From Rock Bottom to Making $$$ Millions as a YouTuber - Jordan Welch | Midnight Podcast Episode 35

This is the lifetime revenue of just one video, that dropshipping video, and that's in a year. So, you know, the YouTube thing can be very powerful if you have a video that pops up.

Right. Then we're back with the midnight pod and we have, as I was just saying off camera, the first American ever on the fucking podcast.

Cheers to that.

Bring that in.

Hey, cheers. Cheers to that.

Jordan Welch, another person that's like been in my network for a while, but we never really got to know each other that well. And then we had like mutual friends. I think we met like four years ago in Miami. It's a massive. Was it four years ago?

Yeah, we met. We met in Miami during the 10X conference.

Remember that?

Yeah, Grant Cardone, years ago. Yeah, 2018. I was with all these guys from Europe that I had only known on the Internet and we had fun. This is you guys.

These guys had rented Tim Colwell. Eddie, I think was there. My mate Adam was there, who's also been on the pod.

These guys rented all the exotics. They were going crazy in Miami like I had never seen before at the time. So for me it was a good experience.

Yeah, it was crazy. And then. Yeah, I've seen like your YouTube shit grow, obviously. I guess how would I define you? I suppose you're a YouTuber, you're an entrepreneur and you have a SaaS business as well, right?

Yeah. So usually I just say, like, you know, I'm a YouTuber, I'm an entrepreneur, but morely just like a creative. Like, I like creating products, creating videos, creating ads. I just like making stuff.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I guess first question is always. And we'll dive into loads of shit because it always gets a bit weird on this pod. Cool. It's kind of like I know what probably a lot people know about you on the surface level, but like, I guess your background, like how you got started and all this shit. I think I'm 24 now, right?

Yes, 24.

Yes. Two years younger than me. I feel fucking old. But yeah, like, how did you get into all this? Like, where did you come from, background wise? When did you get started? Right, so bring us up to speed, I guess.

Sure. So I was born in Fort Myers, Florida. It's a small town in southwest Florida. Pretty much just having a single mother situation. My dad, he's alive, but he wasn't really there in the equation. So she did everything she could to raise us and she worked really hard, me and my sister. And yeah, we grew up. It wasn't like the world's hardest life, but we didn't have money, bro. Like, it was like food stamps and we were borrowing money from family and stuff like that, but we got through. But seeing that made me want more out of life. I knew that I didn't want to wake up like 6am at my mom, like. Like she did, and do that lifestyle, so I wanted to start doing other things. So around high school, all my friends, you know, they started getting jobs and stuff like that, and they were making money, and I wanted to do that too. So I used to play video games, like, at a very competitive level. Call of Duty, game battles, Trick shotting, man. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like almost cliche at this point, but that was my real life. So I was doing that very much every day, six hours plus. And I started editing videos for my friends that were successful on the game. And that was the first little money I started making and then tried a couple different ventures over the years through high school, and nothing really popped off. I mean, we could break those ventures down. It was a lot of little things, you know, but nothing really popped off for me. I would get little wins and then go back to zero and little wins and back to zero. And then things didn't really start getting good till after high school.

Yeah. And those things you did, were they online or were they just like any form of hustle?

A lot of them were on the Internet. I resold sneakers. I started a clothing brand. I hosted a sneaker convention in my city. At 16, I rented out a convention center, and we had like. I had sold like 200 tickets, 250 tickets. That was fun. But we lost money, you know, like, so things like that. Like, things that looked good on the surface. And I identified as an entrepreneur at that age, but. But I had no money. My goal was to be a thousandaire, bro. I wanted to have a thousand dollars. I didn't have a thousand dollars. And that was all I wanted. I never got that until I was way older than 17. 18, you know?

Yeah. Fucking up. So high school, you said things started to pick up.

Yeah. So I graduated, and at that point, I had taken a break from business because I hadn't had any success. So the last year, I just did senior year enjoying it. I had a girlfriend, you, you know, just whatever. And after I graduated, I was like, oh, no. Like, I missed it. I didn't study for the tests. I'm not ready to go to college. I don't have money saved up. I never had a job. And I'm still that entrepreneur, but haven't had a business yet, so I just end up going to college. And I went to Florida Gulf Coast University. It's a good school in Florida. Small school. And I tried my best. I got good grades, but I really knew that wasn't for me. So the first summer after that year is when I started my first E commerce business. Well, I guess the clothing brand was E commerce too.

Right.

But like, you know what I'm saying? My first Shopify store and I didn't stop on that. That's really the thing. That was the first one to pop off.

Yeah. So high school in America, right? That's like you finish at 18.

Yes, you finish at 18.

And college is like university. So.

Yeah, uni.

Yeah, uni. I went to uni and dropped out twice and then eventually dropped out fully. But do you, in America, do you choose a specific subject at college or is it like more general or what you do?

But because I didn't have good grades in school, like, they weren't bad, but when I got to college the first year, I had to make up like certain credits so that I could choose the major. So, bro, I was in college, paying to do like algebra and like reading and you know what I mean? Expensive economic.

In America get student loans in the same.

In one year of college, Iraq racked up $21,000 of student debt.

Yeah. Fuck.

And that. We don't. We don't have that money. And my family at that point in time. So you just got to say one day I'm gonna figure it out, you know, but here's what was good about that $20,000. We didn't spend all that on tuition and room and board. So they actually end up giving me the leftover amount, which was like $2,000.

Yeah.

And that was the budget that I used to really start my Shopify store.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can relate. I remember being 19 in uni, working in a burger bar. Like, it sounds like a made up story, but it's actually true. And I would run Facebook ads, drop shipping back in like 20, 15, 16. But when it was super fucking cheap. Yeah. On my break with like the £50 I had in my bank account. But it's always similar.

Like, so you only had 50 and you were just running ads to zero and then just doing it.

I had like a fucking overdraft. Probably like 500 as well. It's like. Right? Yeah, it was like. It's always funny looking back that far because I'll get DMs I'm sure you get fucking loads of them.

Yeah.

Saying like, how do you get started? How do you side? And so I was like, I don't actually remember how I got started because look, like if anyone was in that situation now, I'd be like, fuck, that's impossible.

Yeah. But you just figure out, I think it was like that too. Like, there was never a day where, like, I'm gonna do this. It almost felt like I was always supposed to do this, and I just sort of found my way through it, you know?

Yeah. Completely fucking relate. So how far into college then, in terms of, like, years and time?

Two semesters. So that's one full year in college in America. So, you know, that was hard, but I actually got straight A's, and I never got straight A's in high school, but I wanted to just, like, try to see, am I an idiot? And then I just, like, worked as hard as I could and I did it. And I was like, well, that was a fucking waste of time. So. Yeah.

So you dropped out after two semesters?

Well, no, it didn't work that sweetly because I went back for the summer and I was living with my mom, and I wanted to get an apartment this time instead of living in the dorm room. That was like, my number one goal. I know it's materialistic, whatever, but we saw this one super fly apartment right next to college. Nobody had anything like it. So me and my best friend, we were like, that's our goal now. His financial situation a little different. Like, his family helped, and he's good, but for me, I needed to come up with that money without getting a job. So, bro, I took that 2k with me and my best friend, and we just started learning about drop shipping and testing products every day on a general store. So this is old strategy. This is not what I would recommend today, but that's what we were doing. And I was testing all type of bullshit and eventually started to see some success. And I scaled that business past 100k a month within the first six months. And that was right when school came back. So I had enough bread to move into the apartment. Now I was in class, sitting in the back, working on my store so I don't get evicted. And then I just went into the guidance counselor or whatever he's called, and I was like, yo, I don't want to go here anymore. And he's like, why? And I explained it to him. He's like, all right, go for it. And I was like, cool. They weren't resistant to it at all?

Yeah. Fuck. Such a similar story to me actually.

That's crazy.

General stores and shit. So how did you figure out those first bits? Was it like Facebook groups? I know for me it was Facebook groups back in like 20, 15, 16, back when they were popping like ecom communities like Discord is now.

Yeah.

How was it for you?

The Facebook groups were a big part of it for sure. But I was also watching YouTube videos, you know. But what I was doing too was I was actually messaging people a lot. So I would be in the group like that annoying person that's like, if I see somebody that hit $200 a day, I'm like, so how did you do that? Like, can we get on a Skype call for five minutes? Like, even though these days I don't normally like jump on a five minute Skype call, sometimes I actually do. But yeah, a lot of people did that for me early on and I would just ask them questions and just listen and say thank you and just move on. And like I would try to absorb knowledge from everybody as I kept climbing with the ladder and I do that today. That's what I do every day. I don't care if you're rich or famous. Like we can learn from each other and that's how we grow.

Be inquisitive for sure.

Yeah.

Yo fellas, quick one. First bit of promo for pod. You may or may not have heard I released a fucking E Commerce a few months ago. Basically spent like six months making it because I was in between businesses, as you probably know. If you follow my shit, I must say, 12 hours long. It's fucking quality content. I was going to drop it like 1500 quid with some bullshit guru y webinar and all that rubbish, but as you know, it's not my main thing. I'm working on a new brand right now. Very, very fucking much in the trenches. Which is why I think it's actually a better course than everything else out there. It's built on real experience of my brands in the past and my current one. I think it's super, super valuable. If you're interested in E comm, you're already in E comm and you wanted to get into E comm. 0 to 1 starting a brand from scratch then definitely worth investing in. Link is in the bio of this video or podcast, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever the fuck you're listening or watching and enjoy the rest of the pod. So were you running this business with your mate or are you just living together?

No, we were different friends. So I started the business with somebody else. We didn't live together. And then I was living with one of my best friends. He was just focused on college. No work, nothing. Just.

When Was this?

Like, 2016, 2017.

Yeah.

