Hello there. Do you even blog family, Pete here coming at you today with an interview? Episode. Yes, it has been a hot minute since I have brought you amazing creators and online entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, everything. To help us build a life we want using the internet to make money from the internet back at you with an interview today. And I'm delighted to offer you my friend. T Kim. You can find tea on YouTube, T a E T Kim, or search for financial tourists.
And we're here to talk about YouTube. Speaking of which tastes been at this for a couple of years, I've actually, uh, privileged to watch his journey almost from the early stages. And he's just been crushing it. The past couple of years, I just went to his talk at VIN con a couple of weeks ago, and he is here to drop the value bombs. The value nuggets.
If you will, as it pertains to starting growing a YouTube channel, and this is especially going to be great for you who don't want to spend so much time. On the YouTube channel. Not that you shouldn't spend the time to produce good content. But everything else, the nitty gritty of setting up and systematizing your process and editing and thumbnails and all of the things that go into growing a YouTube channel. Take him very good at this stuff.
I absolutely adore him and think you're going to show the episode. Now. One final warning. My audio is just hot, garbage. It's basically a trash. Just an FYI, always triple check, which recording device you're using. I had a nice microphone in front of my face, but it turns out I was recording via the built-in. Laptop Mike, that was like four feet away from it. No matter. I sound terrible. I D I did my best to clean it up, but just so you know, it's going to sound bad.
Oh, my case tastes sounds amazing. All right. I hope you enjoyed this chat with the one and the only take Kim.
Tae welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me, Pete.
It is an honor to have you. We've known each other for several years at this point and today I want to talk, I think mostly about YouTube. Some, some tactical stuff. I went to your FinCon presentation, which was also on starting and growing and systematizing a YouTube channel and all the stuff that goes into producing YouTube content. I know that you know what you're doing, but Let's get to the audience and know what you're doing. And in order to do that, let's actually start at the beginning.
So Tay, why don't you fill us in the gaps of how you decided to actually start a YouTube channel as opposed to, this was a couple years ago, a blog or a podcast or literally anything else. How did you get into YouTube specifically?
Yes, that's a good question. So kind of wind the clock back. I worked as a finance director at an education company. I did that for about 10 years. A very typical FP and a financial planning analysis spent a lot of time, a lot of my time behind a spreadsheet. And then I started getting introduced into the world of, I guess, internet marketing, internet businesses. And Pete, your podcast was one of the first ones I listened to. And thus, I was always fascinated by how people were making money.
Yeah.
coming from a very traditional kind of a corporate background, it was very new to me. Uh, chatting with you kind of learning more about the whole world of Internet business. I was intrigued by what was. The possibility of being able to make money online and then several years back, I started taking things a little seriously and said, if I want to make a transition, how would I do this? And I think what
full time job.
out of my full time job into the world of Internet business, making money online. And for me, I think what was going through my head was kind of, you know, there's a lot of different, avenues to approach, approach it. Right. I think blogging was kind of like, what was what I, what I saw, I think with a lot of people, just because it was an easy entry point. You just start a website and then there's a lot of courses around blogging.
But I also knew that I wasn't there, there wasn't like a particular. Like distinct advantage of me starting a blog like that was I mean I could start a blog I have a you know unique voice however It, I don't know, it felt a little, a little challenging for me to make myself stand out from so many different websites out there, so many better writers out there. And then that's when I started, you know, hearing about YouTube.
I was a consumer of YouTube, but never really saw myself a content creator. And then, seeing some personal finance content creators online and going into video, I think requires a little bit, I guess more investment, there's a bigger barrier to entry because not only do you have to create a content but, you know, creating a content in video, like, not only do you have to like, you know, write out a content, creating a, creating content in video requires a video videography experience.
You know, you have to know how to film yourself, record yourself, publish videos, and I felt like there was less competition. In the video world compared to the blogging world. And I felt if I'm going to jump into something, I want to give myself the highest probability of success. And you know, there's no guarantee of success, but I felt comfortable being able to speak in front of a camera about money, and I felt like.
You know, there wasn't, it wasn't you know, it wasn't the red ocean, you know, there's that strategy, blue ocean, red ocean, I felt like the red ocean, there was just a lot of competition in the blogging world. But if I could, you know, learn the art of videography, and then I can apply the personal finance lessons that I knew, I had a better chance of being successful in the YouTube world. So that was kind of like my logic, my thesis.
And then two years ago, a little over two years ago, I decided to take the leap from being a finance director into YouTube full time. So I, I was one of those people that didn't have one leg in and then like slowly, gradually built it up. And then once my income got to a certain point, I left my job. I think my faith was the fact that we had some money saved. my wife and I, we, we both worked full time for over 10 years.
