HoomanTV - How much money does a YouTuber with 8,000,000+ Subscribers make?

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Everything was different. I remember we landed in LAX and my uncle picked us up at like midnight. And I'm leaving the airport. I'm just like, whoa, new buildings, these cars. I'd never seen Asian people before. Or black people.

Wow.

I'd only seen Persians. I was like, I was staring at everything. This all sounds fun and interesting, but not. Not a month before high school, bro. I went to high school. Super innocent, naive. Just like, you know, fresh meat, basically. So that was definitely very, very hard. But if I went through that, I couldn't do anything.

What's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. This episode is long overdue. We have my good friend who man, and it's funny. So me and hu man, we met a little over two, three years ago. He has almost, what is it, 8.9 million subscribers right now. And he's one of the massive YouTubers. You've probably seen his videos. The shampoo pranks, the gold digger pranks. He's done so many viral YouTube videos which we will make sure to link down below. But, hoo, man, we're finally making it happen, man. Thanks so much for coming on.

Good seeing you, bro. We did meet a few years ago, I think in 2016.

Yeah, 2016.

And I remember you said, yo, I'm starting this podcast. Let's have you on an episode. And then since then, I've seen you interview the most successful, craziest people. So I'm like, yo, still waiting for my turn.

Yep, yep.

So I'm glad to actually make it happen this time.

Hey, absolutely, man. And real quick, before we get into the story. So for everyone watching, you were literally the first person I met in LA. Literally 2016. It was. I came out and one of our mutual Friends. He connected us and I. The day we met. We took a helicopter tour around la.

We did.

We went to Fat Sal's, we did all this cool stuff. And looking back on it, just to see, like, now you've spoken at some of our events and we've been doing so many just things in the similar world, but together, necessarily, it's just super cool to see your growth and just be able to see what we join into.

Yeah.

Yeah, man. So that being said, who cool, man, Almost. You're about to hit 10 million subscribers by the end of the year. You're saying, where did YouTube start? I wanna start with that. Because if people are, say, unaware of what you're doing on YouTube when you started it, I wanna sort of take em back before we get into the roots of the story. When did you start on YouTube? Just to give people some reference.

Okay, long story, But I started YouTube in 2014. 2014. I do have almost 10 million subscribers now. But the first, you know, the first 90,000 took like a year and a half.

Okay.

I was, you know, I moved to America at the age of 14 in 2007, in high school, they gave us a nickname, F.O.B. fresh off the boat.

Oh, okay.

It's actually pretty racist, just so you know, if you're using that word. Anyway, you know, I moved here, no clue what I'm doing. I'm from a different country, halfway across the planet. So I moved here the month before freshman year. By the time high school is over, I just gotten used to the culture. So I'm seeing my friends going to college with these fancy sponsorship scholarships. My friends are getting fancy jobs. And I'm sitting there, you know, at 18, 19, thinking to myself, yo, what am I gonna do? Like, what's my path? You know, growing up, I didn't really have that, like, fatherly figure, but my dad, that would teach me the way to go or, like, would give me the basic advice that would help me find my path. So I was just, you know, just trying different jobs at subway restaurants, gyms, just trying to find my path to success. I was hungry. I wasn't a dumb kid. I wasn't doing drugs or anything. Yeah, I just didn't know which way to go. That was my problem. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it because I remember it so vividly. You know, going to high school, being new in a country, not. Not speaking the language, knowing the culture. You know, I didn't have a girlfriend or cool card, none of that. Yeah, my idea of fun was to come Home from school every Tuesday and Wednesday. My two favorite YouTubers, simple pickup and what's that prank call channel's name? Owning Pranks. That guy.

What is it?

Owning Pranks. He still posts to this day. But both those channels, I was their fan. You know, I would come home and watch their videos, and I think one day I just Googled, like, what's the deal with these YouTubers? How do YouTubers make their money? You know, being a social media influencer now is a thing, and it's like a job. But 2014, five years ago, it wasn't really looked at as, like, a job. It was more like, oh, you have an Instagram account. You're an Instagrammer. Okay, great. No big deal. So I didn't really know how the money thing worked, so I looked them up, and I'm seeing them buying these cars and traveling first class. I'm like, so you're telling me you make these funny videos and that sort of pays you money to buy a house and car and travel the world? How? Who pays you the money? I didn't understand, but once I dug deeper, I realized this is a whole generation of people with this new job called being a social media influencer. So it didn't give me enough confidence to be like, yes, I'm gonna have 10 million subscribers in five years. No. But it gave me enough motivation to finally be like, you know what? I've been looking for a path to take to see if it'll work. Yeah, this is it. I'm gonna try this out. I was fully prepared to drop it in three months if it didn't work and go back to working at gyms and sales or getting a car. A job at a car dealership. But I stuck to it. And, you know, it took me, like, three, four months to gain my first freaking thousand subscribers.

Okay.

But, you know, in high school, I was that loser introverted kid that got no attention. I used to sit by myself and just, you know, play with my basketball at lunch. So finally getting recognition for who I am and having fans. Yeah, bro. Like, you give. You give a awkward high school kid a YouTube account with a thousand views per video, and he has fans. That's like me feeling like I have superpowers.

Yeah.

You know, I'm having these people say, yo, I'm your fan. Make this video next. So I love that. The feeling.

Yeah.

And stuck to it. And, you know, I don't want to keep talking, but yeah, no, absolutely.

So before we get more. Before you get into YouTube, so who, man, right that's your name.

2 Man, I literally just heard a in there.

I think it's because I'm a little sick. Sorry about that, guys. But who, man? Where does the name come from? Is that your real name? I'm sure that people want to know and. Yeah, where does it come from?

It's a Persian name. It's actually. It means. It's a. It's a mythical warrior, Persian name. It doesn't have a meaning.

Okay.

You know, it's. It's just. It really is my name. People always say, so what's your real name? I'm like, it really is hu Man. But they usually don't believe me.

