Randy Lau

Randy Lau: Growing @Madewithlau YouTube Channel to Over 10K in 3 Months (#273)

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Our Guest Today: Randy Lau

Randy Lau, creator and filmmaker behind @madewithlau on YouTube, sits down with me virtually to talk about the tremendous growth he’s had on YouTube.

Lau’s family story: As a child of Chinese immigrants, I’ve always been inspired by my parents’ decision to uproot their lives to start a new life in the U.S. My dad, a former restaurant owner and chef of 50 years, has always expressed his love through his incredible food. As a passionate filmmaker and storyteller, I‘ve always wanted to learn and tell my parents’ story. And thus, Made With Lau was born.

On September 1st, 2020, I started sharing my dad’s Chinese recipes and our family’s stories on our blog and YouTube channel for the world to enjoy. My aim is for Made With Lau to be a living repository of recipes, stories, life-lessons, and the Chinese culture that shapes us.

Watch Our Interview

Transcript

Randy Lau Growing @madewithlau YouTube channel to over 10K in 3 months! Chat with Creators Randy Lau – powered by Happy Scribe

Feisworld podcast helps independent creators live their creative and financial freedom. I’m your host, Fei Wu, and I’ll be taking you through a series of interviews with creators from around the world who are living life on their own terms. Each episode is packed with tactics, nuggets you can implement origin stories to make listening productive and enjoyable. We’re not only focused on the more aspirational stories, but relatable ones as well. We also have none interview based miniseries releasing throughout the year to help Deep dove into topics such as freelancing, marketing, even indie filmmaking that will benefit creators like you.

Show notes, lengths and ways to connect with the guests are available on Feisworld.com. Now onto the show. We are live hey, guys, this is Fei from Feisworld Media, I haven’t gone live in a little while now, but I am super, super thrilled to be here with my new friend. Randy Lau, who runs Made with Lau on YouTube is a really it’s getting to be a pretty big YouTube channel now. Over ten thousand subscribers.

Fourteen thousand in I think you guys have like more than ten thousand fans, subscribers and less than three months. And the channel is going to keep growing. They’re also on Instagram, getting a lot of traction there, made by law everywhere, made with Law Center, with well made with law. And so, Randy, welcome to Facebook. I’m so glad you’re here.

Thanks for having me. You’re excited.

Yeah, me too. And so tell us about Made with law or you know what? What is this channel about going to pretend that I’m so new to it, but I’m not happy. Been watching all the recipes. So tell us about the channel of your original creative idea. What triggered all of this to happen?

Yeah, so in a nutshell, it is a Chinese family recipe blog and YouTube channel, and we basically document my dad’s Chinese cooking. He’s been a chef for 50 years. And then the format of each video, we we share a recipe and then we have a conversation as a family. So, yeah, it’s kind of a mix of like. Like a cooking show like Muk Bang, and then there’s a lot of like I’d like to include a lot of like historical, cultural, personal elements, just like a lot of layers on top of just the recipe.

Yeah, that’s a bit that’s essentially it. And it’s just trying to document our heritage might celebrate my parents and their legacy and just have something to pass on to my son one day and our future kids and to share with like just share with the world. I think it’s a lot to be celebrated.

Yeah. And I think you’re you know, I feel like you’re such a humble person already because these videos let me clarify, first of all, I’m not about getting fancy camera and you have to be a thousand percent sure and all of that. But your videos are very, very high quality. That’s the first thing I notice that it’s so professionally done. So I immediately realize that I’m talking to and dealing with a filmmaker and and a marketer, someone who really knows how to market a new piece of content and to give my audience a quick idea, because I don’t want you guys to like I’m sure most of you guys have already left to stop watching this interview and just went right to the channel.

There’s a lot of very, very yummy recipes there. So well done. I mean, there are recipes online on their website also made with Liow dot com. And you can actually look at all the measurements and all these beautiful pictures step by step. The user experience just incredible. So you got to tell me, like, where did you gain these skills from? Are you a filmmaker? Tell us a bit more about your background.

Yeah, I think my career had a lot of twists and turns. So I think like lightning, I always studied engineering at UCLA Electrical Engineering and then I, which has nothing to do with what I do now. But then along the way, I learned how to program and did a lot of iPhone apps and startups of my own. Like the past six years I the past six years I’ve been self-employed. So like in that span, I’ve done a lot of like three, two or three tech startups.

And then we my wife and I started a. Digital marketing, consulting business, we didn’t market it too much, we help small businesses establish an online presence and then kind of like we were like for service. So we did like video social media websites, like email sales, just like every CEO, like a lot of everything you need to, like, establish a presence online. So I learned a lot of skills doing that. And then we found I started dabbling in video.

That’s a very serious hobby like four years ago. So, like I did a handful of commercial stuff four years ago.

Yeah, but then. Yeah, after I kind of like burned out from one start up and then I was like, I just want to explore video. I actually started like using playing with a camera, like more seriously, like ten years ago, like just photography. And I interned for, like a wedding photographer, which basically meant, like, I just watched this stuff while you go to the wedding. But I learned a lot watching him and he taught me a lot.

So I think I got a lot of basics from him. His name is Eric Eric Chen E. R. Chen. He’s a super talented niece. He’s still he’s still a wedding photographer. But, yeah, I learned a lot from him about just cameras and then. Then four years ago, I was like, I’m going to film a video every single day, so. Just like just not for, like cloud or to build a huge following, but just on my personal Instagram, I edited and shared a video like every four, three and a half years.

So every single day in this one. So I think I gained a lot of skill is doing that just like just all these pieces kind of fit together to, like, contribute to. Everything we’re doing on YouTube now or blog, so, you know, I think it’s it’s fascinating that I when I talk to creators, I hear this type of stories a lot. But yours obviously is very unique to your experience. But I often hear people who are successful on YouTube often either their first channel wasn’t very successful where they felt it was such a mess they had no idea what they were doing or they you oh, look at this channel that’s growing really rapidly right now.

But had all these failed projects, I had no idea what I was doing prior to that, where I kind of dipped my toe into many, many different things, my kind of my origin story as well. Most people around us are like like really say, what are you guys doing? What is that you want to do? You seem to be interested in too many things. Like did you have one point question yourself to say, all right, let me put on my blinders now let me get really, really good at one thing and not be distracted by other things like what was that journey for you like?

Well, that’s a good question. No, I think I yeah, I tried to. I think like every year or two, I have, like, brackets of my life where I really try to be focused on one thing and for a lot of that, that was like. A tech startup like I wanted, I think it’s not off the cards, but I I’ve I wanted to build something at the level of like. Area would be like something that’s so impactful that like millions of people use that in past culture in a positive way and I think.

