442: How Eric King Took easygayoven Full-Time by Diversifying His Income Streams

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Hey there, this is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. Happy New Year. Can hardly believe it's 2024 and we have a whole new year of amazing podcast episodes coming up for you. We are kicking off the new year with a really great episode with Eric King from Easy Gay Oven. Eric has so many incredible pearls of wisdom in this podcast it's hard to believe he he's only been running Easy Get Oven for just about four years. This is a super wide ranging interview. Eric and Bjork chat about everything from the importance of storytelling to substack to brand partnerships and how to take your site full time. Eric took his site full time after just about two years and he has lots of recommendations and tips and strategies for how others might want to do the same thing. He's just chock full of good advice and recommendations. It's hard to believe that he's only been running his site and his social media channels for four years. I really loved this interview. I think it's just a fun one to listen to and I can't wait for you to hear it. So without further ado, I'll just let Bjork take it away.

Eric, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks so much for having me on.

Yeah, we're gonna talk about your story. One of the things that I love to do is talk about kind of pre creator entrepreneur like kind of doing this as your main gig and then post Creator, entrepreneur, doing this as a. As your main gig. And your story is fascinating because you were kind of doing similar ish type work before you started doing this for yourself. Is that more or less accurate? And can you talk a little bit about what that work was that you were doing before this?

Sure. So I started out my career in entertainment news and then quickly shifted to a job in social media. Kind of landed in my lap. And this was after I had started Easy Gay Oven, my Instagram. So I was working on that while also working at TED conferences, working on their social media. And so I got a lot of practice programming, writing, copy choosing assets, you know, just. Just getting a whole overview of the social landscape and figuring out what people really want. We were really focused on audience, so finding out what our audience really wanted and giving them more of that. So, yeah, I spent about two years there. And then at the end of 2021, really more like the start of 2022, I went full time with my blog and my, you know, my project. Easy Gay Oven.

Yeah. Is that. Is Easy Gay Oven a play on Easy Bake Oven? Is that the idea?

It sure is. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Did you ever have.

I always joke, no, I never had one. Okay.

Yeah, you. I feel like that needs to happen where you like need to order one and at least have one available. We had these. My brother and I had this thing called Incredible Edibles and it was like kind of like a version of that, but it was like these little metal plates that you could put and it would be like bugs and you know, like creatures and stuff, but they were edible. And there was this little oven that you'd put it in. But like, what a magical thing as a kid to be able to have this thing where you could like actually make something. And yeah, daughter now is at the point where she's getting really excited about baking and so she makes these creations. We have. Are there caribou's in New York? I'm trying to think. Probably not. Caribou coffee.

Oh, maybe. Okay, maybe. Maybe up north. I don't know.

Yeah, so they had caribou started in, I think it's mostly Midwest and then like randomly Seoul, South Korea. We were in Seoul, South Korea, and I tried to use a caribou gift card and they're like, we can't take that here. But our daughter Solvi, who's five, just started what she calls Solvi Boo, her name is Solvi. And so she loves like making drinks and creating these like egg bake things that we eat and that there's like egg and cinnamon and like kind of recreations, but just that age of like when you're young and like excited to make these random things. And I think of Easy Bake is such a great call back to that. But. So you were. Did some in writing in the entertainment world. What did that look like? It sounds like it was maybe kind of a short stint.

It was. So I had a couple internships in, in college and then my last internship out of college and then my first full time job, I was doing a lot of basically entertainment blogging. And then eventually I went to work for a Broadway news site. Spent like two years there while also working on Easy Gay Oven. But yeah, I really had a passion for entertainment and I went to school for journalism. Still love to write. I just, I think I just got tired of it.

Yeah.

And then that job in social media. So I left that job without another job and the job at TED conferences sort of came to me and I didn't really know what else I would be doing, so I was like, well, I need a job. And it really just worked out. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the thing that I love to tap into in these conversations with people who have kind of the experience that you have leading up to eventually working full time or, you know, freelancing and building your following is like, what are the pieces that you picked up along the way when you are working in these adjacent industries? And you know, even for myself, like I was at a nonprofit, but like I was working on the WordPress site and I remember that was kind of picking up pieces for me that we could eventually apply. When you look at the journalism part of, let's say specifically writing articles about news, that's happening in the world of Broadway and your time at TED doing social, were there things that you could look back to and say, I picked these things up along the way working within a bigger company and applied them to what I'm doing within my own kind of media or publishing. And that kind of accelerated what you were doing or were those kind of completely separate and there weren't things that applied well.