And then we were pursuing the FI thing for a while, so we had enough runway that, you know I, we could live off, if I, without my income, we could still live fine for several years and it would be, it would have been okay. So, I kind of saw it as like, what's the worst case scenario? I just kind of go back to what I was doing before. So,
don't spoil it. Don't go any further. No, I got questions.
yes, please, go ahead.
actually, I'll spoil it for the audience. So, from the outside looking in, you seem to be doing really well on YouTube. And your stuff is amazing. And I've said this for years. Let the record
Yes, Pete, Pete believed in me.
I did. Yeah. You have a natural charisma on your YouTube channel. It's really great. Anyways, it seems to be working now for sure. But before we talk about that, I actually want to talk to you about quitting your job as well. What that, what that looked like what were some of the really, I feel like once anybody starts anything on the internet, specifically a podcast or YouTube channel or blog or anything.
jump in, and then, within that first couple of months, there's, like, so much learning that happens. And it's not learning, like, they took a course. Maybe they already took the course on how to start a YouTube channel. But then they start, and then they learn all the things that they didn't know they needed to know, if that makes any sense. And so I want to ask you what yours were. In the first, let's just say, like, maybe, like, three months? Six months?
Three, six months of starting the YouTube channel, what were the biggest... Surprises or stuff that you didn't know you needed to know that you had to figure out really quick. Lessons learned, if you want to think about that, in the first couple of months.
Yeah, I mean, the first six months, I think I published maybe like a handful of videos and getting that one three minute video took me a week. And that's, you know, literally, it's not an understatement to say it took me probably like 60 hours to produce a content that's about three minutes long. so the biggest thing I learned within that first six months was really just how to create a video going through that iteration.
From start to finish and realizing, wow, this is pretty intense, like idea generation, to writing down, to scripting out what I want to say, to filming editing, uploading, and filming, I think, I think that was also a huge arena that I underestimated. So I like, I have no film background. My previous, you know, like I've never, I bought my first DSLR camera, like right after I left my job or right around the time I left my job saying, okay, I'm going to try this thing.
So I think, I think the first six months I was watching all these videographer, filmmaker, YouTubers about like how to use a camera and then just basic stuff like, oh, how do I get that blurry background? I want to get that. And then like looking up, Oh, that's the lens and the aperture. It's like, Oh, what is an aperture? And then I just go down this whole rabbit hole of, okay. Oh, there's something called ISO. I got, I got to learn about ISO.
And then people are talking about like white balance. I'm like, I don't understand what white balance is. And then they were like, you should white balance, you know, like, and you look all washed out and say, I can't even, I can't, I don't even know how to turn the camera on. So I think all those elements of just a mechanics of. Going through the whole process of creating a video.
I think that was what I just in a way blundered through the first six months Recognizing that this was the the price had to pay the investment that I had to make in order to get to a point Where I'm provide I'm creating videos in a consistent basis
Do you kind of laugh at yourself now? You're, so just, for anybody who wasn't there, what am I talking, for anybody who wasn't there, nobody listening to this was probably there. I went to your FanCon talk. Your talk was specifically on the process. Yeah.
Yes
start to finish capturing ideas all the way up into like consistent video production, publishing consistently, like all the things. And you had like, you just had like a massive bullet point list of like tip after tip after tip. And it was really great. And I actually do want to get into those. So let's start with what, I don't know if you actually got any questions afterward. I don't know if anybody came up to you right after we're like total noobs and they're like, how do I get started?
Like, what does that? Like I just watched like an hour of your thing, but what's the five minute version of just tell me what to do first? So with that in mind if somebody's listening to this and wants to go deeper into YouTube into video or maybe They haven't started anything at all and they're like actually I think YouTube is what I want to do What's the five minute version of?
The first couple of steps in the system, don't talk about editing just yet, but talk about like what beginners need to know with the first couple of steps and setting up a consistent system.
Yeah, so I think If you think about, I mean, it really comes down to kind of three major steps. One is I think the, uh, idea and the scripting, and then part two is the filming and part three is editing and uploading. So I would say you want to try to shrink the friction.
Between all of these as much as possible so then not overthink because we tend to overthink right and then we get into analysis paralysis So I think just like, you know, write out a topic that you find interesting Film it with your iPhone. Don't worry about the sound only worry about the production and then Basic edit which is just cut out the front and the end the awkward parts And then just upload it.
And I think, you know, you almost have to go into the YouTube journey And this is something that I had kind of in my mind, like, Even if this takes me ten years, I think, I'm gonna stick to this. I'm gonna, like, make this work. But, for someone getting started, I mean, I think that's, that's the hard part, right? It's just you know, we can think and we can talk about it all day long. But until you upload your first video, really don't know.
The one, if you're going to like it to, if this is something that, you know, you, you're you feel like you can invest your time in time and energy into and then three, like, you know, understand just kind of like how much can go into this as little as, as little as you want, or as much as you want. I mean, there's, you know, YouTube videos that you see where the production value is really low but they're consistently uploading and then you have like.
