You already know it's the creator spaces show. Do you consider yourself a creator? Yeah, I do. I do.
What exactly do you create as a curator? I do some reactionary content, but my friends I'm a streamer as well. I stream video game content. Um, I also do my podcast, so my podcast is called the homeroom with smooth podcast. We're on episode 47, which comes out this Sunday. You've got
the podcast. Now is the podcast on video
also. It is old video, honestly. It's just all on you. I have the audio. But I just haven't had the time, like I want to make the apple music page and all that stuff. I just don't have number one, the hard drive space for it. Cause I'm not in my normal environment. And then too, I want to do it in a very professional and meaningful way. Like when I started, I want to be consistent. Like anything.
I start, I want to be very consistent and meaningful with, with that said like when I put up my back catalog on Spotify and apple. And all that. They're not getting everything. That's just how it ended up going. There's some content that I'm okay with it staying on YouTube. However, I'm not okay with it being a part of my stuff going forward as audio wise, because audibly to me, I don't think it was very entertaining or things were said that I wouldn't stand by it.
Yeah, I think that's one of the big issues, especially like you've got multiple different kinds of content that you're creating and it might all be video, but I'm guessing that when you're doing a stream, when you're doing a play through like that, it's a very different experience than when somebody is tuning into an episode.
Yes, that is very
true. And then that does not carry over to audio. If you're, if everybody's talking on video and it's made for video, it does not transfer the audio in the same way. How do you go about balancing these different forms of creation?
So basically I've set a day aside. That is B podcast day. So it's typically Sunday mornings, but I told my constituent. That I am open to change because people want to change it. I like it because that allows me to go to brunch and just have fun afterwards. I can record who go to brunch and be done, but I don't want to be so selfish going forward. I now have a cohost. I now have an engineer. I just about hitting the ground running because it's going to be a year in August 27th.
And I'm proud of where we are from where we work.
So talk with me about how you build that audience. Consistency you've mentioned is really key to that via it seems like you're distributing on multiple platforms.
Yes, I am. I slowed that down a little bit just because I really want to Harvard. Getting my YouTube to a thousand subscribers because on Facebook, one video hit like seven cane because I had the right person on that day. However, it wasn't translating to every other video. It was just for those particular ones. And I said, okay, that's great now. But what if I could get that number on YouTube? And I said, what's the holder. I said, am I stretching my.
Too thin to where I guess I'm getting massive exposure, but it's not translating. Like I'm not gaining followers from putting them up. So those audiences aren't staying with me, they're watching, but they aren't staying. So I have to do something different now because my YouTube audience are around every thousand to 1200 do use, uh, get a subscriber and I'm like, okay, this works. So I got up, move off those other platforms. So everybody funnels into one place.
Once I get to a thousand steps, I don't care anymore. I don't care. I'll put it everywhere. Put it until then. It's all you. Yeah, cause man, I want to say like for other creators, when did you start out? Like, you might have an initial boom. That's great. You know what I'm saying? But don't let that go to your head and become inconsistent. I've seen people on their channels. They started on before mine or some of them started after my path and then I still pass them because I stayed consistent.
You need to figure out a roadmap that you can commit yourself to and stick with it, no matter what. Even if you have to pre-record prerecord, like, oh, I want to go on vacation. I want to take a break. Great. You prerecord do not. I keep this
show 60 days in advance. I've got anywhere from 10 to 20 episodes already recorded in case something comes up. We're always good.
Exactly. And that's the space you want to be in as a creator to where you don't have to? Oh my God. I have to put out a video. Like a lot of people, their content changes when John would be it. I don't want it to happen. Where I start making money from it. And I get to that space where it becomes my sole income. And now I can't look at it the same way, because everything to me is now about money. The sponsorships it's about the deals.
It's about me slamming this video with as many ads as I possibly can. And it takes away from the listener experience. I have to always remember that this place that I'm at right now. Yeah. These are the moments that matter because you have to build character and your integrity and you have to just stick to it and just stay. Yeah.