I think that writing is just like the most valuable skill and it's something that will follow you everywhere. It will always be a boon to you to be able to write. And that's if, if you're in stem, if you want to become a leader, if you want to work in nonprofits, if you want to, you know, do what we do here, it's, it's important to be able to communicate clearly. And so that has always been pretty clear to me. And I've always known, you know, depending on what industry I'm in, depending on what field I'm in, that I want writing to be at least a part of what I do. Mm. So I would say absolutely. Getting an education and in being concise, being accurate, I'm kind of one of those people who like, really nerds out about like the definition of like, collide.

Yeah.

So like, you can't say a car collided with a tree because the tree doesn't. It's not moving. Sure.

Has to be like, both things have to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

And it's like. And my question is, at a party, will you correct somebody if they say that?

It depends on how much I like them.

Totally. Will you, if you like them a lot, will you be more likely to correct them? That would be the follow up question.

That's a good question. Yeah. I would say depending on how likely it is that person is going to keep talking to me.

Yeah, totally, totally. You have to read it. Yeah.

But yeah, and then, you know, when I went and started working in social media, it was a very different thing because I remember being in college and there was almost a stigma against being in social media if you were in journalism school. And I for a long time, like, resisted taking any of the social media classes. I just didn't think that's, that's where I was going to end up because I thought I was going to be a reporter. And so I wish I had taken that more seriously at the advent of sure Social media. But in a way it didn't matter because my generation are social natives anyway, so we know how the platforms work better than.

Yeah.

No offense. Any professor could have taught us at that time.

Sure. Like, it's, it's not like you would have taken the class on Instagram and then three years later been like, I'm really glad I took that class on Instagram because now I know how to use it better pretty much.

And I mean, of course there's like, there's something to be said about like strategy and campaigns and I mean, I learned a lot more when I started working at ted, obviously about social media and.

Yeah.

Scheduling tools and programming a calendar and writing compelling copy. I mean, that was our whole job, was to capture someone's attention. It was like being a headline writer.

Yeah.

Be able to capture someone's attention within the first three seconds, which is literally what we do every day on Instagram when I edit my videos. So I would often write scripts for Video cut downs of TED talks, give feedback on those. And it was all about how do I capture someone's attention and make them want to click the link.

So how do you do that? Like what? You probably have these things in your mind right now that you use as kind of like a filtering process or a framework around attention, getting somebody's attention in a short amount of time. Could you pull those out and say, like, here's some things for people to consider when you do think about capturing somebody's attention.

So I would say in, in, in writing, people gravitate toward two things, a lot of things. But I'll just give you two examples. So the first one is if you, if you mention you, you say the word you, people will stop. Because people are, they're not interested in what's happening to you. I mean, they might be, but they're mainly interested in what's happening to them. So if you say, you know, you should do this or you, or have you ever, blah, blah, blah. And then there's also our natural instinctual, like human negativity bias. So we're biased towards negative words like, don't know, stop. Those are words that people are naturally pay more attention to. It makes them want to keep reading.

Yeah. Do you know what that is? Like, is there any thoughts around the psychology behind that? Is it like, I'm going to, I'm.

Going to go ahead and I mean, I think it's pretty established that in, to survive, humans had to be focused.

Toward the negative negativity.

What's the threats? Yeah, yeah, but I'm not gonna, I don't want to go into any psychology. Yeah, yeah, but. And then, you know what we do on Instagram and TikTok, I would say it's a couple things. People gravitate toward something really beautiful, beautiful light chocolate falling down onto, you know, something being drizzled in chocolate. Or I would say intrigue is really important. So if you see like one of the videos that does really well for me is my everything Bagel puff pastry puffs, not what they're called, but basically they're just little circles of puff pastry and I squish down the middle.

Yeah, I saw.

And there's this like really satisfying crunch. And it goes, it's a perfect circle and it goes straight down and that's really satisfying to people.

But then there's also novel too, I think, is the other piece like.

Absolutely.

Oh, interesting. I remember even when I was looking at your page, it was on a website. So there's like all the different things I could look at. And that was the one where I was like, oh, interesting. What is that?

Yeah, yeah. I'm lucky if I get like, one of those, you know, every couple recipes. Because since The Instagram and TikTok and Google are so saturated, it's so important to be able to be like, people have seen this before. Unless yours is the best or it is the easiest. You have to have something new to get people's attention. So those are just a couple things I look out for. The satisfying nature, the intriguing nature. Someone's like, what is that? Like, what. Or what's going to happen next? Or how's that going to look when it comes out?

Yeah.

That's why I think a lot of creators have, like, started to kind of edit their videos in a way where it's like, I'm going to almost show you the end product and then we're going to go back to the beginning.

Yep.

To so. So that you watch the whole video.

