was built for the people that renovated. They did a double unit. So 2140 square foot feet. A freight elevator opened up into the place. I basically bought the place from big. That was a goal of mine. I always I loved Big and I always wanted that place. So basically had the place from Big. Um and it was set up that I had Kenoflows, the lights all set up. My podcast table was my kitchen table. Uh it's a poker table with my logo on it and then you would put the lid on it so I could have dinner. But it was all set up to basically it was like a studio but I lived upstairs. Right. Right. In the loft area. um cuz I just thought it was a waste of money to go rent something. And then a couple years later as we started to expand and get larger and I had two employees coming to my house every morning and I'd roll out of bed while they walked in the door cuz they had the key. And uh he's like, you know, we would save a lot of time if we didn't have to break down the lights every day and and do all this. So I started looking for a place, found a place in what they call Kensington, which was big in heroin at the time, not as big anymore in heroin. and it's a mile and a half from my place. And I I bought that place and that place I bought for 535 and it's a million bucks now because there's a plot of land right there. It's just I never intended to buy multiple properties. It's just was it just happened. So, how many do you have now? Three or four? Four. during the pandemic. Uh right before the pandemic, my friend showed me this cool building. It's 5,000 square feet. It's another loft style building. And I was like, "Oh, that's pretty cool." And I I didn't think about I wasn't thinking about moving at all, but if I want to have a family and and grow, I didn't want to have a family in a condo building. Mhm. And so I talked to some of my financial people uh and I'm like, I'm not looking for you to give me approval. I don't need you to tell me yes or no like I should do this or not. I just need to know financially, am I sound enough to purchase? It was a million dollar. They wanted a million50. I'm like, am I in the right place? Can I do this? And they're like, yeah. And so I made an offer the day after doing a walk through. My realtor went and took a look and he's like, "Oh, we'll make an offer Monday." I'm like, "That." I'm like, "Someone's gonna come in with way more money than me and and offer to buy this." And he's like, "Well, what do you want to what do you want to offer them?" Like, make it a what I call a you offer, which is a million bucks. Give them what they want. I mean, if they ask for 10, you know, million50 and they walk away from a million, they're not serious. And so they took it and then like they got three cash offers as soon as we signed the deal. Wow. There was no what realtor would ever say, "If you like it, let's wait the weekend." That doesn't know. But they just had a realtor's open house and I just moved on it quick because I knew this this is it's such a unique property that there's so few of those left in the in the country. But Philly has a lot of lofts and they've all been converted to,000 square foot, 1250T uh apartments and this place could be turned into four different apartments if you really wanted. But I was just like do it. And then the pandemic hit and I was under contract and people were like are you still going to buy it? Are you still going to do it? And I called the financial guys again. They're like are you good? I'm like am I am I good to do this? They're like yeah nothing's changed for you. Like you're fine. You got your YouTube. We No one knew what was going to happen. We didn't know it was going to happen, but I still went through with it cuz why would I back out? Um, so I had the the mortgage, everything was there and I did that and I didn't move out. I closed on March 29, not Oh jeez. I It's been two years. It's April 1st. Um, so it was it was like March 30th, uh, two years ago and didn't move in until June 25th because I still had my loft and it was the middle of a pandemic. I couldn't get movers. You couldn't do work on the place. Nothing. You couldn't get anything done. Um, I got people to rent my loft on a two-year a two-year lease, 3,500 bucks a month, and I moved and it was great. Uh,00 what's my mortgage is? Uh, I was like 1,800 bucks now. Yeah, that's without taxes, but it's still it's still I think I think I make like 24,000 a year off of it. It's cool. And I'm not bragging for people out. This isn't bragging. Yeah. Thanks for cutting to Wait, where's my camera? Right there. Yeah. I'm not This isn't bragging. This is a financial podcast. I mean, it's a coffee podcast. I don't drink coffee. I didn't want to tell anybody, but I've never had a coffee. Really? Yeah. Really? You said you also don't drink alcohol or party. I don't party. I I'll have a mixed drink every once in a while. I just don't have any desire to drink or get plastered or do drugs. I just it I've smoked weed in the past and it's just like I feel like an idiot the next day. I feel like I'm in a fog and I don't want to feel dumb and it makes me feel dumb and I don't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm not bragging. Like, it's not bragging. It's just I worked my ass off to do it. So, that's good, man. I like that. So, tell us a bit about the uh about the look that you've crafted. The the It's just going to pick my hair cuz it needs to be poofed a little bit. There we go. Just So, this kind of reminds me of like the Dogecoin millionaire haircut. Like a little bit. If he if he poofed it out a little bit more. How much is his million? What's that worth now? 300 grand. Did he ever sell anything? No. So, tell us about the uh the