YouTube videos that are like Hollywood film, you know, level. So it's just all range. And, but I think in order to understand like where you want to fit in, it's, yeah, you just got to come up with the idea, write something down, film it, edit and upload, and then just, you know, try to remove as much friction between those steps as much as possible.
Yeah. I'll, I'll share something that a mutual friend, Nick True told me ages ago. I was, I don't remember what I was doing. I think I had a podcast or a YouTube video recorded. And edit it and like almost ready to go, but I was like watching it play back and I was like, I'm not I'm not really happy with the quality or something or another.
I don't even remember exactly what it was But without missing a beat like he just kind of splurged it out, you know qualities in the eye of the beholder and I was like Thinking about it and thinking about it. Okay. Yeah, I think I get what that means and I think anybody who's creating a while would probably agree with that. I, I can, I know I can look in my analytics for you name it, any project I have, and I can point to pieces of content that exploded or did better than others really.
It's not always what I think is the best,
Right.
right? Like I could, I could watch the YouTube video that I spent the most time on for sure. And it's not my top video, not even like close. And one more thing, just an anecdote. Literally two hours ago, I was eating some lunch, and I usually do most of my YouTube consumption during my lunch hour. Anyways, I was watching Channel 5. I don't know if you watch Andrew Callahan. He used to run a channel called All Gas No Breaks.
He did something for HBO Max a couple months ago, and he's kind of taken off his stuff. Not that it isn't good, because it is great, but it's not what people would normally think of when they think this is what I want my YouTube videos to look like. It's not like that at all. And I was just appreciating that on his channel.
Like, this guy has millions and millions of subs and he's getting deals with HBO and all this other stuff and his video is, like, mediocre at best but he knows how to, like, weave together good content.
So... So, to my anecdotes aside, I actually want to dive back into your journey a little bit and Don't let me put words in your mouth But I think we know each other a little bit well enough where I can say it took you a couple of years to kind of not get the ball rolling the ball was always rolling but to like really see some like impressive numbers and Actually before I go any further. What is your subscriber count up to as of like right now?
I think I'm almost at one 30.
Okay. That's absurd. And last year at this time, or
Last year I would say last year at this time, I was around like three, four thousand.
3, 000 to 130, 000, roughly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
absurd. How much time and how many videos did you put out to even get to that three K mark? We'll talk about the last year and a little while, but even getting to that, like what was that time period?
I had a hun about a hundred and fifty videos. Before at three thousand subscribers, I had a hundred and fifty videos in.
Okay. Again, take this the way, which is intended, and that is to help other people listening to this. How did you persist? I know myself, I get bored easily, I get discouraged easily, probably more so than most people. How did you continue to do all these things when you had 27 subscribers? And then, you know, 29 subscribers, and all the way up to like 3, 000. That's a lot of videos.
It is, and that's what, uh, you know, I talk I talk about how that's the period of the grind, um, that I feel like a lot of creators have a hard time sustaining. Um, through that kind of the valley of death, right? Like, um, you're not seeing any results, you're constantly publishing and publishing. So, I mean, end of the day, I was constantly having to tell myself, focus on the process, look at the long term not get anchored so much upon, uh, each individual video.
Video's outcome, video's performance to determine like my success, but rather focus upon the input as much as possible. Because end of the day, I think what I was focused on was, and then this is, and then once again, when I'm talking about the process too, I'm not downplaying the analyzing my videos and also trying to improve on them based upon the little tiny metrics that I'm seeing here and there. Oh, this one got extra a hundred views and this one didn't get a hundred views.
So you do want to take a look at those because that, that does inform, that did inform my next videos, but then you also have to, you know, walk a fine balance between not being obsessed about it because that's going to discourage you constantly. So, yeah, I mean, I think.
I had to constantly tell myself, this is a long game, and then every video I put in, um, what I was focused upon, what I was really focused on was how do I make the next video 1 percent better than the previous video, and then how do I make the next video 1 percent better, and then I
And faster, and easier.
exactly, yeah, and then, um, as I, you know, tried, as I came up with like, even with idea generation, like initially, you know, you, You try to like, I thought, you know, it was this video topic would be great, but then I had a really struggle trying to create content around it. So trying to find the right balance between like, okay, like.
What is a content that I find interesting, what the internet would find interesting and what I would also have good sources that I can pull from because I think that's another aspect of the YouTube world or the content world is that it's not just a volume of content we're putting out there, but then I think a lot of it really comes down to the quality of the content and the quality can only, you can only improve quality You can improve, a quantity plays a big part in improving your quality.
So what I'm saying is, I think more video I created, I think more I read, more I think I consumed, and then more that informed me in making the next video better and better.
I'm going to, I'm going to splurge on, and that's my own podcast. So I get to do that.
yes.
I say that by the way, every single, not every single for a lot of episodes, I'll get an email every now and then it'd be just like, I wish Pete would talk less. You have a guest on like, let them talk. I said, no, it's my podcast. Two things, one, which was actually from you, but I want to just brush by it. You showed a list of like your content ideas, or I can't remember if it's like a spreadsheet or whatever, but you had like hundreds of ideas.