It's almost like. And maybe you said this, but, like, intrigue, curiosity. You kind of become a mini storyteller. Whether you're actually telling a story through the words that you're using or not. And collectively, it's like you're thinking, okay, if it's a video, what does that look like? How do you hook somebody? How do you engage interest? How do you create something novel, but then also in the writing as well. Like, that's an important piece of it. So when you think of yourself as a content creator, obviously these platforms are so visual, but it sounds like you are somebody who's very much anchored in your expertise and skills as a writer. So how do you marry those two things? The visual aspects of. At least on the social side, but also on websites as well, or email or whatever it is with the. The importance of the words that you're kind of wrapping it all in.

Yeah. This is something that I've been working on because sometimes I. I find that I have a lot to say about things that are not the recipe. I find it very satisfying to create a great recipe that people want to make at home. But I think there's like a mental block in my head where I'm like, can you express the reason why you wanted to make this recipe?

And, like, you're asking yourself that.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so I think doing the sub stack is partially one reason I wanted to do that. Because, of course, like, the blog has text that accompanies the recipe like everything else does. But I kind of just wanted to be more Intentional about writing about the recipe and then also writing about things I like, things I'm consuming, recommendations, things going on.

Yep. In the world. But yeah, it's almost like the food, you know, and maybe there's a analogy or kind of a through line with food in our lives, which is like you sit down for dinner with a friend and it's like you do talk about the food that you're getting, but it's maybe like 10 to 20% of what you're talking about. But it is a vehicle to like host that conversation. And it's interesting to hear you reflect on that a little bit. Where it's like, even on these platforms that same thing could be true. Where the food, while it's the main thing that's bringing people there, like, it's not the only thing that you're talking about necessarily is that kind of what you're getting at is like sometimes even if you're posting a reel about something you're making, what you'll talk about isn't necessarily just that thing.

Yeah. And I think a lot of creators have seen a lot of success in that regard by not just talking about the recipe, but talking about, I mean, really anything. But it has to be relevant to that creator and it has to be a good story. I mean, some of the best engaged with recipe videos have an accompanying story that might have nothing to do with the recipe. Yeah, I'm trying to kind of find my way into that. But I always tell creators who maybe are new or even like the ones that inspire me or the ones that I'm friends with, I try to remind them, I'm like, people don't want a recipe, they want your recipe. It could be literally anything from Google. And I'm sure you're great recipe developer. Everybody's great, everybody's so creative. But the reason that people choose you is because they trust you and they want to be part of your online community.

Yep.

And that's a whole, I mean, that's a whole other thing. But I try to remind people that they can get a recipe anywhere they want yours.

Yes, totally. I think that's super valuable. And I think if you, if you go the other route and you're like, it's just a recipe, you can build a following in that way. But it, like the business you're building or the following you're building is going to be much different. And in some ways the competition is going to be much more fierce because you're competing with everybody with the same type of medium, which is Like a recipe. But if you are a part of it and your story is a part of it, suddenly that's like, that's a really defensible thing. Like, especially in a world where we are approaching content that can be generated by non humans. Like, what does it look like in five years or 10 years when you can get a good recipe from whatever we're calling them, large language model, like a AI, like they're, they're not there yet and it might take a while, but they'll get there. And so what does that look like in that world? Well, if you have people who are connected to you and follow you because of who you are, that's like a really valuable thing that is like, for lack of a better word, defensible, because there's only one you, and that can't be replicated. So there's a couple of things that, before we get too far away from it, I'd be interested to hear you talk about. One of the things you talked about when you were at TED that I think is really valuable was you said one of the components of the job was talking to people, getting an idea of what they wanted and giving them more of that. Can you talk about what that looked like at ted and then is that something that you're thinking about as you create content for an audience?

Yes, I would say that we really paid attention to obviously what performed. But there are so many things that go into analytics and engagement and view count and sentiment and all the other ingredients are so important to take as a big picture because something could have underperformed in terms of view count or likes and comments, but there's all these saves and all these shares and you're like, what's that all about? What is it about this piece that strikes a chord with people, makes people want to share, makes people want to come back to it. So it's really important. And I try to look at all of my content as a big picture too, because also with algorithms, things go up and down, things change. Sometimes you have a really great week, sometimes you don't. There's some things you can't control. There's a lot that you can't. So, yeah. But I would say we try to listen to sentiment just as much as we listen to maybe. Well, I won't say what they do now. I have no idea.

Sure.

But I would say now I find it important to listen to sentiment as. As almost as much as I listen to the numbers, because I think that numbers, people say, like the numbers don't Lie. But it's like, yeah, but they don't give you the whole picture.

Yeah. Can you talk about what that means? Like what is listening to sentiment functionally look like?