Because in 2018 days on Facebook, man, I'm a cry thinking about it. Yeah, I'm just kidding. It really was. And I felt like at that time, I did run into some issues, though, because I had developed a strong sense of ego because I had the best apartment out of everybody I knew in my college. I had money. I dropped out, which was always my goal. And, you know, I just started being a little reckless. I would say not too bad, but just not being as hardworking and responsible as I was. So to get back into shape, I was like, I need to do something else. And that's when I started doing YouTube videos again. So at the end of 2017, I started doing that, and that really brought a whole new wave of motivation for me, for real. And now I was doing e.comm and YouTube at the same time, which some people hate on. You know, I don't understand why, but.

Yeah, we just like documenting the process initially.

Yeah, bro, if you. If you. This is real life. If you go watch my first video, I had zero subscribers, zero views. It's just an educational video teaching about what is E commerce. I made a PowerPoint. I turned on my webcam and just started recording. There's no reason for me to do that. I didn't have a course. I didn't even make a course for, like, two years, you know, so I just actually like creating content. And education is a passion of mine.

Yeah. So how long were you in college before you officially dropped out then?

One year.

Just one year?

Yes.

And then in terms of scaling, the business was actually Facebook ads. I'm imagining.

Yeah. I was a rookie at the time. Even though I was making money, I didn't understand a lot of the things I understand now. Some of the biggest mistakes I made back then were I would run up a product and then instantly try to get a second product to go alongside it instead of trying to just build that one up. I didn't manage my cash flow as effectively as possible, which, you know, I read your story. I read how that affected you. So didn't have credit cards at the time either. And we dealt with Shopify holds, PayPal holds all these things. Like, you feel like the king, and then you feel like a bum, like, instantly.

Yeah. So relatable. Fucking out. A lot of people that watch this podcast Are definitely a bit younger and probably. Well, I think they're a bit younger and like, yeah, fuck you. It's almost like a meme looking back at like general store drop shipping, because, yeah, that was exactly the shit I was doing. It was what all the guys that we know mutually were doing at the time when it was like super fucking easy. So I can completely relate to like getting a big ego and people are.

Doing it big, you know, like, it was. Yeah, I seen it all.

I remember Jordan Smythe was doing those numbers. He's probably watching this.

Yeah, he's a go.

I.

My friend Vince told me about him. Yeah, he's like, there's this guy Jordan.

He.

I did like a six figure day. I'm like, who is that? We got to meet. And then we met. He's a good guy.

Originally in 2017.

Yeah. Shout out, shout out, Shout out to Jordan. He's a legend and his little bro. But yeah, yeah, Harley.

Yeah, legends. And they're really good mates of mine now. So, like, how much time are you spending this? This obviously became a full time hustle. Like, we like. Do you have a social life at this point or were you like, fucking, fuck this, I'm gonna make money, I'm gonna build stores.

Well, my college was kind of whack. Like, the girls weren't that good, the parties weren't that good. The college itself was beautiful, but there wasn't like a. I tried it. We went to the frat parties and we went to the little apartment parties. But like, the best things ever were when we had our own parties. But that's besides the point. So, yeah, during the day I didn't have anything else to do except for to work. So I would go to the gym, read, meditate, work, run pretty much. But it didn't feel like forced, you know, it's just what I wanted to be doing. And then now with the addition of YouTube, I had to do it. Like, my YouTube game was very different back then to what it is now. I was making two videos every, like, week. Three videos a week, like almost daily content I was creating. Yeah, I've changed my ways, but that's what I was doing.

Is that all about E commerce or is that like day in the life shit?

No, day in the life, but E Com and like, mindset. Because I used to read a lot. I still love books, but I don't read like I used to. And I would read and I would kind of break down what I learned from books and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so bring us up I guess like two years from there then to 2017 to maybe like 2019. Like what happened during that period?

That's a low year.

Why?

That's a low, low, low time for Jordan. So alright, so I make my money, right? And I'm sitting on my first little six figures. I got some money now. I think I'm like lit. So then I'm like, okay, forget Fort Myers, like I'm moving, I'm trying to go live in la. Like even though I love all these people, I can't be around these small minded people. Like these are real thoughts that I had. Not my family, I'm not talking about my family or my best friends, I'm talking about like, you know what I mean?

Yeah, completely.

That doesn't need more explanation. So I was like, it's time to go to la. So I did research. I found my dream apartment in downtown. I somehow finessed the exact same apartment that I found. Same unit, same view, everything. I took a trip there, I signed the lease, the first trip. And then within bro I put like two months on myself to move and I just picked up and moved from if you know, geography of America, Florida to California. I went from one coast all the way to the other. So my family, gone, everybody. And that was the next chapter. And that actually was the right decision. A lot of good things came from that. But during that time, you know, I was very distracted because I'm young, I'm like living in la, not distracted because I'm partying, but like I'm just trying to deal with that. I'm trying to learn how to be an adult in a new city that's completely different from where I grew up at. So you know, it was a lot. But I had this business that I started, my software company, Viral Vault.

Yeah.

And around 2019 I didn't have an E commerce business that was running. The general store that I had built had sort of died off towards the end of 2018 just due to poor management.

Yeah.

And my YouTube channel. I had been posting two videos a day for a year. The proof is there. You could go look at it. None of them get views. So I'm bro, I'm like, I'm working so hard every day and nothing's working. Viral Vault making no money, E comm, no money, YouTube, no money. And I'm just burning the last bit of cash that I have, slowly but surely, you know. So then I had a little situation that happened with my business partner at the time. I'm not Gonna go too deep into it. But I had to start over from scratch with Viral Vault. So I used the last bit of money that I had to rebuild that company. And again my overhead in LA to live is like five racks a month. So I'm like down bad activity at this point and I build Viral Vault again. Brand new platform, new everything, and we launch and it doesn't really pop off that well. So I had spent that next year trying to grow it just in survival mode in la. Like, just stressed smoking weed every day. Just like not in a good. Not in a good mojo at all. And it got to the breaking point, bro. When Covid came around 2020, I was like, okay, you gotta get outta LA and you need to go back home. So I just went home and lived with my mom again. It was only for like two weeks, but like, while I was there, I was looking for a place somewhere in Florida. So I toured a bunch of places and I found a spot in Miami. And honestly, bro, when I moved to Miami, like everything got way better. Not even when I moved to Miami, when I moved back to Florida, because that's when I started my brand. That's when I started doing YouTube again. And as a result of me doing YouTube, Viral Vault popped off again. So like everything was struggling for years. And then when I moved my environment and changed some habits in my personal life, yeah, it went up. And I've been riding that momentum since then.

Going back to LA then. How long did you spend that toe?

Like almost three years.

Oh shit.

Like two, two years plus.

And why did things start to fall off? Did you just get lazy or like, the market was harder because I obviously Facebook came in with like feedback scores and shit. I remember all that. Dropshippers were falling off left, right and center.

Yeah, it was definitely a tough time for that, but I don't think that's what it was because still at that time I was surrounded by people like Vince Wang and Jad Cantari and like these real successful e comm guys that I knew every day were hanging out with were making money. So the issue wasn't that I had all the strategies, I had everything I needed. It was personal. I'm trying to do ten different things, right? I'm partnering with this guy to do an event, I'm partnering with this guy to do a store on the side. I'm doing coaching. I got my course, I got YouTube, bro. I'm all over the place. So I'm making 2,000amonth here, 5,000amonth here. Nothing is Popping off and they're all on the brink of collapse. Yeah, they're all making money. Exactly. So and I think that's just a direct result of me just being young and inexperienced and not really educating myself on what do I need to do at the time. And also not just picking one thing like for people watching. If you got 10 things you're doing, you probably just focus on one. You'd probably be happier and start seeing some results.

Fucking. I completely agree. That's the problem I had in 2020, running two brands.

Yeah.

One of them went, you know, wrong. And that story is history.

It's tricky.

I can fucking relate. So viral bot then, for context, people that don't know you basically built a platform that helps people get started doing what you had done. Right. Because you saw a market for that.

Yeah.

It's kind of a template in a way. Right. It gives products.

Yeah.

Trends.

Exactly, exactly. I call it like the all in one E Comm toolkit. So everything you would need to get started with your own store. And in my like years of running this business, we've seen hundreds of people, perhaps even a thousand people plus that have been able to get their first sale and get started. Some people going on to make six figures a month, some people going on to build multi seven figure stores. So it's good to see. I'm not saying it's the world's best thing ever created, but it works. Like people get results with it. So. And I'm proud of it. So you know it's.

It's still running now.

Yeah, yeah. So it's been four years since I started. That started at the end of 2018, but it did not make money for two and a half years, three years. So really this last year, like, you know, we went from almost like having no money in the bank account to we got almost a second 2 comma club award on the way. So like that's just what happened.

And it didn't make money because it cost so much to make or because you just weren't selling the subscriptions.

I had no effective way to get customers because I was trying to run ads. So I was doing all this complicated stuff and I'm not against it, but I was trying to run ads to lead gen run email sequence, see if they come through like, and then I would try to run ads directly to the landing page. I tried YouTube ads, tried a high ticket product on top of the software to like, bro, I feel like I tried everything except for the one thing that I feel like I was Innately good at for my whole life, which is just making organic content and driving traffic naturally. Is it the world's most scalable? Like, maybe not, but, like, maybe it's actually good if you do it right. It's free.

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, Yeah. I started to realize the power of organic just from this pod, which is like 1% the size of your YouTube channel. So, yeah, it's pretty fucking mad because you can build, like, you can go so deep with organic.

Yeah, definitely.

Like, people feel like the fucking know you and shit.

Yeah, I think that's like one of the best things is like you could really connect with people, like, even if they never met you. And that's important, like.

Yeah, yeah. So move back to Florida in what? 20?

20. 20.

2020, yeah, just before COVID or when.

Covid, the heart of COVID Like July.

Why you moved?

Well, bro, I was living downtown la. They were boarding up my neighborhood. There's riots going on, people getting stabbed and shit. Like downstairs, it's like not good.

It was.

It was crazy in L, A. It was crazy in L. A, bro. I think L. A might have had it the worst. I can't speak for the whole world, but wow, it was crazy. I had to leave. Yeah.

And did you feel like you were leaving anything good behind in la? Because, I mean, L. A gets mixed reviews. I feel like people that don't know it and people that assume things about it.