I think like for a while, like my passion for video is kind of like budding, but I just kind of like. Ignored it or suppressed it as a way that, you know, I could have an impact on culture in a positive way that touches millions of people so. It was only very recently that I kind of leaned into. Like YouTube is a thing that. I could be really good at so I don’t know the answer to your question, but I think that’s like, yeah, recently.

I mean, I try to guess what you’ve you graduated around twenty ten, if I’m correct. Yes. OK, so good bad people. Yeah. I did look you up on like they’re going to give people an idea of our age and what where you are on your journey right now. It’s interesting, we started talking about YouTube guys, but I definitely want to get into culture origin stories and, you know, entrepreneurship and all that. But I did it, by the way, tell the subtle Asian YouTube network about something.

I’m so excited. A lot of people are like, I’m having lunch right now. I’m so excited. Lunch, I guess, lunch in California that not so much where I am right now, but people are excited because isn’t that exciting, spaceman? Whether it’s the Asian subtle U2 bus or like new You Tube networks, I watch the videos people create. I get so excited. I watch my baby. I have a cousin who is, I think of her a little baby.

She’s twenty five now. She just started her own YouTube channel. Makes me so thrilled to see her progress through all that. But I know it doesn’t matter how cool our videos look. There’s so much guys, there’s so much sweat, tears and self doubts that go into every single video because not a single video we’ve ever produced is what we consider as perfect or sometimes just good enough. Sometimes it’s like not good enough to us. So I guess for you, Randy, what is how do you feel about your videos?

You’ve been doing YouTube videos now for a number, I think since I don’t know how to look for five months at this point and how. Yeah. How do you feel about your first few videos versus the new videos right now? I think they’re great. It’s like.

I actually like we started planning in May and then. We started we launched in September. We like leading up to me, I think we feel like. Five, maybe five to 10 videos from from May to September, and we didn’t publish the first three, I think we scratched like the first three times we felt because I just wasn’t happy with it. And then the first so like I just took a while to figure out the format and, you know, kind of the flow of things and.

So you can see a remnant of that in my photo Fei Wu, the format is a little different from. From the video videos, now that Microsoft is the very first episode we published and. I think I’m still happy with it, but definitely I’m sure looking back even now, I’ll cringe at some things like like I picket, like the lighting or like the sound or like I messed up that camera angle or like. Yeah, I think for sure I think it’s it’s definitely like a battle of like.

Being a perfectionist, but also like just sticking to a deadline, because I think I could spend forever perfecting it, but but I committed. Like in May, I committed to when we launched in September, I’m not going to miss a single Tuesday of publishing. I think that’s so important. I think like. Like no one determined, I feel like, for a blog or YouTube channel or for a lot of businesses actually, but like especially for content driven businesses, it’s like you just have to show up regularly.

I think now I can’t say this for all of our subscribers, but like I think there’s a snippet there’s a section of our subscribers that look forward to. Tuesday, like 10 to 12 p.m., where we’re just going to publish something and I’m proud of not missing that, that’s a lot. Yeah, and I think it’s really important.

I think so. I think we underestimate not just the power, but also the love of interest and our subscribers have, because I know that you are a new channel, your mind started so funny. September twenty nineteen, almost exactly a year before you.

Yeah.

And the crazy thing is that I consider myself very lucky because of the I mean, pandemic and luck shouldn’t be even put in the same sentence. But we’ve all seen tremendous growth of online digital content in general and how people are now consuming content behavior wise very differently than they were before. And so for me, I definitely saw a trend of someone like myself explaining technology in a very intimidating way, helping people build their businesses online. And my channel started to gain traction right around March twenty ten.

And within a month of that time, we went from three hundred subscribers to a thousand subscribers. And we had the watch hours we before we had the subscriber count.

Yeah.

So, you know, so that was really fast. Yeah. So did you. So when you started the channel in September, you’re like I, I finally hit publish. Now are you thinking I must my channel must grow rapidly. I must hit a thousand. Ten thousand. What was the sort of the goal or the vision you have for your channel or did that really matter at all. Did you have something like I’m going to continue no matter what.

I think it’s funny because, like. Every year. Like my wife and I do like an annual retreat where we just map out goals for our lives and we start doing quarterly ones to but basically every quarter or every year we set like these big audacious goals. And like, actually for you to I didn’t have one when we launched. I was like because I I talked to a handful of you tutors I read articles on like how long it takes to monetize.

And it takes a long time. It’s like it can take like many months, years even for channels to do that. So I just had like no expectation. So I think I mean our channel. Is growing, I think it I think it’s just great because, like, it’s blown past all my expectations for what I thought it would be by now and every day, I just appreciate the new subscribers that we get.

How many guys are you getting every day? You guys are getting a lot. I mean, are you surprised me like my go? I’m still proud of like eleven thousand eight hundred people on yours is like fourteen thousand as of a month ago.

So, I mean, we really got like we got pretty fortunate. So right now we get probably. Like one hundred a day, OK, that’s about know, those are my high days, I remember that.

So like Tuesdays, like our peak, where we get like maybe one hundred seventy right now and then. Like on Monday, we get like 70 or something, which is not great, I’m like very grateful for that. When we started, I think, like I actually wrote down in my sheet of goals, like I just I’m going to spend as much time or energy at least promoting this as I do. Creating it is like that’s just as important.

So. I try not to like. Be spamming about it like I, I post my recipe in a lot of places, so like I like. 30 to 40 relevant Facebook groups like For Subprojects. And so I think because of that. And because of like the. The layers that we have. That elevate it beyond just a recipe blog or channel, like I think people resonate with like people in all those groups, be it like Asian Americans or Cantonese parents or people from points on or.

People who are just interested in Asian cooking, there’s a lot of, like really active groups out there that want the type of content that we’re making and then, yeah, so we actually I think in September I was just ecstatic because we passed a thousand subscribers and that within like. We have four weeks and then. So that was like, yes, Reynolds, we’re like half eligible for monetization. How long?

And then what about watch hours? How long did it take?

By then we were like way behind. I think we had, like. I think we only had like a thousand watch hours at that point.

Oh, yeah, those are hard to accumulate, so yeah.

Yeah. So we have like four videos by that point. So it’s just yeah, I just took a lot of time, but then we got pretty fortunate with. I think because you’re promoting in so many places like you, connected to a lot of people. So I connected with in October, this channel called Channel Chinese Cooking Demystified, which is one of the biggest Chinese food YouTube channels out there. Wow. And they just liked our stuff. And then they like I think by that, by the time we connected with them, we had like twenty five hundred subscribers.

This is like mid to late October and then. I chatted with Treston staff who are super nice people and. Like, I didn’t think anything of it, I was just like, oh, this is so cool, like I’m talking to these huge YouTube that and they’re they’re like like our stuff. So then I woke up the next morning. And then I like my eyes like. Like, I just couldn’t speak because we had we went from like twenty five hundred to thirty five hundred like within the span of like eight hours.

