Turning Food History Into A YouTube Channel That Grows

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We talk with Max Miller from Tasting History about the real choices that turned a creative side project into a full-time YouTube career. We dig into niche selection, early distribution, handling critique, and the practical routines that keep the channel sustainable through big spikes and everyday burnout.

• building a food history format that feels educational and watchable 
• moving from theatre and Disney marketing into owning a creative project 
• finding a niche through personal habits and viewer curiosity 
• learning production basics fast while keeping gear simple 
• promoting early videos through Reddit and targeted communities 
• deciding which critiques improve the work and which to ignore 
• navigating COVID-era growth and a major garum-driven breakout 
• understanding monetization swings and staying financially cautious 
• choosing between returning to Disney and committing to YouTube 
• working with a small support team while keeping creative control 
• managing burnout with tighter task lists and realistic priorities 
• brainstorming a fresh channel concept built around museum art

If you want to YOLO, go over and check out Tasting History with Max Miller.

Transcript

YouTube Was Never The Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My plan was never do YouTube full time. Oh, it was it was forced upon me. Before that, I was making like uh you know like $200 a month or whatever. My July check was $10,000.

Welcome And Meet Max Miller

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that loves tasting history with you. I'm Travis, and I'm here with a very special guest today, Max Miller from Tasting History. How you know, Max?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I am great. Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Today we have a really cool thing we're gonna talk about, which is food. I love food. I'm sure you love food, but if you're new here, we also help you grow your YouTube channels. And we do that for in different ways. Uh today we're gonna talk to Max about how he grew his YouTube channel. Sometimes we answer your questions directly, but regardless, we're always here to help you figure out all the ins and outs of YouTube. If you're listening to the audio podcast, all the links will be in the show notes. And if you're listening on YouTube, of course, links will be in the description. Max, tell us a little bit about your channel, um, kind of what it is, and then we'll get into your history a little bit after that. But tell us what is your channel? What is tasting history with Max Miller?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So every week I pick a recipe from history and try my best to recreate it, usually in one go in my home kitchen. And then I taste it and I also give a little history about the food or an ingredient or the people who were eating it, or just some story associated with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

That's really that's very interesting. I'm definitely gonna want to talk to you about how you came up with that because it's a different take on food.

From Disney And Theater To YouTube

SPEAKER_02 1:23

But let's rewind a little bit. Um, before you were doing YouTube, what were you doing to meet the meet, you know, pay the bills, to be honest? Let's just be honest. What were you what was Max Metal like before YouTube?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

So, right before YouTube, I was working for Walt Disney Studios in their marketing department. Um, I had been working creatively for years and years. I was a performer in New York, uh doing musical theater for years, and then did voiceover in uh LA. And then I realized I hated auditioning and I needed a paycheck that was steady. So I started working for the mouse and loved it. It was very, very creative. I was there at a very uh fun time when Marvel and Pixar and Lucasfilm were all kind of taking off. While the job was fun and while it was creative, I was being creative for Disney. I, you know, nothing was my own. And so I decided, you know what, let's let's give this a go and try something else. And I tried a lot of something else's. Uh, and the one that stuck was Tasting History.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Interesting. What did you do before Tasting History? Like you had other YouTube channels?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So I had uh a couple other YouTube channels um making animated shorts mostly, uh stuff that you can't find anymore. Um and so don't go, don't even bother going looking. Uh I did a lot of voiceover. Okay. Um and I did some writing. Uh tried to write, um, well, not tried, I did write uh short stories and worked on a novel. Um and you know, it's it's just a very different medium, but uh always trying to tell stories.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Was this during your time at Disney? Like, were you hedging your bets? Because I've talked to come some people that just jump off the boat and they're like, listen, I'm leaving my full-time job to jump into this, but it's and that's not something I ever recommend for people. It worked out for them, but it doesn't work out for everybody. Were you uh still at Disney doing these things? That you know, was that was these side were these side projects, or did you know that at some point you're like, I want to try these things and one of these things is gonna leave me uh out of Disney?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So uh I was I was at Disney the whole time when trying these different things. I had already done the jump in when I moved to New York and did theater. And uh and very quickly, you know, unless you are the 0.01%, you spend a lot of time serving tables and working temp jobs. Um, and I was actually on the more successful side of, you know, uh of a lot of my friends, and still I was I worked in like two dozen restaurants in my eight years in New York because you're you're in a show for a while, you're not in a show. You're in a show for a while, you're not in a show. And so I mean, the reason that I went to Disney Studios is because I didn't like that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Uh so I wasn't going to leave that that lifestyle, that having health insurance until I I knew that I had something. And honestly, it was never the plan to leave. I love working at Disney. This was my my plan was never do YouTube full time. Oh. It was it was forced upon me. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Well, let's