afro, the hair. So, I had the hair a couple years before I even had the idea for Froo's photo. Um I just I've never had my hair grow cuz I'm I'm Jewish and I got Jew curls and if you if I let it go past like two or 3 months, it just looked weird. It would just didn't work. So, there's like a weird moment. Um but I said screw it. I just want to see what's going to happen. So, I got past like four months and then started to pick it out and it had this awesome shape to it. One of the other things more more personal is my mom had cancer at the time and I said, you know, if you ever lose your hair from the chemo, you can have my hair. Then she ended up she died eight months later and I decided instead of shaving my head like everybody else does, I just kept it. Um, and and part of the reason there's multiple reasons for starting the channel. I told you like I I wanted to get more jobs, but one of them was that my mom was interested in photography. She always had an eye for images. She always took our pictures when we were in Disney and she had a beta camera in the 80s, a Beta Max. Um, and she had an interest in learning and I never took the time to really teach her to say, "Mom, let's go. Let's go shoot, right? Let's go to the park and do something." And so I I don't really do regrets. The one of the regrets I have, the only thing is that I never took the time to just say, "Let's go and shoot." I was young. I just was stupid. I I wasn't doing anything else. I should have just done it. And so, a lot of people are like, "Well, now you help teach the world. You know, you teach other you've taught I've taught a ton of people how to take photos and then inevitably make money doing that and change their lives for the better." And so that, you know, that's that's the hair fro. Got it. Do you do you cut it at all or at this point you just keep letting it grow? Just let it grow. Let it grow. Let it grow. How many years is this? Uh, it was October 2007. Okay. When I [clears throat] had a buzz cut cuz I went on tour in September with Perry Frell from Jane's Addiction. Yeah, that's cool. I had a buzz cut. So, we have all the I have photos cuz I had a buzz cut and it's been growing ever since. One little trim. Yeah. Yeah. Then my mom got scared and sent me to live with no Will Smith jokes. [laughter] That's just too soon. Um I had one trim job with a a person did it and I looked like a Jewish grandmother and I [laughter] never never again. So So you're just always going to How How is it not longer? That's what I thought cuz you said 2007. Yeah. People ask that. Um I don't know. I don't know why it's not longer, but it it it curls. I got really nice ringlets. It's a ringlet. Ringlet ring, you know. Oh, what's that girl's name? Uh, from the movies. Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple. There you go. Okay. Yeah. The beautiful Jewish curls, as I will call them. Um, I I have no desire to cut it. People are like, "Do you think you could still have a channel?" I'm like, "Yeah, I could still have a channel and not be Froo's Photo, but sometimes I'll leave my hair down in videos just to just to do it, just to change it up." And people are like, "Where'd your hair go?" Like, yeah, same hair. I'm worried if you didn't need any change to this that it would be less you because this has become a bit of a brand. I think I'm at the point where it's okay. Okay. It's it's so ingrained that I It's not just a hair. I think people at the beginning are like this is just a sticktick, right? They're like, you're going to burn out after 8 months and no one's going to follow you anymore. You're just a guy with hair who who does interesting things with cameras or runs around the backyard and does dumb [ __ ] but still doing it 12 years and hitting the gym. I see these things. Those things. Yeah. Right here. Can we get a closeup? That's crazy. We were supposed to leave the guns at the front door, but I brought mine in, too. Yeah. [laughter] So, I I attribute Jack, I see you left yours at home. Whoa. They went the other way. Oh, god. [laughter] Um, right before I started YouTube, I I wanted to I I I photographed a fitness conference and I was like, I want to look toned. I was never overweight, but I was never fit, like toned. And it's easy to find trainers to help you lose weight. It's not easy to find trainers that help you tone up and gain muscle. I found one. I couldn't afford it. We worked out a payment plan and in 2009 I just I started going three days a week. I was making YouTube videos so I had time, right? I would go and I'd work out and within two three months I was I was toned and I was ripped. Two, three months. It was quick. It was quick. It was like two months. It was quick. I was dedicated, man. I just went every day. Well, two three not every day, three days a week. But I attribute the change in my body giving me the confidence to be in front of the camera because before that there there's a video if you go to my if you go to Frooso no YouTube.com/fronosphoto there's a when I hit a million we did a retrospective video and there's a video I did in 2008 where I tried to make a video in my basement talking about cameras and it's 10 minutes of me failing hi I'm no uh and it was just me going no And I would just keep trying. But I put the video up. Yeah. Uh now just to show people I'm like if if I could be that guy and I turned into this and I'm able to be in front of the camera, there's no excuse that you can't do it because I went from that and that's why I put the video out to show people that I sucked in front of the camera. And I think what changed is I I I felt better in my body for me. Like I I do this for me. I don't do it's not it's not a showoff thing. I