It definitely gets mixed review views. I did feel like I left some good behind. Some of my best friends live in la, still do. I was just there a couple days ago before I came here. And the mountains? There are no mountains in Florida. The best thing we got is a bridge.

Yeah, true.

So, you know, I do love to go hiking. I used to hike every single weekend. I did that for two years straight. I went to all the major trails in LA and Malibu and Glendale, and I'm really into that, but I don't do that much anymore.

Yeah, yeah. You living by yourself in LA the whole time?

Yeah, the whole time. Which was, you know, that was its own thing. Sometimes I'd get homesick and me and my mom are close, so I would speak to her all the time. I never had a girlfriend in la, so I was really like solo lone wolf in Los Angeles.

Possible to find a girlfriend in la?

Sure, it's possible to find a girlfriend anyway. Is it harder? Yes, but yeah, definitely you can find a girlfriend in la. Come on, out of all the places. Yeah, I mean, it's just baddies in la. They're like successful too.

So everyone's a fucking Instagram girl or something.

That's true. Are you. You wouldn't date the popping Instagram girl then.

I felt I'd be too insecure to do that.

Why? The DM game, Like, DM game, it's.

Like, you want a girl that's unknown. Yeah, it's impossible these days.

Yeah, it's true. You know, Drake slides in there. Does she go. Does she go to Maddox or does she stay at home? You know? Exactly.

It's that whole thing.

I don't know.

It's like, you want a really hot girl, but then they've got a shitload of followers usually.

And then it's not. I just started dating somebody actually. Like, we not doing like, she's not like Instagram famous celebrity, like, type thing, like. And I actually appreciate that because I've dated girls that are like, more on the bigger tip. And like, I feel you about that, bro. It's like. But at the same time, even the girl with no followers is gonna have dudes DMing her too, you know? So, yeah, true.

True fucking game in it. Instagram's a dating app, right?

It's the best one.

It's the best one.

Yeah. But it's tricky too.

Have a good profile. So going back to Florida then? So you go back 2020, start Covid. Is stuff still pretty shit in terms of work and what you're focused on?

No, I felt dialed. You know why? Because I mentioned this earlier, but I was smoking like every day. And when I moved to back to Florida, I was like, you got to stop smoking. So at that time, I just completely cut it out. And it was very hard because this is a personal thing, but my mom wouldn't really care. Like, she actually smokes. So I'm back in my mom's crib and it's right there in front of me and I'm trying to stop, but I end up quitting. And that made me very bored. Like, I was like, okay, well, now my brain is like, there's nothing to do. So. And I'm at my mom's house sleeping on the fucking couch. I was just in LA looking at the Hollywood sign three days ago. So I'm like, I gotta get back to it. And that was probably the hardest. Not the hardest I've ever worked, but like, I felt like limitless pill mode. I would stay up to like 4 in the morning. Like, I don't do that. And actually I do. I edit videos very late. But you know what? I'M saying. So I just started locking in, bro, and I've made a store to test products. I showed it in my new video. It's like a hybrid store. It's like a very high quality general store. It's branded, it's super clean, usually in one niche. Tested like four products. That's all it took. And then I found the Sleep Band, which is the product that I sell today. And I scaled that thing to around like 30k a month, took all that money and really tried to improve the product. And I've been running it now for about two years.

Yeah, sick. So where was YouTube at this point then? Because obviously now I know it's a massive part of what you do. How big was the YouTube and how seriously were you taking it?

YouTube has always been the secret love of my life, and now it's public. But that's like the thing that I love on this earth more than anything is creating videos. I've done it. I told you, that was the first thing I ever did. And even before I made money doing that, I was making videos with my friends. They're all on YouTube now. We're not gonna pull those up, but, you know, we had basketball videos and skits and like, all kind of stuff we were doing. So I've always loved it. I never watched TV. It was always YouTube. So I wanted to always do that. In 2020, after the store started doing well again, I said, okay, this kid. This is my return moment. Like, it's been over a year I haven't posted. People want to see a video. Even though I only had 20,000 subs at the time, I dropped my first video again. And it was about E Comm and what I've been up to, and I haven't stopped since. But that year following 2021 was when I was like, okay, these last two videos you posted, they suck. So are you gonna do what you did last time? Post shitty videos over and over and over again? Are you gonna learn how to make a YouTube video? And, like, that's what I have not stopped doing since then is like, I learned about YouTube every day. Like, I'm here with my friend, like, Teo, and like, he knows, like, we are weirdly meticulous about the videos. Like, the detail is great. Crazy. It's like, it's all I think about. It's all I usually want to talk about. But Yeah, I love YouTube, man. And it really grew a lot in that year because I went from 20k subs to 200k subs in one year on that. 2021.

So fucking out.

Yeah.

And I never took a year off prior to that. A year with no videos, you're nobody starting again.

Yeah, but it was like a re. Like revival type thing. My whole style changed. The whole not, not me, but like kind of. My hair was longer, the video stock quality was crazy. It was totally different. It was like a new thing. And yeah, I just grew the channel. So that's pretty much how it got started at this point.

Right. So 2021, you got to 200K subs. Is this by the start of 2021?

No, the end. So I had 100,000 subscribers in May of 2021. So I gained 80K subs in like a couple months. But you know, at that time I wasn't like numbers guy. Like I was literally like content, content editing. Editing. The number part was like coming. As a result of that. I wasn't like, how can I scheme 100,000 subs? It was like, how can I make good YouTube video?

You were like, you weren't doing mrbeast back, like fucking just run the numbers.

Yeah, I mean I do look at the numbers, of course, but like I'm not really doing it for that. I'm just thinking how can I make the best video? And that's what I still think to this day.

You posting every day?

Hell no. I post once a week.

Quality overconstitutes.

Yeah. And even these days it's not. I used to do every Friday post a video, but now it's like once a week when the video is done. So that way we're not rushing and we are creating the video that is the best of our ability. I think we can eventually get to a schedule, but right now it's like to get to the quality that I'm trying to be at takes time.

Yeah.

These videos take days to edit.

And what was the focus then? Like content wise, obviously when you got started, you're just documenting like how to fucking start a store. I mean, I've seen all your stuff, but for people.

Yeah, well, and that, that second phase, the other phase of growing the channel, it was all about documenting. This was my pitch. I'm currently documenting the entire journey of building my e commerce business with as much transparency as possible. I say that, I say that if you watch any of those videos, I say it every time. So that was like the, that was the mission statement or the goal. So that's what it was. I would post videos about new things I'm learning about that I haven't seen other people like YouTube ads and automating the business and hiring employees and obviously the clickbait stuff, like easiest way to start drop shipping and how to start with this much videos about the topic. But because I have been in that industry for so long and I've seen so many videos, I kind of saw certain areas that were missing, you know, in The e commerce, YouTube dropshipping, whatever world. So I try to fill those gaps.

What do you think was the most important piece of like growing? Was it like the content, the authenticity? Like was there certain things that subscribers would like message you about and that you think different from like, because obviously those people make like drop shipping videos or whatever.

I think first it was like, I think first it was like seeing myself as a YouTuber, like mentally.

Yeah.

Cuz like if you don't actually think that you can do it, you know, like if you don't think you are capable of producing a movie, like a high level video, you will never make a movie in your life. It just won't happen. So that was a big part, but more practically it was really just thinking about the viewer and like guiding them through the video and making the video interesting to watch the whole thing and the titles and thumbnails so getting them to click and getting them to watch the whole thing or as close to the whole thing as possible. And there's a lot of little things that go into all those, but that's the big thing.

How long were you going for usually in terms of like how long was the video? Was there like a set amount? Well, sweet spot.

I've experimented a lot and every video is an experiment. For the new video that I'm doing this week here in London, it will probably be a little longer than my previous ones, but I try to go from eight to 12 minutes in that range. Yeah. Obviously for like a podcast that makes no sense. Like this content is its own thing.

Yeah. I mean to be fair, the average view time on this like 25 minutes. So people obviously get bored and don't watch fucking.

Yeah, but 25 minutes is a lot. I've never had that on a video.

Yeah, like a few thousand people watching with 25 minutes is obviously better than you know, a million people seeing a picture on Instagram and just scrolling past or like a tick tock.

100%.

So it's like a much deeper channel, a deeper platform.

Yeah.

Than like guess. Yeah. Instagram clips or whatever.

100%.

So how did the, the business outside YouTube look like and including YouTube at this point look like, like you, how many, how many stores you run in, you obviously still had viral boat. Yeah, YouTube was like the main foundation I guess of all of that.

So what happened is everything started kind of slapping when I started seeing the growth on sleep and my E commerce store. So at that time YouTube was the afterthought. Sleeping was the number one focus.

So you just revealed that that's your story.

Yes, just last week, right? Yeah, yeah. So you know, that was nerve wracking. Maybe we could talk about the reveal after we kind of go through this. But it's done now and people are happy with that. So. But what was I just saying?

What did the business look like? Like how many stores?

Oh yeah, so I just had, I just had sleep band at that time like and it was all I was focused on. I was taking all the money trying to improve the product. I was really trying my best to invest in different ad platforms, build a team and these are things I still do. But at that time that was all I was doing and as a result it gave me more content to post. And as a result, as a result of the content, Viral Vault grew. It's like this machine, it was like grow the store, make content about the store and then your software grows. Maybe it's a backwards concept but for me it made sense and I just, that's my formula. That's what I've been doing the whole time. But now the content has branched out. It's not just E commerce dropship content anymore.

Yeah.

Found some new lanes that I love.

Yes. Sleep and itself. Then obviously that's not a drop shipping store, that's like completely branded etc. Etc.

Yeah.

When you started that was that the only thing you worked on for like the whole two in terms of E comm stores or did you have other shit and then that was one that just works and you focused on it.

That's the only one. I, you know, have so much on my plate with the videos and the software. It's like that was the only one that I was capable of managing at the time, you know.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And how did that even become a thing? Because I guess it's was that it's a case of you had fucking by nature seeing loads of products because of viral.

Yeah. So that product mentioned before, there's a.

Bit more of a story to that something.

