In this episode of the YouTube Success Podcast, you’ll be joining me, as I sit down with a remarkable guest, Jesse Davis. Together, we explore Jesse’s extraordinary journey, starting from a family YouTube channel to achieving a stunning milestone of 100,000 subscribers in just two months. We discuss the critical elements that led to his success, such as content strategy, audience targeting, and the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance while managing a thriving YouTube career.
If you’re an aspiring content creator or a YouTube enthusiast, this conversation is a must-listen for you, offering invaluable insights and practical advice on your path to YouTube success.
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Transcript
Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Is it possible to get to a hundred
Speaker:thousand subscribers in two months?
Speaker:Yes it is.
Speaker:Is it possible to quit your job and go full time YouTuber?
Speaker:Of course it is and in this episode, I'm interviewing Jesse
Speaker:Davis, who did just that with one of the channels that he started.
Speaker:He's got multiple channels now.
Speaker:He had a fantastic way of testing his audience at the start that I'd
Speaker:really like you to pay attention to.
Speaker:So this episode is definitely worth listening to all the way through Jesse.
Speaker:He's such a humble guy and he's got such a fantastic, amazing way of delivering
Speaker:absolute gold throughout the episode.
Speaker:So pay attention, listen up and enjoy the episode.
Speaker:And don't forget, if this is the first time listening to the YouTube Success
Speaker:Podcast, make sure you subscribe, follow, like, share all that kind of
Speaker:jazz, wherever you're listening from and don't forget to review the episode
Speaker:as well If you get a moment, all right.
Speaker:Thanks so much.
Speaker:Go and enjoy the episode.
Jesse Davis:My name is Jesse Davis and my family and I started a
Jesse Davis:annel for my daughter back in:Jesse Davis:We were doing family content on YouTube and that blew up in a big way, and
Jesse Davis:since then, we've started many other channels and we have big pages on
Jesse Davis:Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Wicked.
Jesse Davis:And you say that, you fly through that story so well, but there's so much
Jesse Davis:that I'd love to talk about and let's..
Jesse Davis:So much to unpack.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Firstly, when you say it's a family channel, like when I remember you
Jesse Davis:starting this, you said, and again, please correct me if I'm wrong here.
Jesse Davis:It was something like, you started the channel to pay for your daughter's
Jesse Davis:university or something like that.
Jesse Davis:Is that, am I right or is it totally off?
Jesse Davis:My daughter was eight at the time.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And it wasn't really about money.
Jesse Davis:My daughter was an actress in Bangkok, so we live in Thailand.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And we had been doing television, TV casting, acting.
Jesse Davis:Even I had been in TV series in Thailand and like I saw that all of
Jesse Davis:a sudden when kids hit eight or nine and they started losing a lot of
Jesse Davis:teeth and they started being less in demand, that all of a sudden, like
Jesse Davis:they just did ran outta work, right?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Kid actresses are like, oh, industry's come back when you're 16
Jesse Davis:or 17, then we'll talk to you then.
Jesse Davis:But this awkward phase, we don't want you.
Jesse Davis:And I felt like my daughter is really talented.
Jesse Davis:She did work for KFC and Disney and Oreo and Nintendo, and she'd done like 40
Jesse Davis:commercial jobs and then they're just gonna toss her away like some used rag.
Jesse Davis:And I was like, as a dad, I'm like no, this is not cool.
Jesse Davis:My daughter's super talented.
Jesse Davis:Wouldn't it be so cool if she had a way to showcase her talents and abilities?
Jesse Davis:And so we created this YouTube channel more for her to grow into as a longer
Jesse Davis:term sort of career play and we always just said money's secondary.
Jesse Davis:If we get some money, it's cool, right?
Jesse Davis:But I had a job at that time.
Jesse Davis:So money wasn't the big deal.
Jesse Davis:It was more about fame and building a platform.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Okay.
Jesse Davis:And I like the idea actually because it's a big point.
Jesse Davis:Money means a lot of things to a lot of people, and if you're in a very
Jesse Davis:tough situation, of course finances is something you focus on a lot.
Jesse Davis:But what I see personally, in the most successful channels are people
Jesse Davis:that start channels, based on something they're passionate about.
Jesse Davis:And of course, it's easy to be passionate about your family.
Jesse Davis:So my daughter, right?
Jesse Davis:Sure.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, exactly.
Jesse Davis:And I've got two girls, and so I know it's a great story to have
Jesse Davis:done something selflessly to help your daughter along the way.
Jesse Davis:Another thing that I really talk to people about is being strategic with
Jesse Davis:your content, strategic with how you get stuff out there and of course, going from
Jesse Davis:zero to a million subscribers in a year means you have to have been strategic.
Jesse Davis:And I sent you the questions before and I said, what was the biggest mistake?
Jesse Davis:And you said, Matt, there wasn't really a mistake, we had a perfect launch.
Jesse Davis:So can you tell us in as much detail as you want or as little as you want?
Jesse Davis:Sure.
Jesse Davis:What that, because you're working a tech job, right?
Jesse Davis:So you wasn't a YouTuber at the time.
Jesse Davis:Yep.
Jesse Davis:You wasn't, you didn't have any about YouTube, you were starting from nothing.
Jesse Davis:I remember you asked some quite basic video questions at the time.
Jesse Davis:You were just getting into to grips with the cameras and all that kind of stuff.
Jesse Davis:How did you create that strategy around that, Jesse, at the start?
Jesse Davis:I took the attitude that I know nothing about this,
Jesse Davis:about YouTube, about video.
Jesse Davis:So rather than coming and say, saying oh, I think I can do this, it was more about,
Jesse Davis:okay, I need to start at the ground level.
Jesse Davis:And the only way I was gonna figure out all this YouTube and video
Jesse Davis:stuff is if I did it over time.
Jesse Davis:Learning over time.
Jesse Davis:So on my commute, I was listening to a lot of podcasts listened to a lot
Jesse Davis:of Gary Vaynerchuk, listened to some other YouTube-specific podcasts, and I
Jesse Davis:just kinda kept inhaling information, just, good stuff just coming in, best
Jesse Davis:practices, what to do, what not to do, don't do sub for sub and all that stuff.
Jesse Davis:And rather than me trying and making a whole lot of mistakes, I just
Jesse Davis:absorbed all the best practices and then I started my channel that way.
Jesse Davis:But we did have strategy, so you're right.
Jesse Davis:And some of the strategy was that we had a few concepts and one was if we
Jesse Davis:go after attention, money will follow.
Jesse Davis:That was one of them.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And another one was that we are going to identify our target audience.
Jesse Davis:And even though we didn't know what that audience liked, we
Jesse Davis:basically what's the marketing term?
Jesse Davis:Like an avatar?
Jesse Davis:Like create an avatar of who your ideal target audience is.
Jesse Davis:And so we decided that we were gonna go after little Thai girls
Jesse Davis:that are aged, maybe six to 10.
Jesse Davis:And we were, we just kinda listed out 14 ideas of everything that we thought
Jesse Davis:that they might be interested in.
Jesse Davis:And so when we started the channel, we did all of this stuff and the
Jesse Davis:only way that worked was because we produced so much content.
Jesse Davis:I think the first month we released about 52 videos, which is like a year's worth
Jesse Davis:of weekly content in the first month.
Jesse Davis:So sometimes there were like three episodes a day.
Jesse Davis:But very quickly because of that data and by building our channel to move
Jesse Davis:fast, we were able to get feedback and we were able to adjust right away.
Jesse Davis:So out of those 14 ideas, little show segments, we cut
Jesse Davis:seven of them out right away.