Yeah, sure. I would say we would pay attention to comments, retweets, shares on LinkedIn and it's hard to get everybody's opinion because it was such a massive operation. But for me it's really easy because I just go through my comments and you just look for patterns in what people are asking about, what people are happy about, what they're not happy about. And sometimes you have to go, okay, well just because it's negative engagement, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't post it or that whatever. But you just have to kind of take it all into account.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

And it's. I'm learning that like every day, I'm still learning this. And it's the importance of listening to people that you are trying to talk to. Like in our normal day to day relationships, it's built in. You talk to somebody and then you listen to them. In the healthy relationships that we have in our life, the weird thing about our online relationships is we could just kind of blast people with content all day long and not really know how it's being received by them. On the other end, you, like you said you could look at metrics like how many view counts did it have? And whatever it might be, but to get the full picture, another kind of phrase that you use, one of the ways you can do that is by seeing how people are responding to it. And specifically the thing that I thought was really interesting is like what questions are people asking and getting a better idea of maybe the gaps in the content that you're creating or another piece of content that you could create that would help fill the picture out. So how do you do that while also preserving your mental health? Because I feel like for some people, not all people, but for some people, the idea of spending time reading people's comments would be like a really hard thing to do because you know you are going to come up against those negative things.

Yes, I would say in the food blogosphere, Instagram, TikTok, I mostly receive positive feedback.

Yeah, yeah.

Unless sometimes on TikTok, when it breaks out and get goes beyond my following to people who don't know me. I've heard a lot of creators say they're actually scared of going viral and they do not want to because there's just so much vitriol, especially in that corner of the Internet. And I don't know what it is about the platform. People are a. I think it's a little bit more anonymous than Instagram. It's sort of like YouTube comments where people are not showing up as themselves. It's also the reason why people are so well behaved on LinkedIn, because they are who they are. They're attached to their work. Their boss is there.

Yeah.

So on TikTok, I feel like most people aren't posting, they're just viewing and maybe they're not being public with who they are. So that's part of the reason. But I'll just get a lot of people who I don't know. It's people who make bad faith judgments or jump to conclusions about things without really knowing who you, the creator, are or what kind of content you post or the intention of the post. I've been lucky to avoid, sure, that most conflict. But, you know, sometimes people just, they just want to write something mean. I would say where mental health comes into it. It's much harder for me at least, to deal with comparison. Jealousy, feelings of inadequacy. The constant churn.

Yeah.

That we feel to post and create.

You have like two hours after you post to kind of relax a little bit, and then you're like, better get after it again.

Seriously. I mean, I. I say this, I did not go to pastry school, I didn't go to culinary school. I take a long time to develop recipes sometimes and that's just how it goes. Like, I can't, I can only go so fast without sacrificing the quality of a recipe.

Yep.

And if that doesn't work for what TikTok or Instagram wants for how. For, you know, optimal growth, then too bad.

Yeah.

I don't know what to say.

Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the things I've been trying to think about for myself as we, you know, continue on in this journey of creating online. And you see other. All of these different stories of people reaching, like, incredible levels of success. And you see other people who kind of fold up and say, I'm not gonna go forward anymore. Like, there's all these different scenarios. And in a lot of those, you can do this kind of comparison type stuff where you're looking at it, oh, man. Like, they're doing really incredible and feeling bad about it, but have been trying to as much as possible, think about, like, how do I play my own game and how do I show up every day with an idea of what I'm trying to get out of what I'm doing? Like what is my goal? What is my purpose? And then using that as kind of the North Star that I follow as opposed to looking left and right. But it's really hard to do. And I'd be curious what it looks like for you especially, you know, for me. I'm not. My main platforms aren't Instagram or TikTok where I go on and then see this. Inevitably, in order to participate, you kind of have to have exposure to it, like other people and other pieces of content. And so what does that look like for you? Any tools that you've used in kind of your mental health tool belt, to approach that from kind of a healthy mindset to approach. Yeah. So to rephrase the question, like, yeah, as a creator. It was a long, convoluted thought for you as a creator. How do you not get caught up in comparison? And, yeah, kind of stay focused on what you're doing.

Oh, okay. Thank you. I would say I do get caught up in.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I. I mean, yes, that is true, but I would say yes, it's important to recognize the places where your life, your circumstances, your financial situation are very different from other people. You're not seeing the whole picture as we've been talking about. You might not be seeing that they're working with a team of seven people, or they have an assistant or they have a partner who's helping them do stuff, or maybe they had years to build this up while someone else paid the bills, and that's all good, but you're not seeing that. So you're making all these judgments about yourself and about others without all the information. But, you know, I think about it all the time. I've been working on this. I mean, I started with Instagram, and then eventually I got the website and then the TikTok, and then I started the Instagram in July 2019. And so sometimes I look at how people have this great overnight success, they hit the ground running again. It's like digital natives. People either have the resources or just know how to get started. And it's hard not to see that and see, like, overnight success. And people shoot past you just in terms of follower count.

Right.