Well that product was sent to me on from my product researcher on Viral Vault and I was like oh no, like we have to just keep this one. I just want to try this one. So I saw it On Facebook. It had a bunch of views and the ad was shit. So I was just like, let me just make a better ad. And that was. Started the wave really. And once I had that success from that, I just cut off the hybrid store, rebranded the whole store around that product. Made my own custom ads on my phone. Yeah. And just start building from there. Really.

And was that like a conscious decision to like start building somewhere longer term? Obviously like I did it myself. You know, fucking general store drop shipping is never really like a. It's more like a cash flow thing and it's a great way to start and learn of shit. But you know, it's not five year plus sustainable. It's not like, I guess a lot of people say it's not a legit business. I wouldn't necessarily say that, but it's just, it's more of a short term thing.

Yeah, I could see how they would say that. But yeah, I think that's, that's all that it was. And that's why I did it differently this time because I had already done that. So my past experience taught me what not to do. And I'm still learning these things of what not to do every day. But yeah, that was one of those lessons where I was like, okay, don't test anything else. Make this the make become the biggest one ever for this and then maybe we'll sell it or if you really like it, keep going. So that's like the vision for that.

Yeah. And another thing a lot of people ask me is like say they're dropshipping and they're like, I've got a product that's working. Should I sack this and try and build a brand from scratch or is there a way to like for example, do you start that as a drop shipping product?

Yeah.

And then over time it became more of a legit thing. Yeah, I honestly think that's the best way for most people to get started. If they see something working from like a general store, dropshipping, whatever, try and mold it into like a legitimate operation, like a brand. Because that's what I know. I have multiple mates that have done that and now they've got multi seven, even eight figure brands that are very respectable now.

Well said. I completely agree. I mean that's sort of my whole spiel on my content and my training is like test on a very good store, don't be testing it as crappy. General store template that everybody use with the trust badges and like you look crazy, it's never gonna work. But like make A nice store test, find your product and then figure out how you can take that to the highest level. Some products can only go so far, as you know, but I'm curious to know more about this brand here and what that production process was like, if you don't mind talking about it a little bit. Because you just, you just launched. Is this the first pod since you launched it?

Done a few. There was massive build ups. I fucking, like, started to like, build it in public, which was very intentional because first I thought it'd be interesting because in the past when I built brands, mainly Midnight City and Neon beach, both big brands, one of them is successful, one of them is very successful, then very unsuccessful. That's a long story.

Yeah, I heard the Neon beach story. If y' all haven't heard that story, go tune into that one. That shit, that shit was inspiring for me.

I mean, it's still going now.

That's what I'm saying, though. Like, the fact that you exist, you know, I'll tell you this. The fact that you went through that experience and it didn't break you and you allowed it to turn you into this version of yourself. Now you just. First thing you told me was that you, you lost a lot of weight recently, you started your new brand, you happier, you know, so it's a lot to run the brand now. But you came a long way from that low point that she was at.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I spoke a bit about that on episode one and stuff. But yeah, it was a fucking dark time. But ultimately you have a choice in those times that you either fucking give up or you battle through and get better and come out stronger. And I think I definitely have. I'm a lot wiser, I'm in better shape.

Yeah, man.

Certain people that shouldn't be in my life aren't anymore. Etc. Etc. So. But yeah, like this. So, yeah, people know a lot about it because I was fucking shitting on Twitter about it for like six months. Obviously on the part I've spoken about it. But yeah, like doing it in public, like pre launch, there's a lot of pressure because, you know, I'm. I'm betting on this market and so on, but until you've launched something, you ultimately don't know. Yeah, and yeah, I wanted to put that pressure on myself because firstly, I massively believe in the market and my vision for it and I know I'm good enough. I think I'm very good at branding because I've done it before and it's funny because when I launched this, like even just looking back two years ago to Neon, I look at the old website and think, wait a minute, I thought it was good then the stuff I've done now, like branding, because I'm like a designer really at heart.

Yeah. I could tell that that's all that shit myself.

Like the packaging, the whole brand story, whatever.

Yeah.

It's like this is so much better than shit I've done in the past. But then obviously it is because you don't even realize how much you pick up just by being in the game. I'm sure. You know, like you just naturally get better but you don't even necessarily notice it day to day.

Yeah.

But then over like a few years.

You look back and you're like, I.

Can'T believe nothing about anything. But yeah, like the whole vision for this ultimately in a nutshell is like I want to build one of the world's first consumer psychedelics brands.

Yeah.

But obviously I'm trying to build a brand and products long term for a market that's still largely illegal. So the whole concept is the brand and like the messaging is like very implicative of that market. Like we want to sell you psychedelics. We believe in like microdosing, all this shit because I'm absolutely convinced that's going to change the fucking wellness world. I believe it's like 10 to 15 years behind cannabis and CBD the way that's been like massively productized. You know, it used to be losers in the basement smoking cannabis.

Yeah. Now there's, here's everything.

Now it's middle aged mums in a Range Rover dropping cbd.

Yeah.

So that's where I see like mushrooms and psychedelics going longer term.

And you're really one of the first, if not the first brands to come with a product like, like this.

I mean, so this product isn't a psychedelic, it's a. I know, but it's mushroom adaptogenic blend. Like ultimately this sort of stuff already exists. The biggest difference is the way I'm positioning it. I'm positioning this as the best legal alternative to a microdose, which it is in my opinion. I spent a long time making it. I made it for me. That's the way I always build products and brands. If I don't love it, then I'm not interested anyway. And hopefully people like me will love it.

Yeah.

And that seems to be the case so far. But yeah, like it's a very exciting space because mushrooms as a whole, even shit like lion's mane, Chaga mushroom, blah blah. It's definitely like a trend that I've noticed in like the past year which.

Is continuing to grow.

When I was like in a position six months ago to start a new thing, it was a blank canvas. And then blank canvas is scary. But it's also like fuck, I could do anything. Because once you have experience like I did and some capital behind me, you know you can make. I love the alchemy of making.

Yeah. You really on some like chemist type vibes with this thing.

Yeah, for sure. Because I'd never done a consumable.

Yeah.

So that was fucking hard because it's literally back to like googling how the do I make a supplement.

Yeah.

And then obviously speaking to suppliers, obviously I had context in terms of supply chain etc from other stuff, but never consumables. And then yeah, it took me a while to find a great supplier. It's made in England and yeah, it's fucking cool products. But we launched that literally two weeks ago. So there was a great organic response to it because of like the way I built in public, etc. But I never really gave a shit about that because I knew that now.

It'S getting it out to the mass market.

Like all the ad accounts were banned on like day one because the website had psychedelic on the home page. So I had to change all that. But yeah, like in the past week we've started to ramp like the ad spend and stuff.

Looks really good stuff for this.

Yeah, a lot of tick Tock stuff. Three paid channels, Google, Tick Tock and Facebook.

Yeah.

But then I've also got a bunch of creators in the US and the UK doing organic shit. So I'm paying them to run the organic. So it's like another.

Yeah channel look man, it's only a matter of time. So it just pops off. If you're building the systems like that and you're really hitting all those channels.

Like yeah, I'm leaving no stone unturned with this one. And it's just, it ticks a lot of boxes in my mind. And it was very intentional the way I've built the brand. Like even like the packaging being fucking weird and shit.

Yeah, no, I've seen some of the videos, like the vintage like retro video with the girl on the old computer. That. That was hard row. I like that video you edited that.

I didn't edit that. I came up with the concept for that. I got a really good guy that I work with, he's like my creative guy, he does all that shit. But that that vision came to life very nicely and I just wanted to have fun with it because I was like, fuck, building shit is hard. So at the very least just enjoy the process of making cool fucking shit.

That's where I'm at in my life. That's the only thing that I really like other than my family and my friends. Like that's the only thing I really live for these days is like just making stuff that I am proud of and just doing that over and over and over again. I feel like that's what I was destined to do is like just create. We, we all were destined to create things. Like we just do it in unique ways, you know?

Yeah, I completely agree. So for me, yeah, this feels like. I don't know, it's one of those things where like it now makes sense. Looking back, like I'm glad the previous business fucked up because this is way more meaningful and potentially impactful and I think way potentially bigger. I honestly think this could be a billion pound brand.

I think so too.

I know everyone says that, but I wouldn't say that if I was running a jewelry business like I used to do.

No. This is your first iteration of this. This looks super legitimate. Like seeing the packaging and how it is like. Yeah, I see. I can see where the vision can go for this. For sure. Yeah, I'm gonna buy some. I'm gonna buy some. 100%.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's legit. So I'm excited about it. Yeah. It's two and a half weeks in so I can talk all this game and I'll just go execute.

Well listen, use code J. Welch in the description.

It's cool. And now I'm doing product placement on the pod which is just like fuck it, why not?

Why not?

So it's like full circle. Cuz like I have like a vision now for like what I want to do with the pod and like YouTube and for me I'll just be the pod. But. And it kind of all ties into each other. It's like we've got all the neon signs from the past.

Yeah.

We've got the pink packaging which is like neon inspired. We've got the pod and it all ties into it kind of makes sense now.

Yeah.

Like I feel like the first time actually work on the right shit, they all connect.

It's not like they're all in different like lanes.

Yeah, exactly. Whereas previously I was always doing like back in the drop shim days. You know, it's like I think you have to like you sound like you had similar shit. Like, you try a lot of stuff, it doesn't. Like, some stuff works. You realize that you're an arrogant little cunt in like your early 20s making money. Yeah, I went through all that.

Yeah.

And then you find what.

Actually, now you guys are going crazy in Miami. When I was with you, it was unreal. They had four exotics, back to back to back to back. Yeah, it was.

That was probably the biggest end of my life, even. Even now.

Yeah. That was the first time I ever drove a Bentley. Somebody let me drive that car. I don't know why they let me.

Drive it, but we had the Bentley, the Rolls, the Lambo truck, and the drop top Ferrari.

Yeah. Five cars. Yeah.

Yeah.

Fucking Miami, man.

I was actually legendary. I want to go back.

It was.