Early YouTube Experiments And Motivation

SPEAKER_02 4:30

talk about that. Um, so when you've decided to take on YouTube, was it because you were inspired by another channel, or was it just something you wanted to try? Like what was we're talking like early days. Like, what made you even want to try YouTube specifically?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So early days, um, it was simply because YouTube was how you got stories out there. Uh, I was working in animation, uh, doing voiceover. This was before working for Disney. You're dependent uh in that industry on producers and casting directors and opportunities just presenting themselves. And there's very little that's actually up to you except for being good at what you do. Um and so I decided, well, I want to kind of showcase what I'm doing, so I'm gonna teach myself to animate very poorly. And that was not what I wanted to do, but that's just how I was going to showcase these and make short videos and you know, put them up on the internet. And back then it was basically Vine or YouTube, and my videos were you know three to five minutes long, so YouTube was the place to go. Um and for tasting history specifically, it was I was working at Disney, and my kind of inspiration to, and not specifically the the format of tasting history, but my inspiration to actually make a YouTube channel was Graham Stefan, who is another YouTuber who back in the day was like very low-key finance YouTuber sort of thing, you know, in his garage. I I was watching him when he first took off, and he talked about, you know, hey, you can actually make money doing this. And I was like, well, I could use a little extra money. Disney does not pay well, so um, God bless him. Uh so I was like, all right, that's I'm I'm gonna do this. And the goal was, you know, make just a little a little extra cash on the side.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Right. So how how did you figure out what your niche was gonna be? I mean, cooking is is I mean, so you know, your first video on this channel shows that it's six years ago. I don't know if you unlisted anything before that. Uh that's high time of COVID, which you know, channels blew up. We'll talk about whether or not that helped you then. But how did you come up with the idea of A, doing a food channel, and then B, the twist on the food channel, because it's so unique?

How Food History Became The Hook

SPEAKER_00 6:57

The idea kind of came to me from the Great British Bake Off. You know, no idea comes from one place, it's a bunch of other places. There are other wonderful food history channels out there, like Townsend's was kind of the uh the OG at the time, um, who does 18th century cooking. But I used to love the Great British Bake Off, still do. But in the early days, before it got big in America, they would do a little segment on the history of whatever they were making. And it was a lot more educational back then. You could actually learn how to bake from watching the show. They would teach you how to bake what they were making, and then they would tell you the history. And when it came to America and got big over here, they got rid of that segment and a lot of the education behind the show to make it just more entertaining for people, I guess. Um and I was like, well, I missed that segment. And so I would always bring my baked goods, I would bake every Sunday, and I'd bring them in on Monday to my co-workers, and I'd be like, Here, here you go. Here's a plate of Madelines. But if you want one, you have to listen to a little history about the Madeline and how it started. It was the late 18th century. And at a Christmas party um in 2019, I was telling a coworker that I wanted to make a YouTube channel. I needed something creative, I needed something to make a little extra cash. And I was like, and I don't know what to do. Um and I was actually thinking I was gonna go back to the animation. And she said, Well, we love your your little history stories. Why don't you put those up? Um, make that into the YouTube channel. Well, gosh, yeah. I mean, uh essentially I'm doing that already. Now I just need to film it, right? Uh, which sounds you know much easier than than it actually is, of course. But um, so that's where the idea came from.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

So you were kind of a history nerd already, and you you liked uh baking and cooking, is what sound sounds like, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