And not feel like there's something wrong with you.

Yeah.

So I've just tried to remind myself, you know, again, it goes back to, why are people following you? Why do. Why do people stick around? Why is your engagement good, even if you're not growing crazy fast? You know, what makes you special? But it's hard, you know, it's really difficult. I don't think there's, I don't think there's any kind of magic. I know people with, you know, millions of followers who still get caught up in the same thing or feeling like their content didn't perform, or feeling like there's something wrong with them or their content.

Yep.

And it's almost built to make you feel that way. Yep. Scratch that. It is built to make you feel that way. So yeah, it's certainly something I struggle with.

Yeah. And I think everybody listening in some ways it's like probably one of the most helpful things to hear is like, yeah, it is something that exists. And if somebody listening is like, oh, me too. You're not alone in that. I think it's a pretty universal felt thing just with social media or like the human experience in general, like even outside of social media. I think it exists in a lot of ways. So before we continue, let's take a.

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So you talked about starting your Instagram in 2019 and what, what has that kind of progression looked like for you? And is this something where today. And you know, we're recording this mid December 2023, is this your full time thing that you're working on along with some other projects or like tell us about what that transition looked like to, you know, when you started to today kind of that four year period.

Yeah. So I became very interested in. I mean I've been like a lifelong baker. I was, I started using baking as a hobby, as an outlet, a creative outlet. I wasn't, I wasn't feeling fulfilled in my jobs. I wasn't feeling creative or like I was doing good work. And so I think I started baking these really like serious baking projects and as a way to kind of cope with that.

Yeah.

And I started documenting them just on my personal Instagram and people were like, you have to, you have to start an Instagram that's separate from this. And I was like, I don't know why you want me to do like, what's the difference for you? And people were adamant and eventually I just did it and then kind of just started making other people's recipes. I tried my hand at a few recipes that I had developed and then July 2019 happens. I started Easy Gay Oven. Quit my job. The first, the first job I quit.

Job quit, number one.

Right. And it's important because like I quit that job and spent a month working on Easy Gay Oven. And that was a great month. I think back to that month all the time and how happy I was.

Yeah.

And so did a little work there, got another job, worked there. Pandemic happened. Then I started getting really involved in creating recipes of my own, shooting them with professional lighting, professional setup, professional camera, and then still working my day job, shooting at night. I mean I'd be like up until 2am Shooting things. But you know, it was, it was fun. And also it was, it was Covid. So I mean it was deep lockdown.

Yep. Especially New York.

So what else are you gonna do? Yeah, you know, I was living with my parents for a while so luckily I could just, you know, I wasn't seeing anybody.

Yep, you can focus on it. It's like you had the ability to really go deep in this one specific area while also working a full time job. Yeah.

Yeah. And then 2021 happened. I started getting some clients, and then this kind of became a side gig.

How did you get those first clients? I think that's one thing that's for people that are always interested in what, like, what does that look like? Was it people reaching out to you, you reaching out to people?

It was mainly people reaching out to me. And that's what's so great, is that, you know, that's another thing to talk about comparison. I've been fortunate that a lot of the people who want to work with me come to me because they think I have something special. And in my view, that's just as important as pure social media metrics. Because really, at the end of the day, no one's doing this for free.

Yep.

Well, some people are, yeah. But it's important to understand why businesses would want to work for you or with you. So, yeah, so I was working with some clients. They came to me. I had one client who was a friend of a friend, and they paid me, you know, what I thought at the time was a fair price. Yeah, it was. You know, it's just like now. I did look back on it, and it was. It was kind of fun to do your first thing that you're getting paid for. And then one of my big clients that year that I was working, I would say, on the side for was Netflix Family and their Pinterest account. The team who ran their Pinterest account wanted to. So they had a couple titles that they were trying to promote, and they wanted recipes to go with those titles and to make, like, Pinterest stories. I don't work much on Pinterest. I don't work at all on Pinterest. But it was basically just making content for them that wouldn't appear on Easy Gay Onion. So I was developing recipes, shooting those recipes late into the night, again, because I was working a day job and I did two for Pride Month. That's why they reached out, because Easy Gay Oven.

Sure.

That's another thing. It's what made me stick out. When people searched Gay Baker on Instagram or Google, they often found me. And so I was able to get a lot of Pride campaigns when I started. So did such a great job on the first two that they were like, we're going to give you like, 15 more.

And this was Netflix. Netflix.

This was Netflix. Yes.

Yep.

Netflix, the company, the streamer. And they have a Netflix Family division, which had their own Pinterest account, which had, like, at the time, I think, something crazy, like 4 million Pinterest followers.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, I did that for them going to the end of 2021, going into 2022, and then at the start of 2022, that's when I really started Easy Gay Oven full time. Because I left my job in social media at the end of 2021. Yeah.

