Episode 4

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Published on:

16th Oct 2023

One Million Subscribers in One Year - Interview with Jesse Davis

In this episode of the YouTube Success Podcast, you'll be joining me, as I sit down with a remarkable guest, Jesse Davis. Together, we explore Jesse's extraordinary journey, starting from a family YouTube channel to achieving a stunning milestone of 100,000 subscribers in just two months. We discuss the critical elements that led to his success, such as content strategy, audience targeting, and the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance while managing a thriving YouTube career.

If you're an aspiring content creator or a YouTube enthusiast, this conversation is a must-listen for you, offering invaluable insights and practical advice on your path to YouTube success.

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Transcript
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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Is it possible to get to a hundred

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thousand subscribers in two months?

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Yes it is.

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Is it possible to quit your job and go full time YouTuber?

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Of course it is and in this episode, I'm interviewing Jesse

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Davis, who did just that with one of the channels that he started.

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He's got multiple channels now.

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He had a fantastic way of testing his audience at the start that I'd

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really like you to pay attention to.

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So this episode is definitely worth listening to all the way through Jesse.

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He's such a humble guy and he's got such a fantastic, amazing way of delivering

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absolute gold throughout the episode.

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So pay attention, listen up and enjoy the episode.

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And don't forget, if this is the first time listening to the YouTube Success

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Podcast, make sure you subscribe, follow, like, share all that kind of

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jazz, wherever you're listening from and don't forget to review the episode

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as well If you get a moment, all right.

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Thanks so much.

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Go and enjoy the episode.

Jesse Davis:

My name is Jesse Davis and my family and I started a

Jesse Davis:

channel for my daughter back in 2017.

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We were doing family content on YouTube and that blew up in a big way, and

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since then, we've started many other channels and we have big pages on

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Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Wicked.

Jesse Davis:

And you say that, you fly through that story so well, but there's so much

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that I'd love to talk about and let's..

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So much to unpack.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Firstly, when you say it's a family channel, like when I remember you

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starting this, you said, and again, please correct me if I'm wrong here.

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It was something like, you started the channel to pay for your daughter's

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university or something like that.

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Is that, am I right or is it totally off?

Jesse Davis:

My daughter was eight at the time.

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Yeah.

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And it wasn't really about money.

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My daughter was an actress in Bangkok, so we live in Thailand.

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Yeah.

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And we had been doing television, TV casting, acting.

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Even I had been in TV series in Thailand and like I saw that all of

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a sudden when kids hit eight or nine and they started losing a lot of

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teeth and they started being less in demand, that all of a sudden, like

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they just did ran outta work, right?

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Yeah.

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Kid actresses are like, oh, industry's come back when you're 16

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or 17, then we'll talk to you then.

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But this awkward phase, we don't want you.

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And I felt like my daughter is really talented.

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She did work for KFC and Disney and Oreo and Nintendo, and she'd done like 40

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commercial jobs and then they're just gonna toss her away like some used rag.

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And I was like, as a dad, I'm like no, this is not cool.

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My daughter's super talented.

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Wouldn't it be so cool if she had a way to showcase her talents and abilities?

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And so we created this YouTube channel more for her to grow into as a longer

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term sort of career play and we always just said money's secondary.

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If we get some money, it's cool, right?

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But I had a job at that time.

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So money wasn't the big deal.

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It was more about fame and building a platform.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Okay.

Jesse Davis:

And I like the idea actually because it's a big point.

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Money means a lot of things to a lot of people, and if you're in a very

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tough situation, of course finances is something you focus on a lot.

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But what I see personally, in the most successful channels are people

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that start channels, based on something they're passionate about.

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And of course, it's easy to be passionate about your family.

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So my daughter, right?

Jesse Davis:

Sure.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, exactly.

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And I've got two girls, and so I know it's a great story to have

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done something selflessly to help your daughter along the way.

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Another thing that I really talk to people about is being strategic with

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your content, strategic with how you get stuff out there and of course, going from

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zero to a million subscribers in a year means you have to have been strategic.

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And I sent you the questions before and I said, what was the biggest mistake?

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And you said, Matt, there wasn't really a mistake, we had a perfect launch.

Jesse Davis:

So can you tell us in as much detail as you want or as little as you want?

Jesse Davis:

Sure.

Jesse Davis:

What that, because you're working a tech job, right?

Jesse Davis:

So you wasn't a YouTuber at the time.

Jesse Davis:

Yep.

Jesse Davis:

You wasn't, you didn't have any about YouTube, you were starting from nothing.

Jesse Davis:

I remember you asked some quite basic video questions at the time.

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You were just getting into to grips with the cameras and all that kind of stuff.

Jesse Davis:

How did you create that strategy around that, Jesse, at the start?

Jesse Davis:

I took the attitude that I know nothing about this,

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about YouTube, about video.

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So rather than coming and say, saying oh, I think I can do this, it was more about,

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okay, I need to start at the ground level.

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And the only way I was gonna figure out all this YouTube and video

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stuff is if I did it over time.

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Learning over time.

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So on my commute, I was listening to a lot of podcasts listened to a lot

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of Gary Vaynerchuk, listened to some other YouTube-specific podcasts, and I

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just kinda kept inhaling information, just, good stuff just coming in, best

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practices, what to do, what not to do, don't do sub for sub and all that stuff.

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And rather than me trying and making a whole lot of mistakes, I just

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absorbed all the best practices and then I started my channel that way.

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But we did have strategy, so you're right.

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And some of the strategy was that we had a few concepts and one was if we

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go after attention, money will follow.

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That was one of them.

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Yeah.

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And another one was that we are going to identify our target audience.

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And even though we didn't know what that audience liked, we

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basically what's the marketing term?

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Like an avatar?

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Like create an avatar of who your ideal target audience is.

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And so we decided that we were gonna go after little Thai girls

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that are aged, maybe six to 10.

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And we were, we just kinda listed out 14 ideas of everything that we thought

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that they might be interested in.

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And so when we started the channel, we did all of this stuff and the

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only way that worked was because we produced so much content.

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I think the first month we released about 52 videos, which is like a year's worth

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of weekly content in the first month.

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So sometimes there were like three episodes a day.

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But very quickly because of that data and by building our channel to move

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fast, we were able to get feedback and we were able to adjust right away.

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So out of those 14 ideas, little show segments, we cut

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seven of them out right away.

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Like within the first month?

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Yeah.

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Cuz clearly like nobody was interested.

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And then we focused on the stuff that was doing good and later on every year

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we'd review it again and we'd drop a segment out or add a segment in.

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But we had a kind of a scientific approach to it, and it was

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methodical and it was blazingly fast.

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And one of the last pieces of strategy that I think we started with, I'd like

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to talk about was our work ethic and our attitude, knowing that we could not

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keep up with that level of pace forever.

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But that we were gonna work hard for a season, and that season

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ended up being a very long season.

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Yeah, I think we've produced probably close to 4,000 videos.

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For our family in the last five years.

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But yeah, we just basically built for speed and just went at it.

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Boom.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Okay, so there's a couple of things I see

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that, that are really interesting.

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The first most obvious one is that initial I work with business owners, entrepreneurs

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who struggle to do a video a week.

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And here you are pushing out 50 videos in a month.

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How did you organize that with the family?