So you did what people are now calling niche bending, which is taking two kind of sub-niches and putting them together, which is really interesting. And it's cool that it came from like someone else who wasn't like a YouTube strategist or that you did some search research and like listen, you do these two things, you should do that. Funny how that works. Um, it is also interesting that even though you know you were just starting out and everything, your thumbnails from back then, I don't know, did you redo your thumbnails since like the first couple? Or these are the ones you you you started with. Yeah, yeah. That's they're not bad. Like the second one is really good, and your second video ever has 1.4 million views. It's not to say that that happened all at once. I mean, probably back those. But to even see that your old what typically happens with uh channels who you know make it, their older videos get views because people are are curious about them, but they rarely are quote successful videos. Like I'm looking at your first four videos, all of them are absolutely successful. 800,000 for your very first one, 1.4 million for your second one, 2 million for your third one. Again, these weren't views you saw right off the bat. I mean, this happened over time, and we'll definitely talk about what that looked like when you first uploaded them. But why do you think that they work so well even now? Because I'm sure your quality and your style is way different

Storytelling Skills And Simple Gear

SPEAKER_02 10:08

than six years ago.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Very different. So different that I would actually like to go back and remake some of these uh older videos. Um namely because if you look at the length of those videos, they're much, much shorter than what I do now. Yeah, now usually my history section is 10 to 15 minutes of talking. Back then, I covered the entire exhaustive history of cheesecake in like three minutes. So you know, I'm like, all right, this needs a tasting history reheated kind of thing. Um, what a name. But yeah, right there. Um no, I think that so a lot of people were like, oh, you you hit it out of the ballpark right out of the gate. And I was like, no, you just didn't see all of the other things that I had done. I had spent almost 20 years trying to tell stories, um, and successfully sometimes, unsuccessfully at other times, and always commercially unsuccessfully. You know, sometimes I'm like, this is a really good story, and nobody's gonna watch it, uh, or hear it, or you know, read it, or whatever. Now, I do think that I have to uh not think, I do credit um people honestly like like VidIQ and um and Graham Stefan and a lot of these others who back then, this was like 2019, end of 2019, um were putting out videos and content about how to make videos and content. Yeah. And it wasn't the storytelling, but it was all of the other aspects, the the actually the filming, the sound, all of that kind of stuff. Um that that I had to learn basically from scratch. I had never done any of that. And so I gave myself, I I basically gave myself a a date, and I said, by this date, I will have learned all of this, and I will have put out my first video, whether it's good or not. Um and I and I barely made that date. You know, the storytelling, I had already learned how to do that part. Obviously, I've gotten better. Uh hopefully you're always getting better, but I had already kind of I knew how to do that. And that's why I think those older videos, even though the the sound is not as good. Actually, the sound is not that bad. I I actually, even to this day, don't tell anyone this. This isn't nobody's gonna see this. So I got my first um microphone off of Amazon, and it was a lava mic. 20 bucks cost cost 20 bucks. I did too. Same guy. Yep. I bet it's the same brand. So I now have some $2,500 Sennheiser mics and all these others. Do you know what I still use actually? I believe it. I use I it's not $20 anymore now, it's 30, but I still and they were selling them, they were they were discontinuing that the one that I liked that could plug right into my camera. Yeah, so I bought a dozen of them. Oh my god. Just in case they ever break. I'm like, no, this is what I'm using because I have used the wireless sennheiser and all of this stuff, and not only me, but other people I've asked cannot hear a major difference. And I'm like, this one is so easy to use, and I still film by myself, so like I don't like the wireless where you kind of need to check on it to make sure that it's still connected. This one is like, no, it's it's just as long as I remember to turn it on, which it's not always, which sometimes. Um but yeah, so the the the moral of that story is you don't need really fancy equipment. Right. Uh but I did I have upgraded a lot of things, um, less in equipment and more in just my ability to edit, uh my finally my ability to admit that I'm colorblind and am not going to do my own color correction. You look at a lot of my older videos, and still today you'll see them, and I'm like, why is he so yellow? Um so you know, there are there are little things that have changed. I've I've my lighting is better, but still inconsistent because still I kind of rely on the sun. Uh but um but even in those early videos, even though they're not as pleasant to watch visually, I feel like the the story is there. I the format of the show has not changed.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I mean, it worked. Actually, let's talk about the first couple uploads.