mean I do like the way they look, but it's not it's not for others. It's for it made me feel better. Yeah. And so I think that's what helped me be in front of the camera. And then and then what is even worse is when I moved into the city uh in Philly and I my trainer was 45 minutes away and I stopped doing it. I'm like I'm going to go to the gym myself and then someone leaves a comment like where did your arms go? It's 2011. I'm like and you know it's true whiching sucks when a comment is actually true. You're like [ __ ] So I made the comm commitment again. And I was dedicated to I would drive out of the city 45 minutes each way to go work with the trainer 2 days 3 days a week. Wow. Because I want I didn't want to lose them. They were right. But commenters are [ __ ] most of the time. And but that that's the worst. They like hit pick something out and you're like it and you know it and it's just it's terrible. But yeah, that's that's the fitness. Alex also tells me that you've maxed out your credit card to start the business. It is true. Yeah. It was a zero financing card for 15 months. Hear that, Alice? So, what changes the story a little bit. But what happened was it showed up to my house with my name on it. My dad's house. Yeah. I think they thought they were sending it to my dad, but my name was on it. And it was what, 2009? So, they weren't giving credit cards to people like me. They weren't giving any credit cards after that crash. There was a there was a zero financing. It was like $15,000 limit. Uh, it was for free either. I think it was 12 or 18 months. And I did I started I put all the t-shirts on there, put all my expenses on there. I paid the minimums. Okay. I I just I didn't carry I mean I carried a balance, but it was paid off by the end. That's how I started it. M I max I had I had about 400 bucks in the bank and I and I just put all the money on there and I reinvested all the money back into more merch so that I could get better pricing, make more profit and it was paid off by the end because it didn't hurt to get the the 20ome,000 from Allen's camera that helped pay it all pay it [clears throat] all back. But yeah, no my parents always instilled in us like never carry a balance if don't buy it if you can't afford it. And it just it just made sense. Yep. And I I don't care what they say, but I don't know if it's even true that if you pay off your card every month that the credit card company doesn't like that. Well, you credit card company. I don't give a [ __ ] that you don't like that. I don't like giving you 18 to 36%. Agreed. Was that Was that too much? That was good. Are you even allowed to curse on your show? We do. We We bleep it, right? Some most of the time. Yeah. Oh my god. Why don't you say something earlier? I'm going to do all this work. No, no, no, no. Well, Alex isn't editing this one. [ __ ] Andrew, you got to believe that one. Um, no, it depends because sometimes we don't want to stifle the guest and we feel like if it comes out naturally, it's better not to have the guest think about like not swearing. They may I can do it. If there's a kid around, I'll never just put a kid on the table. I won't curse. Yeah. I'd rather you probably just swear and we'll handle it. Yeah, we'll handle it. Yeah. One of the big discussions I think that uh Jared and I had was uh he he's very adamant on not letting the algorithm rule our life or rule his life. Oh, yeah. This was a good conversation. Something that in this household we swear by the algorithm. We have an algorithm shrine in the living room, right? So, um yeah, Jared, how come you uh don't like deep diving into the analytics and and why don't you worry about, you know, the algorithm uh because it may benefit you or Oh, it may. I just don't want to because mentally it just becomes a strain. It becomes too much. It's all I think about and I don't want to I mean, obviously it's worked for you guys. It's it's clearly worked. Um, I just the the conversation we were having was about changing the title within 10 minutes of putting it up. Y based off of looking the looking at numbers and I've started to do that on occasion, Alex, but I don't like to to to worry about it, right? We pick a title, we pick a thumbnail, we think it's good, we go with it, and if it's totally flopping, maybe I'll switch it up to something else. But I just I don't want to second guessess everything I do and it just creates too much mental strain for me and I just I don't want to be beholdened to that. We we're good. We make money. I'm happy. Yes, I could make more if if if we chase the algorithm. I just don't want to I don't What about hiring somebody who then it make it it's their problem to chase the algorithm? Yeah, but then I don't I won't listen to them. I won't listen to them. But the thing is you don't have to listen to them. It's you listen to the results. Like anytime we post a video and it doesn't do well, I I never feel like, "Oh man, I screwed up." It's it's the audience giving me real feedback right then and there that they don't like that title thumbnail and they're not clicking on it. So it's nothing to do with the content. Like if anything, the fewer the people click on the content, the less it is about the content. And [snorts] if your message is about teaching people photography, there's an element that you want people to see it who need to see that. Of course. So if you if you either do that yourself or you hire somebody and that's the thing it's just the audience will tell you and usually 10 minutes is long enough to say it's like is this good or bad sometimes you know based on your content like some will be too niche and it's like it's not going to be. Yeah. So well part of the other