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You've got a job, you've got a family life and all that kind of stuff.

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Do you think, sorry, I'm asking a couple of questions here, but do you

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think the work ethic that you got from your daughter being in the shows and

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that kind of thing helped you structure that and plan that amount of content?

Jesse Davis:

I don't know if that helped with the speed.

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But we certainly were around that.

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So we saw how the crew would work, we saw how they were organized.

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And I think at that point, I couldn't take too many things away.

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But like right now it's really helpful because we work like that, right?

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Like we have multiple crews going out daily.

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And yeah all that industry experience helps.

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But I think in the beginning, the thing that actually really helped is prior

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to me getting into the tech industry, like the travel industry that I, the

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job I had before that I was an app entrepreneur and my wife and I built

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apps and games and we were building like, stuff that was quick or we would

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use prebuilt code and we would re-skin the graphics to make like another game.

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And we were releasing like 30 games a month.

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So we had this Rapid fire, digital production mentality.

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And while Apple didn't like that so much, they want one high quality game.

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YouTube loves it, right?

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They're like, Hey, give us content, daily content, great.

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Keep at it.

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So we were able to just go full throttle, but our process was, and

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part of this was controlled by the fact that my kids were in school, right?

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So I couldn't film during the week.

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So I would be going to work during the week, and then the evenings and

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weekends were that's my production time.

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So I mostly, I'd edit in the evenings and then we would film

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on Saturday and Sunday all day.

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Pretty much.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

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So yeah, we would, we'd be doing like just eight hours, nine hours

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straight filming like two days a week.

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Just getting a lot of videos in and we slowed down over time but

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it was just like a lot of, just anything that came to mind we did.

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And they were short, fast, fun videos.

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Just real freestyle shot with an iPhone and two, LED lights.

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That was it.

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No audio, no nothing fancy.

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Yeah.

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So now we are, we have a much higher focus on quality, but

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back then it was just quantity.

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Just get it out, get it out, get it out.

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And fortunately, our target audience didn't care.

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Little Thai kids are like, eh, they're not like, ooh, this megapixel

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count isn't as high as it could be.

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So they're like, oh, hey, is it fun?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, cool.

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But it's really about the content, right?

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The content is more important than all the tech stuff.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: And I'll just find that fascinating cuz actually

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as I'm hearing you and being a techie, a geeky techie myself, this view that

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you've got of like quantity first,

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and review the analytics and what that's telling you, and the bit where you said

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like you cut half of the ideas out, like it's the opposite of what most

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people do, and so that's fascinating because obviously whilst you're doing

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the opposite, it allowed you to laser focus in what you're really doing.

Jesse Davis:

You've got this consumer viewer first view at the start anyway.

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Who are these viewers gonna be?

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What are their, you said about the 14 interests like, really laser focused on,

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"we're not just making content for us to grow our business" or anything like that.

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It's what do people want to consume?

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And I just love the idea that you've beast moded that 52 videos, but it gave

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you so much data then to really hone into what was working and that kind of thing.

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And now you've told me that app story, it makes total sense that actually

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yes, you had that experience, the commercial experience, but actually

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it was probably more your analytical experience from you and your wife doing

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the app stuff that you understood how important the data was and to trust the

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data and to change things as you go.

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Yeah.

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It was really like an app almost apples to apples, like kind of

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comparison, like with the app store.

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The, your app icon is super important, right?

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Because that's what people see on the app store and it represents

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your app, and for YouTube, the thumbnail was like that important.

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So I are like, from the get-go, put a lot of emphasis on having a really

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eye-catching colorful fun thumbnail and cuz that's your billboard.

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That's what gets people to come in and watch your video.

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And so yeah, it was, it's funny because, as entrepreneurs we look

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at failure as oh my god, I suck.

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At the time I was like, I'm just not cut out to be a business guy,

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because my app business failed.

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But really it was like all this, amazing experience.

Jesse Davis:

It was setting me up for this next thing that I was gonna do,

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Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Oh, totally.

Jesse Davis:

I don't believe experience-wise, you're failing anyway.

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It's always just more knowledge to take with you to the next thing.

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Yep.

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And clearly this, that, that experience that you had paid dividends

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in the next part of the journey.

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When you published those 52 videos, you said you were focused on thumbnails.

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How much did you focus on like SEO and the other parts of YouTube that

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we often think of titles and SEO and was there like a strategic promotion

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kind of marketing plan at that point?

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Or was it just publish and see what YouTube does with these videos?

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SEO is a good question because on the App store it's usually called

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ASO or App Store Optimization.

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And Apple and Google work a little differently.

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But still, we had a, actually, a lot of background cuz that was our big

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marketing strategy was SEO basically.

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So we already had a lot of good SEO best practices, wired into it, and

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most of that transferred right over, like your title, the first, the titles

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are weighted stronger towards the beginning of the title, so we would

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put more important keywords there.

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I wouldn't say it was a mistake and I think earlier on and this was like

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2017 SEO played much of a bigger part in getting your videos discovered, but

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now that I know how the algorithm works a little bit better and now that it's

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probably changed a little bit SEO for YouTube has really fallen by the wayside.

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It's nowhere near as important as what it was, and you could have an amazing video

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with one word in the title and Google.

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Google Brain, their AI system is smart enough to figure out what your video

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is about, just based on AI recognition of the content of your video, as

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well as analyzing the verbiage.

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So it's like no matter what, it's gonna figure it out.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

That's good.

Jesse Davis:

And I want people to pay attention to the fact that you're talking about 2017.

Jesse Davis:

This is not a your journey is not a 10 year old journey, is it?

Jesse Davis:

It's a, Nope.

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Your journey in business and the app store journey and all of that experience that,

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that's clearly obviously had a good impact on this is longer, but five years that,

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the one year to a million, is it insane?

Jesse Davis:

But, beyond that is, is also incredible what you've done.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah,

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It didn't stop at one year like we kept growing.

Jesse Davis:

So I've got two channels that are over a million subs and our main one is,

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I think around 7.3 million currently.

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Yeah.

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So it's one of the bigger channels in Thailand.

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And then, we've got several million plus follower Facebook pages, 1

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million plus follower TikTok page, and I think we've amassed about 7

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billion views, not including TikTok.

Jesse Davis:

So yeah, like we've been

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: busy.

Jesse Davis:

So and we talked, just before we started this, you talked about your transition.

Jesse Davis:

So you've got this big channel it's in a kids niche.

Jesse Davis:

Yep.

Jesse Davis:

Things are going really well and then the COPPA thing happened, the

Jesse Davis:

cop or whatever you wanna call it.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

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And you've now gotta make some kind of decision to adjust.

Jesse Davis:

So can you tell us a little bit about that and then how and I suppose the

Jesse Davis:

other part to that as well is were you doing a lot of stuff on the

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other social networks at that time?

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Yeah.

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So we had some presence, but not a lot.

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Yeah.

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So for those of your audience who does not understand what COPPA is, or COPPA or

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whatever, it was the Child Online Privacy Protection Act enacted by the FTC and

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enforced by the FTC, the US FTC, and the Federal Trade Commission then sued YouTube

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for about $140 million, and of course one, and people are saying like, they got

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off easy because they knew that YouTube had all this child data and people are

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like, oh, it's about, bad stuff for kids.

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And that's not what it was about.