That's cool. So before you came To America those 14 years prior, let's talk about that real quick. Like, how did that build the foundation for you coming to America? What was it like? And really just your childhood necessarily. I'm sure people see the YouTube Nowadays, all the pranks you do, the lifestyle you live. You're in la, you have this beautiful house now, and it's like, okay, but I'm sure you don't get to talk a lot about your background and your past. And I know we've talked about it before, but it's like getting that message out there. I'm sure people would love to hear it. So I'd love to just have you touch on your childhood growing up.

For sure. I'll try and summarize it for you. So my family's pretty interesting. My mom is from a very wealthy military family. My grandpa, my mom's side, was one of the generals for the last king of Persia. My dad's side, on the other hand, he was like a handyman. Very poor, had no money. And my mom's grandpa had this thing where he wanted to marry her daughter. For someone with calluses on his hand, whatever that meant. I guess in his mind, if someone had calluses, it meant they were hard workers. My mom had, you know, doctors trying to marry her. But my grandpa was like, you and you, you guys get married. So my mom was used to like this amazing fancy life of just blowing money on stuff. Very wealthy dad poor, poor as crap. Had no money. So growing up in that household, you know, it was a constant war between. My mom wanted to eat decent meals and my dad just not wanting to spend money on his own family because he had none. Yeah, so I grew up sort of, you know, poor, basically because my mom had no money from her dad anymore. He passed away and I would watch my friends, you know, I remember it's so simple. It's so stupid, but it's so funny. In, like, middle school and grades below, I remember being so jealous of my friends for having fancy pens they would write homework with. I would always be stuck with, like, the cheap ones. So I grew up wanting more. I would see my friends successful, their family traveling, them, you know, living a normal, fun life. So I grew up, like, wanting, having that feeling inside me of, like, wanting happiness, wanting comfort. And again, like, I didn't have anyone, any man in my family or woman that were like an example of success to me. So I could just look at them and be like, okay, so I'm going to replicate those traits in their personality. And I feel like that's the biggest struggle. And there was no Internet when I was growing up, so I couldn't just go watch Casey interview Grant Cardone or watch someone else and be like, oh, okay, I'm going to write down these traits about this millionaire and just copy that. In my lifestyle, I didn't really, you know, no one in my family read books either. So I couldn't just pick up a book and be like, all right, how to be a man and not be a poor loser when you're 45 years old, like my dad. So, you know, when I turned 14, I came to America and I started to see, like, very powerful people and, like, read books. I was like, okay, yeah, so this is how people are making money. Like, you can't just be lazy like my dad was. You got to be a hard worker. You know, you got to, like, find a path that's a perfect balance between a good business and what you're passionate about and just be like, obsessive and just shoot forward and work hard.

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Yeah. So Persia until about like 50 years ago was like, had a king. We always had kings for years. Years and before. 50 years ago. But then 50 years ago, there was a revolution and Persia is now owned by Islamic government. My mom's side, you know, they used to work for the king. They were military, so they were. Their whole life transformed once the king got taken over. He got murdered. So once that happened, my family applied for visas to come to America. The problem with that is pretty much the whole planet wants to move to America. And there's like a long now it's not even. That's like barely possible. But when I was a kid, my parents signed us up when I was like two, and we finally got a call when I was like 14.

Wow.

So we were in line for 12 years. You gotta be in line and also wait for a. What's it called when you. When they lottery. So it's like a line and a lottery. So we. 12 years later, we got accepted and my whole family was on that. So they had moved here over the years. My uncle's been. Been here for a while right now, only my grandma's there. But as far as. How was the transition literally black to white? It's. It's a. It's like I said, it's an Islamic government there right now, very strict. You can't even hold hands with a girl in public.

Really?

There's no dating, no girlfriend, boyfriend until you're married. There's. Now there's Facebook, but when I was a kid, it was no Facebook. Instagram.

Yeah.

You know, the idea of fun was going to the pool with your friends or going out and kicking rocks and riding bicycles and building fires.

Yeah.

So, you know, and now I'm in America in 2014. I'm going to high school. There's girls with their hair out. There's basketball teams and softball teams that.

You've never been different, man.

Everything down to the food. I didn't have a burger when I was a kid.

Yeah.

You know, everything was different. I remember we landed in lax, and I'm. My uncle picked us up at, like, midnight, and I'm leaving the airport. I'm just like, whoa, buildings. These cars. I'd never seen Asian people before or black people. I'd only seen Persians. I was like. I was staring at everything. Yeah. Which is cool. It's fun.

You do not know English when you first land at all.

No. None. And I remember, like, this all sounds fun and interesting, but not a month before high school, bro. High school is when you turn into a man. You get bullied. You got to be like, I'm ready for this. You know, I went to high school. Super innocent, naive. Just like, you know, fresh meat, basically. So that was. That was. That was definitely very, very hard. But it's, you know, turning me into a. Turning me into a man. You know what I mean? Because once you go through all that, either just want to go back home and you just want to give up and just want to do nothing and sit home, or you're like, all right, if I went through that, I can do anything.

Yeah. So I want you to talk to the young people watching. You're 14. You come at 14. You're going to high school. What was. You had no plan. You were saying, being a YouTuber, all this stuff that might have sounded crazy to your parents or crazy to your friends. There wasn't, like, nowadays in 2019, you see all these YouTubers making money, having successful careers, and there's like, okay, it's worked for them. Let me try it. But you were a pioneer of, like, okay, let me just do this YouTube thing. I know a couple other people that are doing it. Let me just focus and build my brand and do it. So what was that? I would say that point of life. I know that you talked on it once before, but when you truly committed, like, what was the game plan? Because I think maybe there's people watching this video and they want to become YouTubers, they want to commit to their craft, but they may not know what that looks like. Right. I know you do a lot of pranks. You have some videos with what, 120 million views or 150 million, whatever it is, you have this massive audience. But was that the plan, moving into YouTube, doing comedy, doing pranks? Or did you have no real game plan? Because I want you to really speak to that 7 or 12 year old YouTuber that says, Hey, I see who man doing this. Like why can't I do it right? So like Talk from a YouTube perspective. When you started it, what was the game plan? How did you go about it? And what would you tell a young person watching today if they want to become a YouTuber moving forward in 2019 for sure?