So I woke up and I was like, where is this coming from? And then they had posted about us like a community post.

Oh, wow. Not even a showdown, not even a collaboration in the video. It was then posting in their group somewhere, maybe Facebook group or something like that.

Yeah, just on YouTube, so like their YouTube, like you can do like written posts.

Oh, community posts, OK.

Yeah. Got some. Yeah, and they had written this long thing, and then we were one of the three channels they recommended and instantly that we got like seventy five hundred subscribers.

Wow. So look at that and saying, yeah, but I think that’s a there’s a key takeaway there. And by the way, guys, if you have questions, I realize a couple of questions that came in definitely centered along. I think there’s something not quite working with my life streaming service because I don’t see us live on LinkedIn, but I’ll be sure to post this video once again when we’re done. The easiest ways to actually find this conversation on YouTube, by the way, on a Feisworld Media, my name is in the window wherever you’re watching me.

And because this is a live video, there’s there’s a chat window where you can drop your questions there. I just want to give that a shout out. So with that said, there’s one key take away guys is like sometimes there’s a one thing you do, but it cannot be the only thing. It’s one of many, many things, time and effort. You spend things that you just send into the ether. You’re never going to hear back or.

Yeah, right. But there’s one thing, one creator, someone decided to talk about you and that person could be the company, which is YouTube, to make your video into a recommended video, suggested video. That’s how I saw tremendous views towards my all my top videos. YouTube decided is a good video you put in front of people. All of a sudden it’s over two hundred thousand views. So there’s nothing, no group. I can promote this video to reach two hundred thousand people.

But in Randy’s case, a huge a really, really big YouTube creator slash channel announced basically just mentioned you. And that was incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, I think it’s just like. I think I was very nervous at first about publishing it and a lot of these groups, because there’s so much good content out there that this might hold up to this. Like I compare myself a lot and it’s not healthy, but. I just can’t help it sometimes, but but, yeah, I think it’s just as a result of that we got. We got that shout out we in December, we blew past ten thousand subscribers because by that point we were like organically getting your more subscribers and more views.

I think we crossed the monetization threshold for watch hours and actually on my birthday. So November 15.

Wow. When was that? October, November.

November 15th. Oh, wow. Two and a half months in which I was like, just mind blown. I thought it would take. A very, very long time to get those watch hours, but, oh, man, this is so exciting. So I’m going to respect people who are watching right now. I’m going to get to their question. First of all, thank you, men, Lou, for Milou for submitting your question. And then I’m going to get to J.

I’m not going to pronounce your name. I’m going to get to Jay’s questions next up. First, ask what tactics can what what tactics can you share about peacefully promoting your content on Facebook groups and communities without coming off as self promoting? I have so much to say about this, but please, Randi, go ahead.

Oh, great question. Yeah, I think you just have to it really depends on the group like and for Facebook specifically, like, I think if you’re an Asian food, there’s two really, really active groups of Asian cooking and subtle Asian eats. And then from there, it’s just like you have to have good photography or videography, like it has to catch the eye. And then I think from there there’s certain things that I’ve been testing out like what exactly do you including info’s usually it’s like.

Just the whole recipe, you have to you have to include the whole recipe in those groups anyway, but like I think I think everything you post would be a complete nugget of information. Like, I don’t usually post teasers because that person, if they like your stuff, they’re going to watch it anyway. So, like, I try to avoid posting teasers like, oh, check out like I do include links to my stuff. But like, I they can just consume the whole thing.

They’re like, oh yeah. Right. I do include, like highlights from our videos, just like indicate like others. It’s interesting stuff here that you could learn. Sometimes I’ll post the whole video and certain groups, but I think. Yeah, so like. I found that video. Galleries do pretty well. So, like. Like, have a combination of multiple videos and photos in your posts. Have like rich text formatting, so don’t just post in plain text in Facebook groups, you can post, you can use headers and lists Bolds and that’s really important.

You want to make sure that if someone Scania, they can easily read it. And then I think I try to include like my a call to actions like towards the top, like check out this link to a few more. I found that one thing you should not do is just post a link and let that be the the block of media that Facebook previous post with, like Facebook does not like native YouTube links. So it’s better to use their native images and videos.

Right. Because people are more immersed by that. And then. Like you want you want to get the engagement first. So if you get enough engagement, then people are going to click. Then people are going to click on that whatever video or blog post you’re promoting. I think like an important thing, if you’re starting out, I’m still starting out. Like YouTube is not creating the impressions for you. So you really have to create as many impressions that you can on your own.

And it’s all a numbers game. So, like so like if you get hundreds of thousands of questions, you’ll get like five percent of those people click on video and then it’s a numbers game for sure. And can I add to what you just said, Randi, in terms of podcasts as well, that I think what men is also maybe wondering, how do you not get slammed by the moderator of the group? And to say that you’re too self promotional?

There are a couple of things I realize we could do, which is especially when we post in groups that we don’t own, like we didn’t start, that it’s important to offer as much value as possible. I notice that you can engage within comments. So instead of saying new videos out, it’s great video, you should definitely check it out, maybe try to engage with people at the Commons level trying to help them solve certain things. Filmmakers or content creators tend to have a lot of questions like the question you just asked.

So engage with them that way so they get to know you as a creator. Another way, I notice if you want to create or post your own original content, i.e. your video, you can actually ask a question as well, especially if you’re a creator. We’re not sure about whether this piece of content is good or no good. I mean, you’ve got to be a little careful when you ask that question because people want to know the type of feedback you’re asking for.

Is it the general content? Is the flow of the content? Is that the thumbnail? These are the lighting. So you don’t want people to bombard you with the feedback you’re not exactly seeking for. Whenever you ask a question, you’ve got to kind of adjust yourself mentally. You put yourself in a certain situation. You may get all kinds of feedback, but whenever you do ask for feedback, ask questions and ask people to be of contribution, the engagement goes up.

Also, in general, I’m not sure if you saw this, Randi. Whenever you ask a question, I notice that you do. Sometimes you ask a question before your long post, like, hey, what do you what do you guys think? Think of these the title, what do you think I should produce next? And people really kind of jumping in trying to help you. And that’s how your engagement goes up as well.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think those a really great points. I think I think also, like, if you if there’s a particular community that you really enjoy being a part of, I think like just engaging as an authentic community member helps you. And I like I’ve met a lot of creators like you and other food bloggers and YouTube viewers. And now it’s just like we support each other in those groups. It’s like I see a post from them or just like.

Yeah, you just you just connecting as a human, like I like I like seeing what you’re posting and supporting you and I’m like, yeah, I think it’s like asking each other questions, kind of learning from each other live and and sharing the lessons that we’ve learned. Because I don’t think it matters. If you have three subscribers, you have three million subscribers. There’s so many lessons you learned along the way versus talk about those openly. We talk we just talk about CPM right before the start of this recording and we can be completely honest with each other.