Jesse Davis:Like within the first month?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Cuz clearly like nobody was interested.
Jesse Davis:And then we focused on the stuff that was doing good and later on every year
Jesse Davis:we'd review it again and we'd drop a segment out or add a segment in.
Jesse Davis:But we had a kind of a scientific approach to it, and it was
Jesse Davis:methodical and it was blazingly fast.
Jesse Davis:And one of the last pieces of strategy that I think we started with, I'd like
Jesse Davis:to talk about was our work ethic and our attitude, knowing that we could not
Jesse Davis:keep up with that level of pace forever.
Jesse Davis:But that we were gonna work hard for a season, and that season
Jesse Davis:ended up being a very long season.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, I think we've produced probably close to 4,000 videos.
Jesse Davis:For our family in the last five years.
Jesse Davis:But yeah, we just basically built for speed and just went at it.
Jesse Davis:Boom.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Okay, so there's a couple of things I see
Jesse Davis:that, that are really interesting.
Jesse Davis:The first most obvious one is that initial I work with business owners, entrepreneurs
Jesse Davis:who struggle to do a video a week.
Jesse Davis:And here you are pushing out 50 videos in a month.
Jesse Davis:How did you organize that with the family?
Jesse Davis:You've got a job, you've got a family life and all that kind of stuff.
Jesse Davis:Do you think, sorry, I'm asking a couple of questions here, but do you
Jesse Davis:think the work ethic that you got from your daughter being in the shows and
Jesse Davis:that kind of thing helped you structure that and plan that amount of content?
Jesse Davis:I don't know if that helped with the speed.
Jesse Davis:But we certainly were around that.
Jesse Davis:So we saw how the crew would work, we saw how they were organized.
Jesse Davis:And I think at that point, I couldn't take too many things away.
Jesse Davis:But like right now it's really helpful because we work like that, right?
Jesse Davis:Like we have multiple crews going out daily.
Jesse Davis:And yeah all that industry experience helps.
Jesse Davis:But I think in the beginning, the thing that actually really helped is prior
Jesse Davis:to me getting into the tech industry, like the travel industry that I, the
Jesse Davis:job I had before that I was an app entrepreneur and my wife and I built
Jesse Davis:apps and games and we were building like, stuff that was quick or we would
Jesse Davis:use prebuilt code and we would re-skin the graphics to make like another game.
Jesse Davis:And we were releasing like 30 games a month.
Jesse Davis:So we had this Rapid fire, digital production mentality.
Jesse Davis:And while Apple didn't like that so much, they want one high quality game.
Jesse Davis:YouTube loves it, right?
Jesse Davis:They're like, Hey, give us content, daily content, great.
Jesse Davis:Keep at it.
Jesse Davis:So we were able to just go full throttle, but our process was, and
Jesse Davis:part of this was controlled by the fact that my kids were in school, right?
Jesse Davis:So I couldn't film during the week.
Jesse Davis:So I would be going to work during the week, and then the evenings and
Jesse Davis:weekends were that's my production time.
Jesse Davis:So I mostly, I'd edit in the evenings and then we would film
Jesse Davis:on Saturday and Sunday all day.
Jesse Davis:Pretty much.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:So yeah, we would, we'd be doing like just eight hours, nine hours
Jesse Davis:straight filming like two days a week.
Jesse Davis:Just getting a lot of videos in and we slowed down over time but
Jesse Davis:it was just like a lot of, just anything that came to mind we did.
Jesse Davis:And they were short, fast, fun videos.
Jesse Davis:Just real freestyle shot with an iPhone and two, LED lights.
Jesse Davis:That was it.
Jesse Davis:No audio, no nothing fancy.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:So now we are, we have a much higher focus on quality, but
Jesse Davis:back then it was just quantity.
Jesse Davis:Just get it out, get it out, get it out.
Jesse Davis:And fortunately, our target audience didn't care.
Jesse Davis:Little Thai kids are like, eh, they're not like, ooh, this megapixel
Jesse Davis:count isn't as high as it could be.
Jesse Davis:So they're like, oh, hey, is it fun?
Jesse Davis:Yeah, cool.
Jesse Davis:But it's really about the content, right?
Jesse Davis:The content is more important than all the tech stuff.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: And I'll just find that fascinating cuz actually
Jesse Davis:as I'm hearing you and being a techie, a geeky techie myself, this view that
Jesse Davis:you've got of like quantity first,
Jesse Davis:and review the analytics and what that's telling you, and the bit where you said
Jesse Davis:like you cut half of the ideas out, like it's the opposite of what most
Jesse Davis:people do, and so that's fascinating because obviously whilst you're doing
Jesse Davis:the opposite, it allowed you to laser focus in what you're really doing.
Jesse Davis:You've got this consumer viewer first view at the start anyway.
Jesse Davis:Who are these viewers gonna be?
Jesse Davis:What are their, you said about the 14 interests like, really laser focused on,
Jesse Davis:"we're not just making content for us to grow our business" or anything like that.
Jesse Davis:It's what do people want to consume?
Jesse Davis:And I just love the idea that you've beast moded that 52 videos, but it gave
Jesse Davis:you so much data then to really hone into what was working and that kind of thing.
Jesse Davis:And now you've told me that app story, it makes total sense that actually
Jesse Davis:yes, you had that experience, the commercial experience, but actually
Jesse Davis:it was probably more your analytical experience from you and your wife doing
Jesse Davis:the app stuff that you understood how important the data was and to trust the
Jesse Davis:data and to change things as you go.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:It was really like an app almost apples to apples, like kind of
Jesse Davis:comparison, like with the app store.
Jesse Davis:The, your app icon is super important, right?
Jesse Davis:Because that's what people see on the app store and it represents
Jesse Davis:your app, and for YouTube, the thumbnail was like that important.
Jesse Davis:So I are like, from the get-go, put a lot of emphasis on having a really
Jesse Davis:eye-catching colorful fun thumbnail and cuz that's your billboard.
Jesse Davis:That's what gets people to come in and watch your video.
Jesse Davis:And so yeah, it was, it's funny because, as entrepreneurs we look
Jesse Davis:at failure as oh my god, I suck.
Jesse Davis:At the time I was like, I'm just not cut out to be a business guy,
Jesse Davis:because my app business failed.
Jesse Davis:But really it was like all this, amazing experience.
Jesse Davis:It was setting me up for this next thing that I was gonna do,
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Oh, totally.
Jesse Davis:I don't believe experience-wise, you're failing anyway.
Jesse Davis:It's always just more knowledge to take with you to the next thing.
Jesse Davis:Yep.
Jesse Davis:And clearly this, that, that experience that you had paid dividends
Jesse Davis:in the next part of the journey.
Jesse Davis:When you published those 52 videos, you said you were focused on thumbnails.
Jesse Davis:How much did you focus on like SEO and the other parts of YouTube that
Jesse Davis:we often think of titles and SEO and was there like a strategic promotion
Jesse Davis:kind of marketing plan at that point?
Jesse Davis:Or was it just publish and see what YouTube does with these videos?
Jesse Davis:SEO is a good question because on the App store it's usually called
Jesse Davis:ASO or App Store Optimization.
Jesse Davis:And Apple and Google work a little differently.
Jesse Davis:But still, we had a, actually, a lot of background cuz that was our big
Jesse Davis:marketing strategy was SEO basically.
Jesse Davis:So we already had a lot of good SEO best practices, wired into it, and
Jesse Davis:most of that transferred right over, like your title, the first, the titles
Jesse Davis:are weighted stronger towards the beginning of the title, so we would
Jesse Davis:put more important keywords there.