Well, in 2014 it was really different. There was no game plan, there was no course or book on how to become YouTuber. You know, now if you want to do real estate or Even back in 2014, you wanted to learn how to do real estate, there's classes for it. You go take a class, take a test, you get your license. 2014. And even now being a YouTuber isn't really looked at as a career or a job, which is beautiful because there's so much less competition than in 10 years when colleges have a course on how to monetize your social media platforms. So when I started in 2014, I didn't know what I was doing. One thing I was really good at is always having a moving target as my goal. Meaning I never got comfortable with saying like, oh, I have a 10k subscribers, I'm famous, I'm good, I'll just chill here, I'll go on vacations or blow my money on like stupid things that each time I hit my goal of 10k, 100k 1 million, I was ready for the next step. Yeah, you know, I was. I never felt content, which is, which I feel like is a problem because I'm never satisfied with what I have, whether it's a car, subscribers, money, because I always want more. But I feel like it also is a very powerful feature to have as an entrepreneur being just thirsty, hungry, you know what I mean? So when I started, I didn't know what I was doing. Everything I did was just complete trial and error. I would, you know, make a bunch of videos and one would do really good. Okay, is that just luck or did something about that video? Did it have certain elements that made it more, more viral worthy, share worthy? So Doing that, I would write down things, I would write down my own formula, whether it's about creating the actual content, coming up with video ideas that aren't just fun to watch, but that are share worthy. And then the most important part that I'm not sure why more YouTubers don't pay attention to is actual technical aspect. The SEO, the YouTube algorithm, the tags, the titles, how to make YouTube's algorithm recommend and show my videos or over all the other videos in the same genre. So that was a challenge that took me five years to figure out.

Got it. So when you're getting into YouTube, what would you say from a mentor perspective? Did you have someone that you were following? I know that you mentioned those two people, but when you're going into this world, like knowing what SEO is, knowing what the algorithms are, like, you're coming from a different country, getting to this social media world. This is all new to you. Like, you're very unaware of what this game will look like. And five years later, now about to hit 10 million subscribers. I want to ask you, like, when you hit your first, thousand or ten thousand subscribers, like, did you do anything different to celebrate? Was there a different type of video you made when you hit a million subscribers or 100,000? Like, what's been your game plan when hitting these milestones? And what do you plan to do when you hit 10 million for the people watching? Or is it a secret?

Throw a party here.

Okay, okay.

As far as game planning, it was just rinse and repeat. You know, if I made a mistake that caused a video to do bad, for example, for a while I wasn't sure if it mattered to. It mattered to post at a certain time in a day. So I would just edit a video whenever I would finish and I would just post it. Then I later I realized there is such a thing as a best time of the day to post. But how do you calculate that?

Yeah.

So then once I figured that out, it was rinse and repeat. To this day, three years later, I'm posting at the exact time every single day. I know which day of the week I perform the best and what time of that day. And if I made mistakes like edit a video a certain way, where it made the viewers get confused or lose interest, I would notice that and I would stop it. When I started my channel, I kid you not, I would have my friends, 15, 20 people watch my video and I would just stare at their body as they're watching it. If they're watching my 10 minute prank video, this is 2014. And they would do this phone. I just dropped the mic. If they would check their phone, it only means one thing. Something about the video made this person want to zone out.

Yeah.

Is it the video too boring? Is the audio being annoying made them want to take their headphones off? Is there distractions around the back? Is the background not interesting enough? Because everyone, no matter how good the video is, they naturally want to zone out. So if the background isn't interesting, they'll have to zone out into their phone. And that's when I lose them.

Yeah.

So all these things matter. So over five years, I. I literally look at doing YouTube and social media as like a science. I look at it the same way a surgeon looks at a heart surgery. You know, it sounds so simple. You make a funny video, you put it online, and then it magically gets views. No, there's a reason my biggest video on my channel has 150 million views. And there's other channels with videos that just as good, maybe even better, but they get stuck at a thousand views or their channel never blows up.

Yeah.

So there's a whole science to it.

That's insane, man. So the science itself, the formula you've created, this is something that you've done and helped other people with, in a sense. Because I really want people to know, and we'll talk about this later on, about the resources that you've been building out to help people start growing, scale their YouTube presence. Right. And before we get into that, though, I really want to take a step back. How do you look at the social media platforms today? Meaning there's Instagram, there's YouTube, there's TikTok, there's Twitter. All these different mediums. Someone that's looking to get into social media now, where do you tell them to spend their time? Or where are you spending your time as someone that's a creative how has a massive audience? Because I know you have million on Instagram and you use that differently than you use YouTube. Right. So kind of break down the science behind how you utilize social media, because I'm sure people would find that valuable.

I mean, in my own words, I call them main platform and side platform. In my opinion, and in my experience, YouTube is a main platform. It's very easy to take advantage of YouTube's algorithm to get discovered the tax system or works very well. And like I said, to my own surprise, and this blows my mind, 99.9% of YouTubers, including all the leading ones, all the big channels, do not know or understand SEO. You look at, I don't want to name drop, but you look at your favorite YouTubers tags in a tag box or the video's description, it's empty, okay? Meaning they're not monetizing it as much as they should. Meaning they have no defense against other channels trying to, for example, leech views from them. So YouTube is very easy to grow on Instagram, on the other hand, I don't know what they're doing with their platform, but having tags and not having tags in a picture is basically the same thing. It's very hard to get discovered on Instagram. Plus, it's very low commitment as a user on Instagram to be an Instagrammer. Therefore there's a lot of competition. Everyone who has an Instagram account is an Instagrammer, but not everyone who has a YouTube account is a YouTuber.

Makes sense.