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It was about YouTube was knowingly collecting data from children,

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and part of that was their ad platform.

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Their ad platform is data driven, right?

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So contextual ads being served to kids was making them a lot of money.

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And so what they did was now they had to make you start labeling your content

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as kids or not for kids, and we were, my daughter was getting older, so it

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was getting kinda like on the line of what was kids and what was not for kids.

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So we made a very conscious decision after seeing our ad revenues cut by

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80% to, Hey let's maybe look for a different direction to go in the future.

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That was a very good call because right now, things are as bad or

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if not worse than what they were a couple years ago for kids' channels.

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And it's just they haven't gotten a break.

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And so we started pivoting towards, seeing what older

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content we could do as a family.

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And one of the things we noticed, we had a lot of older relatives that would

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come over to help with the channel.

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We started doing skits and we started realizing that these weren't

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really heavy on the kids' side.

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Like it was more like a story for adults and it happened to have a kid actor in

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it here or there, and we noticed that these started popping on Facebook.

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And Facebook doesn't have a lot of kids on it.

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It's all like older adults.

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Yeah.

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And so we knew that hey, this was a real genuine for adult type of content.

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We started doing more and more of 'em and it was doing pretty good,

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but it was just killing on Facebook and we got monetised on Facebook.

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So a lot of people don't know that Facebook runs Instream Ads, which

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is very similar to YouTube AdSense.

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It's much more difficult to get monetised on Facebook, but once you're monetised

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and you can drive views, the payouts are like three times better, or at

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least in our opinion or our experience.

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So we were like quadruple dipping because we were making three times more on

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Facebook, plus making money on YouTube.

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So then all of a sudden our business started doing really

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good by focusing in on these.

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And we still do the kids and family content on the weekends, but Monday

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through Friday we've got multiple teams filming at least two episodes per team

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per day, and we're adding a third.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah that's done really well for us.

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But yeah, mainly on Facebook.

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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And that's fascinating cuz it would be quite easy for you to stick to the

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one platform and focus on that, given that you've got this huge audience.

Jesse Davis:

But it's nice to see that you just made the decision.

Jesse Davis:

I know you cut the COPPA thing push you down that road.

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But even yeah, you could have still stuck to your guns and continued

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down the road you were going, but actually it's good to spread yourself

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out across the multiple platforms.

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One thing I think from, because a lot of my audience, they're a smaller businesses,

Jesse Davis:

maybe even a one man band, so to speak.

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Like when you talk about, having two teams, maybe three teams, for those

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people that are just doing it on your own, and you talked about you and your

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wife and your family doing this stuff over the weekend, like what advice would

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you give them if they're getting started?

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I think.

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For you guys, like you're in, you was already in a view of working hard and

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being part of a production teams and stuff with the work that you did, but

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it still must have been hard to manage all of that stuff at the same time,

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especially when you were working as well.

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Yeah.

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What advice would you give people that where time is really

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limited?

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So I think the thing is that, You can't invent more time, you can't add it,

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but you can be more efficient at it.

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So it's really being honest with yourself about what can I give up?

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That, that time where I watch Netflix at night, it should I watch Netflix

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or can we use that as production time?

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So that's really key, and the one of the other keys is it, when it comes to

Jesse Davis:

being efficient with time is batching.

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Batching for content creation is so key because what tires people

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out is you have to wear many hats when you're in YouTube, right?

Jesse Davis:

Okay.

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Now I'm, I've gotta, I've gotta be a writer, right?

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And now I have to sit in front of a camera and be an actor, and now I have

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to go over here and become an editor.

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And then after that, I gotta be an SEO expert.

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And then I gotta be a graphic designer for the thumbnail and like switching

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these hats boop, tires people out, right?

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Because they're not used to doing that kind of thing.

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One of the things we did, and this is a very practical tip for any video creators

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out there, is to batch everything.

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So that means Monday is your writing day, and you just write

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as many stories as you can.

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Two, three stories, and then, maybe the day before that

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is your research day, right?

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You gotta research and come up with some good ideas, try to see what's happening,

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what your audience is watching, get some input so you can create, and then maybe

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Saturday you have a day off of work.

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So that's, you get up early in the morning, you set up your studio,

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you got all the lights going on, and then once you're in that

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filming mode, it's just, episode.

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Just bang bang.

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And then Sunday, you get back on your computer and today is just edit.

Jesse Davis:

Alls I'm gonna do is edit all day.

Jesse Davis:

And if you do that, you can produce two to four clips a week, easy for most creators.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: So what I'm hearing you say is that if you've

Jesse Davis:

got excuses about doing this stuff, ask yourself how much Netflix am I watching?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

How dedicated and committed am I to actually making this work.

Jesse Davis:

Because strategy is one thing and we talk about strategy a lot, but actually

Jesse Davis:

the dedication and commitment that you had and it's really funny, it's the old

Jesse Davis:

fable, you get out of it what you put in.

Jesse Davis:

And it sounds to me like as a family unit, you all decided like

Jesse Davis:

this was something that was really worth us committing to this?

Jesse Davis:

Because, during that first month, but I would imagine for a long time after that,

Jesse Davis:

your family time is eaten into, right?

Jesse Davis:

Like I know you had fun making a lot of the videos.

Jesse Davis:

Everyone's committed to having fun, but still, there must be some like military

Jesse Davis:

operations style stuff going on to try and make all of this work whilst you're

Jesse Davis:

trying to still be a dad in a moment.

Jesse Davis:

All that kinda stuff.

Jesse Davis:

Yep.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I think How did that affect your dynamic as a family, I guess is the

Jesse Davis:

question.

Jesse Davis:

So I think it was pretty tough and I won't beat around the bush and I'll

Jesse Davis:

tell you that, it definitely took some toll on the family in some way it shape

Jesse Davis:

or form, my daughter is a trooper and she put up with all this and I think

Jesse Davis:

she's a little getting on the burnt outside at 14, but we've listened to her

Jesse Davis:

and one of the things that I think we tried, because we knew that this could

Jesse Davis:

be really damaging as a family to go that hard for that long, and we would

Jesse Davis:

have sit down times, at least once a month, sort of mental health checks.

Jesse Davis:

And be like, Hey, is everybody okay?

Jesse Davis:

How are you feeling?

Jesse Davis:

What's your opinion?

Jesse Davis:

Is it too much?

Jesse Davis:

And it was nice because my daughter would actually gimme some honest

Jesse Davis:

feedback and be like, you know what?

Jesse Davis:

It's pretty good, but when you say this or whatever, I get stressed out

Jesse Davis:

and so we've been able to adjust.

Jesse Davis:

And probably recently, my daughter's hit 14, she's in middle school, and

Jesse Davis:

she said, dad, I'm really proud of everything that we've done, but I

Jesse Davis:

don't wanna work my entire childhood.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And so after she said that, I was like, okay, maybe it's time to like recalibrate.

Jesse Davis:

So now we only maybe film, what, a couple times a month.

Jesse Davis:

And she has a pretty normal childhood for the most part.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

But we've scaled way back on her channel just for her sake mainly.

Jesse Davis:

But I know it, it was tough, it's very stressful.

Jesse Davis:

My wife is the one who's really the workhorse to the family.

Jesse Davis:

She's the one I give all the credit to for schedule because I'm both techy and artsy.