And so talk about that first year. So you know that we're coming up on two years now of you doing this full time. And I feel like that's a really good time to have a conversation like this because it's not like the first two months where you're kind of like looking around and being okay. It just feels different when you're getting up and you're the one setting the schedule for the day. What, what is, what have those first two years been like for you working on this full time?

Oh, gosh. You know, it's been a roller coaster. And I would say for the first couple months I was just really excited. I was really excited and kind of fearlessly diving into it. I had, I think at the end of 2021, about 10,000 followers on Instagram. Would not recommend going full time with your food blog business if you don't have amazing SEO or whatever, you know, site traffic. Like, I did not. I supplemented a lot of my income by writing for publications like Serious Eats. So I did that maybe half the time. And then I was running Easy Gay Oven. And I consider that as like one full time gig change.

Totally.

So, yeah, the first year, you know, it was good. It was. It was a little scary. I had to leave the studio apartment I was staying in because of course my income changed dramatically. Yeah, I had to move in with two random people. And here's the thing. I always say it's always good to go down a roommate or live alone, but I don't recommend going back.

Going up. Yeah, for sure.

I love my roommates now.

For sure.

You know, it was a big. It was a big lifestyle change. It was a big lifestyle change because I was now my own boss and that was really hard to get used to. I'm someone who's very much. I respond well to deadlines and making the people in charge happy. So it was hard to be disciplined with myself and say you have to get out of bed and start your day and you have to focus and you have to create a schedule for yourself because no one else is going to do it. And I'm still honestly getting over that hump. But it's gotten a lot easier this year. There was a point I would Say halfway through this year that I really had to look at my finances and be like, is this going to work? Because there was, I would say every creator kind of noticed there was a tightening of marketing budgets in this past. Earlier this year, I would say Pride campaigns were nowhere to be found. Sure, you could say, because there was such a huge blowback on some brands.

Experienced blowback from doing a Pride campaign, and therefore the resulting impact of that is them maybe quietly kind of like re jiggering the budget to like, not.

Have or just one or just one very visible brand got slammed, and now everybody's too scared. That combined with the, you know, vibe session. Everybody's tightening their belts.

Yep. Target. Are you speaking to Target? Like some of the stuff that happened with Target or Target.

Bud Light.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I didn't practically get any brands reaching out for Pride, which is very unusual because I had a friend who was working with me for a while. She works in influencer marketing. She would help me do my negotiations, my contracts. She very graciously helped me for a long time, and I'm so grateful to her because at the time, I really couldn't afford to pay anyone else to do it, so. But she kept asking me, where are all the. Where are all the brands? Because this. Because last year, even when you were smaller, people still wanted to work with you. So anyway, it was kind of scary because then I had to take on a lot of extra, you know, work for writing for publications, which I'm happy to do, but I kind of wanted to focus on and growing.

Right.

So I would say, first year I was. I didn't make any money. The first six months of doing Easy Gay Oven, I was so focused on growing, and I was lucky because I had savings and I safety net. I say this all the time to people that I would not have been able to do Easy Gay Oven if I didn't have savings and family that could help me if I had a problem.

Yeah. Yep. It's one of the things I heard on a podcast recently. It was. They were talking about, this was in the context of, like, startups and companies that get, like, funding from a, you know, raising around. But he was talking about. They're talking about founder salaries. And one of the things he talked about was the combination of, like, your business budget, but also your personal budget and then therefore your business run rate and your personal run rate. And what I think is great about your story is you're. You were saying, hey, I know I want to do this. I want to give this A shot. And what you did is like you extended your run rate, you extend or you know, if you were previously when you had a studio apartment on your own, you knew it would like last two months. But if you reduce that amount and you have your savings, suddenly it's going to last six months or eight months. And that is like an incredible amount of time to get momentum with the thing that you're doing, the thing that you're building. And so, you know, I think it's for all of us, especially those who are thinking of making the leap into building a thing and the contemplation being do I grow this until it is a full time salary, which will be really hard if I'm doing it in the margins of a W2 job or do I save up and then work on this full time with the hope of like compressing that timeline to get there quicker and using the variables at play, whether it be, you know, where you're living or just what those recurring expenses are and adjusting those down as much as possible. I think that's really wise. And the other thing that I think is worth pointing out, you know, as, as people think about kind of this world of building into like the, the thing that you're working on into a full time gig is like how do you think of yourself as a CEO? And the CEO is like not just your creator business, but it's like everything that is bringing money in for you and everything that is, you know, an expense. And so for you it's like if you're CEO of like Eric Enterprises, like part of that could be the freelance division where you're writing. It's also easy Gay oven where you're working with sponsors and building a following. It could also be like a part time W2 job or maybe in some seasons full time. And it almost like viewing them as divisions. Is that kind of what you're getting at a little bit when you said I kind of view that as part of what I was doing was freelance is also kind of under this umbrella of me as an entrepreneur.