And something you said that really resonated with me is half the time you'll look back a day later or a week later or months later and think like, yeah, that idea was, no, that's not very good. Right? And I have a rule. I just made the rule at your FinCon talk. So you'll appreciate this. You, you've affected
nice,
I have never, ever. I'm, I'm like setting this hard. I'm never going to produce a piece of content on the day I have the idea ever again.
Yeah,
It never works for me personally. Some business models might have that, but for me, I might get excited about an idea like, Oh, I'm going to drop everything and do this. It never works for me personally. And after you hear you say that, I was like, you know what? Never again, at least 24 hours will happen before I write something down and I do it. Last thing. I have more questions for you. I feel like there's an equation on what's the ROI equation, right? Return on investment.
And the more time you spend on any one thing, one blog post, one YouTube video, one course, one product, whatever that is, the more it has to make in order to be profitable, right? Like we kind of understand that if it takes you a week to do a three minute video, that's a lot of cost. Right? That you could have been doing other things with. Your time, ROI.
But, I think the more you can just use your phone, record a video, chop off the end, and, oh, chop off the beginning and the end, like you said earlier, and like hit publish, the more you can do that, you just set it yourself, the better you get at your process. The smarter you get, because you're doing research and reading for each video, and like, so on and so forth, where eventually, 150 videos later, I'm guessing it didn't take you a week to do a 3 minute video. Most cases, right?
Like, you've, you've often reduced the friction in a lot of these steps. It's just an idea. I wanted to float out there. Like, this, this time ROI, the more you do anything in life, like, it tends to get shorter. Less, less, less cost. Right? Less investment. Okay.
Yeah, less investment. I think you also get smarter on What your area of I guess biggest value add is on the process. So I think Initially, I didn't know what my voice was.
I didn't know what my final video product I wanted to look like because I never created a video before so then I think more I went through the iteration I found Okay, like This is my point of view, this is the, what do you call it, this is a style in which I like the video, like, at first I was, like, you know, watching all these other videos and then you watch, like, You know, Johnny Harris video, you watch like Matt D'Avella video, and you're like, Oh, I want that style.
You watch like Ali Abdaal video, and you're like, I like that style. So you're trying out all these different things. I'm like, Oh, I should add music here. Oh, I don't like music here. People are saying the music is too loud. And so you're, and then that's part of the process is you have to get to the bat and swing. And then you find kind of like your rhythm. You're like, okay, this works for me. Um, this is not so taxing. I enjoy this type of video.
Um, and then I think what happens is once you get into that rhythm, then I, for me, I started to realize, okay, like, uh, I don't need to spend so much time on this part of the process, which now for me is kind of like the initial edit, like getting the raw footage and then, um, like chopping it up into pieces that I can use for, um, for the final video, but also was able to chop out, like, before I used to obsess about like the location of like where I film, I was like, I need to change the
background because people are gonna be bored of the background because I see that in like, you know, like other other content creators, and that was creating so much like, Friction in the process. So I was like, you know what, I'm just going to pick one location that works in the house and I'm just going to film everything there.
So I think going through those iteration just helped me to focus upon the, what mattered, what didn't matter, and then what I could outsource, what I didn't have to obsess about, and then now where I obsessed the most about is actually the content, the topic.
And, um, the scripting, that's where like 80 percent of my energy is going on going into because that I think matters the most for my process, like, from my perspective is people are coming to YouTube to learn something or to be entertained.
And then, you know, it's like a good movie, like the movie isn't made when you're filming, the movie isn't made when you're editing, the movie is made in the scripting, you have a good script of, you know, like a. A director, a bad director, and a bad, you know, producer can ruin the film. But then, you know, a good movie starts with the script. So I think that, for me, was one of the, one of the things I, I learned from the process.
And then, it was, it was hard to identify that without having gone through that iteration several times. And then be like, okay, like, this is where, what I can outsource, this is what I can deprioritize, this is what I can prioritize.
Well, my favorite part of podcasting and interviewing people is that we get to learn from your iterations. This is great. So I wrote down on my notes here, something you said, what matters and what doesn't. And I'm trying to remember, Tate, I'm pretty sure it was your session at VinCon where you kept saying like, nobody cares about some
yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.
the things that we think. No one cares what ISO setting my camera is on right now, but it's something I tend to, like, look at and obsess over to, like, miniscule degrees, right? And I guarantee no one watching this cares. At all. Um, what are some other things from all your iterations that matter or don't matter? As much as we like to think, at least.
mean, I think you talked about this too, like the production value. So I think the video, um, the whole video, I guess, I wouldn't say if you say industry, just a video like product in itself, people can easily. Uh, we tend to place initial judgment upon the quality of the video, right? So like you see a movie and like, there's a lot of jazz, there's a lot of cinematic roles and all of this. And you're like, Oh wow, maybe this is a good movie.