Jesse Davis:I wouldn't say it was a mistake and I think earlier on and this was like
Jesse Davis:2017 SEO played much of a bigger part in getting your videos discovered, but
Jesse Davis:now that I know how the algorithm works a little bit better and now that it's
Jesse Davis:probably changed a little bit SEO for YouTube has really fallen by the wayside.
Jesse Davis:It's nowhere near as important as what it was, and you could have an amazing video
Jesse Davis:with one word in the title and Google.
Jesse Davis:Google Brain, their AI system is smart enough to figure out what your video
Jesse Davis:is about, just based on AI recognition of the content of your video, as
Jesse Davis:well as analyzing the verbiage.
Jesse Davis:So it's like no matter what, it's gonna figure it out.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:That's good.
Jesse Davis:act that you're talking about:Jesse Davis:This is not a your journey is not a 10 year old journey, is it?
Jesse Davis:It's a, Nope.
Jesse Davis:Your journey in business and the app store journey and all of that experience that,
Jesse Davis:that's clearly obviously had a good impact on this is longer, but five years that,
Jesse Davis:the one year to a million, is it insane?
Jesse Davis:But, beyond that is, is also incredible what you've done.
Jesse Davis:Yeah,
Jesse Davis:It didn't stop at one year like we kept growing.
Jesse Davis:So I've got two channels that are over a million subs and our main one is,
Jesse Davis:I think around 7.3 million currently.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:So it's one of the bigger channels in Thailand.
Jesse Davis:And then, we've got several million plus follower Facebook pages, 1
Jesse Davis:million plus follower TikTok page, and I think we've amassed about 7
Jesse Davis:billion views, not including TikTok.
Jesse Davis:So yeah, like we've been
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: busy.
Jesse Davis:So and we talked, just before we started this, you talked about your transition.
Jesse Davis:So you've got this big channel it's in a kids niche.
Jesse Davis:Yep.
Jesse Davis:Things are going really well and then the COPPA thing happened, the
Jesse Davis:cop or whatever you wanna call it.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And you've now gotta make some kind of decision to adjust.
Jesse Davis:So can you tell us a little bit about that and then how and I suppose the
Jesse Davis:other part to that as well is were you doing a lot of stuff on the
Jesse Davis:other social networks at that time?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:So we had some presence, but not a lot.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:So for those of your audience who does not understand what COPPA is, or COPPA or
Jesse Davis:whatever, it was the Child Online Privacy Protection Act enacted by the FTC and
Jesse Davis:enforced by the FTC, the US FTC, and the Federal Trade Commission then sued YouTube
Jesse Davis:for about $140 million, and of course one, and people are saying like, they got
Jesse Davis:off easy because they knew that YouTube had all this child data and people are
Jesse Davis:like, oh, it's about, bad stuff for kids.
Jesse Davis:And that's not what it was about.
Jesse Davis:It was about YouTube was knowingly collecting data from children,
Jesse Davis:and part of that was their ad platform.
Jesse Davis:Their ad platform is data driven, right?
Jesse Davis:So contextual ads being served to kids was making them a lot of money.
Jesse Davis:And so what they did was now they had to make you start labeling your content
Jesse Davis:as kids or not for kids, and we were, my daughter was getting older, so it
Jesse Davis:was getting kinda like on the line of what was kids and what was not for kids.
Jesse Davis:So we made a very conscious decision after seeing our ad revenues cut by
Jesse Davis:80% to, Hey let's maybe look for a different direction to go in the future.
Jesse Davis:That was a very good call because right now, things are as bad or
Jesse Davis:if not worse than what they were a couple years ago for kids' channels.
Jesse Davis:And it's just they haven't gotten a break.
Jesse Davis:And so we started pivoting towards, seeing what older
Jesse Davis:content we could do as a family.
Jesse Davis:And one of the things we noticed, we had a lot of older relatives that would
Jesse Davis:come over to help with the channel.
Jesse Davis:We started doing skits and we started realizing that these weren't
Jesse Davis:really heavy on the kids' side.
Jesse Davis:Like it was more like a story for adults and it happened to have a kid actor in
Jesse Davis:it here or there, and we noticed that these started popping on Facebook.
Jesse Davis:And Facebook doesn't have a lot of kids on it.
Jesse Davis:It's all like older adults.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And so we knew that hey, this was a real genuine for adult type of content.
Jesse Davis:We started doing more and more of 'em and it was doing pretty good,
Jesse Davis:but it was just killing on Facebook and we got monetised on Facebook.
Jesse Davis:So a lot of people don't know that Facebook runs Instream Ads, which
Jesse Davis:is very similar to YouTube AdSense.
Jesse Davis:It's much more difficult to get monetised on Facebook, but once you're monetised
Jesse Davis:and you can drive views, the payouts are like three times better, or at
Jesse Davis:least in our opinion or our experience.
Jesse Davis:So we were like quadruple dipping because we were making three times more on
Jesse Davis:Facebook, plus making money on YouTube.
Jesse Davis:So then all of a sudden our business started doing really
Jesse Davis:good by focusing in on these.
Jesse Davis:And we still do the kids and family content on the weekends, but Monday
Jesse Davis:through Friday we've got multiple teams filming at least two episodes per team
Jesse Davis:per day, and we're adding a third.
Jesse Davis:Yeah that's done really well for us.
Jesse Davis:But yeah, mainly on Facebook.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And that's fascinating cuz it would be quite easy for you to stick to the
Jesse Davis:one platform and focus on that, given that you've got this huge audience.
Jesse Davis:But it's nice to see that you just made the decision.
Jesse Davis:I know you cut the COPPA thing push you down that road.
Jesse Davis:But even yeah, you could have still stuck to your guns and continued
Jesse Davis:down the road you were going, but actually it's good to spread yourself
Jesse Davis:out across the multiple platforms.
Jesse Davis:One thing I think from, because a lot of my audience, they're a smaller businesses,
Jesse Davis:maybe even a one man band, so to speak.
Jesse Davis:Like when you talk about, having two teams, maybe three teams, for those
Jesse Davis:people that are just doing it on your own, and you talked about you and your
Jesse Davis:wife and your family doing this stuff over the weekend, like what advice would
Jesse Davis:you give them if they're getting started?
Jesse Davis:I think.
Jesse Davis:For you guys, like you're in, you was already in a view of working hard and
Jesse Davis:being part of a production teams and stuff with the work that you did, but
Jesse Davis:it still must have been hard to manage all of that stuff at the same time,
Jesse Davis:especially when you were working as well.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:What advice would you give people that where time is really
Jesse Davis:limited?
Jesse Davis:So I think the thing is that, You can't invent more time, you can't add it,
Jesse Davis:but you can be more efficient at it.
Jesse Davis:So it's really being honest with yourself about what can I give up?
Jesse Davis:That, that time where I watch Netflix at night, it should I watch Netflix
Jesse Davis:or can we use that as production time?
Jesse Davis:So that's really key, and the one of the other keys is it, when it comes to
Jesse Davis:being efficient with time is batching.
Jesse Davis:Batching for content creation is so key because what tires people
Jesse Davis:out is you have to wear many hats when you're in YouTube, right?
Jesse Davis:Okay.
Jesse Davis:Now I'm, I've gotta, I've gotta be a writer, right?
Jesse Davis:And now I have to sit in front of a camera and be an actor, and now I have
Jesse Davis:to go over here and become an editor.
