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One Million Subscribers in One Year – Interview with Jesse Davis

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
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Matthew Hughes - King of Video: Is it possible to get to a hundred

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thousand subscribers in two months?

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Yes it is.

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Is it possible to quit your job and go full time YouTuber?

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Of course it is and in this episode, I'm interviewing Jesse

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Davis, who did just that with one of the channels that he started.

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He's got multiple channels now.

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He had a fantastic way of testing his audience at the start that I'd

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really like you to pay attention to.

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So this episode is definitely worth listening to all the way through Jesse.

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He's such a humble guy and he's got such a fantastic, amazing way of delivering

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absolute gold throughout the episode.

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So pay attention, listen up and enjoy the episode.

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And don't forget, if this is the first time listening to the YouTube Success

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Podcast, make sure you subscribe, follow, like, share all that kind of

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jazz, wherever you're listening from and don't forget to review the episode

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as well If you get a moment, all right.

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Thanks so much.

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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.

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