In this video Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about who edits his YouTube videos. He walks through three distinct phases of his editing workflow: (1) an early partnership with Mark Drager of Fanta Media, where a friend filmed and edited his videos for free; (2) a DIY period where Evan edited everything himself using Windows Movie Maker and later Camtasia, while he still earned no revenue; (3) the point when the channel began generating money, allowing him to hire his first paid editor, Saad, via oDesk, who later disappeared (later revealed to have been kidnapped). After Saad’s loss, Evan hired Kristina, who now handles editing, uploading, titles, and descriptions, freeing Evan to focus on on‑camera work. Throughout, Evan emphasizes his “don’t spend money until you’re making money” philosophy and invites viewers to share their own first‑hire stories. The video ends with a call to subscribe and join the newsletter.
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Who edits my videos? So I got a great question from one of my loyal YouTube viewers, love you guys, Leonardo, who wrote in to say, "What's up Evan, who edits your videos?" What's up Leo? If you want to know what's up, you can check out my "What's Up" video. And in terms of who edits my videos, I want to tell you a quick story that I hope will help. See, I'm a big believer in not spending money till I'm making money. For those of you loyal YouTube viewers, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's a message I repeat in a lot of my videos. When I started my YouTube channel, I wanted to have a place to have a greater impact and help people in a visual way. But I wasn't making any money at it, so I didn't want to spend anything. I didn't spend on editing, I didn't spend on gear, I didn't spend it on anything, but I was willing to invest my time and my hustle. So stage 1 for me was actually partnering up. A buddy of mine named Mark Drager runs a video production company called Fanta Media. He's been on the channel a few times, I've interviewed him. And we started together where I would be on camera and he would film it and edit it and produce it. And then I would publish it to the channel. He did it because I guess he wanted to be a friend to me, and he also saw a promotional angle to get some exposure for his business. But after a while, it got to be too taxing for Mark and his team to handle. I was making too many videos, and he wasn't, I guess, seeing enough of a return to continue on with me. I still wasn't making enough money to justify hiring an editor, so my stage 2 was I did it myself. Now, I was by no means a video editor. I had no skills, no training, didn't know what I was doing. I started by using Windows Movie Maker, and a lot of the early videos on my channel are me editing my Windows Movie Maker videos. As I needed more features and I learned a little bit more about video editing software, I picked up Camtasia and started using that as my default editor, but I was still doing all the work myself. As I built up my audience and I started getting a little bit of traction with the channel, a big company in the telecommunications space said they wanted to work with me on a video. They gave me a little bit of a budget to play with, and now that I was making some money from my channel, I could afford to invest it back into the channel. So one of the first things I did was put out a job on oDesk, and I hired my first video editor, Saad. And Saad was great and reliable, and I would upload the videos to him on Dropbox, he would send them back to me, and I would put them up on my channel. And then one day, Saad— poof! Disappeared. And now suddenly I was stuck having to edit all these videos myself. And it really sucks as an entrepreneur when you hire somebody and you finally give away those responsibilities that you don't want to have anymore yourself, and then you have to take them back on. You really, really, really don't want to do them. Saad went from being super reliable to not responding to any email for 2 weeks. So I said, enough is enough, I have to go find somebody new to help me edit these videos because I can't keep doing this myself. And that's where I found Cristina! Kristina, say hi! Hi! And Kristina's been doing a fantastic job for me. She's been editing all the videos, she's been posting them to YouTube, she's been adding in the title and the description, and saved a lot of my time so that I can spend more of my time being in front of the camera instead of being in front of the computer editing them. Now I later found out that Saad actually got kidnapped and he was out for 2 months and held for ransom, and I guess that was something that was relatively normal in his country. But by the time he came back, I had Kristina who was doing an amazing job and who I wanted to keep on board on my team. So those are my 3 steps. I started with alliance partners, then I started doing it myself, and then as I started making money from my channel, I was able to go out and hire somebody to help me do it. I hope that answers your question, Leonardo. Believe. For those of you watching, I would love for you to tell me who your first hire was, what their role was. I don't care about their name, but what was their role? What, what job function did they have in your business? Or if you're thinking about hiring somebody, who's the first person that you want to hire for your business to take some stuff off your plate? Leave in the comments below. I'm really curious to see what you guys are thinking. And of course, if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and to the newsletter. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon.