There is no such thing, in my opinion, that I’m so ahead of you. I make more money. Therefore, that makes me more successful. Yeah, nothing like that in the creator’s world, really.

Yeah, it’s like it’s very supportive, like I say, I remember thinking like. When we started, like. All these guys are like creating a recipe that I’ve done, like their asked to crush the competition, but like I’ve actually met some of them like twenty six Nimesulide and they’re super nice. I think everyone’s just. Generally really friendly, I haven’t met anyone that would prove otherwise, but I think everyone’s willing to be a friend if you connect in the right way.

Very true. Very true. And and so I have a second question from Jay. Would you ever cross over into other mediums? What are your thoughts, I guess? Oh, I can interpret this question in many different ways. I as I was thinking, like the beginning before I read it fully, I was thinking what you kind of cross over to other genre or types of videos from cooking shows and into blogs or whatever. And then now I’m reading it.

I was thinking, oh, I actually could mean other things, like actual mediums, like into could be different platforms like tick tock, like something else. So what’s your take your choice of which answer which I draw.

Yes. Yes. To all of it. Yeah. I think. I think there’s. A lot to explore, like for sure. One thing we want to do. Sad, like a beautiful, like beautiful typography for talk, like photography and a book, it would just be like a nice family heirloom. And then, uh, yeah, that’s that’s definitely on the horizon. I think we’ve experimented with. Like short form stuff, like to talk and.

He has done like one video, but it didn’t do that well, but I think it’s definitely something there. I think, like, I’ve just. It’s just another authentic platform or a way to digest media. This is hard for us because our videos are usually like 15 to 20 minutes long. So how do I it’s just a game of subtraction. And in order to get a tick tock video out, that’s like 30 to 60 seconds.

So I was wondering about that. Right onto tick tock. For those of you who are watching, in case you’re interested, there are like two authentic platforms left, LinkedIn and Tick Tock and LinkedIn has just changed the algorithm on videos. I don’t know what’s going on there. If you do now, please leave me a comment. But Tick Tock is the only platform left where it sends your content, your video to one hundred fifty people always. And based on their engagement, it decides whether it opens up the funnel or close it down.

It also has a lot to do with where you’re posting and learning. This from my producer, Hermione, which is if you have a piece of content really tailored to San Francisco or the United States and you have your visa posting in Sweden or Argentina, it’s actually it’s going to hurt your content unless we’re experimenting with the A’s, using VPN, using VPN, because it’s very common for content creators to work with people overseas. And you’re from a different location.

So I just never realized that that has something to do with where your post is interesting. Yeah. So with that said, right now, I was thinking like a couple of formats I can work so well with food, blogging and videos. Are you, can you, can you condense the videos down to 60 seconds, the beginning, middle and end where you kind of reveals the quick flow were like touch points of the videos and to show people something like that.

Yeah, I think I think it’s definitely something we want to do is just like I think right now it’s like how do I do anything other than this one video in a blog.

So I’m like so exhausting.

Yeah. Because it’s it’s like it’s a lot of work. It’s like I do want to do it. It’s just like. There’s a lot of things I want to do as well, not a sign of that, so it’s just like kind of picking and choosing what we focus on, so. Yeah, but I think there’s so much potential there and I think I think our content would do pretty well there. I just need to find time to do it.

Yeah. And a big shout out to your wife. Some some people may not know this, but, you know Cat, right. Who’s very supportive of your work. You know, she does Instagram. I believe that’s what you said. It’s beautiful. Instagram account, Instagram. Any of these platforms could easily turn into a full time job. I’ve been there, done that, and I agree with you. So right now, for example, for my channel, the frequency is about twice a week.

I try very, very hard to stick to a schedule, meaning the same time, same same day of the week. Honestly, I sometimes I really fall off the schedule because a lot of what I do, I feel like it’s so time sensitive. Maybe it’s not all that sensitive is like self self-employed, but it just feels like a new piece of software come out when the new feature comes out. I want to be the first one to talk about this.

As you know, Randi, like the YouTube channel is like everybody’s on the new thing. So I have my new thing content and I have a lot of the evergreen content. And it’s it’s a tough call sometimes.

Yeah.

I mean, how do you I feel like your content is so evergreen. It’s like the dish doesn’t matter. Sure. There’s some winter dishes, but like those dishes to me very close to my heart, I feel like I don’t make any of them any any day of any day of the year.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s kind of like that was kind of my. Take on it like I wanted, I mean, I think a lot of food is ever gained by nature, but like there are some like trendy foods and like for sure like to talk to random food. But I think it’s so true. There are definitely trendy foods.

Yeah. So I think like. Like a long time ago, I read like four hour work week by Tim Ferriss and that, like, I just. I for the longest time, I wanted to have some aspect of that in my life and we did with like one of our previous businesses, but I think for I think what’s cool about YouTube is like. If you create evergreen content on a blog or on YouTube and you get it to rank, it’s like that video will continue to produce income for you forever.

Yeah. Yeah, so I think that’s what’s. On the business side, that’s what’s exciting about what we’re building is because like this, not only will this continue to be educational for generations to come, but it will also help provide income for our family for generations to come.

So for sure, that’s. You know, speaking of income, one area I think that’s how you found me is I think a couple of months ago I started sharing analytics from a YouTube channel. I openly talked about, you know, how to how much I made in twenty twenty, how to understand the most popular video and all that. So, you know, I’m very into that topic. What are some of the things you guys are thinking about in relation to made with law?

What are some of the more passive incomes you’re witnessing? And also now you have sponsored content. We’re not going to talk about sponsor revenue where you even mention names or anything like that. But give us an kind of a crash course on what you’ve learned in the past couple of months.

Well, it’s all very new to me. We’ve been Monitise for like two months now. It was actually so our income streams are. Are you to add revenue, which is our biggest one, and then we have our Amazon affiliates, which is. Tied with our blog revenue, so blog we just turned Google assets on. And then, yeah, so those are the three income sources right now, and then we’re starting to engage with sponsors which which are excited about, but I think.

Yeah, from from that perspective is actually, I don’t know, I think it’s just like. It’s just interesting to see, you know, like. What videos generate, what sort of income and just seeing ad rates fluctuate and it’s definitely like. It’s definitely not always linear, like you think that one B will do well or you think that your income will grow. I mean, I have such a limited time frame of income to look at, but I even watching your income report like your your income fluctuated over the year.

Yeah. Yeah. So it’s just I think it’s just like for me, I think it’s just. The biggest. Game I have mentally with myself is like just being OK with ebbs and flows and not expecting everything to be right, like a linear increase every week or month.