Jesse Davis:

I like cameras and I like video and settings.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, but my brain's all over the place and thank God, I have somebody

Jesse Davis:

like my wife who grounds me and says okay, today is production day.

Jesse Davis:

Today, we are doing this today, we are doing that.

Jesse Davis:

And having somebody like that on your team, if you're not like that,

Jesse Davis:

is awesome to keep you on schedule.

Jesse Davis:

So much of YouTube is about discipline and really just staying

Jesse Davis:

on that schedule and keep producing

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: content.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jesse Davis:

Love that.

Jesse Davis:

I think we're all just gonna agree that our wives are the best part of this deal

Jesse Davis:

is them keeping us on track for sure.

Jesse Davis:

It is so important though, whether it's your wife or your business partner

Jesse Davis:

or whatever, having somebody that supports you in that way and really

Jesse Davis:

playing to each other's strengths and, like you say, you're the techie

Jesse Davis:

and the artsy guy in the partnership.

Jesse Davis:

But it really does help to have

Jesse Davis:

the different strengths and being able to lean on each other in that way.

Jesse Davis:

Great to hear that, that works out really well for you.

Jesse Davis:

Thanks.

Jesse Davis:

We talked about, okay, it's not all just about money, but let's talk about

Jesse Davis:

brand deals if you don't mind, and, okay what I'm interested in I know

Jesse Davis:

you've got a lot of deals going on and stuff, and you work with loads of

Jesse Davis:

huge businesses and stuff now, right?

Jesse Davis:

What I'm interested in is like, when did you first get your first brand

Jesse Davis:

deal and how did that come about?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah let's just go down that road a little bit, just if you don't

Jesse Davis:

mind.

Jesse Davis:

Hey, sorry for the interruption.

Jesse Davis:

Whilst you're listening to the YouTube Success podcast, don't

Jesse Davis:

forget that we have a FREE community over at youtubecommunity.co.uk.

Jesse Davis:

I'd love to see you there.

Jesse Davis:

You can talk about the podcast or you can talk about anything related to YouTube.

Jesse Davis:

So head over to youtubecommunity.co.uk and I'll see you there.

Jesse Davis:

Back to the episode.

Jesse Davis:

Okay, sure.

Jesse Davis:

So I think the first brand deal, we grew so fast.

Jesse Davis:

So we got a silver play button in about five months and we were so new that we

Jesse Davis:

just weren't on the radar of companies, or marketing agencies and, So we had this

Jesse Davis:

kind of thing of Hey guys, we're here.

Jesse Davis:

And I think we eventually, we decided we just need to start somewhere.

Jesse Davis:

So we reached out to, it was some like online company sales.

Jesse Davis:

I'm trying to even remember what it was.

Jesse Davis:

It wasn't like super famous like eBay or anything, and we just

Jesse Davis:

said, Hey, we do kids review stuff.

Jesse Davis:

Can you send us some toys?

Jesse Davis:

Maybe we review 'em.

Jesse Davis:

So they were like, okay, and they sent us a couple toys and product, just for free.

Jesse Davis:

And we started there and I know some people I've heard argue

Jesse Davis:

like you gotta value your time.

Jesse Davis:

You gotta charge all this stuff.

Jesse Davis:

And really, like we were after experience, and we wanted to have a track record.

Jesse Davis:

And I wanted to know that if I was going to Nestle, that I could say,

Jesse Davis:

Hey, look what we've done in the past, we know how to handle brands.

Jesse Davis:

We know how to handle your business, and at that point, I didn't know how

Jesse Davis:

to handle it like in the beginning.

Jesse Davis:

I did start approaching companies.

Jesse Davis:

Now, I would be admidst to tell you if I was a pro at brand

Jesse Davis:

deals because I'm really not.

Jesse Davis:

Because we became such a force in the industry, like in our little

Jesse Davis:

country of Thailand, we got started getting approached by a lot of brands.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And so that made our job real easy, right?

Jesse Davis:

Because I don't have to reach out and email people.

Jesse Davis:

They're contacting us.

Jesse Davis:

And so we've done many brand deals for all sorts of drink companies and vitamin syrup

Jesse Davis:

and toys and, everything you can imagine.

Jesse Davis:

And it was really fun, but right now, we're kinda like we're out of the toy

Jesse Davis:

phase and because we're so focused on our new thing, we've almost like

Jesse Davis:

completely turned down all brand deals.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, I did one, we did one this past week for a music video for a

Jesse Davis:

cosmetic company, but I don't see us handling too many more of those.

Jesse Davis:

They can be really time consuming.

Jesse Davis:

So yeah, even aside from just, like the idea and then the production and the

Jesse Davis:

editing, which that's what but what you don't see is like all the back and forth

Jesse Davis:

of the marketing companies coming with ideas and proposals and pitch decks.

Jesse Davis:

So really, they can drag out over a month.

Jesse Davis:

And this one brand deal, I think we started at the end of last year

Jesse Davis:

and we just finished shooting it.

Jesse Davis:

So they can

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: take a while, make the bigger it

Jesse Davis:

gets, the harder it gets, right?

Jesse Davis:

There's just more people involved and they wanna make sure it's right and it's

Jesse Davis:

worth the investment or that kind of jazz.

Jesse Davis:

One thing I can recommend cuz I like to have some little practical

Jesse Davis:

takeaways that somebody's oh, hey, I could try this is come up with a rate card.

Jesse Davis:

So I have this little jpeg graphic and all it says is, it says the name of,

Jesse Davis:

Brianna's Secret Club or the name of my channel, and then it says, some bullet

Jesse Davis:

points like top channel in Thailand, one of the in demand, blah, blah, blah.

Jesse Davis:

This many subs.

Jesse Davis:

So like a couple little bullet points.

Jesse Davis:

It's just you know what our value is, and then here's a rate package,

Jesse Davis:

or, one or two rates and if, contact us for more information.

Jesse Davis:

It looks professional.

Jesse Davis:

It's simple and easy.

Jesse Davis:

Somebody asked, cuz a lot of companies will just ask for your

Jesse Davis:

rate card if they're serious.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And so it's nice to have that handy where you can just be like,

Jesse Davis:

check out my rate card and if you're interested, let me know.

Jesse Davis:

We can negotiate, blah, blah, blah.

Jesse Davis:

But it's a good starting point and it makes you look really professional.

Jesse Davis:

So you always wanna have some marketing materials ready to go for your company.

Jesse Davis:

And then when you reach out to them, you can say, Hey, can I send you my rate

JesseDavies:

card?

JesseDavies:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.

JesseDavies:

To be honest with you, it's nice to hear what you said right at the start.

JesseDavies:

You approached a few people, they gave you some free stuff, and that was enough.

JesseDavies:

I totally agree.

JesseDavies:

I recommend people have a rate card.

JesseDavies:

I usually say imagine it's gonna take you a day to create the video.

JesseDavies:

What is a day's worth of value to you?

JesseDavies:

What would you charge somebody?

JesseDavies:

Whatever your business is, that's the cost you can demand for this thing, and you

JesseDavies:

could add production value and editing all that kind of stuff with it as well.

JesseDavies:

But actually, like for me, with some of this stuff that I've done, I've

JesseDavies:

worked with some companies where, if it was Logitech, they could just

JesseDavies:

send me some gear because I love gear and I spend the money anyway.