issue is are you chasing the right now views or are you chasing views that might be longterm that you might be missing out on over the long term. It's a balance but you have to balance that right and we have long like what I like to say are long burn videos. a video that I made today that's gonna freaking flop. Yeah, but in four years we'll have like two million views. Um, no, it's all valid. I I I would try it. I just don't I just I've gotten to the point after 12 years of doing it that you know how a lot of people have burnout in in YouTube. I've never stopped in in the 12 years of doing it. I've never gone a week without putting a video up. I even got upset when I one day got to midnight and didn't have a video ready to go and put up a video every night or every day. Um, and I had to get past that. Like my following isn't going to disappear because I don't put up a video for two days. And now we've gotten to a place where it's two or three uh two or three a week. Yeah. I mean, I would I would like someone to give me advice on what to do there to to see what could be better. Um, but I think we I think I had a downturn in 2015. algorithm change in 2015. Y Peter McKinnon comes along in 2015. A bunch of other people come along in 2015 out of nowhere and start shooting up and that that messed with my head. I'm like, why are all these channels growing so fast? It's not like, you know, Peter's great, right? The content that he does is fantastic. And he followed he did that first video that went viral. He followed it with another video that popped and he had like 50,000 subscribers but getting 200,000 views. YouTube's like, "Holy, this is amazing. We're going to shoot this." And it was in 2050. It was the perfect storm. He's in Canada and I always I told him this. I'm like, I think you started to do part of the benefit of being in Canada, less competition for for the photography world. And if you rank high in Canada, the algorithm is going to say, well, if it's number one in Canada, we let's show this to other people around the world. And it just skyrocketed. Um, and in 2015, they started to downplay YouTubers that were around for a long time. And I started thinking, do I build a new channel and try to capitalize on this? Do I kill what I have? And I took a look at the content and some of it was I was just putting out too much. So at the beginning it was put out a lot of content because that was YouTube. It was a different world. Then we started to put out better still consistent but more quality. Spend a little more time on each video, put out less. I wasn't thinking about titles very well. I'm like but this is what the video is. I'm just going to call it this. And that wasn't working. Um then we found our way through it. We started to make better content and and we grew much more in terms of views. How many um employees do you have and what is the workflow for like a typical video look like? Uh so photo news fix is something that I do weekly. It's a a what I call staple piece of content that averages 80 to 100,000 views for us which is pretty good. when when we went from 20 to 30,000 and then 50,000 then to do a 100,000 is pretty good weekly for that. Um I'll write that on a Monday or a Tuesday and I'll film it on a Tuesday. I give it to my editor and by Wednesday by Wednesday evening it's out by 3:00 4:00. Um that's that's a quick turnaround. Basically we say they they my editors tell me that every minute of video is about an hour of editing. Um, so some long form videos, they take maybe four, five, six working days to do. Um, we film them, they take them, they edit them. And that's Yeah. two full-timers doing it. And how's your business broken down now between YouTube sponsorships, your own products, merch? Good question. YouTube accounts for like one 12th. It's very direct because I've done the numbers, but it's like one 12th of the revenue. We do about $140,000 to $150,000 on on the YouTube ad rev, which is I know not a ton. We're only doing like anywhere from 1.2 to 1.7 million views a month. It's not a ton, but we make a I cursed. Darn it. We made um uh we we do really well with presets, digital products. Uh there's Squarespace was the greatest deal I ever had made at the beginning. Um, they did an affiliate deal back in the They used to do affiliate deals back in the day when Squarespace was all over podcasts. They they they started to expand into the YouTube world and we did a test and they offered me an affiliate deal. I'm like, "Nah, give me the money." And I think it was like four grand. And then we did a test and they wouldn't tell me how many people signed up and there were probably a lot. So then they came to me and they offered me uh like 50 grand for the year for 20 video plugs or something. And the guy that gave me the deal, offered me the deal said, "Don't take it. Take the affiliate deal instead." I took the affiliate deal. And that was that's how I partly how I bought the house, too. Really? Yeah. Because at the time, this was like 2012, 2011. Not a lot of people were promoting Squarespace. Not a lot of people had their own website. It wasn't easy to build. I'm a photographer. The people watching me have photos. They need to build their own websites. they don't want to go find another someone to build it because every time you try to have someone build it, you have to reach out to them, then they never do the work and then you're stuck. And it was just such an organic way to do I would do rapid fire critiques of websites and and I would say this is brought to you by Squarespace. If if you have your own photos and you'd like to build your own gallery and you don't have your own website, this is easy. It's like eight bucks a month