Yeah, exactly. That’s such a good observation. YouTube revenue streams do, especially YouTube ads fluctuate all the time. And there’s so many elements, CPMs related to how much you get paid per thousand views. But a lot of that also has to do with watch time, how long people stay on your channel and how much advertisers are willing to pay. And so, for example, I saw a dip in the number of views during between Christmas and New Year.

So there were half as many views on my videos. But the CPM more or less stayed, so the revenue kind of decreased. I have thought my channels over and as soon as like January fourth or the sixth hit, we went back up again. So that was really, really encouraging. But I want to go back to one of the things you said, Randi, regards to working with sponsors. You said approaching sponsors. So do you mean you are actively approaching sponsors versus sponsors reaching out to you directly?

Because now you’re making a name here on YouTube where both tell us more about that.

Yeah. So I wish I had more. Maybe in the future conversation will have more to share about this. I think so far my f my. My. Efforts in that regard are not successful in the financial standpoint at least, but like. And I think so we had opportunities to work with two brands that are fairly well known, and I I really value my time and my worth, and I think I negotiated a little too high. So basically they said, we’ll work with you later, basically.

So, yeah. So when one brand reached out to us, like last week actually, and I was super excited to work with them and. Like, I don’t really have any awareness as to what industry rates are, but I think. I was like, this is what I think our view is worth, and they’re like, well, we can’t pay that. Well, what about this and the like? Well, this is our budget. And I was like.

No, they’ll do it, but then by the time I said, all right, I’ll do it, like they had already picked their cars for the campaign, so. Yeah, so that was kind of a bummer, but I think like that. I’m proud of negotiating and not taking pennies for something that’s worth a lot more than that, but. But it is like it was kind of a bummer. It was like, dang, I have a lottery, right?

It’s a bit of a lottery for people who just started monetizing. And I think it’s a very encouraging conversation because now they’re learning that they, too, might be approached by sponsors. So a couple of ways to go about if I can share kind of what I have learned, if I’m using I’m using a ton of software for my business and I use a set of specific types of software for YouTube, for streaming. So especially if I find how much I love the software, that is an incentive for me to proactively reach out to the brand.

And what I mean by that is I go to their website and I get in touch with maybe the right person. I try very hard not to send a info X, Y, Z. Nobody is reading those inboxes or whatever. So I try to get into a real person. I try to find what’s called an influencer program. So no matter how small you are as a YouTube, are you are now an influencer, whether you like it or not.

That word is so overused. So also, alternatively, Twitter is a really good place. Twitter as well as Facebook page and groups are closely monitored, especially by some of the bigger brands. They will help you round your message to the right department. So that’s one way I try to be proactive. I want to be even more proactive. So what I do, maybe I just get my numbers and my my weekly to DOS out there is I try to set 30 minutes every week and I say I contact five sponsors that I really like.

And if that week I don’t feel inspire and I don’t want to just work with sponsors, I don’t email anybody because the last thing I want to do is email some sort of lighting company. I have no interest in using their lights, you know, so you’ve got to be a little careful. But these days, I’m very lucky to have been approached by brands where I can evaluate and say, wow, this this is really good when they approach you.

A lot of the times as of right now, I’ve had my channel for a little while. They have a good understanding of who I am and what I do. So most of those are really high quality leads for me. I’ve never received something like, oh, you know, we’re coming from this plumber company because you are a plumber YouTube channel because we’re not and go from there. I also ask about their budget and they’re I’m not sure how you feel about this, Randi.

There seems to be a way they’re using some sort of software where they have some experience to understand based on your subscriber count your watch how the data is public. Guys go to social blade, dotcom, social blades or blade. I forgot you get a I think Blade or Cingular, I think. And then they get all the watch time. They know how many people subscribe, how often they subscribe each month. So they guess the numbers are quite closely to how much they should be paying you and when in doubt.

Sometimes I take a couple of times I said, OK, I think I should charge X. And then instead I said, let me just be quiet and see what they say. And sometimes they come back with twice the amount of money. So you got to be the more people you talk to, the better off you will be.

So those are my findings is great advice. So you reach out to five sponsors a week for like I think I’m more like five sponsors a month. To be honest, I should do it more frequently that even though that was a goal, I feel like sometimes like we set goals for ourselves because out of every 10, 20 sponsors, you might never hear back from anybody. Right. And you wait. But for me, I said the goal without realizing that maybe I don’t want to work with that many people.

When you get a when you get a sponsor, that sponsor is sponsoring a single video. A video is a lot of work. So if I get too many sponsors, I essentially have no place to put them right now. I currently work with right. I currently work with three sponsors, but one of them is on a retainer. So they buy more than one video a month. And there are also previous sponsors who are no, I’m no longer working with.

So, you know, speaking of Evenflo.

Yeah.

The revenue as well as with a number of sponsors.

Yeah, I think for like I think for me, I’m. I’m just starting to think about reaching out to sponsors, so this is really great advice, but also it’s like for. Like. For my channel, I feel like my dad, he’s very steeped in the ways that he has done things, so I try to be. I feel like it’s like a fine line because, like if I’m if I’m having him use a brand that he would not use otherwise, it’s like.

How do I address that? So I kind of I don’t know, it’s like it’s like just like this fine line of like defending your brand and not selling out, like I don’t even know. I don’t know. Maybe it’s an insecurity. Like, well, your audience call you out for that or I mean, I haven’t we don’t have a sponsored product, so I don’t know what the reaction is, but. Yeah, I think it’s it’s just something I think about as we approach as we navigate this new era of being funded by sponsors and approaching others.

Yeah, I mean, you’re also working with your dad in essentially working with your family. There are a lot of members world I know behind the scenes on and off screen. But it’s definitely it’s more complex when you work with a partner. And sometimes people argue that it’s more complex when you work with a family member on top of that and you know your dad, not your son. Now, you’re not somebody at the same level. We’re next generation to you.

So you definitely have to respect their opinion, especially your dad is like the star of your channel. So I don’t I don’t like the random advice out there, but I almost feel like for you there, there’s a bigger there’s a bigger array of brands you could potentially go back to by looking at the packages of whatever. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Noodle soup, like broth, all these things. And whereas for me like there’s a challenge, there’s like come with, you know, there’s a kind of a not rivalry, but there are also things that I’m using for this for X that I can really use another brand for.

I almost it’s yeah. Really like there would be of competition. So something like that I got to be careful with. But I don’t there’s so many reasons in cooking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve actually I’ve, I’ve been eyeing a few ingredient brands that we could potentially do sponsorships with and like literally like every week as we use some of those ingredients, like every single time we cook, so.

One thing I love about is your media kit, which I will include, I ran out of character counts talking about your story and then everything. I have to go back. You guys have to come back wherever you’re watching. Those are to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube description’s. But Randee or made with Liow has like the most fantastic media could have ever, ever seen. Made me so embarrassed by my one page Fais WorldCom Foresi sponsorship. I just got screenshots literally from YouTube.