JesseDavies:

Yeah.

JesseDavies:

Like sometimes that's okay.

JesseDavies:

And it's just a good way to get the experience, like you say, to

JesseDavies:

understand what they want out of it,

JesseDavies:

how to talk to these.

JesseDavies:

If you're not used to talking to corporate people, it can be quite daunting at

JesseDavies:

the times, so getting that experience and just understanding how that

JesseDavies:

relationship works is really important.

JesseDavies:

And then, like you say, the bigger it gets, the more people are involved,

JesseDavies:

the more they want to get out of it.

JesseDavies:

So it becomes, yeah, it can become a bit.

JesseDavies:

It's

Jesse Davis:

funny you mentioned Logitech.

Jesse Davis:

The last last brand deal I did for these headphones.

Jesse Davis:

Oh, there you go.

Jesse Davis:

There you go.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I was like, yeah, let's please send us more stuff.

Jesse Davis:

That's

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: great.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jesse Davis:

I'd definitely be doing that as much as possible for gear

Jesse Davis:

cuz I spend so much on gear.

Jesse Davis:

Amazing.

Jesse Davis:

Thanks for that.

Jesse Davis:

It's really great advice.

Jesse Davis:

You said there I'd like to give these little tips.

Jesse Davis:

Honestly, Jesse, everything you've said so far, I know this, like in my, even

Jesse Davis:

in my community, they will absolutely love the advice and the story that

Jesse Davis:

you've given us about your experience.

Jesse Davis:

There's not just little bits.

Jesse Davis:

There's some great stuff there.

Jesse Davis:

Good, good.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I can be like real high level overall arching strategy, but

Jesse Davis:

sometimes it's hard to, Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

You

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: dunno where people are, do, yeah.

Jesse Davis:

The thing is, I think I asked the, we've got a WhatsApp group for the community

Jesse Davis:

and I said what would you like me to ask?

Jesse Davis:

And of course, it's always quite high level stuff, but actually for me,

Jesse Davis:

when you talked about the 14 ideas and then ditching seven them of them.

Jesse Davis:

Like it's those kind of things that are really key that people

Jesse Davis:

often skip over because they're not prepared to do the analytical work.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Like I, I'll publish the videos.

Jesse Davis:

I, I look at views and then I'll walk away and it's that's not the only metric

Jesse Davis:

and there's so much more around it that you need to pay attention to and

Jesse Davis:

actually be prepared to post a video and for it to, not work and post a

Jesse Davis:

completely different one and it flies and then, okay, let's do more of them

Jesse Davis:

then, cuz it's clear that one's working better or it might fly the first time

Jesse Davis:

and not the second time and yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And adjust as you go.

Jesse Davis:

So yeah, paying attention to all of that stuff, I think is the bit that a lot of

Jesse Davis:

people don't put the effort into maybe.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And listen to your audience, I know I mentioned we, we tested a lot of the

Jesse Davis:

things, but a lot of it was because we didn't know what they wanted,

Jesse Davis:

and a mistake I see a lot of YouTubers do is they're like, no, it's gotta be

Jesse Davis:

quality and it's gotta be my way, and I gotta, I'm gonna do this, and the

Jesse Davis:

audience is gonna have to like it.

Jesse Davis:

And it's it's almost a little arrogant, yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Saying that, you think you know what the audience wants,

Jesse Davis:

and then they have to like you because of it.

Jesse Davis:

And it's always like, how do I get more views on my videos?

Jesse Davis:

It's why don't you make videos that your people wanna watch?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

It's more about the other way around.

Jesse Davis:

So it's being a little bit humble, like trying to, I understand that there's

Jesse Davis:

two partners in this dance, and you have to bounce and play off of each

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: other.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, and you are taking people's time and attention.

Jesse Davis:

So Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

You need to give them something that they really want to watch

Jesse Davis:

because otherwise they're just gonna be annoyed more than anything.

Jesse Davis:

And may maybe that leads to leads nicely to my question about comments

Jesse Davis:

as what did with your kids channel.

Jesse Davis:

Did you have comments on

Jesse Davis:

Yes, we did.

Jesse Davis:

We've always had comments on unless YouTube turns it off Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Or there's a distinct problem, which occasionally has happened.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: But, So how so did, and

Jesse Davis:

did you get any negativity?

Jesse Davis:

Was it all positive stuff?

Jesse Davis:

What's the, tell me about that side of the story and what I'm really interested

Jesse Davis:

in, obviously being a dad as well is like, how did that work for your daughter and,

Jesse Davis:

yeah, did you like collectively read them or did you just not bother reading them?

Jesse Davis:

What was the deal

Jesse Davis:

there?

Jesse Davis:

Fortunately at the time my, my daughter could speak Thai okay.

Jesse Davis:

And her, my mom, my wife, her mom would help her out with a lot of Thai say it

Jesse Davis:

like, no, say it like this, and so she would do a lot of parroting, but when it

Jesse Davis:

came to reading, she couldn't really read.

Jesse Davis:

So it was never an issue because she just couldn't read the

Jesse Davis:

comments and I couldn't read.

Jesse Davis:

I would translate the comments and then be like, how dare are they?

Jesse Davis:

It's eight year olds, they're trying out every bad word

Jesse Davis:

they know, to see what it was.

Jesse Davis:

But my daughter was never affected by it.

Jesse Davis:

But what we learned was to get a bit of a thick skin.

Jesse Davis:

So even when somebody leaves a bad comment they're taking time outta

Jesse Davis:

their day to write something about your video that they took the time to watch.

Jesse Davis:

And that still eventually helps you more or less, like you're

Jesse Davis:

getting attention, right?

Jesse Davis:

Whether it's good or bad attention, and I look at it as take the

Jesse Davis:

most famous leaders in the world, Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln, right?

Jesse Davis:

Half the country hated their guts.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, these are like the most, most famous guys, right?

Jesse Davis:

And still so many people hated them.

Jesse Davis:

But you look at any famous figure in history and they all

Jesse Davis:

had people hate their guts.

Jesse Davis:

And so I just always remember that no matter what you do, no

Jesse Davis:

matter how good you are, there's gonna be somebody that hates you.

Jesse Davis:

And for me, it's always come back to one thing.

Jesse Davis:

Validation.

Jesse Davis:

It's validation that I'm here, it's validation that I'm

Jesse Davis:

going in a strong direction.

Jesse Davis:

And I don't care if I upset your feelings.

Jesse Davis:

I don't care if you think I look like an idiot.

Jesse Davis:

That's cool.

Jesse Davis:

That's your opinion, but, I'm gonna keep doing my thing and if you like it, cool.

Jesse Davis:

If not, oh and it doesn't bother me anymore.

Jesse Davis:

And I think all of us are just eh, whatever, it's delete, block, move on.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I like the idea of thick skin because definitely when you get

Jesse Davis:

started, we've got experience, right?

Jesse Davis:

We've been doing videos and stuff for a long time, so you know, it's coming.

Jesse Davis:

I don't get it obviously anywhere near what you would get comments wise

Jesse Davis:

anyway, so I expect there's lots more to filter through, but you just I,

Jesse Davis:

I like the idea of, somebody's gonna hate it anyway, so you may as well

Jesse Davis:

just do it and see what happens.