We need to arrange like another fucking.

Yeah, listen, I'm good out in Miami now. I've been living there for a while, so whenever y' all come back, you hit me up. We do whatever you want.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

We're gonna have to make that happen.

Yeah.

Bringing it back to you then. Before I get carried away and speak about that for like 20 minutes.

Yeah.

So in terms of like revenue streams then, now as like a YouTube entrepreneur. Well, YouTube and entrepreneur. So you've got the brand, you've got YouTube and your borrow vault. Yeah, that's kind of like the three, right. Where does the revenue come from? Like YouTube wise. Because I'm interested. Because obviously now I've got a fucking YouTube channel way, way, way smaller than yours. You have courses and stuff right. As well, off the back of that.

If I had my phone, I would show you. Yeah, I was gonna show you the ad revenue, but I'll just tell you. So right now, for this month, we made so far around like $47,000 from your ad revenue. Yeah.

Fucking. Oh, the CPMs are pretty good.

Yeah, I have like, like a $50 RPM.

Yeah, that's it. RPM.

So the CPM, it's like $40. I don't want to get, you know, people. Oh, he's lying. Whatever. It's like $40. And then my CPM is like 60 something. It's very high. I showed it to Mr. Beast. He was like, what's very high?

Yeah, but how many views are you doing?

Like, I get like two right now. Well, this is a record month for me. I'm at my peak right now on YouTube. Well, hopefully we got a new. We got new peaks after the IMAN video and after the podcast. But yeah, this month I got 1.7 million views.

Fucking yeah. That's a lot. Yeah, I'm doing like 25,000amonth on this.

Look, man, you're working your way up there. This is a dope podcast because I.

Actually turned on AdSense because I got gas that I could. I was like, fuck it. Oh, yeah, like 16 year old.

Why not?

Would love this.

They're going to run ads on it anyway, so you might as well get a.

Cause I was like, fuck's sake. Like, I mean, it wasn't. I mean, it was like a decent amount. It was like a thousand pound a month for a small podcast. But then I was like, fuck it. I'm already monetizing it with like the fucking course I have, which does so pretty well.

Yeah, I didn't know you had a course.

I barely push it. I should probably should push it more. I made it like fucking six months ago. It is good. I get really good reviews on it.

I bet you've been through the woodwork, you know, you've been doing it to.

It and then push it more and then fucking start making like a million quid a year from it. But there, yeah, really my thing.

Not to you, though. That's not like your grand vision.

Yeah, I didn't want that to like, get in the.

Why not make an extra 50amonth? You know, give some, you know, like.

Yeah, exactly. So. But yeah, that's mad. And so like.

But that's just one. So, yeah, so that's the numbers for this month for YouTube, AdSense, Viral Vault. We. I don't like saying a recurring revenue number because there's a lot of people that trying to copy Viral bar right now. See it every day. Y' all are not slick. But anyways, we make almost 100k a month from Viral Vault as well. And then the sleep band store, it doesn't really make as much money as the other two ventures I make on a good month. Like couple thousand, ten thousand profit from sleeping a month on a good month. You know what I'm saying? There was a time where that business was making me 40, 50 G's profit a month, but we're not there anymore. I'm so focused on these other things. Like, it doesn't stress me out. Like, some people will be commenting on the videos. Oh, you're not the E Comm. I'm like, bro, I don't, like, I don't really care that much. Like, I. My vision is so much bigger. Like, I did the store, I built it and I still run it, but that's Like, I don't lose sleep over the fact that my store is not making 20k a day. You know what I mean?

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Have you found that people. Because obviously, like, a lot of the content said about Ecom, right?

Yeah, not really. I would say, like, less than half.

Do you get a lot of comments like that, though? People saying, like, oh, like, you know, there's other YouTubers doing bigger numbers, whatever. But obviously, like, you just said, it's not your fucking focus.

I don't care. Like, I'm not Davey Fogarty. Like, that guy's a legend. But. And I'm not trying to be like him. I'm not trying to be like, you know, even, like, you having millions of sales. Like, I. I'm just documenting my life. You know, if y' all want to follow along and support, cool. Like, if not again, I don't care. I never said I'm the richest e comm guy. I never said I got all the best e comm information. Like, I'm literally just showing you what I did, and if you want to try it out, go for it. But I don't really get bothered by the hate comments. Like, we get them all. Oh, you took this idea. You did this. All these things. Like, we don't get a lot of hate, though. I really don't. It's a lot of love in the comments, you know, and if somebody's hating it, probably lame anyways. If you really. If you really break it down to, like, who's sitting there commenting on their phone, like, a hate comment, 100%.

Like, I always say, like, there's no one that's ever written a hate comment that's doing more than the person I hate.

Yeah. Never. Never in history of time or even.

Written a hate comment that's a fucking nice person. Yeah, I've never done that shit. Maybe think it or say it, but don't write online.

But I love, like, the trolls, like, the funny comments. I get down with that shit. I always heart those and reply to those. Like, the funny stuff I like, but just when people are just, like, you know, stupid, man. But that's part of the game. If you're gonna grow this podcast, you're gonna have some haters like, God damn. Yeah, I fucking. I fucking hate pink or something. I don't know.

Yeah, I shot a weird one the other day. I probably shouldn't say this on the floor, but fuck it. Some guy that watches the POD thought it'd be a good idea to send me a screenshot of my ex Girlfriend's new boyfriend with her on holiday.

No way.

Firstly, I'm genuinely over it, but it's just a weird thing to do.

So I was like, hey, why are.

You following my ex girlfriend's new boyfriend? How the fuck you know he is? Because I didn't know he was until two days ago.

People do anything for a little attention.

Why are you sending me that shit? Fucking strange, Don.

He just wanted to get your attention for the moment.

Yeah, I guess he got it. It's gone now. But.

But yeah, that's.

That's really weird fucking thing.

Yeah, people. I mean, I don't know, I don't put too much my personal life out there on the gram and stuff. I post like some stuff that I like, like cool stuff and like a video announcements and like when I'm outside doing this thing, I'll post. But I didn't post last night. And last night was crazy. Yeah, he knows. He knows last night was crazy.

Where'd you go, Maddox?

That shit was fun. Yeah, I had a great time. Stayed there till like three in the morning. Four in the morning.

Yeah. Good spot, Good spot. If you had to pick one, I mean, I know what you're gonna say, but if you had to pick One of the three benches, you know, YouTube, arable at the brand and you had to sack off the other two right now, which one would you keep?

Well, you know, I got an answer, but let me preface it by this. You know, I got a beautiful team on both of those. So like let's pretend this is a beautiful world where if I left the other two, the team is good, the team is straight, hypothetically. The answer with no hesitation is YouTube. And I think the people that really know me know that because it shows in my work. At least I hope it does. Like, because I don't just like half ass videos anymore. Like I used to. Like, I really try my best. Like we were in London to film a YouTube video. Like I'm where I'm hanging out with you and we're doing a podcast and I'm glad we met, but we came here to make a YouTube video and leave, you know, and this is an eight hour flight to come over here for a YouTube and I'm at my Airbnb inside editing for four hours today, five hours today. I'll go back home and edit later and then do it tomorrow and film some more tomorrow.

Do you edit or not?

I edit. Sometimes I let him edit. He likes editing. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I do a lot of voiceovers and like it's a lot of story, like collaborative effort. Yeah, we've been. We've been. We've been working with each other and like, without him, the video would look like shit. He's like the best video forever, so. Yeah, that's a good duo.

So you mentioned, like, the vision for like, YouTube and shit. Yeah, I guess your brand as a whole.

Yeah.

What is that?

Well, it's not like I have.

How long is that. Where do you see this going? Like, do you think you can do YouTube until you're 50?

I don't know. See, I don't really look at my life like that, but my vision that I am able to create cool content that I like to make that people get inspired by and simultaneously run a business that people can see and purchase from and check it out, and I could do those things in unison. So creating content and having a business that is respected now to manage those two things is a challenge. But I feel like that's my. My path. But yeah, that's. That's kind of the vision is to just keep creating. And more than that, with YouTube specifically, I love telling stories. And one of the lanes that I filled at least as of lately is bringing all my friends to my YouTube channel. Kind of like what you do to tell their story. But I try to do it in my own unique way. Like in a way. We make mini documentaries if you've seen any of them.

Like, I was watching the. The one with the. The RM plug.

Yeah. Did you like that video?

That's cool.

Okay, thank you.

I've always liked watches. And then I sold a bunch of watches when shit was going wrong.

Yeah.

Last year. And now I'm getting back into watches.

I see you on the wrist.

I mean, this isn't. This is a shit. Well, I say it's a shit watch. This isn't a fancy. Well, I guess it is, but it's.

A day day, right?

No, it's just a datejust. But the reason that this watch is. Has intrinsic value to me is because I've had it for like five years and it's been everywhere with me.

Yeah.

And I'm not. I've like, it's. I'm not precious with it. This has been like in Bali, Singapore, Thailand, America, Australia.

It's got a sentimental value.

That's it. Yeah. Sentimental value. Because I know that people would say, oh, it's like a chubby spec Rolex, which kind of is. But it was the first one I ever bought when I was. I think it looks like 21. When I bought it.

And yeah, yeah, I got my first one too.

I wouldn't sell this.

Of course. Now you got to keep that one forever.

There's a lot of. I had fancier ones I sold. But yeah, I saw them for eth.

For.

Yeah, so I saw one to a mate and shit. But I like watches, so I like that video. Yeah, because I feel like they're one of the. I mean the watch market's gone fucking crazy. Yeah, recently.

Yes.

But like watches are pretty much the only thing that you can fucking wear and look sick. That is actually a decent investment.

I agree.

And the few things that fit that crisis, if that's anything.

I'm not sure that was the purpose of the video. You know, it was like tish. It wasn't for the watch market. It wasn't necessarily for the entrepreneurs. It was for everybody. It was for like people to understand, hey, you can make money with watches. Here's a guy that made money with watches. How do you make money with watches? And then I buy a watch. It's like, it's like a story. It progresses. Like I look at all my videos like that. Like a beginning, middle and end. Like my. My new one that I really like is at the bitcoin conference I did. That was a really fun video.