You see what I'm saying? So on Instagram, when he posts a picture of you or a video of you explaining how to become successful in real estate and you're going through A to Z, all the steps, the tags are useless because there's a million people that in five minutes made the same video and they're trying to compete with the same viewers on YouTube. It's easier. So YouTube, Facebook are good main platforms to start on. And then once you have a fan base there, you can guide them into your Instagram, to your Snapchat, to your Twitter. Recently also, TikTok has been doing a really great job with the algorithm system they have in place. It's really easy to get discovered there if you have good videos and get good engagement from your audience the first couple hours and days. But as far as moving forward in the future, YouTube and Facebook will continue dominating the video game even if some new platform comes out or if Instagram tries to do some update to have better videos, YouTube will just do the same thing. It will not allow Instagram to be a better video platform or even Facebook. So video YouTube is king. As far as starting social media. YouTube is king, no doubt.

Got it. And I want to touch on something because ever since we met, man, I've noticed you're very meticulous on the way you do your videos, the way that you stay committed to your craft. And that's more so a personality trait that I want you to talk about, because everyone has access to start a YouTube channel, right? But no one has done it like you, because you're very, like I said, meticulous with how you do things, right? And I want to more so talk about the mindset that you've carried into this journey, right? Because coming from a different country, 14, not knowing English like, you had what people would call it setbacks or things that have less fortunate opportunities. But you've took advantage of so many different things, including YouTube and Instagram and just social media as a whole. And you've done it with such a science, like you would say. So from the mentality perspective, what would you say has been the key traits that has allowed you to stay consistent with what you're doing? Because there may be someone that's been doing YouTube for a year and hasn't had success with it, or maybe they've been so they haven't committed because they don't know what to commit on. They feel self conscious about their videos and what people think about them. And like you said, coming from a different country, you had one plan and that was to stick to it. And it happened. But it's not about you just doing it. Like, you're very meticulous. You know the SEO, you know the science, and you're committed to your craft and that's a you thing. And I want you to tell the people in the audience listening today just where did these foundations and these mindset principles come from? You know, like, what were your mentors? What was your background of having these traits that allowed you to level up?

Simple answer, man, you put a starving kid in a room full of burgers that are on the wall and he has to find a way to climb that wall, he'll make it happen because he's starving. Okay? So my thing, to put it simply, was the same thing. Being in a crappy household with abusive parents, poor as crap, living in a two bedroom with four people sleeping on the ground. There was no lore. And I would watch Tai Lopez. This is 2014. I would watch Tai Lopez. See all these YouTubers make money. For me, it was only going up. The problem was, how do I get there? And it's the same question for the starving kid in a room with burgers on the wall. How do I reach for that burger? It doesn't matter. He'll figure it out. Cause he's starving. So with me, my personality, whether I was born with it or I've trained myself, I'm just hungry. If I want something, I have this obsessive personality where I'll figure out whatever I gotta do to get there. So, meaning if I'm starting a prank channel in 2014, when there's three leading prank channels getting all the views, I will reverse engineer every Good element about those channels. And I'll bring those elements into my own content. So if one of them has crazy video quality in 4K, I'll find a way to use an 8K camera, a red weapon camera. If one of them films in films once in a while in Venice Beach. And that's the videos he does really good with. I'll film every video in Venice Beach, California. It's just you have to be obsessed. It's almost like a disease. I kid you not. If you want something, let's say you want to be a YouTuber. You can't be a YouTuber while you have a Shopify store or while you're reading a book about real estate. You have to sleep and cry yourself. And when I say cry yourself, I'm not joking with you, bro. I would go to bed. Imagine if myself closing a Ferrari door, that's mine. Or like having a million subscribers or finally leaving this crappy home. I was living with my parents and having my own place where I was comfortable. I didn't have to see them fight and argue about eating cheap food or whatever. So it's just having an obsessive personality, having goals and just believing in yourself and understanding no matter who you look up to five years ago, 10 years ago, they were dirt poor, they were losers, they had no money, nothing. But they figured it out. I feel like the biggest problem with social media users is you watch people like Gary Vee Tai Lopez and you see him live this amazing life and they seem so out of reach. It makes it feel so small, like, oh, I could never get there, they started 10 years ago, blah blah, there's more competition now. No, you just gotta literally, to put it simply, be obsessive and look at it as a business. You wanna be a YouTuber? It's not just about posting funny videos or just because you're good at talking about Shopify means you're gonna get a million views. You have to look at YouTube as a business. There's camera quality, there's making videos that aren't just fun to watch. They're share worthy, they're viral worthy. What is SEO? What's tags? What's the best tags? What's the description box? What do you put in there? Cards, annotations, the comment section. How can you use the comment section to get recommended to have your video recommended on other channels? Videos, It's a whole science. And if you're not looking at it as a science, my students who are will steal your views and they'll take over the game. Well, you might make really good videos, but because you lack the actual SEO, which is a bridge between good videos and the right audience, you're not going to get views.

Got it? That makes so much sense, man. So I wanna talk about one of the first videos that I saw of yours, the shampoo prank, right, that you said that what has 150 million views?

I've done a shampoo prank 12 times. In total, they're 1.5 billion views. The biggest single video on my channel right now has 160 million views on a single video.

That is insane.

And I've spent. No. People always say, how much money did you spend to promote that? 0. The only amount of money I ever spent in my whole YouTube career was week two of starting my channel. Some Instagram page, comedy page, was like, hey, I saw your video. It's great. I'll share it on my page if you gave me 100 bucks. I was like, oh, yes, I'm gonna get 10,000 followers from this dude with half a million followers or whatever. I got nothing. I might have gotten like 30 followers that later on followed me. Yeah, I've spent $0 on any promotion.

So that. On the shampoo prank video. 160 million views.

Yes.

So how did that prank come about? I think if people haven't seen the video, I'll make sure they link it down below so they can look at it. But what was your creative. I would say, what creative juices did you put into that video? How did that shampoo prank idea come about? Because it's something very creative, and you've done 12 of them. And every person I talk to, I'm like, let's say I talk about who, man. Right? I say, shampoo prank. They're like, oh, I've seen that video. Even if they don't even know you. Right? They've seen the video. It's a massively viral video. You said over 1.2 billion views or 1.5. Excuse me.

I don't know.

Where did that come from?

Is going up. Yeah.

Yeah. Where did that ideal come from?