Jesse Davis:

And, The majority of the time, you've got a great fan base

Jesse Davis:

that loves what you're doing.

Jesse Davis:

That's right.

Jesse Davis:

And I've seen when you've, created new channels they've rallied around

Jesse Davis:

to support you in the new channels and, all that kind of good stuff.

Jesse Davis:

So obviously you're doing something right, even if there's people

Jesse Davis:

that are not that happy about it.

Jesse Davis:

But that's right.

Jesse Davis:

And the funny thing is when you mentioned the fans that support you.

Jesse Davis:

A lot of times, like I, somebody writes something really nasty and I almost

Jesse Davis:

felt like stepping in, and blocking or banning and the fans just eat 'em alive.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

They will take 'em to task.

Jesse Davis:

And it's a funny how really riled up your fans get defending you.

Jesse Davis:

So I would say in most cases it's fine.

Jesse Davis:

And if it's it, I would say this to anybody.

Jesse Davis:

If it ever starts getting in your head where it's affecting

Jesse Davis:

you mentally, you can't sleep.

Jesse Davis:

You just think about it all night or you're having a great day, and then

Jesse Davis:

you see that negative comment and then your day just goes downhill from

Jesse Davis:

there and you just can't handle it.

Jesse Davis:

Turn the comments off.

Jesse Davis:

That's it.

Jesse Davis:

Just turn 'em off.

Jesse Davis:

It's better to not have any comments at all than to have something ruin your day.

Jesse Davis:

And yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Nobody wants

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: that, right?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, totally.

Jesse Davis:

But, and I get that, But just know it's coming, just know

Jesse Davis:

it's gonna come and expect it.

Jesse Davis:

Exactly.

Jesse Davis:

And and if you've got that thick skin it certainly, the first

Jesse Davis:

couple of times it feels personal.

Jesse Davis:

But for me I just feel like there's some, now I feel like what's

Jesse Davis:

going on in that person's life?

Jesse Davis:

Something's going on in their life and this video that I've created, or this

Jesse Davis:

piece of content I've created is where they need to get it off their chest.

Jesse Davis:

It's not a, it's never about me.

Jesse Davis:

It's all about what's going on in their life.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, that's true.

Jesse Davis:

When I look at it through that lens, I, I feel like, okay, a lot of the

Jesse Davis:

time I'm always like, how can I help?

Jesse Davis:

What, what's going on?

Jesse Davis:

Do you know?

Jesse Davis:

Do you wanna have a conversation?

Jesse Davis:

And I actually seen this quite a bit on Instagram reels.

Jesse Davis:

There's a few times where I've seen people leave really terrible, horrible comments

Jesse Davis:

and the person that's posted has just been really kind and nice to them, and you

Jesse Davis:

see the conversation completely change.

Jesse Davis:

It just flips because they don't expect to be treated with kindness with this.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

, nasty comment that might be, and they feel bad, right?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

That's totally, that's great.

Jesse Davis:

Okay, so you mentioned a couple of people.

Jesse Davis:

I've got a question here just about who do you look up to?

Jesse Davis:

Who do you admire on YouTube?

Jesse Davis:

You men mentioned Gary V and a couple of others not so much just when you

Jesse Davis:

were getting started, but also now, like who do you see and you think,

Jesse Davis:

oh, they're doing a great job.

Jesse Davis:

I really like what they're doing.

Jesse Davis:

Anyone that comes to mind.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I don't like being a broken record, but I was fortunate

Jesse Davis:

enough to get to meet Jimmy, Mr.

Jesse Davis:

Beast at Yep.

Jesse Davis:

VidSummit last year and man, what an awesome guy.

Jesse Davis:

He's doing so he makes me look like a lazy sloth that's doing nothing.

Jesse Davis:

He's oh yeah, I'm doing this charity and this channel.

Jesse Davis:

We're doing gaming videos over here, and then I'm surviving in a

Jesse Davis:

crashed luxury liner like luxury jet.

Jesse Davis:

This guy is like doing so much insane stuff.

Jesse Davis:

And I know he's built an incredible team around him and I got to have Have lunch

Jesse Davis:

with Chandler and some of those guys.

Jesse Davis:

But really, I think across the board, the entire industry has just

Jesse Davis:

nothing but respect for this guy.

Jesse Davis:

He's as legit and as nice as they come, and it's so awesome to see good

Jesse Davis:

things happen to a really great guy.

Jesse Davis:

And so I like that.

Jesse Davis:

But there's so many creators that I just think are really making great

Jesse Davis:

stuff and I, I know my son and I always love a lot of engineering

Jesse Davis:

channels we love like Mark Robber and the Hack Smith and some of these guys.

Jesse Davis:

We just love seeing them build stuff.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And it gives us ideas to, to build stuff.

Jesse Davis:

So those are some of our favorite YouTubers.

Jesse Davis:

But I don't know what's your favorite YouTuber?

Jesse Davis:

Which ones,

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: i, I'm the same, Mr Beast is

Jesse Davis:

on upon the list, of course.

Jesse Davis:

Actually when I first went to VidSummit, I wasn't really into YouTube, I'd had

Jesse Davis:

the video company for seven years, traveling, doing corporate videos.

Jesse Davis:

But I wasn't really into YouTube.

Jesse Davis:

And when I went VidSummit, I showed my daughter the list of speakers and I was

Jesse Davis:

like can you tell me who these people are?

Jesse Davis:

Cause I don't know.

Jesse Davis:

She was like, oh daddy, you've gotta meet Rebecca Zamolo.

Jesse Davis:

So I met her and she gave me this lovely video for Willow.

Jesse Davis:

It was her birthday.

Jesse Davis:

And I said, could you do a little video and say happy birthday to her?

Jesse Davis:

And so I got this and I kept hold of it for six months cuz it was, way before.

Jesse Davis:

So obviously I consume some of her content, but then just for me, what I

Jesse Davis:

like about consuming content is more like the, and you being a techie and an

Jesse Davis:

editor would appreciate this, but like a cool ways a video is put together, like I

Jesse Davis:

look for nice transitions or little cool things where, you know, even sat next to

Jesse Davis:

a woman, I completely forget her name now, she's huge on Facebook for recipe videos.

Jesse Davis:

She did a session at VidSummit.

Jesse Davis:

This is why I love, love VidSummit.

Jesse Davis:

She did a session, I watched the session, she taught Taughts loads of

Jesse Davis:

stuff, and then I happened to just be sitting next to her on the next session.

Jesse Davis:

She, she came and sat in the audience and sat next to him.

Jesse Davis:

I got talk, talking about it.

Jesse Davis:

But she built her whole business around these quick recipe videos, and

Jesse Davis:

there were quick edits and everybody does them now, but I just think I,

Jesse Davis:

I just look for that all the time.

Jesse Davis:

If I see someone and they've got a really cool edit, I'm like, I know

Jesse Davis:

what effort that took to create it.

Jesse Davis:

So I'm like, yes, I'll follow you.

Jesse Davis:

So I think the editors of the world are probably ones that are

Jesse Davis:

rather than the personalities.

Jesse Davis:

But I, it's funny, like when you're in it you, there's certain things

Jesse Davis:

that you look for that you appreciated wow, that shot took a lot of planning

Jesse Davis:

or I wouldn't have done it like that.