So the one with Kevin o'.

Leary. Yeah, we snuck.

I got a lot of views, right?

Yeah, I got like 450,000 views in two weeks.

What was the story with that video?

Oh, you didn't see?

I don't actually watch it all night.

Okay. Okay.

Really should do more fucking research.

I'm gonna give a brief story because like, I don't know, maybe just cuz the videos been popping. But I told this story so many times in my life already. So yeah, we went to the bitcoin conference and we had a GA ticket so we couldn't do nothing. We could only walk around and mingle with the people. But I wanted to interview the. The rich people, the successful, the celebrities. So me and this guy that I'm here with now, we scouted out the entire venue looking for any type of areas for us to sneak in through the back. So we found this little pathway and we snuck back to this little hallway and it took us backstage. We were behind like the stage, we were behind everything. And we were in a sketchy looking hallway. There was like workers and everything back there. We were fitting right in. He was filming me, he was filming me. So we look legit. And then we walked right into this room and it was the press room. So all the media people were there and it's funny because all those media publications that we've seen there, I haven't seen any of their videos and they had press pass. But we were. Yeah. Anyways, we sat there for a bit, saw Kevin o', Leary, did the interview with him and then that was lit. So we just hung out for a while. And I wanted to get Michael Saylor the big dog, but he was like moving like Trump, like incognito, like hidden. Four security guards, like. But we were walking and by the grace of God, we see this man like through the crack in a door, closing the door. So we're like, we're gonna wait outside of this room. And we waited there for an hour. He came outside and sure enough, I asked him to do a video and he said, yeah, so gatv.

Yeah, fucking know. Yeah, you got sailor. I need to watch this shit. Yeah, I'm really unprepared.

He said, he said something crazy. He said, you know, bitcoin and crypto technology is like electricity back in the 90s, I mean the 1900s. He's like, that's a big statement.

Yeah.

Comparing cryptocurrency to electricity level of like technology advancement. Yeah. So that was a good sound bite that we got.

Yeah, for sure.

They didn't get that one on cnbc.

Yeah. Fucking. What has been your most viewed of all time? That's up there, right? Or it will be.

I think it. I think it'll go up there. But the most view is a drop shipping tutorial. Easiest way to start drop shipping from scratch. The reason why it hit number one is different than all my other videos. The reason why that one hit number one is because it ranked number one for drop shipping on search. I think it still is. If not, it's two or something like that.

Yeah, but three million, right?

Huh.

So three million?

No, one and a half. But I wish I had my phone for the analytics here. Can you give my phone real quick? Because you want you. It's right next to you. You asked about the YouTube analytics. So, like I'm really transparent about this stuff. And this is not to brag.

This is good shit we can fucking make. I've got an editor now, he's gonna make a clip of this.

Okay?

Watch this go viral.

So look, this is the YouTube studio, right? You could see the revenue. But if I go to that one video, look at how much revenue with this niche. If you get 1.5 million views, it's like never seen it before. Alright, so we're back so look, this is the lifetime revenue of just one video that drop shipping video fucking. And that's in a year. So you know, the YouTube thing can be very powerful if you have a video that pops up for the people watching it said about 120. So.

Yeah, $120,000 by the way, not 120 pounds.

Yeah. No, no, no, no.

Fucking hell, that's chaos. You must be like seven figures total from YouTube then, right? Or near.

No, almost. But if you add viral vault, definitely. But yeah, yeah, that's chaos.

Fucking hell. Because I guess the thing with YouTube and again, even on smaller scale I'm starting to realize it because of consistency is obviously like the fucking. It's evergreen content in a way.

Yeah.

People actually watch shit that's old. Whereas on Instagram like 24 hours, it's fucking gone.

Yeah.

You ain't getting engagement on that in two years time.

I agree. So that's why my principle is so strong of make a entertaining video. That's the only thing that matters. Cuz if the video is good, people gonna watch it next year and like the year after and like it won't die. It might not get the same buzz the whole time, but yeah, it's always shareable. If you go watch a Danny Duncan or a Nelk video from two years ago, fucking still a great video. And that's why these guys are how as big as they are. Every video is meticulously planned and worked on and edited for tens of hundreds of hours, you know? Yeah, I like those guys.

Like the pod I did with him and back in like fucking November or whatever is still the most viewed per day video on the channel.

Yeah.

Other than like the one that's gone out in the past week. Yeah, it gets like 400 views a day. Which might sound pathetic, but like 400 views in a 2 hour video.

I think it's.

I think I get consistent followers on Twitter and Instagram from that. I get messages at least once a day about that video.

Yeah.

Saying oh wow, this because it was such a great.

It's a great conversation. Definitely after y' all finish watching this one to the end, go.

I look fucking fat in that video.

Yeah, you came a long way.

Honestly, like it's one of those things you look back and think, what was I doing?

Yeah. But again you learn from me, you know? But I feel like the reason why that one got more views than any is like of course Iman's name but the tagline of psychedelics, depression, women.

Yeah, it was money, women, depression.

Oh yeah.

Whatever. Yeah. Fucking mad.

It's clickbait, but it's real.

That shit makes a big difference because I've definitely noticed it. Like I've had guests on those sold businesses for 100 mil, literally.

Yeah.

And they got relatively fuck all views compared to some dropshipper, that's 18, which is, I don't know, like, maybe it's the title. Maybe.

Of course it makes a difference. That's like the only thing. Like, like the title and thumbnail and the concept of the video. Like. Yeah, that's all. That's a huge. That's 80% of it.

Because I don't do custom thumbnails. Everyone's been telling me to do them for months.

Yeah, you probably should.

You probably shot this like.

But it kind of works though. Like for your channel. This kind of works. But sometimes it's hard to see the faces.

That's a. Yeah, it's so lazy. Except in dinner myself people all.

I will tell you, I'm not without doing the 10 hour thumbnail class. But people gotta see the faces and the eyes. Like they have to because it's so small. Like if I'm on YouTube, right? And I'm just scrolling on YouTube. This is where most of your consumers are. Look at this from this distance.

Yeah, very.

You got to be able to see what it is. Otherwise like, I don't know, I haven't mastered it. But if you look at the biggest channels, it's all like, they're all like that. So that's what I try to do every time.

So if you're giving advice to me, which I'm now forcing you to do on camera. Okay, so I've got this podcast, we're at four and a half thousand subs. It's got a very small, I would say borderline cult following. Like every viewer seems genuine interested amount of dms. I get all this crap. I'm doing them every week. How do I get this to 100k subs say like, what do you think the main things to focus on?

Cut. Get an editor, cut all these into shorts.

Like, yeah, someone mentioned that to me.

100% do that. Because now you're taking these 45 minute videos, one hour, 30 minute videos. And now you got 10 videos. And if one now your chances to pop off have increased exponentially. And all it takes, bro, is one video to get 2 million views. And now you're up 20,000 subscribers in a week or something like that, you know, so that's one big thing. Also the thumbnails, like your style of thumbnail is clean. But think of another clean style to where we can actually see the people. Like, look at full send podcast. Look at impulsive pod. Like, you know, their thumbnail style is very distinct. Both of them are the same. They're a little different, but they're the same. Like you can see the faces.

It's like a face outline.

And then you can see that the name, face and name. It's a good format. But other than that, you got a great podcast. That's why I came on here. I never do these things and I wanted to talk to you again so I figured this is a good way to do it.

Yeah, yeah. How long can shorts be?

I don't know, 60 seconds?

It's like proper short. Yeah.

But I think you can go up to like three minutes, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Cuz I've been posting one minute clips on Instagram and tick tock. Maybe I was just doing YouTube shorts.

Well, if your goal is to get to blank YouTube subscribers, post it on shorts.

Yeah. Fuck. True. Yeah. Same thing that way.

Yeah. I don't post shorts on my channel partially because I'm lazy. Fuck. But also because like I've seen in cases where you get so many subscribers from the shorts and they're not coming to the long form content. So your channel looks lit. You have so many subs, but nobody clicks on your video. So I want to build a super strong base. I want to get to at least a million subs and then just start pumping like crazy short videos. And I could be. I could be so wrong about that. I could like kick myself in the head for saying that later on. But that's sort of my.

You heard of a guy called Julius Dean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Magic.

So I met him and spent like three hours with him like last weekend just by chance. He was like my mate's friend and I was there and I was like, wait a minute, you have like 8 million.

He's the king of Facebook.

And he said that. He said, you probably fucking hate me for saying this. I tried to get him on the pod, but he was like. I think he said something along the lines of he's kind of ruined his YouTube brand. I know. He's king of Facebook. He was. I think he's talking about YouTube. He said like he got like 7 million subs.

Yeah.

But it was all from like shorts. And like the shorts audience was like people in India or some shit. So like the quality wasn't there. He was. He actually said, don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but he said he like called YouTube up to ask them to remove all the subscribers or something.

Wow.

And they're like, no, we can't do that. It's against like the algorithm rules or whatever.

Wow.

And he was like, well, I don't want to delete the channel, but I want to get rid of all the non quality subscribers.

Well, it's tricky because your audience is what I'm learning now as I build a small audience, like your existing audience has an expectation of you, but then there's a whole new audience that has never heard of you. And a lot of my effort, of course, is spent to catering to my audience, but equally if not more, is spent catering to people that have never heard of me or never heard of Iman Godsey or whoever I'm doing a video with. Like, I don't talk as if you already know me. Maybe I'll do certain things in there, but like every video is an introduction to me. Every single video or the person that I'm with. You know, that's how I look at it. Because otherwise you're just going to have this infinite loop of your subscribers only watching your videos. You got to get it out to new people. That's why the Iman one went to more people, because the title and the text was like captivating for people. Even if they didn't see his name, they see.

Yeah, you know, I now need this episode to be another one of those. Because ever since I did that episode that went from like 500 subs to 3k subs, like in like 2 days.

Yeah, I think I'm doing 5 months.