I, I, I, I viewed it at the time as something that I had to do because but at the same time I preferred that over perhaps going and getting a job at a coffee shop or a bakery. I was doing it because I love Serious Eats. I think I use Serious eats as a resource all the time. I think they do great work. I love a lot of the people who work there. So I was also considering this helps me raise my profile in the world of food media in a small way.

Yeah, but totally.

Yeah, but still. I was also thinking at the time, when I left my full time job the second time, I kind of was like, I'm not making any grand statements about what exactly I'm going to be doing for the rest of my career. I'm not making any grand statements of the fact that I'll never come back to media because I was also like, that could very well happen. It could still happen. I want to keep my options open. I want to be able to say, work on my blog, work on the substack, work on Instagram, work on TikTok, work for publications, be an on air talent, hopefully one day. But that's why I try not to pigeonhole myself. So I was doing it because I needed the money, but also because it was keeping one foot in the world of New York food media.

Yep, that's great and strategic in that way. It's not just like you said, getting a coffee job at a coffee shop, which isn't bad in and of itself, but it's maybe outside of the kind of arena that you wanted to be in. Yeah, you mentioned Substack. I'd love to talk about that a little bit as, as a last kind of focus topic here. You know, a lot of times folks will think about convertkit or mailchimp and these email platforms, but I don't think we talk enough about Substack as an option for building a community. And it really has more of almost a community feel for than it than you know, a traditional like email marketing platform. And the other thing is like you can build your list for the free. There's not a cost with it as your list grows. It's not like you have to pay more. And it even could be a profit center at some point if you start to charge for it. So can you talk about some of your thoughts around building on Substack and what that's been like?

Absolutely. So I was very interested in Substack at the start of this year. I did a lot of research on the competitors and Patreon and Beehive was kind of an interesting one that I was looking at. I kind of came down with Substack just because it seemed like food people were having a lot of success there. I had seen some food people change from Patreon to Substack. Again, the fact that it was low, low barrier to entry really helped. And a big part of the reason why I started it is because I was so frustrated with the vulnerability of not being able to rely on brand partnerships all the time and not being able to rely on Instagram and TikTok and their shifting algorithms. I mean, my whole thing, my. My mom, who I learned a lot about being a professional from, she would say, you know, multiple streams of income.

Yeah, all right, Mom.

It's. It's. It's great advice.

Yes.

And to make yourself invulnerable.

Yep.

And I was just honestly fed up. I was like, you know, we have people who base their entire businesses on these platforms who owe us nothing, who have no regard for the people who keep the wheels moving. So why should we act like tomorrow it couldn't all just shut down?

Hmm.

I mean, that would be really bad.

Yeah. But it's happened. Like, I feel like vine is kind of the ultimate example of a platform where people built huge followings and it literally just shut down. I don't. I mean, I don't think it'll happen with.

Well, I think about. I think about Instagram, but.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

There's such a monopoly and there's such a. You know, it's ubiquitous. But I also remember it was only a couple months ago that for the first time in. In its history, Facebook lost users. The users went down for the first time ever. So I think everybody should be looking ahead to. Eventually these things will phase out. Something new will rise, a new TikTok will come along. It's just what happens. And so I was hesitant to get on TikTok. I probably got on a little too late. I also hopped on reels too late. I always say if I were to go back, I would start either a year earlier or a year later.

Sure.

Because if I started a year later, I would have had more savings. But if I started a year earlier, I would have been able to hop on all the trends that you're seeing now. Anyway, so I started substack because I wanted to kind of create a buffer. And I can see that being much more reliable source of income as I grow than just relying on brand partnerships, because that's another thing. We don't know how much longer the current influencer marketing market has left. We don't know how that's going to change. So I think that's another thing people should really keep in mind is saying, how can I build a one on one relationship with my audience? How can I own a segment of my audience? Because I could build it on substack. Great thing about substack, you can take that email list wherever you go. You don't have to. They don't own that email list. At least not now. So that was another thing that was really. And right now I am making money with it, which is great.