Jesse Davis:And then after that, I gotta be an SEO expert.
Jesse Davis:And then I gotta be a graphic designer for the thumbnail and like switching
Jesse Davis:these hats boop, tires people out, right?
Jesse Davis:Because they're not used to doing that kind of thing.
Jesse Davis:One of the things we did, and this is a very practical tip for any video creators
Jesse Davis:out there, is to batch everything.
Jesse Davis:So that means Monday is your writing day, and you just write
Jesse Davis:as many stories as you can.
Jesse Davis:Two, three stories, and then, maybe the day before that
Jesse Davis:is your research day, right?
Jesse Davis:You gotta research and come up with some good ideas, try to see what's happening,
Jesse Davis:what your audience is watching, get some input so you can create, and then maybe
Jesse Davis:Saturday you have a day off of work.
Jesse Davis:So that's, you get up early in the morning, you set up your studio,
Jesse Davis:you got all the lights going on, and then once you're in that
Jesse Davis:filming mode, it's just, episode.
Jesse Davis:Just bang bang.
Jesse Davis:And then Sunday, you get back on your computer and today is just edit.
Jesse Davis:Alls I'm gonna do is edit all day.
Jesse Davis:And if you do that, you can produce two to four clips a week, easy for most creators.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: So what I'm hearing you say is that if you've
Jesse Davis:got excuses about doing this stuff, ask yourself how much Netflix am I watching?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:How dedicated and committed am I to actually making this work.
Jesse Davis:Because strategy is one thing and we talk about strategy a lot, but actually
Jesse Davis:the dedication and commitment that you had and it's really funny, it's the old
Jesse Davis:fable, you get out of it what you put in.
Jesse Davis:And it sounds to me like as a family unit, you all decided like
Jesse Davis:this was something that was really worth us committing to this?
Jesse Davis:Because, during that first month, but I would imagine for a long time after that,
Jesse Davis:your family time is eaten into, right?
Jesse Davis:Like I know you had fun making a lot of the videos.
Jesse Davis:Everyone's committed to having fun, but still, there must be some like military
Jesse Davis:operations style stuff going on to try and make all of this work whilst you're
Jesse Davis:trying to still be a dad in a moment.
Jesse Davis:All that kinda stuff.
Jesse Davis:Yep.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I think How did that affect your dynamic as a family, I guess is the
Jesse Davis:question.
Jesse Davis:So I think it was pretty tough and I won't beat around the bush and I'll
Jesse Davis:tell you that, it definitely took some toll on the family in some way it shape
Jesse Davis:or form, my daughter is a trooper and she put up with all this and I think
Jesse Davis:she's a little getting on the burnt outside at 14, but we've listened to her
Jesse Davis:and one of the things that I think we tried, because we knew that this could
Jesse Davis:be really damaging as a family to go that hard for that long, and we would
Jesse Davis:have sit down times, at least once a month, sort of mental health checks.
Jesse Davis:And be like, Hey, is everybody okay?
Jesse Davis:How are you feeling?
Jesse Davis:What's your opinion?
Jesse Davis:Is it too much?
Jesse Davis:And it was nice because my daughter would actually gimme some honest
Jesse Davis:feedback and be like, you know what?
Jesse Davis:It's pretty good, but when you say this or whatever, I get stressed out
Jesse Davis:and so we've been able to adjust.
Jesse Davis:And probably recently, my daughter's hit 14, she's in middle school, and
Jesse Davis:she said, dad, I'm really proud of everything that we've done, but I
Jesse Davis:don't wanna work my entire childhood.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And so after she said that, I was like, okay, maybe it's time to like recalibrate.
Jesse Davis:So now we only maybe film, what, a couple times a month.
Jesse Davis:And she has a pretty normal childhood for the most part.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:But we've scaled way back on her channel just for her sake mainly.
Jesse Davis:But I know it, it was tough, it's very stressful.
Jesse Davis:My wife is the one who's really the workhorse to the family.
Jesse Davis:She's the one I give all the credit to for schedule because I'm both techy and artsy.
Jesse Davis:I like cameras and I like video and settings.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, but my brain's all over the place and thank God, I have somebody
Jesse Davis:like my wife who grounds me and says okay, today is production day.
Jesse Davis:Today, we are doing this today, we are doing that.
Jesse Davis:And having somebody like that on your team, if you're not like that,
Jesse Davis:is awesome to keep you on schedule.
Jesse Davis:So much of YouTube is about discipline and really just staying
Jesse Davis:on that schedule and keep producing
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: content.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, absolutely.
Jesse Davis:Love that.
Jesse Davis:I think we're all just gonna agree that our wives are the best part of this deal
Jesse Davis:is them keeping us on track for sure.
Jesse Davis:It is so important though, whether it's your wife or your business partner
Jesse Davis:or whatever, having somebody that supports you in that way and really
Jesse Davis:playing to each other's strengths and, like you say, you're the techie
Jesse Davis:and the artsy guy in the partnership.
Jesse Davis:But it really does help to have
Jesse Davis:the different strengths and being able to lean on each other in that way.
Jesse Davis:Great to hear that, that works out really well for you.
Jesse Davis:Thanks.
Jesse Davis:We talked about, okay, it's not all just about money, but let's talk about
Jesse Davis:brand deals if you don't mind, and, okay what I'm interested in I know
Jesse Davis:you've got a lot of deals going on and stuff, and you work with loads of
Jesse Davis:huge businesses and stuff now, right?
Jesse Davis:What I'm interested in is like, when did you first get your first brand
Jesse Davis:deal and how did that come about?
Jesse Davis:Yeah let's just go down that road a little bit, just if you don't
Jesse Davis:mind.
Jesse Davis:Hey, sorry for the interruption.
Jesse Davis:Whilst you're listening to the YouTube Success podcast, don't
Jesse Davis:forget that we have a FREE community over at youtubecommunity.co.uk.
Jesse Davis:I'd love to see you there.
Jesse Davis:You can talk about the podcast or you can talk about anything related to YouTube.
Jesse Davis:So head over to youtubecommunity.co.uk and I'll see you there.
Jesse Davis:Back to the episode.
Jesse Davis:Okay, sure.
Jesse Davis:So I think the first brand deal, we grew so fast.
Jesse Davis:So we got a silver play button in about five months and we were so new that we
Jesse Davis:just weren't on the radar of companies, or marketing agencies and, So we had this
Jesse Davis:kind of thing of Hey guys, we're here.
Jesse Davis:And I think we eventually, we decided we just need to start somewhere.
Jesse Davis:So we reached out to, it was some like online company sales.
Jesse Davis:I'm trying to even remember what it was.
Jesse Davis:It wasn't like super famous like eBay or anything, and we just
Jesse Davis:said, Hey, we do kids review stuff.
Jesse Davis:Can you send us some toys?
Jesse Davis:Maybe we review 'em.
Jesse Davis:So they were like, okay, and they sent us a couple toys and product, just for free.
Jesse Davis:And we started there and I know some people I've heard argue
Jesse Davis:like you gotta value your time.
Jesse Davis:You gotta charge all this stuff.
Jesse Davis:And really, like we were after experience, and we wanted to have a track record.
Jesse Davis:And I wanted to know that if I was going to Nestle, that I could say,
Jesse Davis:Hey, look what we've done in the past, we know how to handle brands.
Jesse Davis:We know how to handle your business, and at that point, I didn't know how
Jesse Davis:to handle it like in the beginning.
Jesse Davis:I did start approaching companies.
Jesse Davis:Now, I would be admidst to tell you if I was a pro at brand
Jesse Davis:deals because I'm really not.