So I'm naturally a big thinker. My mind's always running. Whether I'm sleeping, I'm at the gym. I'm just thinking, business 24 7. One of my biggest problems was in the shower. Instead of just taking a shower, which is supposed to be your chill time in the morning, where you prepare for the day, I'd be there, like, 20% of my mind would be soaping my arm. And the rest is just business. Business. Think Video ideas like, how do I get more views, make more money, sponsorships, all this stuff. And so that was my problem. I would just overthink at all times. And one day, as I'm shampooing myself, for some reason that day, I got a little claustrophobic and sick. Cause I couldn't see what I'm seeing. And I thought to myself, yo, it'd be really scary to get stuck in this same position with soapy eyes and not seeing anything for a long time. And then I was like, that's a good prank. There's people at the beach that go there. Then they shower to rinse off the sand. Why don't I do a prank where I put a lot of shampoo on them without them seeing and just get their reaction on camera? I didn't expect it. I mean, at this time, I was getting like 100k views per video. This is 2015, okay? I had some viral videos at 100k, but I was not prepared for a million views.

Okay.

When I did my shampoo prank, Shaquille o' Neal posted it. Justin Bieber posted it on Facebook. All these Australian TV shows were, like, reposting it and talking about this American YouTuber at the beach doing these videos.

Really?

So, yeah, that was definitely my first viral video.

Okay, got it. So shampoo prank goes viral. When you're looking back when it comes to your past, your friends, family, when you started to have success with YouTube, what was that transition? How did they feel? What was the communication with them? Because I want to talk about, you know, the young person that wants to start an E commerce store, wants to start a real estate business or start on YouTube. Like, they may face these challenges of their peers or people around them. And I want to make sure that we hear it from your perspective of, like, what? When you started to see success with it, how did that affect your friends, your family and more? So you were just the group of people that you had to say, hey, this is my career. This is what I'm going to do. Because I know the young people listening when I was in high school, and I said, okay, I wanna move to Arizona and commit to my craft. That's what I did. Right. And you didn't let outside influences affect you. But when was the moment where you're like, ha. This YouTube thing, it's more than a little hobby. It's more than creating these little funny YouTube videos. I can make money with it. I can meet a lot of people through it and more. So it is a career option that I Can use for the rest of my. When was that transition for you?

Good question.

And how did it affect your family and friends?

Yeah, so my whole family, I mean, we have different lines of work, we have dentists and lawyers, but pretty much everybody went to college in my family. And so after high school, this 20 year old me was like, I'm gonna be a YouTuber. They were like, you're gonna be a homeless man in three years and not live in this house anymore. So my whole family looked down on me. You know, I was already doing really bad in high school. So that was already like proof that this kid in our family, there's a big chance he's gonna be homeless when he's older. So they were like, oh, come on, you can't do YouTube. Either get a job and live here, or you do YouTube and you live on the street or your friend's house. So my family was not supportive because they didn't understand YouTube 2019. Now you tell your family you wanna be a YouTuber, they'll still freak out. Cause they don't understand YouTube. But they'll be like, oh, I know Jake Paul. Okay, millionaire. Okay, try it out. But back in 2014, no support from my family, my friends, same thing. I remember my first video, I legit went on Facebook and I begged people one by one to share it and give me feedback. Everybody just thought, oh, here's another guy that wants to do YouTube. You know, in high school, everyone's either a rapper or make shirts or like, you know, that's one of those few things. They all just thought, oh, it's another person starting their own business that's gonna go nowhere. There was a select few friends that did stick around who are still my friends today. But as far as like outside support, I didn't get any. And you know why? It didn't bother me because for the first time of my life, I felt good about myself. Yeah, this, like I said, it's awkward. Introverted kid in high school that was getting no attention is finally having fans.

Yeah.

And people showing support. And just so I tasted success and happiness. Just enough for me to want to commit another week, another month. Finally, a couple months later, I got a first check from Google, which owns YouTube. So I was like, yo, I'm making money from making funny videos and having fans. This is insane. And that was like when I. When I told myself, okay, this is worth another year of my life. And that's when I became obsessed. Before then, you know, I was still going out spending money on social life I had a girlfriend, I was looking for jobs. Yeah, I wanted to open one of those mall kiosks where you could sell jewelry, like cheap jewelry really. I didn't have enough money to start it though, so. But I was still thinking about that. But once I got my first check from YouTube and I was seeing my growth from day one to in views and subscribers to where I was and I saw the pattern of like decent growth and I was like, okay, if I grew this much not knowing what I'm doing, half assing everything, what would happen if I spent a year and just became obsessed with learning the algorithm, watching YouTube videos on how to do YouTube and just emailing big people to answer your previous question. Mentors or other youtubers. I literally send out so many emails I don't want to name drop. But to so many top YouTubers at the time who are losing to me in my views right now, just saying, hey, like, I love your videos. I don't want to, I don't want you to pay me money. I don't want anything from you. Just let me come where you're shooting so I can watch you do it. I'll carry your backpack, I'll film your video. I just want to see what's making your videos get a million views. When I'm in the same genre making similar videos and I get 50 views, I just want to understand it because it was on course. There was no like reliable source of content from someone who already made it in YouTube that would teach me. There was small channels with like 40 subscribers that would tell you how to do YouTube. I'm like, Bro, you've been making videos for seven years, you have 40K subscribers. How are you gonna make a video teaching others how to do YouTube. And by the way, they're all wrong information too.

Got it, man. And I want to touch on that. Cause I know you've been working on something amazing that I do want to make sure we shed some light on is how you want to start teaching people YouTube, right? I'd love for you to give me more context on it, but also tell the people, right? How can they start learning from you when it comes to the SEO tactics, the how to start on YouTube and just really learn the science that you've put together. I know that you've been working on a project and if you want to talk about it, great. I'd love to give you this opportunity. Just educate people on how you can help them start their YouTube journey.