Publishing Strategy And Fast Iteration

SPEAKER_02 14:49

If you remember what it was like to upload those, what were your expectations going into it after you pressed publish um and like started seeing if views were going to come in? I mean, for the most part, people press publish, and three days later you might have three views. Like, what was that whole experience like?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

First video, the one on medieval cheese, I had low expectations, partly because my husband said, You need to have low expectations because he knew he knew he had a lot of friends who had been working on YouTube channels for years. And um, you know, my goal was to hit a thousand subs in one year. And uh and he's like, I've had friends who have been working on their YouTube channel for 10 years, and yes, so don't expect that. Yes, so he kept me uh grounded. Yeah, um, he was wrong, but he kept me grounded. And so I I published that first video and I knew that I needed people to watch it if I wanted to get better. Right. Because YouTube has comments, and so often, you know, if you're if you're writing a book, say, you don't get feedback until you've you know put years of work into something, and then hopefully people read it. And even then, you're not actually interacting with the people reading it, so you're dependent on Amazon reviews or whatever. With YouTube, it's like you're gonna get immediate feedback. And so obviously, I had my mom watch it and my friends at work, but all their comments, for the most part, were positive. I did get some some some good criticisms, but what I did that I think was the most helpful was that I um published it on every Facebook page and Reddit page that had anything to do with food or history. Often to the uh, you know, I would get the Reddit mod being like, you can't publish this here, you know. And I was like, that's fine. Yeah uh because they're not going to come to my house and and hit me with a stone. It's the only thing they can do is take it down. So I published it absolutely everywhere, and a lot of pla places it did stay up. Um and so it got a few hundred views. Oh uh and and I and it got some some feedback, and it was enough that then I was like willing to move forward. Now I had batch recorded, I think, the first three or four before I put out the first one, just so like, but I think it was the third video that I had, third or fourth video, one of those, that is a second go because I got so much feedback after the first one that I read. Oh no, it's the second video. It's the it's the same cod. You'll notice that I'm not standing in the kitchen. The first video I'm standing in the kitchen, the second video I'm sitting down. I got so much wonderful feedback that I like quickly re-recorded uh those videos. Um and there have been a couple other times, uh mainly in that first year, where I did that, where I was like, I can make this video so much better than it was. Uh what's really cool is a few years ago I did a video on Prince Biscuits. This was probably three years into starting the channel or so. That was actually one of the first videos that I made, and nobody had ever seen it. Whoa. Uh because I learned so much at a certain point. You especially in those first days, you learn a lot very quickly. I learned so much that I was like, this video, even though I only made it two weeks ago, is no longer I'm unwilling to put it out because it's not good enough, and I can do it better. And I so I ended up just setting it aside. And then like three years later, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna do that video well now. Um and it's funny because now I look at it and I'm like, God, I could do that video so much better six years in. Um but yeah, so it's it's it's been a growing, you know, obviously getting better, but the format, the general format, has not changed because I knew what I wanted. I had watched PBS shows growing up and BBC shows growing up, and that was the feeling that I wanted from the show, the education, the masterpiece theater of it all. And I I feel like I achieved that in that there's a little opening intro of me telling you what this video is going to be about, and then there is an introduction song, like on Masterpiece Theater. That was my idea, was like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Um, and then the cooking, and then a time for history section, and then I would eat it. And actually, my original hope was to have the cooking and the and the history very easily like woven, interwoven and stuff. And I didn't have the skill to do that, either uh storytelling or editing. I could do it now, right, but I still don't because this is the format, and I'm yeah, yeah, you know, just working. It is what it is, it works exactly. Uh, I will tell you, there are aspects of how I set up the show that I'm pretty sure any YouTube expert would tell me don't do that. Don't have a nine-minute intro song 30 seconds into the video. That's just stupid. And the thing is, from a from a watch time perspective, it is. Um and and it still is to this day. You see, there is this little dip. Yeah. Um, but I don't I don't care because so many people enjoy it, and so many people that that's the feeling that they want. And those are the people who are going to stick with me until the end of the video and come back next week. So if I'm dependent on just keeping watch time, you know, then that's not necessarily the audience I want to cultivate.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