That’s it. But Randi’s media kit is top notch. It’s like like a Nike’s media kit where you want to talk about that. You actually want to take a look at the example, because the graphics are gorgeous, but also the numbers really matter. And not only me with Lao’s number, but like industry average on the right hand side, you want to show them the numbers so the sponsors will pick it up to say, wow, look at this media kid.

I know the type of quality video I’m going to get just by looking at a media kit like imagine how unbelievable the videos are themselves going to be. So good job there, really.

Thank you. Yeah. They’re impressive. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We, we, I, I feel like. I just I just wanted to like. I think I made it for, like one of our pitches to a brand and I just wanted to, like, wow them so much. I don’t know that it did, but but I’m I’m proud of how it looks. But, yeah, I just wanted a way to capture, like.

You know. We are a new channel and we are new, like we don’t have the numbers yet of some mega influencers, but we are growing extremely fast. So that that was kind of the main. Goal I wanted to impress upon the sponsors I was engaging with is just like we are small but very mighty.

Yeah, some of mighty like for sure within within like half a year year’s time. We’re be much bigger than we are now. So work with us now.

Yeah, it is much cheaper to work with us now. Exactly. Because now if they work with that’s something I didn’t even think about. If they work with you now, the videos will just say permanent or semi-permanent, whatever. Right. It’s on YouTube. It is going to continue to to accumulate views and interaction. And so imagine if they pay you X amount of dollars. Now, the video, lets hope, fingers crossed, will be popular a year from now, but a year from now you won’t be charging the same amount.

You’ll be charging the right amount of what you do now at the game changes rapidly.

Yeah, it really is exponential, like once you start, like once you start like Dagan’s like like having YouTube help recommend you and, you know, like it just it just snowballs. And I think it like. And that’s what’s exciting about it, so I just wanted to, like, capture that in our media, kids like we are snowballing really quickly. I don’t know if it’s like too many metrics and overwhelming in that sense, but, like, I just wanted to.

Also, just for me to, like, look back and be like, wow, you’re doing this, you know. Yeah, a celebration every time I make it or update it.

That’s such a great idea that if you’re if you guys are creating on YouTube and you haven’t taken any screenshots of where you are right now or wherever, because YouTube comes with a lot of built in analytics, take screenshots. And those are really interesting, even though YouTube does show you the historical stuff. But there’s something about the now portion of it. Yeah, don’t give back. All right.

Just view. Yeah, actually, it’s kind of funny, like my mom, she does a lot behind the scenes and she kind of looks like my dad’s kind of impatient sometimes. So she kind of arrangement, but. Initially, I don’t know, she still does this feel like, at least for the first month or two? Like every time I saw her, she’d, like, know what our subscriber tells us she, like she would like, write it down every morning, even though she had access to the analytics app.

She just wrote it down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom does the same thing. My mom knows my current account. I don’t go mom.

That’s that’s hilarious. Yeah. I mean, they’re really invested. That’s great. Yeah. Yeah. But I think she yeah. She had an intuition to just say, you know, like you want to remember these things celebrate where at intuition and the women it turns out the women of the family actually run the channel. So when you have that, when you you have a daughter one day and you know, I’m sure she will be joining the force then be like a star.

So that would be so cool. Yeah.

Yeah, I know that. Where if you have some a few extra minutes, I realized I haven’t really gone into the culture part, but I have to say I want to I want you to do you have you have a hard stop at four o’clock. No, no, no, no. Oh OK. Just a few more minutes, because I have to say that when I watch your parents shop at Costco or something and they go shopping together, they talk about how to pick out the better fish.

And it was just so touching. I’ve been in this country for 20 years and those are the moments where I only see if I go to Chinatown and if I go back to China. But it just I don’t know how to describe it, man. It’s just so sweet. And then to watch them so in sync, they’re in such a loving, loving relationship after so many years, I’m sure, raising you guys, I was so touched that because I thought it was like me and my parents really were like that, like fight.

They never went grocery shopping together because they would be fighting. But your parents just like, so cute, so perfect.

So, yeah, there really are. I mean, my dad is like he’s like I said, he’s kind of like you kind of a temper and he’s impatient, but he like they love each other. So it’s just like yeah. I think like part of. Part of what I want to capture in our videos is like. Just those idiosyncrasies of my parents relationship and how they interact with each other, with us, with our grandson, I actually read.

I don’t remember who is saying it. I think it was like. Some ABC writer giving advice on how to document someone’s life and. She was just I can’t I’m blanking on the name, but she was a very famous anchor. That’s OK. Yeah, but basically she was like, you should try to capture all the idiosyncrasies and like. If you I didn’t know what that word meant until very recently, but it basically means like. Just all the quirks that make someone unique and so I really like.

Those moments that I capture on camera are like gold, because I think it just it just defines who my parents are and like a very. Human level and just catching those interactions is like, I think, as important. As the recipe or their cultural traditions, because it’s just like that’s who they are and I’d like to see that play out on videos like, oh, you kind of get to know who they are. So I think that’s part of what drives our engagement is because, like because of moments like that, it’s like you get to sit down with us, eat with them, and you get to see them being like bickering at each other, like being annoying for a store clerk or like, you know, like.

Yeah, so I think that level of personality. And idiosyncrasy helps, like connect viewers with what we’re sharing. Yeah, like the people like us, especially the family behind the YouTube channel.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, for this is a great editing advice and observation wise. But also when you’re sitting in front of final camera or whatever, whatever you use for editing. And that definitely don’t underestimate the personality and the flaws or the imperfections that are part of your videos. And I, I still remember this young woman. She must have been 16, 17 years old, talking about YouTube growth. And, you know, she was tired.

She’s like, I’m really tired. I’m wearing pajamas. But it’s time to record a video. I was like, oh, I can relate because most of the time I definitely don’t look the way I wanted to look before I have to turn on the camera. And halfway through her talking, her phone was clearly leaning on a book and just go like literally and you see the ceiling and then you see, like, she was in like a little girl or whatever.

And there’s all the cosmic whatever, like stars on our ceiling barriers. She’s like, put it. And she didn’t take that part out. And that’s still to this day is like what I thought it was so real about that video. Yeah. About growth, about and then all the imperfections and now those are actually makes your video really stand out. Um, but I, I think the fact also that your dad speaks Cantonese and you didn’t make them speak English necessarily.

So they’re in their comfort zone. They’re cutting slicing and they’re just talking to the camera. Was that intentional for them to stick to the Chinese language?