You're not monetizing
now. Yes, that would be correct. However, I do want to do a patriarchy, but I want to wait. I said, give me like 300 subs and I'll do a Patriot because I don't want to seem like I'm like, oh my God, I need money or anything like from people. I just want you to watch that's the bare minimum. That's my family.
I don't want to necessarily feel like I'm forcing anything from people or from my fan base, because I had people that are from all over the place from the UK, Canada, South Africa, I'm pretty spread out. So I'm like, okay, this is a good place to be. And I just want to continue to work on that. I get to the point where I'm hitting, like consistently reach wise thousands. Oh no, I made it because anything after that, it's literally just, are you consistent? That's it.
Cause you're going through reaching the people. All you have to do is Moran, consistent. People are going to start commenting. People are going to start just reacting. Like I went back on all my favorite channels that I like to watch and I've seen the same thing. They all started small. Everyone starting at with a mediocre set up and then they worked their way into it unless they were already a celebrity or they weren't.
What's your north star metric. How do you know you're on
the right path? Okay. This is going to sound very crazy. But honestly, my metric, when I know I was doing something right, was when all my naysayers shut up, like the little bickering you hear in the background while you're doing stuff like, oh, I wouldn't do that. Do this, or blah, blah, blah, blah. Like people that are not even creators themselves, you're not a creator shut up. That's how I feel.
And so once I got to the point, yeah, I was doing it and I was doing it so consistent and people were responding. People will watch it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and if it's in their face all the time, and then I'm constantly putting up on Instagram, I was notorious for it. I'd screenshot my page or I'd screen record a portion of the video as promo, but I'd always put the subscriber count in there and you can steadily see how I consistently went up. So I'm like, yeah. I could do this.
It's more so for myself so I can see it and I can always look back on it and go, okay, you've done this. You can keep doing it, but that's my metric for success though. People shedding up. That's when you know, so
what's your current goal as a creator? You mentioned that you were thinking about launching Patrion at 300 subscribers, and then you were planning. Really focusing on multi-platform distribution of a thousand. Is there a goal outside of that subscriber count? Right
now, the subscriber count in my main goal is to just provide good information to people and give them something to watch that takes them away from their problems. Honestly, that is the end goal. Cause I said it in my last episode that I did that even myself with I took a two week break. Yeah. Like, I felt more anxiety towards like doing podcasts than I did when I first started. And I was like, why do I feel this way?
And then I realized that I was slowly projecting onto myself my own doubts and fears, but this unreasonable expectation that I needed to be on this level. And really, I need to enjoy it. While I can enjoy it. Enjoy being what's so smooth on Twitter where I can tweet into the void and it doesn't matter. There's going to come a time where I'm not going to be able to just say things and they not matter. Yeah. So I need to enjoy my freedom.
Last question for you. If you could send a tweet back to your start, what would it be? And when would it be? You get to
choose the star. Okay. It will be a tweet that will be at 4:00 AM. So when I wake up, I'll read it. There was the night after I recorded the first episode, it will be posted. You have nothing to lose, then you have nothing to gain. Like you need to stand on your principles and stand on what you stand on. And just always know that everything will be okay. But never restrict yourself from not being yourself.
Be yourself, believe in yourself and nothing that other people can say will change the fact that you are great. They just don't know it yet.
Love it. Is there any last words of wisdom or advice or messages or comments you'd like to leave for the audience today?
I would definitely just tell them, just take the time to enjoy the small things. Okay. Enjoy the ride. Because you will not have this moment again, whatever your right now is, you will not have it again. And I'm not necessarily just applying it to your direct moment, but the time that you live in right now, you will not have it again.
Okay. We could go into another quarantine, but you will never have what you had that very first client to try and Quill it in the time, the time off work, we're not getting that back. Like, oh, all these jobs have moved to digital to where you're going to work. You know what I'm saying? Like a lot of things by period, period, you're going to work. That's how capitalism works.
So I would say just enjoy everything while you have it, all the moments, all the people, because you will not have always have them.