For sure. I hate the word course. I don't Want to name it a course, but just because I feel like every entrepreneur who's achieved a little bit of something now has a course these days and they make these videos of Lamborghinis and hey, give me $1,000 and I'll teach you nothing. You know what I mean? But I do have a program where I've spent the past three years since I met you, putting it together. It's unavailable to public. I hand select who I work with. I've had a ton of very good stories from people I took under my wing from 0 subscribers or people that were stuck at like 50k subscribers and just couldn't get to the next level, who now have million subscribers and more on my side. You can watch the testimonials. You, you can send them an email. Dm, say, hey, I saw your testimony on whom's page. Is it real? But yeah, I love the idea of doing it because when I started my channel, I'm getting goosebumps again. I was so passionate and I wanted to achieve that level of success. So I talk so fast, so bad. But what made me so frustrated was not knowing how to get there. And I looked for courses, I looked for mentors, I emailed people, and there was none. And I know I can't be the only one who just really wants to do, to go this route in their life of being an influencer, whether it's on YouTube or Instagram. So for me to provide something, a little helping hand of everything I've learned so those people wouldn't have to go out there through their own five years of trial and error wasting money on videos they would, they would assume would do good, but that would just flop. So that's been the thing. It's been a challenge to sort of vacuum every ounce of knowledge from my own head and put it through words, through video content in my course, but. Which is why it took me three years.

Yeah, you've been working on it for a long time.

Yeah.

So I want to make sure we talk about it.

Yeah, I just didn't want to like half ass it and have some like crappy thing that people don't learn anything from. So I initially did it with a small group of people and I, and I, and I watched their results. I saw what they were, what, what they wish the course included, that wasn't there. I saw what they really liked about the course that I added more from that about. So, yeah, it's, it's my next, it's my next thing. Basically just teaching other people.

And for People watching that are like, let's say they're young YouTubers, wanted to start on YouTube, or they're older and they're like, okay, let me take this seriously. Where do they find out more about that, just for the sake of time? And I'll make sure to link that down below.

Like I said, if there's no, like, public page where you can. You can just buy the course. If you're interested in starting a channel or if you already have a channel and want to figure out a game plan to get to the next level, Whether you have 50k, you want to get to a million, just send me a DM on Instagram. Tell me your story, tell me if you've already been doing YouTube, your struggles, what's holding you back from getting to the next level? Or if you haven't started, why haven't you started? What's holding you back? And what sort of a channel do you want to make? If you're a good fit, if I. If I feel like I can honestly help you, then we can talk about you joining the program.

Got it. Super cool.

And my Instagram link, you can just down below?

Yeah, absolutely.

And even if you don't want to do YouTube, you just want to connect because my story touched you, you have a similar story. You have any questions I can help you with? Don't look at me as, like, this big famous, like, mentor guy that's, like I said, super far, super out of reach. Just hit me up, like, we could be friends. I love meeting people online. I've literally met with my students to get coffee. So, like, I'm not trying to be like that. Like, the guy who used to be humble, now he has a course and he's just too cool. You know what I mean?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's funny because I remember the first time I met who, man, like, literally, I came out to LA and it was like, dude, this dude has 2 million, 2, 3 million subscribers. I'm just getting in the social media scene, you know, I have like 10,000, 20,000 followers. I'm like, you know, sometimes you may feel intimidated by people, but at the end of the day, based on what the reality is, like, people are people. And if you truly want to connect, it's nothing to do with followers or what those numbers look like. It comes down to you. So definitely hit them up on Instagram, check them out. And really, the next question I want to touch on before we start wrapping this up is just looking back throughout your journey of YouTube and success, like, what does the future look like for social media, you believe? Like, I think this is a topic that. I'd love to hear it from you as a pioneer of YouTube with almost 10 million subscribers, like moving into 2020, 2021, like what were, what would be some things you'd want people to look out for? Because just throughout my social media journey on Instagram, you know, like two, three years ago, there wasn't igtv, ig, Instagram, Live, Instagram stories, all these different like faucets of attention. It's always evolving, right? So how do you look at the landscape and just this may be predictions, these may be like, hey, this is how I'm treating it. But what do you tell someone that's like about to embark upon their journey based on someone that has so much skin in the game and you may have some deep understanding of where you see it going. So I'd love to hear that.

Yeah, I think the answer is terrifying. If I came up to you years ago and I said, hey, here's a bitcoin, it's really good, trust me. Do you want to invest in it? If you knew, if you knew what you know now, would you do it?

Absolutely, yeah. So that's how six year old Legend invested in bitcoin.

So that's how I look at the future of social media. I think it's tin. I think if you look, if you go on Google and you look up cable TV ratings, they're just dropping. They're desperate. They're doing anything they can to survive and have and keep their customers. Why? Because when I was a kid, my fun was watching spongebob on cartoons. Kids now watch vloggers, they watch their favorite YouTube vlog channels, Toy review channels, they follow their favorite Instagram or Tiktoker. So as far as the future, I mean, we all confirmed as far as like shopping goes, there's no more stores, it's all online shopping. You're put on a VR, you're gonna walk through online store, you're gonna pick up things and turn them around in your hand, you're gonna buy them. And as far as entertainment, it's social media. People are tired of watching big, unrelatable famous celebrities they could never relate to on cable TV. So they watch these YouTubers that they feel like they're in a room with and they could relate to and then it's. And it's way more fun. And if you could look at it from a business perspective, there's two sides of social media. The actual content creators and the people that feed them money, the advertisers, the Pepsi, the Coke, the Amazon, that pay them enough money to keep creating content. If you look at the budgets they're spending in social media now, compared to five years ago, it's insane. Five, 10 years ago, Coke might have spent half a million dollars a month on a billboard ad in Los Angeles that would get viewed by a very small group of people that he had no over, they had no insights over to see who they are now. CO can say, hey, Google, I'll give you $10,000 to put this ad on these YouTube videos targeting male only from 13 to 15, for example. Or they'll just hit up YouTuber A and say, hey, I'll give you $40,000 to promote our drink in your videos. So all the money is going away from cable TV and radio, where it's super overpriced, and going into your organic homemade videos. And as far as, I guess the content creation goes, no one's watching. Do you watch cable anymore?

Haven't owned a TV in three years.

But you watch podcasts, you follow tiktokers, you follow Instagrammers. So at the rate it's growing now, my guess is in the next 10, 15, 20 max years doesn't mean no cable. Yeah, and everyone's just gonna watch social.