Of like 3k to 4k. Yeah, it's been consistent, but it's like, for fuck's sake, I need someone to come on and get like 50,000 views again.

Well, hopefully we'll do it, man. Hopefully we'll do it. I think it's possible for sure. I really haven't done many. The last one I did was with a friend and his channel is smaller than yours. Much smaller. So.

Yeah, yeah, no, I hope so. I want to change the tax slightly because we always go into like deep shit.

Sure.

What do you think's been the hardest part about putting yourself out there? Because I was always very, I guess, apprehensive and like scared to fucking talk, like about real shit online and stuff. I mean, I probably didn't think about it, but then when I started doing it, I was like, fuck. When I did the first POD episode, for example, I was like, fuck, this is like so Honest, am I gonna get cancelled? But then it was like people were so appreciative that it was honest and they were like, fuck yeah, I can relate to that shit or whatever. And then you realize actually most people aren't really out to fucking get you. They probably just relate to what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, you built a massive audience.

The hardest part, you know, I think at least I can only speak for right now. I think it changes, right? I think at first the hardest part was like, I'm not getting no views and I'm putting on this work in. But these days it's like we keep outdoing ourselves and it's scary because like I'll do a video and I'm looking at the video and I'm like, I cannot believe that I made that. And now my next video has to be better than that. I haven't even thought of the idea. I haven't even filmed it. It's like so it's like that and I love it. It's what keeps me going. But it's that constant pressure of like, damn, I just made my best work and now I have to do it all over again. Like YouTube is unique in that sense because like for you with, with Space goods or with me and Sleep Ben, I could work on Sleep bend for one year and then release it a video. I have to work on it, release it and then do a whole nother video all over again. Like this Iman video is gonna be one of my best videos and then I'm gonna leave London and start another video. That's the hardest part.

So you have to have. Yeah, the creativity and fucking effort to start from scratch every week.

Yeah, but you know, once we get the ball rolling, it's always fun. It's always fun. It's just getting the ball rolling every week sometimes is a challenge, but you know, other times it's not like we're in freakin London, dude. Yesterday was like, oh my God. I don't want to spoil the video fully but to happen again tonight, shit, I don't know. I'm with whatever, man. I'm down for whatever. I'm out here in London. But yeah, Iman lives a lifestyle, I'll tell you that much.

Yeah, he fucking does.

Yeah, we had tea time and he bought two rollies and we went to Scott's. I don't know where that is, but it was super nice and yeah, it was a good day, bro.

Nice. Doing well. Definitely say that. Yeah, he's a fucking freak of nature. Yeah, Very impressive. Do you plan all your shit, like months in advance? Then I want like, how is YouTube as an operation? Because obviously it's the fucking. It's the foundation for all your shit, your brand, your software.

Yeah.

Fucking revenue stream. How. How has it gone from being like, you know, like, if I can hobby to being like a business, what has actually changed? Like, do you have a big team now or what?

No, just me and him.

Yeah, it's mad.

Yeah. Well, for YouTube though, for you. I got a team for my businesses.

Yeah.

But for YouTube is really just me and him. Had another homie and he's still kind of on the team. Like, if I need a quick edit, like a quick chop, he'll do it. But like, it really just me and him. Yeah. I'm not like having some crazy systems or anything like that. Like, I have a whiteboard in my office and I have six videos lined up. The next video, I might skip one. I might skip to the last video on the list, but anytime I have an idea, it goes on the board. I might not do that video for six months, but it's up there. So, like. Yeah, it's not organized at all. I planned the video with Iman on the way here on the flight.

Oh, shit.

But it looks pretty good so far, right? Yeah, that's true, that's true.

We're not gonna hear you, but we can.

What he's saying is that. What he's saying is that we picked the video apart the night before too. So we planned it on the flight and the night before we met Iman, we planned the video. So, like, I'm not condoning this strategy. The bitcoin video was. I wrote the questions in the car on the way to the conference. Like, I don't know, man. I think I got God on my side with this YouTube thing. I really do. I got the YouTube gods with me. I think because we get lucky. That's all I could say. We get lucky consistently harder you work.

The lucky you get, Right?

I guess so.

That's what some people.

We've been getting lucky lately, bro. I was in Vegas last week and I hit a jackpot on a slot machine.

Oh, for real?

Yeah.

Not just on videos.

No, it was not recorded at all. I recorded a little clip, but just life is weird right now. I'm in one of those high waves of life. I know they all go back down and you go through it, but I.

Mean, yeah, I'm definitely in the pillow right now. I felt like I had a massive peak for, like, years. In, like, 17, 18, 19, particularly 2020. And then 2021 was the fucking worst year of my life by far. But now I feel like shit's starting to make sense again.

Yeah, well, you know, I feel. I feel like those trials, as you said, are, like, the most important ones anyways. But, fuck, it feels good to be out of it, you know, like, for the moment. It does, yeah.

And then it makes you appreciate.

Like.

Yeah, you're more aware of, like, potentially, you know, good shit doesn't last.

But there's still many challenges these days. Like, I told you, like, it looks good on the surface, but seriously, like, I don't sleep much when it's time to edit. Like, it's a lot of just mental strain, you know, Like. But I still rise.

Do you think you're more driven with the whole YouTube stuff now? You're making a lot of money from it or less?

No, because even that fluctuates. Like, it never drops too low, but the views drop sometimes. And, like, we make our best video, and YouTube has a ranking system to compete you against you, and it ranks your last 10 videos. This was the best. This was the worst. Dude, when you spend 20 hours on a video and it says it's 10 out of 10 worst video.

Yeah, that. On the most recent pod.

Oh, I get sick, man. I hate that shit. It's just a number, but, like, wow, it messes with you. So I have learned now to just keep creating freely. Like, just the number part is cool. And it will grow, but it will grow the fastest if you just keep creating. That's how you grow. Yeah, Just keep making cool stuff and learning about YouTube. Ask questions. I mean, I talked to a lot of YouTubers, like, proper famous YouTubers, and that's not a flex. I asked these guys questions. I'm like, I'm probably annoying, and maybe later, when I'm as famous as them, we'll all be on the same page. But, like, I'm asking, I'm sending my thumbnails, I'm sending my titles, I'm asking for feedback. Sometimes they reply, sometimes they don't. But that's just where I'm at right now. Like, Mr.

Beast, you speak to him a lot?

No, I want to, though. And he's one phone call away. But I can't just call Mr.

Beast.

We're not friends like that, you know. But eventually we met. We had a good little session. He looked at the channel and he said, it looks all right. He roasted my thumbnails, though, pretty badly.

Really?

Yeah.

And how did you change them after that? You're not done that.

The face, the face. Go look at his thumbnails. His face is like. It's like 4K. Yeah, but yeah, no, I'm still learning all the time. Like just, it's just every day it's, you know.

Yeah. It's a process.

Yeah.

Do you think you're driven by the financial aspect of it anymore? I mean, obviously you mentioned like fucking everyone. They get started so I gotta fucking make some bread to like survive. But then you obviously get past that initial point.

Yeah.

And then it's like, it kind of becomes like. I think that there's a much bigger difference between going from broke to making like 10k a month compared to like going from 10k a month to 100k a month, for example.

Yeah.

Because the biggest difference is like, you buy freedom and then it kind of just becomes a game.

That's where I'm at with it too. I mean, money wise, I'm good. Like, my mom's good, my sister's good. Like, we're good. Like, so I, I guess when I come to London or I'm in Miami and I see next level of class and wealth or whatever, then I'm like, okay, like, yeah, I do want more money. Like, I do want to have $15 million. Like I. But then when I'm home and I'm living my day to day life and I'm eating $10 bowl restaurants and like riding my bike everywhere and taking Ubers and shit, like, what do I need $10 million right at this moment for? So the way I see it is like I'm not gonna feel successful when I have a certain amount of money. Like I already am successful. So I just enjoy my life as now as it is now and I'm gonna make some more money. I don't know how far we're gonna go with the money. I don't know if I'm gonna make whatever number, but I'm gonna keep making money. It's just what we do. We have businesses. Like, we work hard. We work very hard. So I don't stress about money at all these days. And I'm very grateful to say that because I used to very much. Even when I had some money, I used to always compare myself to people all the time. It was. My biggest downfall was actually me comparing myself to other people's money.

Yeah, I do that. I think everyone's guilty of that. It's fucking social media.

Yeah.

But as you get bit older, maybe like figure out what matters to You.

Oh, man, I feel like I'm starting to tune shit out better than ever before just because I found, like, what I like doing. So, like, as long as I'm doing that, I'm cool. Like it. Nothing else really matters to me. Like. Yeah. Except for my family and stuff like that. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Do you have any, like, specific goals in terms of how big you want to take the usual then? Because obviously money isn't necessarily a driver, but sounds like the whole creative side is what you get most of a kick out of. And then how do you measure the success of that? Because, for example, if someone said, you know, start doing this sort of content that you don't vibe with, but actually it could get to 10 million subs.

Yeah.

Compared to doing the shit that's like, authentically you, that would maybe get you to a million subs. Like, which side of the fence would you be on authentically?

Authentically for sure. Yeah. Because. But there's a mix, though. Like, people be in their head too much about that, I think. Like, oh, I just want to make videos I'm passionate about. I don't want to get YouTube views. I'm like, okay, but then why are you post videos on YouTube every week if you don't want views? Like, yeah, you know you do. So it's like figuring out how to turn that little passion ideas into viral video YouTube, like viral YouTube videos. So, like, these interviews are great examples of that. Like the one I'm doing. Iman, it's clickbait. It's exciting, it's personal because I'm traveling. You guys are coming along with me on the travels and you're learning. So, like, it's like fun to watch and you learn stuff and I have fun editing them. So yeah.

Yeah. Fucking hell.

Yeah.

No, it's interesting. What do you think's been the hardest part of the entire journey since, like, you're fucking 18.