Jesse Davis:Because we became such a force in the industry, like in our little
Jesse Davis:country of Thailand, we got started getting approached by a lot of brands.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And so that made our job real easy, right?
Jesse Davis:Because I don't have to reach out and email people.
Jesse Davis:They're contacting us.
Jesse Davis:And so we've done many brand deals for all sorts of drink companies and vitamin syrup
Jesse Davis:and toys and, everything you can imagine.
Jesse Davis:And it was really fun, but right now, we're kinda like we're out of the toy
Jesse Davis:phase and because we're so focused on our new thing, we've almost like
Jesse Davis:completely turned down all brand deals.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, I did one, we did one this past week for a music video for a
Jesse Davis:cosmetic company, but I don't see us handling too many more of those.
Jesse Davis:They can be really time consuming.
Jesse Davis:So yeah, even aside from just, like the idea and then the production and the
Jesse Davis:editing, which that's what but what you don't see is like all the back and forth
Jesse Davis:of the marketing companies coming with ideas and proposals and pitch decks.
Jesse Davis:So really, they can drag out over a month.
Jesse Davis:And this one brand deal, I think we started at the end of last year
Jesse Davis:and we just finished shooting it.
Jesse Davis:So they can
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: take a while, make the bigger it
Jesse Davis:gets, the harder it gets, right?
Jesse Davis:There's just more people involved and they wanna make sure it's right and it's
Jesse Davis:worth the investment or that kind of jazz.
Jesse Davis:One thing I can recommend cuz I like to have some little practical
Jesse Davis:takeaways that somebody's oh, hey, I could try this is come up with a rate card.
Jesse Davis:So I have this little jpeg graphic and all it says is, it says the name of,
Jesse Davis:Brianna's Secret Club or the name of my channel, and then it says, some bullet
Jesse Davis:points like top channel in Thailand, one of the in demand, blah, blah, blah.
Jesse Davis:This many subs.
Jesse Davis:So like a couple little bullet points.
Jesse Davis:It's just you know what our value is, and then here's a rate package,
Jesse Davis:or, one or two rates and if, contact us for more information.
Jesse Davis:It looks professional.
Jesse Davis:It's simple and easy.
Jesse Davis:Somebody asked, cuz a lot of companies will just ask for your
Jesse Davis:rate card if they're serious.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And so it's nice to have that handy where you can just be like,
Jesse Davis:check out my rate card and if you're interested, let me know.
Jesse Davis:We can negotiate, blah, blah, blah.
Jesse Davis:But it's a good starting point and it makes you look really professional.
Jesse Davis:So you always wanna have some marketing materials ready to go for your company.
Jesse Davis:And then when you reach out to them, you can say, Hey, can I send you my rate
JesseDavies:card?
JesseDavies:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.
JesseDavies:To be honest with you, it's nice to hear what you said right at the start.
JesseDavies:You approached a few people, they gave you some free stuff, and that was enough.
JesseDavies:I totally agree.
JesseDavies:I recommend people have a rate card.
JesseDavies:I usually say imagine it's gonna take you a day to create the video.
JesseDavies:What is a day's worth of value to you?
JesseDavies:What would you charge somebody?
JesseDavies:Whatever your business is, that's the cost you can demand for this thing, and you
JesseDavies:could add production value and editing all that kind of stuff with it as well.
JesseDavies:But actually, like for me, with some of this stuff that I've done, I've
JesseDavies:worked with some companies where, if it was Logitech, they could just
JesseDavies:send me some gear because I love gear and I spend the money anyway.
JesseDavies:Yeah.
JesseDavies:Like sometimes that's okay.
JesseDavies:And it's just a good way to get the experience, like you say, to
JesseDavies:understand what they want out of it,
JesseDavies:how to talk to these.
JesseDavies:If you're not used to talking to corporate people, it can be quite daunting at
JesseDavies:the times, so getting that experience and just understanding how that
JesseDavies:relationship works is really important.
JesseDavies:And then, like you say, the bigger it gets, the more people are involved,
JesseDavies:the more they want to get out of it.
JesseDavies:So it becomes, yeah, it can become a bit.
JesseDavies:It's
Jesse Davis:funny you mentioned Logitech.
Jesse Davis:The last last brand deal I did for these headphones.
Jesse Davis:Oh, there you go.
Jesse Davis:There you go.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I was like, yeah, let's please send us more stuff.
Jesse Davis:That's
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: great.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, absolutely.
Jesse Davis:I'd definitely be doing that as much as possible for gear
Jesse Davis:cuz I spend so much on gear.
Jesse Davis:Amazing.
Jesse Davis:Thanks for that.
Jesse Davis:It's really great advice.
Jesse Davis:You said there I'd like to give these little tips.
Jesse Davis:Honestly, Jesse, everything you've said so far, I know this, like in my, even
Jesse Davis:in my community, they will absolutely love the advice and the story that
Jesse Davis:you've given us about your experience.
Jesse Davis:There's not just little bits.
Jesse Davis:There's some great stuff there.
Jesse Davis:Good, good.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I can be like real high level overall arching strategy, but
Jesse Davis:sometimes it's hard to, Yeah.
Jesse Davis:You
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: dunno where people are, do, yeah.
Jesse Davis:The thing is, I think I asked the, we've got a WhatsApp group for the community
Jesse Davis:and I said what would you like me to ask?
Jesse Davis:And of course, it's always quite high level stuff, but actually for me,
Jesse Davis:when you talked about the 14 ideas and then ditching seven them of them.
Jesse Davis:Like it's those kind of things that are really key that people
Jesse Davis:often skip over because they're not prepared to do the analytical work.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Like I, I'll publish the videos.
Jesse Davis:I, I look at views and then I'll walk away and it's that's not the only metric
Jesse Davis:and there's so much more around it that you need to pay attention to and
Jesse Davis:actually be prepared to post a video and for it to, not work and post a
Jesse Davis:completely different one and it flies and then, okay, let's do more of them
Jesse Davis:then, cuz it's clear that one's working better or it might fly the first time
Jesse Davis:and not the second time and yeah.
Jesse Davis:And adjust as you go.
Jesse Davis:So yeah, paying attention to all of that stuff, I think is the bit that a lot of
Jesse Davis:people don't put the effort into maybe.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And listen to your audience, I know I mentioned we, we tested a lot of the
Jesse Davis:things, but a lot of it was because we didn't know what they wanted,
Jesse Davis:and a mistake I see a lot of YouTubers do is they're like, no, it's gotta be
Jesse Davis:quality and it's gotta be my way, and I gotta, I'm gonna do this, and the
Jesse Davis:audience is gonna have to like it.
Jesse Davis:And it's it's almost a little arrogant, yeah.
Jesse Davis:Saying that, you think you know what the audience wants,
Jesse Davis:and then they have to like you because of it.
Jesse Davis:And it's always like, how do I get more views on my videos?
Jesse Davis:It's why don't you make videos that your people wanna watch?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:It's more about the other way around.
Jesse Davis:So it's being a little bit humble, like trying to, I understand that there's
Jesse Davis:two partners in this dance, and you have to bounce and play off of each
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: other.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, and you are taking people's time and attention.
Jesse Davis:So Yeah.
Jesse Davis:You need to give them something that they really want to watch
Jesse Davis:because otherwise they're just gonna be annoyed more than anything.
Jesse Davis:And may maybe that leads to leads nicely to my question about comments
Jesse Davis:as what did with your kids channel.
Jesse Davis:Did you have comments on
Jesse Davis:Yes, we did.