But then you watch it and you're like, the script is horrible, right? This, there is no storyline. So you walk away. You're like, that's, that wasn't a good movie. So I think we, it's easier to kind of obsess in the same thing in the YouTube world, how we can play so much emphasis on the production. Like you said the camera, um, and one of the things I talked to you, like I said, I obsessed about was the location of where I filmed.
I seriously, I don't know why I thought like I need to change up the location where I film, but then to film yourself requires a lot of, a lot of elements is like, you got to move the camera, you got to like, set up the mic, set up the light, and then you got to like, I mean, the other part is like, Oh, I like this corner, but there's no outlets nearby. So I got to get an extension cord. And I'm like, you know, and then.
Once I film, because it's a new location, I'm not sure how it's going to look final, final piece. So then like, you know, I, I thought it looked fine in the small little, uh, you know, the, uh, flip out, um, the monitor and I put it into my computer and then it's like something's horrible. Right. I'm just like, I'm like spending way too much time. On the production, the layout, whereas people are coming and watching this video because I'm talking about a certain topic that they're interested in.
They want to learn about it. So as long as it's not like unwatchable and then audio is another important thing. I would say audio is actually more important than the video. If you have good audio and you have decent, you know, framing, that's totally fine. And I, I realized more and more what I, what the, the big tool that you're bringing really to the table is your idea and what you're communicating.
Um, because there's so many videos out there that I've seen now, it's kind of like they have like, you know, great camera, great lighting and all of that. And you listen to it, it feels empty. It's just too like generic, or you could tell they're kind of riffing, there's no planning behind it. And then you, you as an audience, kind of walk away feeling a little empty. You're like, I'm not sure if I learned anything new out of that.
That wasn't like revolutionary, that wasn't, you know, that didn't go into depth. You could tell there wasn't like a lot of critical thinking behind what this person was saying. Um, and I felt like that's what I realized more and more. I was like, like, oh, like I need to spend more time on the scripting and the idea generation and less time on the production side. Or you outsource the production side.
no. It's funny, I feel like video is the medium where you can't hide, you can't hide, uh, I'll just say half assing it, you half ass it, like you can't hide, people are going to see that right away and vice versa, like if you do your homework or you know what you're talking about or whatever, it's that much more obvious,
And I noticed that too. Like when I'm, when I once, even after I scripted, I felt like, okay, I wrote it down. I think I know what this, this is. And a lot of, a lot of, a lot of my videos, I go very in depth into like investing or very technical terms and I'm like, Oh, okay. I think I know what that is. And then as I'm speaking it, I realized I don't know. I'm like, wait, did that just make sense?
Cause you know, like it's, it's like, you know, when you've heard of the saying, like when you start teaching, you're really mastering the topic. And I realized that's what YouTube forces you to do when you start talking about it. Now you're like putting your emotion and your. You know, you're not just reading something. You're just kind of like, okay, do I understand this? And I realize, oh, I don't. So I need to go back and then like really try to digest this before I talk about it.
for sure, 100%. So let's, uh, how much time we got, we got time. Um, I want to hear let's go back into your journey. I want to hear about this So you put out 150 videos you learn a lot along the way by the way before we go back there Let's this is like the only gear question because I think gear is like oh what camera should we use today? Whatever should we use what lighting whatever? Walk me through microphones.
Give me a 30. I'm gonna like set a timer here today I'm gonna make I'm gonna hold you to it like a 30 second version for beginner YouTubers who are either using their phone or their webcam. How to get good enough audio, not pristine, crystal clear audio, but how to get good enough audio. What would you, what's your like one minute piece of advice for them?
Yeah. So audio is all about proximity. So closer you can have whatever you're recording your audio, the device, uh, or the mic to your mouth, you'll always going to get better audio. So I would say for beginners, if you want to get good audio, but you don't want to spend any money, um, use your phone, put that next to your mouth, and then you'll get really good audio just because of the proximity of that phone to your mouth.
Um, if you're using your phone to record, uh, so you don't have, then you might need to borrow your spouse's phone or your kid's phone and do it, but end of the day, if you can get the mic closer to your mouth, you'll get good audio. So if you want to graduate and you invest in something, I would say invest in a lav mic. There's a, you know, a lot of really good lav mic for an affordable price on Amazon. Um, and then once you, and audio is another one of those weird things, I think.
That I remember, like I had friends that were in the film industry and they would tell me, Hey, um, your audio is a little off, but because I was, I didn't work in that industry. I couldn't tell my ear was not conditioned to listening to good to differentiate between good audio and bad audio. Now I listen to my old videos. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is on the internet because you know, the mic was like three feet away from me, but at the time I was fine.