and you get a 14-day free trial. Use my code fro at checkout and you get 10% off your first order. But look, you get 14 days. I guarantee you 14 days. It's going to be easy. Build it within 30 minutes. You're going to have a site that's fully functional. The affiliate deal was interesting because you don't get it. You didn't get the kick in the kickback once someone signed up. They had to stay a customer for three months, a paying customer. Most people would say, "No, I I don't want to take that deal because if I bring someone to you, I want to get paid as soon as they sign up." And I'm like, "I don't want to get paid when they sign up. I only get paid if they stay a customer. That's good for you. That's good for me, for the business, like for them. And and and I I it wouldn't be right if someone signed up and then they cancel and I still got paid. But the first year we had 2,90 signups, paying customers that stayed for three months or more was 100 bucks a signup. Wow. It was like insane. That was the first year. The last the second year was like 184,000. It's just it it tapered down and now we just have a we have a deal that they changed how their structure is. Um and it still works out well. So it was just it was just a perfect time. There weren't a lot of people promoting it like they are today or over the past couple years and it was the perfect fit for my audience. And so that's why I was I was able to generate a lot. And yeah, if I had more subscribers, you more subscribers was more people you can reach. Um, but I I just I I wanted to not have the burnout thing like everybody else to be so focused on every eight months in when I started YouTube. I was that was like the closest I ever got. Eight months in at the beginning, I was like, I can't sustain doing two videos a day and this is with these commenters. This is hurting. Like I don't know what to do. And I was such a small timer at that time. But yeah, I I just don't want to burn out. It's not even the burnout. I just don't want the stress. Yeah. It's not worth it. like I'm going to try not to compare myself to other people like Peter's doing this. That that was one of the hardest things is watch Peter's growth. And I told him I'm like at one I'm like me watching you go from 50,000 100,000 and I'm watching my subscribers and I'm looking at you adding you know 5,000 subscribers a day that was painful. I've been doing that for a long time. Look at his content and say I want to do something similar to that because I remember him making very specific content about like uh Photoshop tutorials. remember one that I loved from him is like how to Photoshop out a person and I watched that and that was like that. Yeah, I had stuff like that back in the day doing different. I thought he was like welcome back you know he would do like the very like he's likable. I'm an [ __ ] He's super likable. He had he had the magic. He has got a great look. He's got the tattoos. He has a quality content. Shot extremely well. So very likable. Yeah, I'm not very likable. I just rub people the wrong way. Um, and he and and that algorithm change at that time was very helpful. He came around at the perfect time and had great content and followed it up with more great content and it just exploded because it was good. And then YouTube's like, "We're just going to keep showing this to people." While the other people who made content for a long time were like, "Hi, I'm still here. Please help." But part of it was the content I was making wasn't the right content, right? I was I was starting to do not quality stuff and so I had to look within the stuff we were doing and analyze and be like yeah no you you part of the reason is you're not changing and so I've had to evolve like every two years YouTube seems to change sometimes and so I we've been doing it for 12 years I'm happy like I make really we make great money my employees have healthcare they have they get paid well um I have my properties would I like to do more better. Sure. I'm 41. I don't want to work harder harder. I work really hard, but I don't want to work harder. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. How long do I want to do that? Do do this. How do you avoid burnout, though? Cuz going 12 years is a very long time. Well, the employees helped. Yeah. You know, I edited the first couple hundred videos and I haven't edited a video since hiring my my first editor. Um, I I just how not analyzing everything that that you go into super detail on, right? Like analyzing every every when YouTube changed to this studio where it's like, you're an [ __ ] This video isn't doing well. You need to do something different. I I sent them an email. I'm like, "Guys, you're you're trying to have people not burn out, and you're telling us we suck with these arrows saying our video isn't performing well." And so it just made you that that was that's bad because it makes you second guess everything you're doing and then try to change the title right away. I don't know. I I think it's helped because I love seeing how my videos performed over the last 10 and then seeing where they rank and where they should rank and and if it's not ranking where it should then I know it's a title thumbnail issue. Which brings up a a suggestion I gave them and I'm I'm sure plenty of people have had. I'm like, why can't we have AB testing of thumbnails and and and titles at the same time that it launches? We put in two thumbnails, we put in two titles, all different. You guys know within within a thousand view, you guys know within seconds which one's performing better. You'll make more money. Facebook came up with something like that. I would love that. Yeah. I'm like, guys, figure it out. like