Yeah. And the predictability of that, like, there's something really nice about saying okay. And there's always churn with any of these. Like, some people sign up and some people cancel. But like, generally speaking, you know, we've seen this with software businesses where you can get some predictability with that in a way that we've also seen this with sponsor content or partnerships. It's like, oh my gosh, this month we've had five people reach out. Awesome. Oh, for eight months we didn't have anybody reach out. Like, not awesome. And it's great if that becomes like a bump, but not like the baseline. And so, you know, call back to your mom and her wisdom. Like, what does it look like to have multiple streams of income? And especially great if those multiple streams of income are diversified in terms of the nature of that income. You might have ad income, you have some subscription income, you have one off projects, maybe freelance. We talk about this idea of the egg carton. And like, if you have this idea of how much you need to make, you know, let's say it's $60,000 in a year, you're not living in New York, you're living somewhere, somewhere else where you could live on more affordably. Like 5,000 in each kind of, you know, egg spot in the egg carton. Okay. How do you put that together, you know, and think about diversifying that? And so I think a ton of wisdom in your mom's advice there for all of us, like as we think of business building.

Yeah.

So as people hear about this, I'm sure that they'll want to connect with you. Maybe there's some brands listening that want to reach out, but also creators, influencers, publishers who would want to follow along with what you're up to. Can you do a little shout out for the different places where people can follow along with what you're up to, Eric? And maybe include substack there as well so people can follow along there?

Absolutely. You can find me at easykavin.com @easy gay oven on Instagram and TikTok. The sub stack is. I think the. The nomenclature is easygayavan.substack.com.

Great.

If that sound right, just Google it.

Yeah, totally. We'll link to those in the show notes as well. Last question for you, Eric. For anybody who is in the early stages, they're thinking about making that transition, going full time with it. What would Your advice be to them, like, if you're sitting across from them, cup of coffee, and they say, like, what have you learned in these last two to three years that you could tell me to help me take the next steps? What would you say to them?

I would say, how much do you like your healthcare?

Totally.

I would say. I would say make sure that you have a lot of savings and make sure that you really, really like what it is that you want to do. I would say having that safety net is really important because you don't know if you're going to be able to go find another job like the one you had. Yeah. The multiple streams of income thing, really important. Yep. Being proactive. Networking is really important. I always say the. Another thing I learned from my mom, it's the strength of weak ties, which.

I love that I've never heard that before, but that. That's great. Yeah. Can you explain?

I say. I say that the. Some of the best opportunities I've gotten were from people who I sort of knew.

So you said like friend of a friend, like that one of the deals came through. Yeah. Treat everyone like you're saying.

I would say treat. I hate. I hate the word. I hate the actual like word. And of networking, I think that it's important to create. Create a network before you need it. Don't network because you want an opportunity now. Meet people, develop relationships, because one day someone's going to be like, I really need this person for this kind of project. And they'll think of you.

Yeah, that's great. The strength.

And maybe one day you'll be able to help them, too.

I love that. That's awesome.

Yeah.

Eric, thanks so much for coming on. It was a joy to talk to you and love to hear about your story. So thanks for coming on.

Oh, thanks so much for having me. Bjork.

Hey.

Hi.

Hello.

Alexa here. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. I'm here today to give you an update on what's going on in the Food Blogger Pro Pro membership side of things in January. So January is going to be a great month for Food Blogger Pro members. And if you're interested in joining the community and learning a little bit more about what's offered within the community, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com join there. You can learn all the things and then get signed up whenever you're ready. What we always like to say is that a membership, a Food Blogger Pro membership is going to look different at the end of each week because we're always adding value to your membership. We're always updating old content, publishing new content, and everything in between. So it's just a great place to be if you have some goals this year that you really want to accomplish. It's a great place to stay accountable and get up to date advice and strategies. So on January 4th, we have a coaching call coming out with Food Buyer Pro member Pam from our Table for two. And this conversation just makes me smile every time I think about it because Pam is just so dedicated and excited about her blog. And I think like starting off the year with a conversation like that, it just makes you feel good. And some of the questions that Pam and Bjork talk through are about hosting events, impressions on the site in terms of user experience, category, strategy, and more. It's a great coaching call and you can expect that on January 4th. Then on January 11th, we have a live Q and A with Chelsea Clark about qualifying for an ad network. So if you're working towards qualifying for an ad network this year, this is a cannot miss Q and A. We're so excited about it. So FoodBlocker Pro members get this. It's already included in your membership. So January 11th you can tune in. But if you're not a Food Blogger Pro member and you're not quite ready to join for the full membership, you can head to foodbloggerpro.comwebinars and actually register for this webinar for only 25 bucks. So it's a great way to kind of test the waters to see if you know the Food Blogger Pro membership could be right for you. If you're interested. And then on January 18, we have a great new course coming out. It's all about Pinterest, but advanced Pinterest. So like how to get the most out of Pinterest. If you've kind of already got some of the fundamentals, figured out how to pin, how to post videos, how frequently you should pin, this course is going to take things one step further into the advanced realm of Pinterest. So we're so excited about that. Again, if you're interested in joining the Food Blogger Pro membership or just learning a little bit more about what's all included, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com join. Otherwise, that does it for us today. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time. And until then, make it a great week.

Sam.