So part of that is iteration. More you record more, you'll get. Uh, better you'll get at being able to distinguish between like good audio, bad audio, and then later on, you know, good, good video versus bad video, good lighting versus bad lighting, you know, those things, it's just, if you're not like myself, who never filmed himself, like you just, we just don't have the years and the eyes for it. And then if you want to get better with video, then only way to get better.
Only one, only way to develop those, those, you know, sixth sense or not sixth sense. It's just only way to develop those sensitivity to those like, you know, video and audio is to just put in the reps.
Yeah. I can't remember if it was you that said this at your talk or whatever, but you said something like people can forgive bad video a lot easier than they can forgive bad audio. Uh, and I think that's absolutely the truth. And by the way, for people who have no idea what you recommended, you said lav Mike or love Mike L a V stands for lavalier. If you go to Amazon, you can just type in L a V Mike. And then one of my favorite, uh, lav mics of all time was literally 18 on Amazon.
And it was just, it lasted like five years and it eventually fell apart because they used it so much. It was so good. Okay. Great tip. Thanks. Okay. Back into your journey really quick. We're not really quick per se, but let's jump ahead to the 150 video mark or a year ago ish. Um, you're getting your process down. You've refined a lot of things. You're starting to figure out your brand, I guess you could say your style or whatever.
What did you do a year ago or what does the past year look like? And is there anything that you can point to in reference to like this worked well, or this is responsible for me. You know, blowing up to a hundred plus thousand subscribers.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I would say there wasn't anything that I did Hey, I didn't do anything different from when I was creating To the mark of when I when I had created 150 videos and was there like something that I did dramatically different that tipped me over and went from 3, subscribers No, it's actually the same process. Like, it's, yeah, it's the exact same process.
I like to think of, you know, I'm sure you've heard of it, and a lot of the audience members have heard of this, the water boiling point, right? So then, like, when you're boiling water, what's the boiling point? Is it 100 degrees or something like that?
Celsius, you know, 212 Fahrenheit.
212 Fahrenheit. So then, like, when you start, when you start boiling water,
Hmm.
Um, to the science people that actually know this stuff out there, we'll just say the boiling temperature. Yeah, the boiling temperature. You can't see anything up until that boiling temperature, but the temperature is going up, but you can't see anything. And then there isn't anything that's magical that's happening between, let's say, the 212, right? 212 is a boiling point. Let's say there's, uh, there isn't anything magical happening between 211 and 212.
All it did was, it just had the time to boil up to that, uh, to heat up to that point. And it just happened that 212 is a boiling point. And then it was the same amount of heat that was being applied to that water. And it just tipped over so I don't like for me, like when I started the process, I knew this was going to take time. I knew there was going to, I needed to put into practice in order to get better with the craft.
But I also had faith in myself and the process that if I stick to it long enough, if I played a long game. Uh, it might not be, you know, um, 100, 000 subscribers in a year, you know, I might have continued to grown incrementally, but that would have been fine. Uh, I'm learning through the process. I'm getting better at my craft. And as, as I get better on my craft, I think the audience will see it and recognize it. So I, I went into the whole process.
Not expecting a certain specific outcome, but then focus upon really the input and me really, uh, honing and tightening my craft. And I had faith in the process that eventually, you know, um, I mean, my ultimate goal was like, if I could make, uh, just enough money to be able to fund our families, you know, pretty, pretty, uh, what do you call it? Low key lifestyle, then it's like success. Like I've made it.
Yeah. Uh, for sure. So actually that's, that's like the perfect answer to this question. Did I do anything super different? No. like the best answer you could get right there. Like, I love that. Um, that said, first of all, congratulations on your journey. Uh, and I just realized, I'm not wrapping up right this second, but I just realized we literally have not said your brand name on this entire episode, which is my fault as a podcast producer, but financial tortoise.
Yes.
can search for that on YouTube. Um, what are some other things really specifically from your FinCon talk? So let's, let's cover this last. I want to hear maybe we don't talk gear, but a few more tactical things that people can do to lower this time investment, right? Going back to the time ROI idea
Mm hmm.
to make both better quality videos for sure. We want that. But also like. Frankly, spend less time and energy and effort so that they can get those iterations that you yourself had. Did we miss any of the big categories from your talk that were like the big tips that you think are the most valuable?
Yeah, I would say, uh, I mean, we talked about just kind of, um, the setup. If you can come up with just like one simple setup, find the corner of your house that you can film in the same location every time. I think that's a huge part of, you know, reducing, um, Reducing friction.
Uh, I think other part is like, you know, don't feel like you have to get fancy Don't try to like feel like you have to um, make your videos look like You know some of these big youtubers who's been on the youtube platform for 10 years. Um, Like, you know your beginning Is very different from someone else's middle or someone else's 10 years in so then you, you know, you want to be careful about not comparing your beginning to someone else's middle.
So I would say, yeah, like, um, if you could just focus on one setup. And then not obsessed about like all of the style and style. Um, uh, try to make it look all fancy. The other, other, uh, thing that really helped me was like creating checklist for stuff that I would do over and over again. So like set up equipment, you know, just basic stuff. Like once I'm done, once I'm done with the video, how do I make sure that this gets into upload?