That's really the you two really interesting things there. You said I mean, number one, that you're able to take um comments and revise videos. Number one, I've I do talk about looking at the comment section for ideas for future videos. Um, it's always a um a hit or miss thing with cry with um critics, right? Because you do want feedback to make things better. But it how did you figure out I maybe because of your friends and family, but how did you figure out what critique to listen to and not to listen to to make videos better? Because you will get just random people telling you things that they think is good, which might not be a good idea because they're not creators, generally speaking, they're just viewers. How did you know which things to take

Sorting Useful Critique From Noise

SPEAKER_02 21:36

to make those videos better?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

So that that's the thing. I mean, I mean comments and and I say mean, but just critiques in general, they are rough, and and so many people have so many opinions on what you're putting out, and most of them are not are not germane to your work because they're very often not actually about you at all. Um Um and so figuring out what was worth it and what wasn't. Sometimes it was friends and family, like if but even then they don't do YouTube, they don't do storytelling. My mom has the best intentions when she gives me a critique. And sometimes it's it's valid, but sometimes it's not because she doesn't do it. So just because she's my mom doesn't make her opinion actually have any more. He still works for Disney marketing, so he's he's in it, but he just has a very good taste level. Um I also think that 10 years of working in theater and being subjected to constant critiques um by people who do know what they're doing, choreographers, music directors, directors, you know, you you get a sense of what's gonna work and what's not. Um and then a lot of it has to do with well, just try it out and then use your sense of taste to decide if it was if it was right or not. I'll tell you about um about six weeks into starting the channel, I think it was a video on the Sally Lun Bun that I made, uh, which was maybe maybe a couple months in. I got an email uh that was just not it it really ruined my day. It wasn't the nicest email. Um it was a harsh critique of the channel and it was you know, in writing, it's hard to like necessarily have a tone or achieve the tone that you want. This this tone was not nice, it was pointed and and really quite unpleasant, and it ruined my day, it ruined my week. But after a few days, I I calmed down and I read it again, and it was still a jerk. But his critiques were all valid. Interesting. Um he had clear he was he clearly was someone who uh was like in the business of of entertainment, and all of his critiques, and he had a long list, uh all of them were valid. And so I was like, damn it. I need to be open to this, and I'm going to, you know, see if if I can get better by taking these uh critiques, and and I did. So I I thank him for being a jerk. Um because honestly, it it's kind of because he was a jerk, and because he didn't leave it in a comment, because he took the time to email me this like three-page critique that I listened and and it worked. And and at the beginning, especially, you have to be open to critiques because nobody knows everything. Um the more people watch, the less open because they eventually they just get to be you you would you can't please everybody, right? That's the thing. Yeah, you do, and the only person in the end that you're looking to please is you, because you're the one who's working on these videos all day. So it does need to be for you, but sometimes somebody else can give you feedback that will make it better for you as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

How long did it take for things to really start taking off the channel? Because just looking at your channel, um, it appears that like in under 20 or so videos, you were at 100,000 subscribers, which is wild. My guess would be that it only took like a month or two before you started seeing a lot of uh a lot of traction. What was that like? What was it?

COVID Timing And The Garum Breakout

SPEAKER_02 26:14

What was going on?