Jesse Davis:

And yeah that's always

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: impressive.

Jesse Davis:

Oh, I, I do, I think Jesse like, The, you talked about Mr.

Jesse Davis:

Beast and the stuff that they're doing.

Jesse Davis:

I think a lot of people watch that for entertainment value and all

Jesse Davis:

that kind of stuff, but definitely me and you are watching it going.

Jesse Davis:

How did they do that bit?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, but what was it?

Jesse Davis:

There must, the team must have been amazing to do this thing, see,

Jesse Davis:

there's definitely a different lens you look at once you become a creator

Jesse Davis:

and you're thinking like, okay, I need to make some cool videos.

Jesse Davis:

You I don't think you ever watch videos the same again.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I remember going, I went to Film studies at college, and I remember

Jesse Davis:

when we first watched it, we analyzed Psycho and the teacher said to me

Jesse Davis:

at the time, he said, you'll never watch, you'll never appreciate videos

Jesse Davis:

just for entertainment anymore.

Jesse Davis:

You're always gonna be breaking them down.

Jesse Davis:

And it's true.

Jesse Davis:

It's true.

Jesse Davis:

Never stopped.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

It's like such a curse.

Jesse Davis:

So lately I've been less amazed by like quick edits and YouTube and things like

Jesse Davis:

that for entertainment purposes and more of now I'm doing this professional

Jesse Davis:

team that's, close to TV quality.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Drama videos.

Jesse Davis:

And so I'm always looking at Hey, how can we, push the quality level more?

Jesse Davis:

What lenses can we get?

Jesse Davis:

What shots, how does this team film that?

Jesse Davis:

I'm like watching other, like my wife's watching Thai tv and I'm like,

Jesse Davis:

Ooh, this is a really good shot.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Look

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: at that.

Jesse Davis:

Totally.

Jesse Davis:

I, we watched a ambulance, I watched it on the plane.

Jesse Davis:

We went to New York recently.

Jesse Davis:

And again, I'm looking and I'm seeing all the drone shots and I'm like, oh, when we

Jesse Davis:

had a drone, when we first got a drone, there's no way we could get that shot.

Jesse Davis:

And then I was watching them and I was like, Oh my God,

Jesse Davis:

it must have been amazing.

Jesse Davis:

And then I saw a video with the director, Michael Bay, was it?

Jesse Davis:

I can't remember who it was the director.

Jesse Davis:

But he was talking about the drone pilots and saying there's no way we

Jesse Davis:

could have done this film in that way, without these amazing pilots.

Jesse Davis:

So yeah it is a curse.

Jesse Davis:

I'm glad you used that word.

Jesse Davis:

Cause that's what I say.

Jesse Davis:

It's a curse once you get into it, cuz you just can't sit and

Jesse Davis:

enjoy films in the same room.

Jesse Davis:

You can't turn it off.

Jesse Davis:

You can't

Jesse Davis:

turn it off.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: No video production mind.

Jesse Davis:

Last thing I'll ask you then, just because we're talking about teching, geeky stuff.

Jesse Davis:

You've talked about filming on an iPhone at the start and

Jesse Davis:

you've moved around equipment.

Jesse Davis:

What do you thinks the piece of equipment that made the most difference?

Jesse Davis:

After the iPhone?

Jesse Davis:

Cause the obvious one is the iPhone.

Jesse Davis:

You had the iPhone, everything you had was in your hand, available

Jesse Davis:

to you, then you could film.

Jesse Davis:

But when you started to move from that, like what's the, what did

Jesse Davis:

you notice as the best investments?

Jesse Davis:

I've, being a tech geek, I've got a lot of equipment.

Jesse Davis:

When we moved from an iPhone, we moved to the Cannon M Series.

Jesse Davis:

So I had an M6, which is similar to the M 50, and what I liked about it was

Jesse Davis:

more microphone options, more modular.

Jesse Davis:

It wasn't about the video quality so much, but I liked how you fix the settings

Jesse Davis:

the way I wanted, and I liked how, I could have a removable microphone or I

Jesse Davis:

could switch to a wireless if I wanted to and I could mount it to a tripod.

Jesse Davis:

It was just like, and remove them from memory cards.

Jesse Davis:

So that's a huge thing.

Jesse Davis:

I hate phones trying to like connect cables and get the videos off the phone.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah, it's horrible.

Jesse Davis:

Being able to just pop that little memory card out and just stick

Jesse Davis:

it into the computer and then bam, all my videos are there.

Jesse Davis:

That was a game changer for production.

Jesse Davis:

And then from there we've gone through many, many cameras.

Jesse Davis:

Probably the biggest maybe camera that made like a big impact on us was the

Jesse Davis:

Canon EOSR going up to a full frame.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Newer camera mirrorless.

Jesse Davis:

That camera still to this day produces just amazing quality video.

Jesse Davis:

We love the colors and I've got three of 'em now and I have three R

Jesse Davis:

sixes, and still, I think the EOSR have the best color, it's such a

Jesse Davis:

good camera for the money right now.

Jesse Davis:

They're all discounted, but if you're a budding filmmaker that is a good

Jesse Davis:

camera to pick up for the money.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Depends on what you're using it for.

Jesse Davis:

There, there's never a perfect camera.

Jesse Davis:

But that one was probably a real, that one with the road video

Jesse Davis:

mic pro plus and a wide lens.

Jesse Davis:

That's like our go-to YouTube setup up, we're always running

Jesse Davis:

around with that thing.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah, and it's a, I think the transition you've

Jesse Davis:

just said from iPhone to compact camera.

Jesse Davis:

Mirrorless, you probably missed the digital slr stage cuz mirrorless

Jesse Davis:

would've been a natural, I think the compact camera was mirrorless, right?

Jesse Davis:

So that's fine.

Jesse Davis:

No, the

Jesse Davis:

compact camera, the M6 is, yeah, the M6 is mirrorless.

Jesse Davis:

It's one of the small mirrorless.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

But not full frame.

JesseDavies:

It's

Jesse Davis:

not the full size.

Jesse Davis:

We had a 60D Canon 60 D, which was like the first generation

Jesse Davis:

of cannons to do video.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And so I originally, before we did my daughter's channel.

Jesse Davis:

We tried to do like a Lego show and it just, that camera didn't work for it.

Jesse Davis:

There was no auto focus I had to like, set the focus manually and then okay,

Jesse Davis:

everybody stay right here on this plane.

Jesse Davis:

Do not move.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Keep everything in focus.

Jesse Davis:

So I like that.

Jesse Davis:

I like I can't deal with this, so let me, we just use the iPhones.

Jesse Davis:

But yeah, after that, like the new newer auto focus systems are like so

Jesse Davis:

much better with the face tracking.

Jesse Davis:

So almost anything you get now is like pretty good.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Filmmakers have it so easy.

Jesse Davis:

Like the amount of storage space you get for 20 bucks, the

Jesse Davis:

shoot all day on two batteries.

Jesse Davis:

It's ridiculous.

Jesse Davis:

Like filmmakers from, even 10 years ago would be seriously jealous of the

Jesse Davis:

stuff you have on the shelf right now.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah, totally.

Jesse Davis:

The, we, I had a couple of Lumix GH5's s and the auto focus

Jesse Davis:

on that was always shocking.