that you because more more views helps us but more views helps them sell more ads. I wish there was a way that you could do that. I would love that. Or before it notifies everybody, maybe you get like 10,000 people. Yeah. 5,000 this 5,000 this and people could sign up and be a part of it and just see which one gets more clicks and you could go with that for the rest of them. You know, after like 60 seconds, they would know after the first 500 clicks, they'd know that 473 people clicked on this type. Well, it wouldn't work like that, but their nerds would figure out how to make it work. That would be the the best thing for for us. Then I wouldn't have to second guess everything. I I hate I hate second guessing my stuff. That's why I try not to stress and that's why I don't go in deep super deep into the analytics. I just I just won't do it. I don't I'm happy. Yes. Would I like to do better? Absolutely. Of course. But I don't I don't want to I don't want to work that hard. Gosh, if YouTube's watching this, I would love that. I've told that would be perfect. I've told them that and I know other people have as well. And I know there's there's like TubeBuddy and all those other companies. They they offer you they're like thumbnail split testing, but it only changes the thumbnail once a day and it's after it already launched. So by the after 48 hours it doesn't matter I mean it does to some extent but not for that initial first. I found it always it's always the first one to two hours max that you could make a meaningful change and then after that sometimes I've done drastic changes and the views are the exact same. So I know after like two hours it kind of locks in at least for that next day. We also know that sometimes the content that we're putting out isn't doing well because it's just not meant to do well. certain pieces of content just aren't going to do well. Certain lens review, we know that a lens review for something like a new Nikon lens comes out. We know it may not be a super popular lens, like you can't clickbait it in a and I I say clickbait in a good way because people again don't understand Titanic sinks 1500 die. Is that clickbait when you see that on a newspaper headline? The answer is yes. But it delivers on the inside because unfortunately 1500 people died when the Titanic sank. And so where was I going? clickbait. You have to clickbait. Oh, yeah. The Nikon stuff. Um the the you can't clickbait the lens review because it it that's what it is. It's a Nikon 100 to 400 review. You can put something at the end like this lens sucks, right? But if you tried to click bait it, it would be dead. And this this video will just make get tons of views in the in the future over years because lenses will stay for five, six years. they'll stay new before some before they replace it with something else. So people just keep searching those out over time. So that's why I don't want to want to come up with a clickbay title for it that's going to be dead after a couple of days. Got it. And I don't want to change it too soon because it's it's not meant to be a great it's not meant to be a a video for everybody. It's for those Nikon people. So you avoid burnout by not looking at the numbers. Yeah, those numbers kill me. They do. It's just too much. And and so I'm happier by not even looking. Ignorant being ignorant, you know. What do you think about that? Uh, could you could you do that? No. I I I look at all the numbers. See, to me, it's like uh like kind of playing a game of chess. It's like you you try to perfect the perfect title, thumbnail. If it doesn't work, it's a race to try to fix it and get it to something that works. And I know some videos are longtail. And I know going in, okay, this is going to be a 10. It's not going to perform well. 30 days in, it's good. A 10. Do most pe Do people understand that? Uh I talk about it so often. They do. Yeah. I' I've desri I describe those tens. Yeah. It's the worst performing video of of the last 10. A 10 out of 10. Um it's frustrating. But yeah, but but unless I know going into it that this is going to be a 10. I I set the expectation. I know it. But some videos I'll post and I this should be much better. This should get double the views. Why? Uh, and I could see pretty quickly is did I not get the click-through from notifications? If not, it's a it's a title issue. Then I'll change the title. If I don't see an immediate uptick within 10 minutes, thumbnail, what's wrong with the thumbnail? Change the thumbnail. And so two hours, I'll usually have something where I'm okay with it. That's I mean, it works. I mean, you're you get a ton of views. I just I so I don't crop for anybody like images. I don't crop my images. And this leads into what we're talking about. The reason I don't crop my images in this day and age is I don't want to second guessess every composition that I take. And so it comes to the same thing with the YouTube videos. I we we we spend sometimes an hour we spent a day on one title once because I just wasn't happy with what we were coming up with and I think it was we ended up with did I fail. So, we knew there's certain videos that you just can't title right. And it was a video where we used a $60,000 microscope to uh try and get the grooves of a record, get a needle in the grooves of the record. I had to call Olympus. I got them to send me down an 80 the $60,000 microscope with a technician to run it to do this. And it's a great video. We knew nobody would watch it if I wrote taking a picture with a $60,000 microscope. And I didn't want to put the Well, Stephen, who I bounced the ideas off of, didn't like that I did a thumbnail that showed what the final image was because we found