Jesse Davis:We've always had comments on unless YouTube turns it off Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Or there's a distinct problem, which occasionally has happened.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: But, So how so did, and
Jesse Davis:did you get any negativity?
Jesse Davis:Was it all positive stuff?
Jesse Davis:What's the, tell me about that side of the story and what I'm really interested
Jesse Davis:in, obviously being a dad as well is like, how did that work for your daughter and,
Jesse Davis:yeah, did you like collectively read them or did you just not bother reading them?
Jesse Davis:What was the deal
Jesse Davis:there?
Jesse Davis:Fortunately at the time my, my daughter could speak Thai okay.
Jesse Davis:And her, my mom, my wife, her mom would help her out with a lot of Thai say it
Jesse Davis:like, no, say it like this, and so she would do a lot of parroting, but when it
Jesse Davis:came to reading, she couldn't really read.
Jesse Davis:So it was never an issue because she just couldn't read the
Jesse Davis:comments and I couldn't read.
Jesse Davis:I would translate the comments and then be like, how dare are they?
Jesse Davis:It's eight year olds, they're trying out every bad word
Jesse Davis:they know, to see what it was.
Jesse Davis:But my daughter was never affected by it.
Jesse Davis:But what we learned was to get a bit of a thick skin.
Jesse Davis:So even when somebody leaves a bad comment they're taking time outta
Jesse Davis:their day to write something about your video that they took the time to watch.
Jesse Davis:And that still eventually helps you more or less, like you're
Jesse Davis:getting attention, right?
Jesse Davis:Whether it's good or bad attention, and I look at it as take the
Jesse Davis:most famous leaders in the world, Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln, right?
Jesse Davis:Half the country hated their guts.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, these are like the most, most famous guys, right?
Jesse Davis:And still so many people hated them.
Jesse Davis:But you look at any famous figure in history and they all
Jesse Davis:had people hate their guts.
Jesse Davis:And so I just always remember that no matter what you do, no
Jesse Davis:matter how good you are, there's gonna be somebody that hates you.
Jesse Davis:And for me, it's always come back to one thing.
Jesse Davis:Validation.
Jesse Davis:It's validation that I'm here, it's validation that I'm
Jesse Davis:going in a strong direction.
Jesse Davis:And I don't care if I upset your feelings.
Jesse Davis:I don't care if you think I look like an idiot.
Jesse Davis:That's cool.
Jesse Davis:That's your opinion, but, I'm gonna keep doing my thing and if you like it, cool.
Jesse Davis:If not, oh and it doesn't bother me anymore.
Jesse Davis:And I think all of us are just eh, whatever, it's delete, block, move on.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I like the idea of thick skin because definitely when you get
Jesse Davis:started, we've got experience, right?
Jesse Davis:We've been doing videos and stuff for a long time, so you know, it's coming.
Jesse Davis:I don't get it obviously anywhere near what you would get comments wise
Jesse Davis:anyway, so I expect there's lots more to filter through, but you just I,
Jesse Davis:I like the idea of, somebody's gonna hate it anyway, so you may as well
Jesse Davis:just do it and see what happens.
Jesse Davis:And, The majority of the time, you've got a great fan base
Jesse Davis:that loves what you're doing.
Jesse Davis:That's right.
Jesse Davis:And I've seen when you've, created new channels they've rallied around
Jesse Davis:to support you in the new channels and, all that kind of good stuff.
Jesse Davis:So obviously you're doing something right, even if there's people
Jesse Davis:that are not that happy about it.
Jesse Davis:But that's right.
Jesse Davis:And the funny thing is when you mentioned the fans that support you.
Jesse Davis:A lot of times, like I, somebody writes something really nasty and I almost
Jesse Davis:felt like stepping in, and blocking or banning and the fans just eat 'em alive.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:They will take 'em to task.
Jesse Davis:And it's a funny how really riled up your fans get defending you.
Jesse Davis:So I would say in most cases it's fine.
Jesse Davis:And if it's it, I would say this to anybody.
Jesse Davis:If it ever starts getting in your head where it's affecting
Jesse Davis:you mentally, you can't sleep.
Jesse Davis:You just think about it all night or you're having a great day, and then
Jesse Davis:you see that negative comment and then your day just goes downhill from
Jesse Davis:there and you just can't handle it.
Jesse Davis:Turn the comments off.
Jesse Davis:That's it.
Jesse Davis:Just turn 'em off.
Jesse Davis:It's better to not have any comments at all than to have something ruin your day.
Jesse Davis:And yeah.
Jesse Davis:Nobody wants
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: that, right?
Jesse Davis:Yeah, totally.
Jesse Davis:But, and I get that, But just know it's coming, just know
Jesse Davis:it's gonna come and expect it.
Jesse Davis:Exactly.
Jesse Davis:And and if you've got that thick skin it certainly, the first
Jesse Davis:couple of times it feels personal.
Jesse Davis:But for me I just feel like there's some, now I feel like what's
Jesse Davis:going on in that person's life?
Jesse Davis:Something's going on in their life and this video that I've created, or this
Jesse Davis:piece of content I've created is where they need to get it off their chest.
Jesse Davis:It's not a, it's never about me.
Jesse Davis:It's all about what's going on in their life.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, that's true.
Jesse Davis:When I look at it through that lens, I, I feel like, okay, a lot of the
Jesse Davis:time I'm always like, how can I help?
Jesse Davis:What, what's going on?
Jesse Davis:Do you know?
Jesse Davis:Do you wanna have a conversation?
Jesse Davis:And I actually seen this quite a bit on Instagram reels.
Jesse Davis:There's a few times where I've seen people leave really terrible, horrible comments
Jesse Davis:and the person that's posted has just been really kind and nice to them, and you
Jesse Davis:see the conversation completely change.
Jesse Davis:It just flips because they don't expect to be treated with kindness with this.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:, nasty comment that might be, and they feel bad, right?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:That's totally, that's great.
Jesse Davis:Okay, so you mentioned a couple of people.
Jesse Davis:I've got a question here just about who do you look up to?
Jesse Davis:Who do you admire on YouTube?
Jesse Davis:You men mentioned Gary V and a couple of others not so much just when you
Jesse Davis:were getting started, but also now, like who do you see and you think,
Jesse Davis:oh, they're doing a great job.
Jesse Davis:I really like what they're doing.
Jesse Davis:Anyone that comes to mind.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I don't like being a broken record, but I was fortunate
Jesse Davis:enough to get to meet Jimmy, Mr.
Jesse Davis:Beast at Yep.
Jesse Davis:VidSummit last year and man, what an awesome guy.
Jesse Davis:He's doing so he makes me look like a lazy sloth that's doing nothing.
Jesse Davis:He's oh yeah, I'm doing this charity and this channel.
Jesse Davis:We're doing gaming videos over here, and then I'm surviving in a
Jesse Davis:crashed luxury liner like luxury jet.
Jesse Davis:This guy is like doing so much insane stuff.
Jesse Davis:And I know he's built an incredible team around him and I got to have Have lunch
Jesse Davis:with Chandler and some of those guys.
Jesse Davis:But really, I think across the board, the entire industry has just
Jesse Davis:nothing but respect for this guy.
Jesse Davis:He's as legit and as nice as they come, and it's so awesome to see good
Jesse Davis:things happen to a really great guy.
Jesse Davis:And so I like that.
Jesse Davis:But there's so many creators that I just think are really making great
Jesse Davis:stuff and I, I know my son and I always love a lot of engineering
Jesse Davis:channels we love like Mark Robber and the Hack Smith and some of these guys.