Jesse Davis:

And I love that camera, but it's the exact same issue that you talked about, yeah.

Jesse Davis:

And then when I got my latest Sony and everything just, works as quick as it

Jesse Davis:

did on an iPhone or a compact camera.

Jesse Davis:

And that's the thing that annoyed me the most is the more expensive they

Jesse Davis:

got, the more manual they became.

Jesse Davis:

Whereas now I've got a Sony A 7 C that I'm doing this on.

Jesse Davis:

It's just, you just turn it on and everything, works, so away you go.

Jesse Davis:

But yeah, I feel that pain and you added 2017, I think we started 2013 with some of

Jesse Davis:

the, we started with the Canons as well.

Jesse Davis:

7D or something like that.

Jesse Davis:

Oh yeah.

Jesse Davis:

7D (actually 6D) seventies is not bad.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

I could you not best video with all this Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Camera talk for sure.

Jesse Davis:

But yeah I just, I was just interested.

Jesse Davis:

It's nice to see that you went through that through that

Jesse Davis:

transition through the cameras and a great message for anybody that.

Jesse Davis:

Where camera and gear is an excuse because you got started and

Jesse Davis:

presumably in that first 12 months, you were still on the iPhone Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Until you started to move to something else.

Jesse Davis:

So

Jesse Davis:

gear is never an excuse.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: That, that stop.

Jesse Davis:

You get into the first

Jesse Davis:

million because I've seen some amazing filmmakers shoot

Jesse Davis:

entire commercials on an iPhone or like a high-end Android phone and

Jesse Davis:

it's just jaw droppingly amazing.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Like really.

Jesse Davis:

To be honest, a lot of it's lighting, A lot of it's good audio.

Jesse Davis:

A lot of it's knowing where to stand and you know where to position.

Jesse Davis:

Things like taking a filmmaker course might make better video,

Jesse Davis:

make you have better videos than upgrading to a better camera.

Jesse Davis:

Eventually my, my attitude for towards gear is if you have a company and

Jesse Davis:

you're making money, On video you almost owe it to your fans to make sure

Jesse Davis:

that you know their support is going towards a better experience for them.

Jesse Davis:

Yes.

Jesse Davis:

So that's how I've always treated gear is that Hey, I'm gonna give

Jesse Davis:

back to the fans if it's within my power to make this video look better

Jesse Davis:

for you guys, I'm gonna do that.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

A actually, it's a thing that I talk to about a lot of

Jesse Davis:

entrepreneurs in the online space.

Jesse Davis:

There's a lot of business owners where they sell in digital courses,

Jesse Davis:

and I get on the digital course and it's a Zoom call and it's on this,

Jesse Davis:

terrible device and I'm like, yeah, but I've spent $2,000 for this course.

Jesse Davis:

Use the money that I gave you to upgrade your gear.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Just gimme some level of expected quality level, but when you're starting

Jesse Davis:

using your phone and Zoom is fine.

Jesse Davis:

There's no issue there.

Jesse Davis:

But the more you level up and like you say, if you're a business owner,

Jesse Davis:

you're making money outta this stuff, then upgrade where you can, you

Jesse Davis:

know?

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

If you're pulling in six figures a year on a course or seven figures, yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Get an okay camera, get a couple lights there's like a definite decrease

Jesse Davis:

in quality or what do they call it?

Jesse Davis:

Diminishing returns, right?

Jesse Davis:

So there's a certain point where you get diminishing returns.

Jesse Davis:

Like things will look a little bit better if you spend a lot more money.

Jesse Davis:

But, just get the basics.

Jesse Davis:

Get, have a decent microphone, have at least a couple lights, an okay camera

Jesse Davis:

at least a modern, higher end smartphone is good and you can make awesome stuff.

Jesse Davis:

Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.

Jesse Davis:

Totally agree.

Jesse Davis:

Wicked.

Jesse Davis:

Jesse, thank you so much.

Jesse Davis:

This is eight months.

Jesse Davis:

This has took us to finally get here.

Jesse Davis:

I paused it back in January, but I'm so delighted to have spent this time

Jesse Davis:

with you, and I really appreciate you taking the time out to do this.

Jesse Davis:

I know it's late for you as well.

Jesse Davis:

Thank you so much.

Jesse Davis:

Where can people find out more about you and your channels and all of your YouTube

Jesse Davis:

stuff?

Jesse Davis:

Okay.

Jesse Davis:

If you want to check out my daughter's channel, it's in Thai, but you can

Jesse Davis:

see us at Brianna's Secret Club.

Jesse Davis:

Th and if you want to find out more about me, I do also do YouTube channel reviews.

Jesse Davis:

If you want me to check out your channel, you can head on over to

Jesse Davis:

prochannelreview.com or you can reach me at jesse@prochannelreview.com and

Jesse Davis:

I'm happy to answer your questions.

Jesse Davis:

My policy is if I can always take out 15 minutes of my day to help somebody,

Jesse Davis:

I'm gonna always do that for free.

Jesse Davis:

So if you have a quick question, shoot me a email and if you want me to do

Jesse Davis:

an in-depth review, I can do that too.

Jesse Davis:

Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Wicked amazing.

Jesse Davis:

If you send me those links, I'll stick 'em on the episode when we put it out as well.

Jesse Davis:

Jesse, thank you so much.

Jesse Davis:

Really appreciate your time.

Jesse Davis:

Have a wonderful rest of your evening and I'll speak to you very soon.

Jesse Davis:

Okay,

Jesse Davis:

thanks.

Jesse Davis:

See ya.

Jesse Davis:

Take care.

Jesse Davis:

Bye-bye.

Jesse Davis:

Bye.

Show artwork for YouTube Success - YouTube for Business & YouTube Growth, Video Marketing

About the Podcast

YouTube Success - YouTube for Business & YouTube Growth, Video Marketing
How to Launch and Grow a YouTube Channel
YouTube Success: Unleash Your Inner Creator! 🎥✨

Ever dreamt of riding the YouTube wave to stardom? Or perhaps just keen to boost your brand and master the art of viral content? Dive into "YouTube Success" - your ultimate backstage pass to the world of YouTube stardom! 🌟 From decoding algorithms to crafting click-worthy thumbnails, we’re pulling back the curtain on every tip, trick, and trade secret.

But wait, there's more! 🎤 Every episode brings you face-to-face with the platform’s movers and shakers - successful YouTubers, content gurus, and savvy entrepreneurs, all dishing out their success stories, failures, and that one thing they wish they knew before hitting ‘publish’.

So, whether you're a budding YouTuber with a brand new channel or an entrepreneur wanting to skyrocket your digital presence, strap in for a fun and enlightening ride. Because the road to YouTube success just got a whole lot clearer (and way more exciting)! 🚀

Hit subscribe and become the creator you were destined to be. Your journey to YouTube stardom starts here! 🎬🔥 #YouTubeSuccessPodcast

About your host

Profile picture for Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes is the King of Video.

In 2013 he started his video company that he ran for 7 years creating video and travelling the world, with clients from one man bands through to billion dollar companies.

Fast forward to 2019 and he created the King of Video brand to help small business owners confidently, create, consistent video content that connects with their audience.

In 2021 Matt turned his focus to YouTube and has the goal of getting 1000 small businesses to 1000 subscribers using YouTube as the primary platform to grow their business and make money by strategically creating video content.