that if I'm not in the thumbnail, it's people don't recognize. Same thing. If I posted a picture on Instagram, that's a great picture, but that people don't know it's me because I I'm not in it, it doesn't get as many likes on it. But as soon as I post a picture of me flexing and saying, "Give me a comment or like what am I thinking?" It's gonna get 10 times the views. It's so annoying. Um, why didn't you just cuz you have a $60,000 camera, find a $60 camera and then just compare $60 camera versus $60,000 because the Okay, the challenge was I had a a a band member from a big band say they have a new album coming and he had an idea. Can I accomplish this? And oh, that brings up a question you asked earlier. Do I do shoots anymore? Hold that thought. Um, I've been holding it. Yeah, he um he gave me a challenge. I didn't know what to do, but I said yes because I'm like, "Yeah, I I can I can figure this out." And so that's that's why I didn't get a $60 camera cuz it's not possible to do it that way. Um, [snorts] but we went through the titles. I didn't like anything like using a $60,000 microscope to do this. Uh, I didn't like the thumb. Stephen didn't like the thumbnail. And he showed me one in the video. He's like, "Use this screen grab." And it was just me looking off to the side, a tighter shot, which normally doesn't work. And I'm wearing a mask because it was during the pandemic. And normally people would just go nuts cuz it's a mask. Um, and then I was like, why don't we say did I fail because it's not clickbait because it was a challenge and we knew that we did that and it got like 110,000 views in the first couple days. That was a success. We knew that if we didn't do that, it would get 20,000 views. Um, so that's what we had to do. Can I can I answer that question? Yeah. Because you brought that back. Do I take jobs? The answer is no. I tell people I cannot be hired. Uh I say I will not be beholden to someone else's expectations. But you still do shoot for I shoot what? No, I shoot what I want. You cannot pay me. You can pay me if you really want to pay me and pay me well. Like I just don't want to go through the [ __ ] of back and forth of negotiating what I think I know what I'm worth and having people try to undervalue me. I and then tell me how to do my job. I don't want to do that. So that's why I say I will not be beholden to someone else's expectations. I shoot what I want. I do photooots for people. Um because I love giving the gift of photography. I love being able to be in a position where if I want to go photograph my oldest fan, Lawrence Larry is 85 and he lives in uh AASA Oklahoma and he's been following my my channel for like 5 years and he always comments. He's like, "I'm 82 and uh how do you how do you think I should do this?" And that's so I I emailed the guy and I became a friend with him just through email. And I said, "When the pandemic is over, which it never is, uh I will fly out and spend a day with you." And I flew out on my I didn't tell anybody, but I flew out on my own dime. And I'm like, I'm going to come spend some time with you. He picked me up at the airport and uh I took photos of everything. I made a photo story. I'm like, "You sure you can drive?" Like, "You're 85. You good?" And he's like, "I used to ride. I used to drive race cars and so yeah man he was there picked me up we went to eat um I spent a day and a half with him he talked we played bat gammon for like five hours um and and and I then create a photo book I always do I photo book I love giving the gifts so I make these photo books and they're leaf behinds there's just something that nobody's going to throw out when you give them the gift so I like to do the shoots and then mail them this book and get their reactions to it because they don't expect it uh and I just love that most people will never have a professional photo taken of them. They're not used to seeing what quality is, especially with cell phones. They're so used to just garbage that when they see quality, they're like, "Oh, that's the difference between a great image and a and a snapshot." Um, so I like being able to do shoots for people that may not be able to afford it and then I don't have to charge them and they're like, "That's amazing." so I can pick and choose what I want to shoot. And people will give me [ __ ] They're like, "You're not a real photographer because you make your money doing something else." And I say, "Isn't it the goal of every photographer to get to the point that you can shoot what you want when you want to, right?" Like, if it's a landscape photographer, why would you have to why would you still shoot weddings if you hate it just to make money so you can go do the landscape stuff? So, if you make money elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with doing whatever whatever you want to shoot. And so, yeah, can I be hired? Theoretically, yes. if someone the right person came along and was like and and would pay me like to the $10,000 a day to do what I want to do and leave me alone. Sure. Um but I I like the thing I'm doing now with the with the bowlers, the professional bowlers, there's a guy named Kyle Troop. He has an afro on tour. I send him an Instagram message and I'm like I had it first, you know, and he's and then because I have the check mark, it's helped me get in touch with a lot of people. Um and I'm like, look, I want to do a photo story with you. And he's like, "What? Like, what's that?" I'm like, "So, I explained I showed him some other stuff and I'm like,"I want to I'll come out and photograph you. All I ask for is access. You give me the access. I'll pay my flight. I'll pay everything. Um, just give me access." And and I'm going to