Jesse Davis:We just love seeing them build stuff.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And it gives us ideas to, to build stuff.
Jesse Davis:So those are some of our favorite YouTubers.
Jesse Davis:But I don't know what's your favorite YouTuber?
Jesse Davis:Which ones,
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: i, I'm the same, Mr Beast is
Jesse Davis:on upon the list, of course.
Jesse Davis:Actually when I first went to VidSummit, I wasn't really into YouTube, I'd had
Jesse Davis:the video company for seven years, traveling, doing corporate videos.
Jesse Davis:But I wasn't really into YouTube.
Jesse Davis:And when I went VidSummit, I showed my daughter the list of speakers and I was
Jesse Davis:like can you tell me who these people are?
Jesse Davis:Cause I don't know.
Jesse Davis:She was like, oh daddy, you've gotta meet Rebecca Zamolo.
Jesse Davis:So I met her and she gave me this lovely video for Willow.
Jesse Davis:It was her birthday.
Jesse Davis:And I said, could you do a little video and say happy birthday to her?
Jesse Davis:And so I got this and I kept hold of it for six months cuz it was, way before.
Jesse Davis:So obviously I consume some of her content, but then just for me, what I
Jesse Davis:like about consuming content is more like the, and you being a techie and an
Jesse Davis:editor would appreciate this, but like a cool ways a video is put together, like I
Jesse Davis:look for nice transitions or little cool things where, you know, even sat next to
Jesse Davis:a woman, I completely forget her name now, she's huge on Facebook for recipe videos.
Jesse Davis:She did a session at VidSummit.
Jesse Davis:This is why I love, love VidSummit.
Jesse Davis:She did a session, I watched the session, she taught Taughts loads of
Jesse Davis:stuff, and then I happened to just be sitting next to her on the next session.
Jesse Davis:She, she came and sat in the audience and sat next to him.
Jesse Davis:I got talk, talking about it.
Jesse Davis:But she built her whole business around these quick recipe videos, and
Jesse Davis:there were quick edits and everybody does them now, but I just think I,
Jesse Davis:I just look for that all the time.
Jesse Davis:If I see someone and they've got a really cool edit, I'm like, I know
Jesse Davis:what effort that took to create it.
Jesse Davis:So I'm like, yes, I'll follow you.
Jesse Davis:So I think the editors of the world are probably ones that are
Jesse Davis:rather than the personalities.
Jesse Davis:But I, it's funny, like when you're in it you, there's certain things
Jesse Davis:that you look for that you appreciated wow, that shot took a lot of planning
Jesse Davis:or I wouldn't have done it like that.
Jesse Davis:And yeah that's always
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: impressive.
Jesse Davis:Oh, I, I do, I think Jesse like, The, you talked about Mr.
Jesse Davis:Beast and the stuff that they're doing.
Jesse Davis:I think a lot of people watch that for entertainment value and all
Jesse Davis:that kind of stuff, but definitely me and you are watching it going.
Jesse Davis:How did they do that bit?
Jesse Davis:Yeah, but what was it?
Jesse Davis:There must, the team must have been amazing to do this thing, see,
Jesse Davis:there's definitely a different lens you look at once you become a creator
Jesse Davis:and you're thinking like, okay, I need to make some cool videos.
Jesse Davis:You I don't think you ever watch videos the same again.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I remember going, I went to Film studies at college, and I remember
Jesse Davis:when we first watched it, we analyzed Psycho and the teacher said to me
Jesse Davis:at the time, he said, you'll never watch, you'll never appreciate videos
Jesse Davis:just for entertainment anymore.
Jesse Davis:You're always gonna be breaking them down.
Jesse Davis:And it's true.
Jesse Davis:It's true.
Jesse Davis:Never stopped.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:It's like such a curse.
Jesse Davis:So lately I've been less amazed by like quick edits and YouTube and things like
Jesse Davis:that for entertainment purposes and more of now I'm doing this professional
Jesse Davis:team that's, close to TV quality.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Drama videos.
Jesse Davis:And so I'm always looking at Hey, how can we, push the quality level more?
Jesse Davis:What lenses can we get?
Jesse Davis:What shots, how does this team film that?
Jesse Davis:I'm like watching other, like my wife's watching Thai tv and I'm like,
Jesse Davis:Ooh, this is a really good shot.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Look
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: at that.
Jesse Davis:Totally.
Jesse Davis:I, we watched a ambulance, I watched it on the plane.
Jesse Davis:We went to New York recently.
Jesse Davis:And again, I'm looking and I'm seeing all the drone shots and I'm like, oh, when we
Jesse Davis:had a drone, when we first got a drone, there's no way we could get that shot.
Jesse Davis:And then I was watching them and I was like, Oh my God,
Jesse Davis:it must have been amazing.
Jesse Davis:And then I saw a video with the director, Michael Bay, was it?
Jesse Davis:I can't remember who it was the director.
Jesse Davis:But he was talking about the drone pilots and saying there's no way we
Jesse Davis:could have done this film in that way, without these amazing pilots.
Jesse Davis:So yeah it is a curse.
Jesse Davis:I'm glad you used that word.
Jesse Davis:Cause that's what I say.
Jesse Davis:It's a curse once you get into it, cuz you just can't sit and
Jesse Davis:enjoy films in the same room.
Jesse Davis:You can't turn it off.
Jesse Davis:You can't
Jesse Davis:turn it off.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: No video production mind.
Jesse Davis:Last thing I'll ask you then, just because we're talking about teching, geeky stuff.
Jesse Davis:You've talked about filming on an iPhone at the start and
Jesse Davis:you've moved around equipment.
Jesse Davis:What do you thinks the piece of equipment that made the most difference?
Jesse Davis:After the iPhone?
Jesse Davis:Cause the obvious one is the iPhone.
Jesse Davis:You had the iPhone, everything you had was in your hand, available
Jesse Davis:to you, then you could film.
Jesse Davis:But when you started to move from that, like what's the, what did
Jesse Davis:you notice as the best investments?
Jesse Davis:I've, being a tech geek, I've got a lot of equipment.
Jesse Davis:When we moved from an iPhone, we moved to the Cannon M Series.
Jesse Davis:So I had an M6, which is similar to the M 50, and what I liked about it was
Jesse Davis:more microphone options, more modular.
Jesse Davis:It wasn't about the video quality so much, but I liked how you fix the settings
Jesse Davis:the way I wanted, and I liked how, I could have a removable microphone or I
Jesse Davis:could switch to a wireless if I wanted to and I could mount it to a tripod.
Jesse Davis:It was just like, and remove them from memory cards.
Jesse Davis:So that's a huge thing.
Jesse Davis:I hate phones trying to like connect cables and get the videos off the phone.
Jesse Davis:Yeah, it's horrible.
Jesse Davis:Being able to just pop that little memory card out and just stick
Jesse Davis:it into the computer and then bam, all my videos are there.
Jesse Davis:That was a game changer for production.
Jesse Davis:And then from there we've gone through many, many cameras.
Jesse Davis:Probably the biggest maybe camera that made like a big impact on us was the
Jesse Davis:Canon EOSR going up to a full frame.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Newer camera mirrorless.
Jesse Davis:That camera still to this day produces just amazing quality video.
Jesse Davis:We love the colors and I've got three of 'em now and I have three R
Jesse Davis:sixes, and still, I think the EOSR have the best color, it's such a
Jesse Davis:good camera for the money right now.