So then, you know, like make sure I download the video, make sure I do the basic edits. And when I do the basic edits. You know, what am I looking to do in the edits? And then once I get that final video, when I'm uploading, and then even YouTube, when you upload into YouTube, there's all these things you have to do. You have to put the description, you have to put a thumbnail, you have to check to see if there's a promotion, is this for kids or not for kids, you know?
So those things, like, I think, um, if you put on a checklist to say, like, these are 10 things I need to do when I upload the video, then you just kind of know going in what you need to do. Versus feeling the dread of like, Oh, what is this next thing I have to do? Oh, what is this next thing I have to check off? Then you just come out of that process feeling drained. And then you're not, you're not, you don't feel motivated for the next video. So I think a checklist really helpful.
so let's actually thumbnails.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yeah, yeah. Talk about the thumbnails. Yeah, so, I think this is another kind of, um, friction with a lot of, a lot of people is like, Oh, I just filmed a whole video. Oh, I gotta do a thumbnail now? So then a way to reduce that is if you were to spend a day just, uh, taking a bunch of pictures of your face and different expressions. Um, and then you have a library of photos that you can, you know, uh, reach from to create a thumbnail. And I use a tool called Canva.
Canva is really great. It's easy to use. Um, learning curve is super low. Um, yeah, and then so if you do all these different expressions, like pointing at this one corner, pointing at this other corner, surprise, happy, sad, angry, you know, all those expressions. Um, then later on, when you are... When, when you're ready to upload the video, you don't have to try to, you know, Oh, I got to go back and set up and take a thumbnail photo. Cause that's another friction to the process.
Starting from scratch every single time.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know about you. I literally have one, you know, you log into Canva. Every new thing you create is like a little like mini project or whatever. I have one project for my thumbnails and there's literally like 150 different like slides or like pages on the thing because each week I log in there and I just duplicate one and then I change like one or two things and then there's my thumbnail.
Yeah. Same, same here. Same here. I think I have one library project. I have one thumbnail project and everything goes in there and I'm just playing around with it.
Seeing the actual photo shoot from your slides at VidCon was hilarious. It's just like, look up, diagonal left, left, diagonal down, right, above, behind you, like all this other
And then it's like, I remember the first time I did this, I actually googled, like, photoshoot, you know, you've seen those, like, model photoshoot, and they have, like, um, all these different expressions, and after a while, you're just like, I'm out of expressions, I don't know what else, what other expression can I do, like, am I confused?
My confused looks the same as my angry, like, I can't tell, you know, so then, You kind of go through, um, yeah, but and once again, like I do, I think I do those thumbnail photo shoot every few months, um, just to kind of, uh, keep things fresh. Yeah, they get old, you know, and then you realize that, oh, like I'm missing this expression, like this is what I want to do for my next thumbnail. So you jot down those ideas and then you have a day of a solo photo shoot.
You know, taking literally hundreds of pictures of yourself, which I've never done in my life.
I used to think that I had to, I had to take a picture right before or after I record the video, so I was wearing the same shirt. I was like, people are gonna know. If I'm wearing a different shirt than the actual video on the thumbnail, then at some point I just stopped caring
yeah.
Does anybody ever? No, probably not. I don't
Yeah, that's the other thing that I, I, I think I did it accidentally was I wore the same shirt in all my videos and I took all my thumbnails in the same shirt and then people were making comments regarding like. Are you wearing the same shirt? Like, you know, like why are we wearing the same shirt? What's the purpose? So then I just kind of went with it. I'm just like, you know what?
It's part of the personal finance like, you know Hey simplify life just wear the same shirt every day So I kind of went with it but initially I was just like I don't know like have to change my wardrobe every time and so then thumbnail aligns with The video and then even I could take clips from my previous previous videos and then I use it. It doesn't look odd Yeah,
I did that when I created a course. I don't remember what course I started doing this, but I literally had like three black t shirts, just plain black, and I would make sure to wear those when I recorded the course, so So no one could really tell like, Hey, this was recorded two years ago and this was recorded yesterday for the most part, like I look different because I'm getting old, but yeah, I did the same thing. Okay. Um, let's wind down at this point.
I gotta let you go, but why don't you actually, before I let yourself promote anything you want, did we miss anything? Is there anything that sticks out that you would like to tell either beginner YouTubers or people still in the grind? As you put it. Is there any other, like, parting piece of advice you'd like to give them?
Let me see if there's anything I forgot.
Are you pulling up your... What are you
Yeah, I'm pulling up the slides that
Oh, he's pulling up his FinCon talk. It was a good talk. Yours was the only packed thing I saw there, by the way. Like, I snuck into a few sessions. Some I caught the tail end of, some I went all the way through. And it was not even remotely close. Yours was the most amount of people in a room that I saw.