Yeah, that was like I it took me a long time to kind of wrap my head around, like, what languages we’re going to present in. So, like the first few videos. Actually had me and my mom up there with my dad talking, and it was just like I thought it would be. Helpful to have my mom explained in English and then my dad explained in Chinese. So I was like, OK, that’ll work, but then when I was editing it and and during the whole filming, it was like it just didn’t flow.

My dad had to, like, wait for him on, like, we wanted things. And, like, you can’t wait that long because you’re going to overcook something.

All right.

So, yeah. So we very quickly scrapped that. But I think like. Oh, yeah. So I think just just kind of discovering it in the process of editing, it was like, all right, we should just do this. And which entails like a lot of hours of subtitling. But I think it’s I think it’s worth it because I think it’s. I think there’s an element of like cultural preservation that I want to celebrate, because I think Castanias in some places is a dying language.

So as much as we can, like I want like I want to learn more in Cantonese is like at my I would equate it to like a kindergartner’s level of Cantonese, really.

I should learn to have Cantonese and I don’t speak any.

So yeah it’s hard, it’s. Yeah. So yeah I think like for me it’s just like learning Cantonese and then I think just I thought a lot about the languages and how I present them like I could just. Have English subtitles, but then I feel like my dad wouldn’t understand what I was saying and like, I think that’s a missed opportunity to kind of. Like, preserve that language if we don’t have Chinese subtitles. Yeah, so, yeah, I think a lot of the creative decisions are driven by like my family because like I like it takes me a long, long, long time to generate Chinese subtitles.

But like, if I don’t, then my dad won’t understand what we’re saying in English, which is really important to me because we’ve had a language barrier our whole lives. So I think this is like. Yeah, it’s just like I, I just want this to be accessible for him, for everyone, for and just have a resource of many layers for many years to come.

Yeah. I mean, I just it just occurred to me one more thing, which is, you know, your whole family, even including your mom, looking at the subscriber count, I can just imagine your mom right now, like as we’re talking probably like refreshing at five and like going to YouTube and to check things out. How long did it take or did you have to convince both of your parents who are clearly from a different generation about your endeavor, this family endeavor on YouTube?

Or did you ever get any eyebrows to be like what? You know?

So that’s funny. Yeah, so. They they’ve been trying to convince me to get a job at, like a cushy tech firm, you know, for a long time, and I think they gave up years ago because they’re like, oh, you should go work at Google and get health insurance, which some days that sounds pretty nice. But I think. When I approached them to do this YouTube channel like they were. They’re on board pretty quickly, like I think I kind of explain to my mom, like.

You know what? Numbers, really big channels are pulling and I was like, this is going to take years, but I think we can get there multiple times.

Six figures for those you guys watching.

Yeah, like even like blogs. Just blogs. No YouTube, like the top tier of blogs. They they play on like six figures of ad revenue every month just passively.

And those are Hoder. I think you I don’t know, maybe we could get into a debate for like another hour. But I think you did so much easier than blogging because there’s so many more blogs out there.

Yeah, it’s a lot harder on board anyway, that’s all, but yeah, so I think like. From a financial standpoint, which my parents obviously care about because it affects our well-being, but I think. They were on board pretty quickly, and my dad, he was he didn’t really say much when I was talking to him, but like two days later, he’s was like, all right, I differences in port go. So I was like, Dad, I’m not ready.

Like, I haven’t done anything out since.

So my mom would do the same thing. Absolutely.

Yeah, so and then, like my my wife cat was like, oh, we should just like we could we could do it for fun or we could just try it. And then immediately my mom, she’s like, just decide. And she’s like, oh, and then we got to get like one of those portable burners so we can use our kitchen island camera angle. Yeah, she’s just yeah. She she’s very entrepreneurial. Yeah. So it was I have their support which is really nice and I literally could not do without them.

So I’m just grateful that they’re as supportive as they are.

I think I just found my title, new title for this episode should be I just the process I’m for. Let’s go. That’s the way to go because you’re going to I just my mom cooks all my mom lives with me. She cooks all day. I wake up like I just my mom’s like, are you awake? Like, yes, it’s the first thing in the morning. And then within five seconds, like breakfast is ready, come down like, you know, running like literally have the run downstairs.

But I notice I try to do some things that she cooks make me feel like it’s part of my culture. I want to preserve this moment and my moment with her. And every time the Graham story breaks after she’s not exactly like your dad, what am I trying to do? Instagram story. I notice something she’s doing, chopping and all that have to be normal. Don’t rush yourself. Don’t cut any fingers off. And now is Instagram store and I can just see she’s so disoriented.

She’s like, and then you do. Oh, why is she changing what she was doing. And she just like and then food like flying everywhere. But your dad’s like very very professional.

Like his. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He’s, he, he’s like I think. He’s super confident about, like, literally everything he does. I think he is he has no stage like the day one of our first shoot, he he just went he didn’t do we not do a second take? Because I think he he’s like, this is like what he knows. Like he could do this in his sleep. He literally had to be a restaurant menu, his old restaurant menu with like.

Over two hundred things on it, and it’s like I can make all of this content that’s content for like eight years. We wouldn’t do the same thing. And and then my mom. Yeah, actually, like, I didn’t prompter. I thought it’d be cute for her to do, like, all the Astros. So most of our videos she does the Astros like asking people anyway. So I didn’t prompter and then she was like, make sure you subscribe to what I watch is enough YouTube to know, you know, like she knows what a call to action is.

Just crazy.

I mean, this is so good. This is it. This is why we’re laughing, because this is why people are watching your channel. They’re thinking about all the things they’re not seeing is behind the scenes conversations. And I mean, these are the I mean, these are forget about the YouTube channel. These are the moments that you as a family will forever cherish for. Yeah.

A hundred years from now. So, yeah, I think I think that’s like for me, like, this is like the best thing that’s happened to my career, even though it wasn’t like. Even though it’s not like the startup, the big startup that I’ve always been coveting, I’ve never found something that fulfills me on a personal level. Like, if you take away monetization, you take away like the growth. I think like just having these moments for our family is super important.

And I think like I think people are resonating that with. Being able to see Cantonese being preserved on camera. But also, too, it’s like I have experience, like I think it’s just it’s just such a great inflection point for me because I have all that personal fulfillment and I can see the stars aligning where this becomes like a much bigger channel or a much bigger blog. So it’s just like I’ve never been more motivated because I think it’s just like it’s just so aligned with what I want to do.

And I think I can see. I can see, I can see the success that I’ve always been after. So and this time I think Rite Aid touches my heart so much that when I hear that because and for those of you guys who are watching, I mean, in the beginning can be really hard. Maybe. Randy, success seems really easy on YouTube, but there’s so much work that he put it before you even saw the first episode or first video and two for for me to hear that I not only see the success, I think it only gets sweeter from here.