Jesse Davis:They're all discounted, but if you're a budding filmmaker that is a good
Jesse Davis:camera to pick up for the money.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Depends on what you're using it for.
Jesse Davis:There, there's never a perfect camera.
Jesse Davis:But that one was probably a real, that one with the road video
Jesse Davis:mic pro plus and a wide lens.
Jesse Davis:That's like our go-to YouTube setup up, we're always running
Jesse Davis:around with that thing.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah, and it's a, I think the transition you've
Jesse Davis:just said from iPhone to compact camera.
Jesse Davis:Mirrorless, you probably missed the digital slr stage cuz mirrorless
Jesse Davis:would've been a natural, I think the compact camera was mirrorless, right?
Jesse Davis:So that's fine.
Jesse Davis:No, the
Jesse Davis:compact camera, the M6 is, yeah, the M6 is mirrorless.
Jesse Davis:It's one of the small mirrorless.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:But not full frame.
JesseDavies:It's
Jesse Davis:not the full size.
Jesse Davis:We had a 60D Canon 60 D, which was like the first generation
Jesse Davis:of cannons to do video.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:And so I originally, before we did my daughter's channel.
Jesse Davis:We tried to do like a Lego show and it just, that camera didn't work for it.
Jesse Davis:There was no auto focus I had to like, set the focus manually and then okay,
Jesse Davis:everybody stay right here on this plane.
Jesse Davis:Do not move.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Keep everything in focus.
Jesse Davis:So I like that.
Jesse Davis:I like I can't deal with this, so let me, we just use the iPhones.
Jesse Davis:But yeah, after that, like the new newer auto focus systems are like so
Jesse Davis:much better with the face tracking.
Jesse Davis:So almost anything you get now is like pretty good.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Filmmakers have it so easy.
Jesse Davis:Like the amount of storage space you get for 20 bucks, the
Jesse Davis:shoot all day on two batteries.
Jesse Davis:It's ridiculous.
Jesse Davis:Like filmmakers from, even 10 years ago would be seriously jealous of the
Jesse Davis:stuff you have on the shelf right now.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah, totally.
Jesse Davis:The, we, I had a couple of Lumix GH5's s and the auto focus
Jesse Davis:on that was always shocking.
Jesse Davis:And I love that camera, but it's the exact same issue that you talked about, yeah.
Jesse Davis:And then when I got my latest Sony and everything just, works as quick as it
Jesse Davis:did on an iPhone or a compact camera.
Jesse Davis:And that's the thing that annoyed me the most is the more expensive they
Jesse Davis:got, the more manual they became.
Jesse Davis:Whereas now I've got a Sony A 7 C that I'm doing this on.
Jesse Davis:It's just, you just turn it on and everything, works, so away you go.
Jesse Davis:feel that pain and you added:Jesse Davis:the, we started with the Canons as well.
Jesse Davis:7D or something like that.
Jesse Davis:Oh yeah.
Jesse Davis:7D (actually 6D) seventies is not bad.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:I could you not best video with all this Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Camera talk for sure.
Jesse Davis:But yeah I just, I was just interested.
Jesse Davis:It's nice to see that you went through that through that
Jesse Davis:transition through the cameras and a great message for anybody that.
Jesse Davis:Where camera and gear is an excuse because you got started and
Jesse Davis:presumably in that first 12 months, you were still on the iPhone Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Until you started to move to something else.
Jesse Davis:So
Jesse Davis:gear is never an excuse.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: That, that stop.
Jesse Davis:You get into the first
Jesse Davis:million because I've seen some amazing filmmakers shoot
Jesse Davis:entire commercials on an iPhone or like a high-end Android phone and
Jesse Davis:it's just jaw droppingly amazing.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Like really.
Jesse Davis:To be honest, a lot of it's lighting, A lot of it's good audio.
Jesse Davis:A lot of it's knowing where to stand and you know where to position.
Jesse Davis:Things like taking a filmmaker course might make better video,
Jesse Davis:make you have better videos than upgrading to a better camera.
Jesse Davis:Eventually my, my attitude for towards gear is if you have a company and
Jesse Davis:you're making money, On video you almost owe it to your fans to make sure
Jesse Davis:that you know their support is going towards a better experience for them.
Jesse Davis:Yes.
Jesse Davis:So that's how I've always treated gear is that Hey, I'm gonna give
Jesse Davis:back to the fans if it's within my power to make this video look better
Jesse Davis:for you guys, I'm gonna do that.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.
Jesse Davis:A actually, it's a thing that I talk to about a lot of
Jesse Davis:entrepreneurs in the online space.
Jesse Davis:There's a lot of business owners where they sell in digital courses,
Jesse Davis:and I get on the digital course and it's a Zoom call and it's on this,
Jesse Davis:terrible device and I'm like, yeah, but I've spent $2,000 for this course.
Jesse Davis:Use the money that I gave you to upgrade your gear.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Just gimme some level of expected quality level, but when you're starting
Jesse Davis:using your phone and Zoom is fine.
Jesse Davis:There's no issue there.
Jesse Davis:But the more you level up and like you say, if you're a business owner,
Jesse Davis:you're making money outta this stuff, then upgrade where you can, you
Jesse Davis:know?
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:If you're pulling in six figures a year on a course or seven figures, yeah.
Jesse Davis:Get an okay camera, get a couple lights there's like a definite decrease
Jesse Davis:in quality or what do they call it?
Jesse Davis:Diminishing returns, right?
Jesse Davis:So there's a certain point where you get diminishing returns.
Jesse Davis:Like things will look a little bit better if you spend a lot more money.
Jesse Davis:But, just get the basics.
Jesse Davis:Get, have a decent microphone, have at least a couple lights, an okay camera
Jesse Davis:at least a modern, higher end smartphone is good and you can make awesome stuff.
Jesse Davis:Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Yeah.
Jesse Davis:Totally agree.
Jesse Davis:Wicked.
Jesse Davis:Jesse, thank you so much.
Jesse Davis:This is eight months.
Jesse Davis:This has took us to finally get here.
Jesse Davis:I paused it back in January, but I'm so delighted to have spent this time
Jesse Davis:with you, and I really appreciate you taking the time out to do this.
Jesse Davis:I know it's late for you as well.
Jesse Davis:Thank you so much.
Jesse Davis:Where can people find out more about you and your channels and all of your YouTube
Jesse Davis:stuff?
Jesse Davis:Okay.
Jesse Davis:If you want to check out my daughter's channel, it's in Thai, but you can
Jesse Davis:see us at Brianna's Secret Club.
Jesse Davis:Th and if you want to find out more about me, I do also do YouTube channel reviews.
Jesse Davis:If you want me to check out your channel, you can head on over to
Jesse Davis:prochannelreview.com or you can reach me at jesse@prochannelreview.com and
Jesse Davis:I'm happy to answer your questions.
Jesse Davis:My policy is if I can always take out 15 minutes of my day to help somebody,
Jesse Davis:I'm gonna always do that for free.
Jesse Davis:So if you have a quick question, shoot me a email and if you want me to do
Jesse Davis:an in-depth review, I can do that too.
Jesse Davis:Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Wicked amazing.
Jesse Davis:If you send me those links, I'll stick 'em on the episode when we put it out as well.
Jesse Davis:Jesse, thank you so much.
Jesse Davis:Really appreciate your time.
Jesse Davis:Have a wonderful rest of your evening and I'll speak to you very soon.
Jesse Davis:Okay,
Jesse Davis:thanks.
Jesse Davis:See ya.
Jesse Davis:Take care.
Jesse Davis:Bye-bye.
Jesse Davis:Bye.