Oh, two things that I forgot, actually. Yeah, so, uh, teleprompter. Um, use a, if you want to remove the friction, use a teleprompter. Um, I think, uh, there's so much that goes into the production process you're going to forget what you're, what you're trying to say in front of the camera, if you try to memorize it. Um, so this is why scripting it out and using a teleprompter, I think, removes the friction of the process. But, that's more very, you know, the, technical part, the mechanics.
I think for anybody who've... Is in the grind, I'll tell you, like, I've seen when I started like two years ago, there was a bunch of other channels that started around the same time. And then I would say a lot of their videos were like, their channels were better than mine. They had better content. And I was like, for sure, like if this person kept going, like they're going to, they were bigger than my, my channel too.
And then it was interesting, like, cause you know, you're spying on everybody else's YouTube is funny. Cause like your performance of literally out in the public for the world to see. Like people would, people know how well you're doing or not what you're doing. So I was, I was, you know, kind of creeping, I was like creepily following all these other channels.
And then it was interesting, like one by one, like you just kind of see them dropping off or they slow down or they're not posting videos as consistently. And then I think, to be honest, like when I look at their content, I'm like, dude, you have really, you have better content than mine. If you just stuck it through, I feel like you see that kind of a boiling point. But I think that's where, um, that's hard to do emotionally.
Um, and that's hard to do, I think, also from, let's say, like a financial perspective. If you can't invest the, um, invest the time, you know, to be able to do this. So, I would say, like, if you are, if you're serious about YouTube, which I feel like there's so much potential in the YouTube world, and we're just right in the, in the beginning phase, and know that the grind... Is a natural part of the process.
There is no such a YouTube, there's no YouTube channels that are gonna, you go out in six months, it's gonna blow up. I think even mine was fast. Like I would, two years I felt like, like that, like I wasn't expecting that. Um, uh, I think a lot of it, you know, there's elements of luck involved and just timing, but, uh, you have to go into it expecting that there's going to be a period of grind, and then you have to kind of work through that grind.
You know, Seth Godin has that book, The Dip, right? Like, you gotta work through that dip. And then that's going to be the hard part. That's where kind of like, I think a lot of, a lot of people drop off because they have a hard time just pushing through that grind versus if you have faith in yourself, um, faith in the process, then you have to believe that it's going to work out at the end.
It's inspiring, man.
Oh, thank
Well done. Well, uh, I actually just went and pulled up your YouTube channel, just because I was curious if your name was attached to it, and it is. So people can actually just search Tae Kim, T A E, and they'll find you right there, Financial Tortoise.
There's a, when you type take him, there's two channels that pop up. There's a learn Japanese, take him. And then there is, uh, me, the financial tortoise. Yeah. So, uh, people get confused all the time.
I luckily did not see this other person at all. All I
I'm, I'm, I might have surpassed him. Who knows? Yeah, he was, he was always the first one to pop up. Yeah. And that is not me.
Oh, wait, what? What'd you say?
No, that is, uh, people ask me like, Are you that, do you teach Japanese too? I'm like, no, no, that's, that's not me. Yeah.
All right. Hey, man, thank you so much for coming on.
Yeah. Thank you for having me, Pete. And then thank you for, I mean, you were one of my first, uh, what do you call it? Foray into the, um, into the internet business world. And then, uh, you know, what do you call it? I remember having our conversations when I was still in the corporate world with you regarding, like you asking me questions regarding like, what am I trying to do with the blog? Like, what do I want to do?
So, uh, appreciate, you know, you kind of, uh, Being that entry point for me into this, into this crazy world of internet business marketing world.
I will also tell you, I don't think I've ever told you this before, but you mentioned looking at some of your really early analytics and then like try to make decisions based on that. I was one of those people. when I would like first see some of your videos come up, I would just like open them and let them play. And all the way through so The watch time would increase right and I was like trying to sit like good stuff to the YouTube algorithm so I may have
Oh, thank you. Thank you for
Scoot skewed your decision making a little bit. I will tell you. Thanks for coming on and Best of luck man to the next hundred thousand
Thank you.
Alrighty then, do you even blog fam hope you enjoyed that chat with my buddy take and the only call to action I have is to stop what you're doing. Pull over to the side of the road. Stop. On your walk wherever you are listening to your podcast. No, I'm kidding. Of course. What I would like for you to do though, is go join my weekly Roundup newsletter at, do you even blog.com? Do you even blog.com?
You can actually find, obviously my podcast archives with all the lovely interviews I've done over the years, as well as a ton of blog content, if you really want to dive in, but you can also sign up for my newsletter. It's not super spammy. I won't let you down. I promise it's at the bottom of that page, by the way, do you even blog.com? I'll send you helpful content to help you. You. Start and growing online business, whatever you're doing.
So I'll see you [email protected] and I'll see you next time on the dune. And blog podcast, Pete out.