And I really hope you and your family continue and persevere through the hardships, if any comes your way, because not only you get to see the success, that could be monitary. Great, that you can reinvest into hiring people, camera equipment. But you are with your family, the people you treasure the most. You get to spend time with your parents, otherwise you wouldn’t. You know, if you work at a startup, forget about startup startup.

You’ll never get to see any of your family. But at Google, then you’re not there. You’re you’re doing all this with your family. I’m doing a lot of work with my mom right now. And she’s so incredibly talented artist who painted all these paintings behind me. Oh, well, yeah. These are awesome trades like seventy inches long and. Wow. Yeah. She’s a Forbidden City artist who retired and decided to she moved in with me and she’s creating all of these things.

She’s a guanyu insane.

Yeah.

But it’s also good and pure.

So that’s my producer Hermione as our family’s good friend Whorey was like, wow. And there’s so many more and there’s so many more. Exactly. We get to work with our parents and this is part of our heritage and their story to be carried on. And man is is so cool. This is so good. We got it. We got to do this again because they’re going to be because yeah. Maybe life is going to surpass fifty thousand one hundred thousand subscribers I think by June this year.

So sponsor their videos now if you’re watching the brand. Seriously, because I better. Yeah, I better reserve. Oh my God. There’s another question. That’s it. Yeah. Reserve this for our own legacy. It just it’s so I know what you mean by like that. I wake, I go to sleep happy, I wake up literally thinking about my YouTube channel and nobody likes that. It’s not money, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Is that. Yeah. I think it’s like for me it’s like just having a creative focus I can see impacting people. That’s like my payment more than more than the money. I think I’m very excited about the money for sure. But like I think, I think at the end of the day it’s just like fulfillment. You know, you just you get to create you get to be artistic. You get to document something that’s important and share it with people that seem to be resonating with it.

So it’s just make decisions.

Yeah. You make other decisions as opposed to working, advertising, marketing a piece of thumbnail or get twelve hundred revisions. I never see the light of day. And now whatever you put out there, people are following you. They’re not following New York Times or whatever. Right. They’re falling, literally falling your channel and your parents. So we’re going to I think we’re going to try to conclude this interview. There’s one more question that came in. I’ll ask you, Randy, what is something that you did that had a huge and positive impact in your life?

What? And with that?

I like to live my life or yeah, yeah, anything that comes to mind and any any point in your life doesn’t have to be the most impactful.

Her. All right, pick one, OK, two things that come to mind, they all happened within like a year of each other. I read the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which in the short term had a very depressing impact on my life because I just like freaked out about my life and like, I didn’t know what I wanted. Basically, the second chapter in that book is beginning with the end in mind. And then it has to like plan out all the things or write out all the things you see yourself being at the end of your life.

So I kind of I did that and then I did that exercise for like that year of college. I was in college a senior, and then I realized everything I wrote I didn’t want for myself. So I, like, freaked out because I didn’t know. Like, I just felt like a cookie cutter, like just regurgitated all these things that I thought I should want. So then I took like almost a year to kind of reflect. On very fundamental things like why is family important, why our friends important?

I just wanted my own answer for those things. So that time of reflection was. Very impactful. OK, I guess I’ll say three things and then the second is kind of a softball. But when I met my wife. Yeah, and that was like 10 years ago about our car ride and I had written down, I’m like very like journaling and doing visionary, like writing out my visions for my life. So I just had I had just.

Ended a relationship I was cheated on and then I. It’s kind of just like reflecting a lot of like who do I want as a partner? I wrote down the list of things like 50 pages on it. And one of those things is like very serious and idiosyncratic. Like what? Like I want a girl I can take to the library and that’s for. Like nine months later, like my now wife, we were on a car ride, I was like a social activity, like going out from UCLA to San Francisco for the weekend.

There’s just us. And then we had this, like, amazing five hour conversation, like driving down the highway on a road trip. Essentially, we’re talking about like everything and from like religion, architecture, money, relationships like we are already. Like, very much attracted to each other at that point, but in their car ride, it’s like, oh, my God, have you been to the Santa Monica Library? Oh, I was like.

Um, yeah, basically, that’s that’s what she’s the one. Yeah, then we’ve been together ever since and then. The third one, I think, would be when we quit our jobs and backpacked for five months through Asia, that was in 2013 when.

You quit your job, mother, both quit your jobs at the same time.

Yeah, because she was in she was in software design, I was working at like a. Mobile app agency actually really liked my job at the time, but I always knew that, like I like I really like my team, I liked what I was working on, but I kind of knew that. Based on my period of reflection in my quarterlife crisis that I wanted to just start my own things and try my own stuff. So when we quit, we traveled and had a lot of really interesting experiences and we like meditated in silence for 10 days and is kind of like a spiritual trip, but.

On that trip, we kind of launched our first businesses and. That sounded a lot like what we did on that trip funded a lot of years of experience, of experimentation. So I think from a career standpoint, that was probably the most impactful. Decision we made is just like alter completely alter the course of our career and do our own thing. So, yeah, there’s something probably only after one thing, but I gave you three. So sorry.

Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. I’m so, so grateful that you mention Cat as well, because, you know, our partners are always so important in the things that we do. I mean, she’s doing a lot. Let’s be clear. Doing all the behind the scenes like Instagram is huge on and off camera. But, you know, even sometimes we’re lucky we find a partner who is just being supportive of the idea of it, even if they have to do anything by hand.

Yeah.

So it’s not that’s not that’s not something you take for granted, you know, your partner wants.

Yeah. Yeah. They might want something completely opposite of what you want and that would be really problematic. And you guys even get to start business businesses together. That is huge. Right. And that’s something. Yeah. Not every couple could come close to imagining. So that is really lovely. I’m so thrilled for the journey you’re on. And I, I subscribed a long, long time ago. And or how long ago could it be. But as soon as I discovered your post and all that I subscribed and I really look forward to sharing more of these conversations and just monitor and see where you are going to go next.

And if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I’ll do the same and hopefully will, you know, keep growing on YouTube and everywhere else.

Yeah, yeah. Cheering you on as well as it’s just great to to be on this podcast and to be even considered to be also. Yeah. I’m just really humbled and grateful to chair and hopefully it was helpful and relatable in some way. And yeah, I’m sure we’ll do many more of these as we are. Yes. We keep crossing our thresholds.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Randi, and thanks everyone for watching. Will take us offline now, but these videos will stay has videos. They will not come off the platforms you’re watching right now. So thank you again. This episode of the First World podcast is brought to you by First World LLC, our marketing service agency created for independent creators and businesses. We offer website development, video production, marketing, mentorship to people who want to tell better stories, level up and create a profitable brand.

These were a podcast team. Our chief editor and producer, Herman Silvio’s associate producer, Adam Lefort, social media and content manager Rose de Leon, transcript editor Allena Almodovar. And lastly, myself, the creator and host of Face World. Thank you so much for listening.

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