Media influencers, personalized curated content. And I think it's super cool because you see these networks like Netflix or Disney's coming out with like all these massive brands are creating original content now, right? They're spending so much money on. And it's interesting because even like podcasts, there's like these podcast networks and they're buying out different shows and everyone wants to own original content from these key people, right? Like you see these massive brand deals happening with people from large networks and you're like, okay, there's a business here, right? So just really to wrap it up, like looking at social media from a business perspective, I really wanna understand if someone's starting on YouTube, should they focus on the quality of content first? If they're looking at, okay, I wanna get a paycheck, what should be the mentality as a new YouTuber moving into it? Because I'm sure you weren't thinking about, oh, how can I make $100,000 on YouTube? It was like, how can I create amazing content? How can I create a brand and build these great videos? And it led to the business side of it, right? So how did you look at it when you started and what would you recommend people to do when starting?

For sure in 2007, 8, 9, when like PewDiePie was making videos, it was all about good content. There was such little competition. And the algorithm was so simple where if you had decent videos that would get a like and a comment, it would naturally YouTube would put you in the front of the page and you will get a million views. It was so easy. Now every freaking 12 year old with an iPhone 7 and up has a camera and it's going, hey guys, playing Fortnite or playing basketball. Put the video on YouTube and put tags in there. So it's a lot more oversaturated. In 2014 it was so much, it was better, it was less saturated than now. So back then it was more about having good videos. Now I've seen channels with 50 videos of really high quality, well edited, good videos get no views. And they're sitting there wondering, well, I make good videos, why don't I get views? And that's because they think, they're thinking about half the formula. The video is the product, the customer is the viewers. You're missing the link between the product and the actual viewers, which in this case is the actual algorithm, the SEO, the tags, description, the title, what's in the comment section. To summarize, what I'm trying to explain is imagine you have a restaurant, the best restaurant in town, the best food, and you have, let's say, what's your favorite food?

Steak.

Steak. Let's say you have an amazing steak restaurant in town and, and that town has a massive audience that loves to eat steak, right? And they're about to come to your restaurant. There, they're ready to come. But you have no credit card machines. You have the food, you have the customers, but you have no cards, which is a link between customer and product to make the full transaction happen. So with surviving on YouTube these days, it's not just about making good videos. That's a huge portion. Is a 4K video, is a 1080p. Is it well edited with a nice music or did you edit on your phone? You know, do you have a cool background? Is the video made properly from start to end to tell a story in a smooth way? Is the video idea just fun to watch or is it a viral worthy where people will actually share it on their social media to seem like a reliable source of that content to their friends? That's part of the formula too. But what about tags? What's the best tag to use right now on that video that perfectly describes that video that has a lot of people searching for that tag with the least competition. What do you put in the description box? What do you put in the comment section? And it doesn't matter towards how many views you get. Let me give you a crazy example to blow your mind. As a final point, in YouTube right now, if I say something to my audience and make them comment Casey Adams in my comment section. So let's say we did a vlog together right now on my channel. They've never seen you before, but I tell them, hey, guys, here's my friend Casey. If you want to see more of Casey Adams comment below, bring back Casey Adams. If I do that in a week, in a few days, if you go on YouTube and you type Casey Adams, that video will show why? Because the YouTube algorithm will pick up. Casey Adams is a very repetitive keyword in the comments, meaning this video has something to do with this keyword, Casey Adams. So if I look it up, it knows these people are likely to watch this video. YouTube wants to satisfy its customers. So let's say you have a new Shopify channel, right? And you have zero subscribers. But the leading channel on Shopify is Mr. A. Mr. A. If you get your audience to type Mr. A in your comment section, along with having that tag in your tag box, title description, the YouTube algorithm will understand this video would probably be appreciated by Mr. A's audience.

Okay?

That's how you basically not only get discovered by a new audience, but you leech traffic from Mr. A's audience and bring them to your channel. Now, if you have decent content, you can get a chance to keep them as subscribers and bring them back again. That's just one.

You just went deep. That just got real. That's some very tactical stuff.

Exactly. So having good content is a very small part. YouTube is now a business. It's saturated enough to the point where just because you make good videos, just because you might have a Lamborghini in your videos and a nice thumbnail, that's not enough to get it off the ground and get a million views and actually have it be a sustainable business.

Yeah, that makes sense. We should be very tactical. So, guys, as you've seen there, if you want to learn the foundational tactics, strategies from who, man, definitely hit him up if you are interested because he got. He got the sauce. I can. You heard it here, right? So I would say two more questions, man. Just. You're. How old are you now? Or is that a secret? He's xyzo now, looking back, I'm 19, right? This is called Rise the Young Podcast. Looking back of 18, 19 years old. What do you tell a young person who's about to get started along their journey as an entrepreneur, as a YouTuber, someone that's just, they may be self conscious, they don't know where to go, but they're seeing this video right now and there's a reason they are. What do you tell that 18, 19 year old individual based on what you may now know? What would you tell yourself at 1819?

You know, I always watch podcasts and I always watch interviews and you know, there's, there's mentors saying I would tell the 18 year old me to work harder to do this, but I feel like honestly, it doesn't even matter. Yeah, if you're 18 and 19 and you're hungry and you want to make shit happen, then you're probably going to be a millionaire when you're older. But if you're 18, 19, you're probably not watching this video in the first place. Or you would much rather play ka than do it. I have nothing to say to you. Yeah, so like, I hate it when people say, like, please, 18 year olds do stuff. Go make money. Go get a course, go to this event and watch speaker speak. No, if you want to make it happen, there's a little sickness inside you that's like, yo, I can't sleep tonight because I'm gonna cry myself to sleep because I'm, I have no money. I have to find a way to make money. Whether it's with Shopify, real estate. I'm gonna go freaking harassment. Casey. And say, casey, please help me. Casey, how do I make money? Casey, let me work for you. If you're that person, then you already know what to do.

But that's solid, that's real.