give you the images to use however you want. He's like, "Really?" Like, "Yeah." He's like, "Well, we'll be here, here, and here." I'm like, "All right, I'll be out for this tour, for this stop." And and and I did that. That's how I've gotten access to a lot of musicians. Um cuz sometimes when musicians come to town, I I have a bigger following than a lot of them or some of them, some of the the mid-level bands. And it's like, I'm going to give you these photos and I'm going to make content and it doesn't cost you money and I'm going to let you do stuff with it. So that's how I get access and that's how I get to shoot what I want to shoot, but I also can make content out of it, which then makes me money so that I don't have to get paid in the traditional sense of it because I know I can make content out of it to educate people and make revenue. I hope that answers that. But that's awesome. I will not be beholden to someone else's expectations. It's just something that I just I've never worked really I mean I've worked a 9 to5 barely. I just didn't last long because I my dad always worked for himself as a as a sales schmata salesman clothes salesman kids children's wear back in the day and he always said that uh his his I will not be beholden to someone else's expectations was I will not be told when I can go take a piss. So, he worked for himself. [snorts] I like it. I love it. He says that wasn't his quote, but I'm like, I'm pretty sure that was your quote. [laughter] So, you never uh finished answering the question how your business is still broken down. No, a different question. This was Graham's question because you you said like 150 or whatever for the YouTube ad. It's 112. That's Yeah, you can figure out math. Okay. That's uh $1.7 million. One and a half. It's It's close. Yeah, it's it's it's uh it's YouTube revenue is nice. Like I didn't care as much when it was like 40,000 50,000, but when you're starting to make 150,000 extra dollars just from ad revenue, um it it's it's a nice chunk of change. Merch, don't really push merch that much anymore because it's not as profitable as selling a digital product. When we sell a preset uh preset pack for $90 and you're clearing 88850 because that's less the fees, that's a hell of a lot easier to sell than something you have to ship and and do. So we make a a really nice amount with digital products. We make a nice amount with uh you know the the Squarespace deals. Um we have some other things. We use Canon in the studio uh for video. Yeah, we we get uh in in our videos it's we have a pop-up that says this was shot with Canon cameras. That's a a sponsorship, but they cannot tell me what to shoot when it comes to stills. It's abundantly clear that no one can pay me to use their gear. I've was a Nikon shooter from 15 to 38 years old. Two years ago, two and a half years ago, started using Sony because it was the right tool for the job. And right now, I've started to use Canon because it's the right tool for me. And so you cannot you cannot buy me for for making a good review. I'm going to say you you could pay you want to pay me money, you can pay me money. I'm still say your [ __ ] sucks if it still sucks. Um and so that that's that's the breakdown of the revenue. There's like six, seven different revenue streams. Um so if something goes away, you still have something else to to to pick it back up. Um but the digital products control your destiny, your own destiny. It's just people that try to make if you have a large following and you don't know how to monetize it that you that's on you, right? You have to find a way to mon that's why comedy channels were the failed in the past because they didn't have the ability. What are you going to sell? How to be a comedian, right? How to be funny. It just doesn't tell a joke. Exactly. All right. Is there is there anything else, Alex, you could think of? Um, no, not really. Do you do you want to rip apart my photos? No, I'm tired. Do you want to do it right now or after? It's It's almost midnight. I mean, it's pretty late. Yeah, it's pretty. What are we at for time wise? Uh, an hour 40. Holy. That's a That's long. Hour in here. Your watch time is going to go down. Why? I don't know. Do people watch How long do they watch these? Uh, we've got 20 30 minutes. Yeah, that's that's cool. That's good. But we've had we have two and a half hour ones and people will watch to the very end. So do you put this up as audio too? Audio uh it gets like 50 minutes average you average watch time. Where do you hear that? Where where do you what metric streaming service? Oh uh on anker.fm. Oh you use anchor. Do you use Libson? Yeah. That's where you messed up. I we started out on Libson. Anchor didn't exist when I started on Libson. I hate Libson so bad. But it was okay. Anyway, I I think we're good. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate you coming this late. Another idea. There's a Grammy party for me to go to. The Grammys are in town. Wow. Someone texted me and they're like, I'm putting you on a list. I'm like, you could go there and get a free stock when you sign up for Public down below in the description cuz that could be worth all the way up to $1,000 with the good Graham. You don't like that? I [laughter] love it. Join the mentorship group, guys. Link down below. You can talk to Graham and I once a week. You could nobody follow me on Instagram. Also, thank you so much, Jared, for coming. We're going to link you down below. We'll link you down below in the description as well. You guys want to learn about photography, taking good videos, and stuff like that, check out Jared. And with that said, until next time. Cool. Thank you, man. Really appreciate it, man.