Hardest part is not just the YouTube easiest answer I could think of because I could feel that pain still to this day, and it keeps me going, is like, when you do this for so long, you know, you try to start your own business for so long. Years and years and years, and everybody's got some doubts around you and everybody's telling you this ain't gonna work, and you're telling yourself this might not work, and then it doesn't work and just keeps not working and just. It's just like that feeling is the hardest, worst feeling ever. Especially after years, bro. Most people don't make it through that, that's where. That's where they stop. They want to be whatever their dream is, but they just can't survive that real deep pain, like, so that's really what it was for me. And even now, being on the flip side, I still feel some of that stress, but it's like, yeah, that was.

Talking about the time in L. A. When shit just wasn't fucking.

I'm talking about the whole time, like, before that, really, like, when I was an entrepreneur starting all these things, but nothing was popping off, you know, Like, I'm talking before I started my first E Commerce business, I. I had real, like, you know, depression at that time, like, because I just didn't feel like I was being who I was always meant to be, you know?

Yeah.

And, yeah, obviously the LA time was hard too, but that shit was just different. Yeah.

Yeah. To be fair, like, I can relate to that point. I've always thought about, like, I think it's easy. It's easy for everyone to say, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur or whatever, and then the second it gets hard, they suddenly don't want to be an entrepreneur. But also it's easy for people to be, like, motivated and driven and creative and inspired and feel like they're the man when shit's going well. And I was a prime example of that. I was living in a penthouse with a Ferrari and a Range Rover down.

I know you had some crazy whips. This man had the cleanest R8 I've ever seen, by the way, on the R8.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna. I want to buy a pink Urus is the next whip.

Yeah. You a different breed.

Yeah.

I support the pink curious because it's.

Just so on brand and I love that shit.

Yeah.

But, like, the one thing I give myself credit for is I never swayed from the fucking vision. Even when everything on paper said, like, you know, fucking do something else, because I just knew who I was.

You started young too.

Yeah. And I think. But the kind of funny thing for me is that I had years of success and then had a taste of, like, big failure, which I think, well, I guess is fairly rare because most people don't even fucking most of it. Don't get to that height to have that fall.

That fall hits harder, though. It hurts.

And that's what I'm saying. It hurts really fucking hard to, like. I still looked in the mirror when everything was like, peak and was like, well, I'm still the guy that's gonna build a billion pound brand and I Believe I'm that guy.

And that's the difference. It's hard.

It's. What I'm saying is it's. It's way easier to have that confidence when shit's going well. Very few people know what it's like to go from a height to a very low point.

Yeah.

And then still have to pick yourself up again when everyone. When maybe girlfriend at the time, certain people, even family members are, like, doubting it. Yeah. I mean, so that's the thing I realized.

I agree with you, bro.

If you can get. If you can still back yourself when.

Everything'S gone wrong, that's what makes.

You know.

That's what makes really, like, diamonds, though. You know what I'm saying? Like, all my homies that really got to that high level. Millions of subscribers, millions of dollars. This is. It's oddly similar, you know what I'm saying? Like, we're all so different. We all come different parts of the world. Like, you and I are not even from the same country. Like, if you. You know, our neighborhoods growing up is, like, so different. Like, but somehow, some way, we still are having a very similar story like that. That's what's crazy to me. But. Yeah, it's weird, right?

Yeah. I think it's just. It's entrepreneurship in it. It's like. Yeah, real recognizes real. Like, yeah, it's like, all my. All my good mates that even I don't necessarily see for months. Like Jordan Smythe, for example.

Yeah.

But because you're so on the same page and you relate to each other.

On, like, a spiritual level, it's like a deep bond. It's like a brother.

Exactly.

Like.

Yeah. And. Yeah, that's why, like, I credit my mates, and my network is my. My greatest asset. Because even, like, you know who your real friends are when shit goes wrong and they still fucking believe in you.

Yeah.

And then.

That's real. I had homies that really threw down, like, threw down money for me when I needed it to invest in my ads, and I ran to zero. Like, people that put up, like, 300 bucks, 500 bucks. Like, shout out to Zach, you know? Shouts my aunt. Like, these type of people, they support a division, you know? But, yeah, that's besides the point.

Yeah. 100.

Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like I could. I always reflect on, like, how much can change in, like, six months or something.

No lie, bro.

I mean, like, for me, like, the past six months probably been, like, the most mentally transformative time because, like, broke up with the wrong person, which is a great decision.

Mm.

Went from no idea what the fuck I was gonna do next to now being like super excited and passionate about this next thing got like fucking shredded.

Yeah.

I wasn't like fat fat before. I was fucking chubby looking back.

Yeah.

Because you just, you don't even realize the habits that people around you can instill if you're not in the right like environment.

Yeah.

And that was the case for me. I was living with the wrong person. Etc. Etc. And it's kind of.

And those actions that he flipped your mind completely. Like, you know, you taking action every day is what made you get back in that headspace of like, damn, I'm feel good again. I don't think it, I don't think it really was like you getting in better shape or you launching the brand. It's like the fact that she was doing it every day and like putting the work in again like you were, you were pushing for it. That's the. At least for me, speaking for myself, that's when I feel the happiest is like when I know I gave my best effort for the day.

Yeah. For sure. One way I've started to look at like life is like, because it can be like overwhelming being like, oh fuck, you know, this is going to take me like five years to get where I want to be.

Yeah.

But then just fucking win the day. That's like the way I started looking at it. Do you win the day every day. And you're not gonna win every day, but if you win most the days, the fucking days add up.

Yeah.

Do you know, I mean like a day becomes a week, becomes a month becomes a fucking year. And then it's like shit, I've actually done some cool shit.

Your life is unrecognizable because you put all those days up front. In a year you could flip the whole script, you know?

Yeah. It's actually facts.

I keep having those moments like I was looking at my. I always look at the iPhone memory thing a year ago.

Yeah. And I was me in my feels every time.

I know it's crazy. Yeah. A year very different from today. I wasn't broke or nothing but like it's very different from today. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I want to wrap things up with a few reflective questions.

Sure.

Firstly, if you were giving yourself three bits of advice, knowing what you know now to your, I guess a kind of 16 year old self.

Yeah.

What would they be?

Probably be patient because like I was in such a rush to be that 18 year old hotshot rich millionaire kid from Fort Myers, Florida. Like, I wanted to be that star person so early on, like, and I thought it had to happen when I was 18 or 19, but it wasn't the plan. That wasn't, you know, the destiny that was laid out for me. So yeah, that probably, probably like pick one thing or at least like limit your things. Maybe it was better for me that I tried a lot of stuff back in the day because it showed me what I like and what I don't like. But at the same time, I feel like if I would have just stuck one of those things and still been doing that now almost 10 years later, it would have been, you know, gymshark level type.

Yeah.

You know, but that again, that wasn't the path for me. So I wouldn't change none of this stuff. But this is just things I would tell myself and also enjoy it. Cuz like it's work at the end of the day and like you're gonna keep working for a long time. So like, just try to enjoy it. Otherwise it's like people, I'm not rich friends that are sitting here complaining about going to work every day and I'm like, are you crazy? Like you're actually crazy. Like I get it, but like, you're crazy. Like your life could be so bad. So I just enjoy the whole thing. If you even editing at 4am and it sucks, but like, at least I'm doing this instead of doing something else.

Mmm.

Jet lagged.

Maintain perspective, dude.

Okay, so I went. I went from Vegas to Coachella to LA to London, right? Like, I'm in. I'm in. I'm in my apartment for four hours before I got to come to London. I just landed. I'm sitting there like, oh my God, I'm so tired. Like, I don't. I'm gonna get jet lagged. And I'm like, I stopped for a sec. I'm like, you're crazy. Like, dude, you're about to go to London. Like, you never been to Europe. You just went to Coachella. You met Anderson. That's your first time in Europe. Never been here. Yeah.

Oh, fuck.

So like I had to check myself. Like, really enjoy this shit, man. Even if it's hard for you right now. One day you're gonna be rich and lit and you're gonna be like, man, I missed when I was working in the closet with holes in my socks.

Yeah, yeah, Sometimes like, yeah, there's most beauty in like the most struggling times and whatever the time is, there's beauty in the struggle. That's the time.

I agree to that.

Yeah. Time flies. So enjoy it. Got to. That's good advice.

Got to.

I think on that. I feel like we could fucking speak for ages. This is super interesting story.

Yeah, man. I'm glad you had me on the show. I enjoyed it.

Yeah, for sure. Like fucking hell. Great story. Very inspiring. Actually, that was the last question I normally ask, but I didn't ask you. Like, maybe I did.

No, go for it.

Where do you see yourself in like 10 years? Like, is there. Do you think that far ahead? And if you don't think that far.

Ahead, I don't intentionally.

Like, do you have a.

It's more like a game to play, really.

In the game.

No, I'm saying, like, telling ourselves, like, where we're gonna be in like 5, 10 years is more like a game that we play. We don't really know. Like, I.

Changes. Right.

Like, you might have an idea of, like, what values you're gonna hold and what things you're really in love with. But, like, at least I feel like you don't really know. But for me, you know, I created more content. Probably still five years from now. I mean, I don't know. Like, I could be in five years, bro. Five years ago I was like in college.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I couldn't have pictured I'd be in London overlooking, you know, whatever this river is called, you know, like, there you go, like drinking wine with you in the space goods hq. Like so. Yeah, man, I don't know. I just take just like one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, you know, and just see where. Where it goes. Otherwise might get lost. You just like, gotta stay focused on what's in front of you.

Yeah, for sure.

Many people disagree with me with that probably, but that's me. That's what I think about it. So.

Yeah. Sick. Yeah, I guess. With that said, we'll wrap it up.

Cool.

Super enjoyable episode. We'll link Jordan down there. Hopefully we'll fucking get 100k views on this and start blowing this up.

Yeah. Listen, make sure you guys are subscribed to this man's podcast. If you're coming from my channel, make sure to submit, you know, and be on the lookout for my new video. I just did a video out here in London with Iman Gadzi. I feel like it's gonna be exciting, so. Still working on it though, but make sure to check that out. And yeah, thanks for having me, bro.

Yeah, super enjoyed it. Subscribe as usual. Like, he says, share with the mate and we'll see you on the next one. Cheers for watching. Peace.

Sam.