Let's say you're confused. You don't know what to do. My simple answer is to become obsessed. Find a path that you want to take. That's the closest to the path that makes you happy. If you're not sure, just pick something. When I was 18, 19, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have a dad to tell me, this is how you become a man and make money. I had no examples of success in my life, so I just said, I'm gonna just try everything. My first job, Subway. Second job, Chipotle. Third job, this Persian restaurant, I got fired and for sitting in the bathroom, texting too much at work. Fourth job, 24 Hour Fitness. Got fired for being five minutes late. I was like, whatever. Fifth job, L.A. fitness sales. That's when I realized I'm good with people. I'm a hustler. I love the commission based jobs. Sixth job, I was like, I've spent three years working for somebody else, getting paid hourly commission, getting shift for being late to work for five minutes. Why am I doing this? When Tai Lopez is an entrepreneur making money, what is an entrepreneur? What business can I own? Which is why I wanted to make that mall kiosk and sell rings. But I didn't have enough funds. So When I found YouTube, I was like, all right, here's a path. People are making money from it. I'm ugly as shit. I'm an introvert. I have no money and no joke. In 2014, guys, if you're not gonna hit me up and talk to me or whatever, just please look at my pictures. In 2014, I was a different person. If it's a video, put some pictures.

Here so you could see.

But I was exactly what people don't want to be. I was unattractive, depressed, I had shaved my head, no money, skinny as crap, living at home, no car. But I saw a path and I tasted a little bit of happiness and success with those thousand views I was getting. And I just became obsessed. So, you know, if you want to do it, just fricking do it. You live in 2019 when there's Casey Adams to the podcast, interviewing the biggest millionaires. There's courses you can buy. There's literally people like Grant Cardone willing to meet you in person, in meets. Like, you have no excuse, bro. Your parents that are giving you shit for not going to school. That's because back in their day, 50 years ago, there was no Grand Cardone doing meets on Instagram or doing live or having a course. You either had family money or you worked your ass off in School for 12 years, and then you might be a dentist. So, like, that's why they don't understand this whole social media, YouTube thing.

Got it, man. I really want to wrap it up with this because you're about to hit 10 million subscribers. You've hit a million, you've hit 100,000. You know, you come from Persia in this new world of the usa, and I think you said something earlier that really stuck out. You said, you know, you always raise your standards, right? When you had 100,000, you wanted to hit a million. When you hit a million, you wanted to hit 10 million. You're about to hit that. But that will just be the beginning for you. So my question is, when you hear the word success, what does that mean to You. Because for example, if I had 10 million subscribers, I'd be like, that is a massive success. But you're about to hit that and you're just getting started. So what does Hoo man describe success as? Is it the money? Is the material? Is it the passion and purpose? Is it to help others? How do you define success in your way? Because you have all these things that people would only wish and dream for, you know, but at the end of the day, you have this drive and ambition to keep going and that will never stop. So what is success to you? To really wrap up this interview?

I'm still trying to figure out what success is to me. I talk so fast and that's like the only word I can't say. Success. To me, success has always been a moving target.

Okay.

When I had zero subscribers, I thought, okay, 10k would be success. When I had 10k, then 100k would be it. So do I know what it feels like? No, because I'm not at 10 million yet. But I think I'll be happy with 10 million. So. But, but I, but I. But what I figured out so far is you got to find a balance between. Between being happy with the now. Read the book the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and also still having that drive that brought you here in the first place. You cannot be successful if you're happy with it now. Too much. You got to have that obsessive like crazy mentality of just like working like a monster towards the path. But you're also going to wake up in the morning and be like, I'm not going to work. I'm not going to check my Instagram for the next 30 minutes. I'm going to meditate, I'm going to shower and just be me. Be happy. And you're going to go to bed with the same mindset. But you're always going to understand that success is a moving target. You have a million subscribers, you reach a million subscribers. Boo hoo. I have 10 million, you make a million dollars. That sucks. Grant Cardone makes that in 10 minutes. So it's always moving. And be okay with it and understand it. There's always someone doing bigger and better things, so just watch them keep pushing forward. Don't get too comfortable. You're never good enough. If you're making more money than Jeff Bezos, that's when you're technically, in my book, successful. At the same time, you should be happy and content to an extent when you're dirt poor or else you're Gonna talk super fast like me. Cause you're just always like a machine, you know what I mean? So I feel like there's definitely a balance. That's what I'm struggling myself and I'm trying to figure it out. Just being able to enjoy what I've achieved, but also working towards what I haven't achieved that I want to achieve.

Yeah, I love it, man. So for the people that are watching this video, just to really wrap it up, where is the best place they can learn more about you, watch your videos, get more access to what you have going on and just get involved in who man's world where can do that for sure.

If you want to watch my videos, like I said, check out how I got here. You can watch me on YouTube. The channel is spelled H O O M A N My name tv. I'll put a link down below. And if you want to get mentored by me, like I said, I don't have a public place where I can just go buy and click a buy button and buy course I go through manually. So if you're interested, you want to talk about how we would potentially do it, send me a message on Instagram. I always recommend dgms myself personally. Tell me your story. Tell me where you're at. Whether you already started a channel, you haven't yet, you already started a channel and you're looking for the next chapter, or you haven't yet and you want a game plan on how to start and get your channel up and running.

Well, I love it. Well everyone, I just want to say thank Human. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man. It's literally been two years in the making. When I started this podcast, Human was one of the first people I. I reached out to to come on the show and to to have it delayed until now. Episode over around 140. Super thankful for you man. I'm only continue to see what you have going on and like I said man, really grateful for everything.

Thank you.

That being said, make sure you subscribe like and share this video and make sure you follow who man. Learn more about what he has going on and if you haven't seen any of his viral videos and this may be the first time you've ever heard of him go down right now before you do anything else today and look at his shampoo pranks because we've talked about it but you'll get a laugh out and it is some amazing content. So go check it out. Talk to you soon.

Thanks guys. Monarch Legacy of Monsters an Apple original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it. On November 17th. This place. It's not ours.

Believe me.

The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh, my God. Go. Go. Go.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters. Streaming November 17th only on Apple TV Plus.