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Um so I started the channel before COVID. Okay. Uh my first video came out the 23rd of February, I believe. Okay. When you know, people were talking about it. Yeah, it hadn't happened for another month. It hadn't happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a few weeks into making videos, I was furloughed from my job. I was sent home, as we all were, and I had nothing to do. Um, and so I I had time to make videos, and everybody else in the world had time to watch videos. So I kind of started just at a fortunate time, yeah. Bad as that is to say, fortunate, but um, but so the first video that I remember kind of having a nice little jump, and again, it was thanks to Reddit. I had posted it in a medieval Reddit thread, like R slash medieval history or something like that, and it was on I think it was the one on Restant, which are like these medieval breads, um, and it it took off, it ended up getting like 10,000 views. That brought in a lot of subs, and I think uh I was I was at like eight or nine thousand subs then um by then, and and I had just and that actually was what got me monetized. Wow. Um so I was monetized within the first two and a half months, I think, three months, um, which was nice because then in June of 2020, I did a video on garum, and uh which is an ancient Roman fermented fish sauce. Though I had to do a version that wasn't fermented because I was in my kitchen living with something I wasn't going to, you know, ferment something in my kitchen with me there. Uh so I did a uh an older, actually an old recipe that is for a quick garum. It was basically like even even in the fourth century, they were like, if you don't have time to make this, then then you can do this instead. Um but but then I talked about the history of of this fish sauce. And so the video came out on a Tuesday, and it didn't really do anything other than, you know, it was the same as every other video, it was fine. Uh and then that Saturday, um, I looked down and like overnight it had jumped to like a hundred thousand views. Whoa. And the subscriber count had I had gotten like 5,000 subscribers overnight. Wow. The next day, 20,000 subs. The next day, 25,000. It was crazy. So by the middle of that week, by the time the next video came out, uh, I had hit a hundred thousand subs. And by that Friday, I think it was at like 130 or something like that. That's um, and I'm just I'm so grateful that that I was monetized for that year, of course it took off. Yeah, uh, you know. Um and so that's when I was like, okay, maybe there's something here if I can get people to stick with me, because I knew so many channels where it was like they had a video pop off, and then that was it, you know, and and nothing else. And then but um I think because it wasn't unlike the rest of my content, people stuck with me.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

And that's what I was gonna ask you.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Did your back catalog take off, or was it the other videos you started uh releasing after that kind of people started going back and watching the older videos, um, and that happens every time there's a big bump. There are a few videos that I've had where it's like brings in just a swath of subs, and every time that happens, those older videos get watched. You know, having an evergreen catalog is is nice.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah. So when this was going on, um, do you remember about like how uh this might seem kind of rude to ask, but I'm gonna ask anyway, because why not? Do you remember about how much that that check was for like that viral um thing from AdSense? Because a lot of people want to know. People, if you notice on YouTube, you look, you go, this is how much I got paid for 100,000 views. Like, people want to know this. Do you remember what that first check looked like and how much it was?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

So I don't know exactly how much that video made, but that first month

AdSense Reality And Staying Cautious

SPEAKER_00 30:47

after. So I think like before that, I was making like you know, like $200 a month or whatever. My July check was $10,000. You must have lost your mind when that happened. I yeah, no, I mean that's honestly, it was more money than I had ever had in one at any time. Right. Like at any one time. Yeah. And it was in one check from YouTube. And it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Was that the moment where you're like, I don't even have to go back to work anymore? Or did you were you still kind of like, wait a minute, you know?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

No, definitely not. Um because because, like I said, I knew so many channels where it was like, oh my gosh, yes, and then it was, you know, and it's like this is not a long like most people don't get to do this for years and years. That's just not how it works. You know, everybody has their viral moment. You look at TikTok now, there are channel, there are you know, people on TikTok who have like 60 million views on one video, and all their other videos are like 2,000 views, you know. And so that's what I was like, that could be that. And I am just in general an extremely cautious person when it comes to that, because I had lived so many years on the financial edge constantly. Um, so no, but again, it it wasn't my choice to go back to

Choosing Between Disney And YouTube

SPEAKER_00 32:13

work. That that was not an option for me. Uh, Disney didn't call until the following April, after I had been doing the channel for over a year. And uh by and even then, I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to go back or not. Because one, I loved my job um and I loved having coworkers. But two, it was well, it was what I thought was secure. Disney just had a huge round of layoffs and like all of my friends are gone. But um, you know, it's so it was it was hard even then because it's not just about income. There's there's so much else to think about.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Absolutely. So you had been doing um, so you had this big successful month. I assume the months after it were still pretty solid, enough that you're like, okay, well, I'm glad that I'm bridging the gap for these months that I'm not actually at work. Like I'm I'm doing okay. And then they call. They're like, okay, we want you back. Tell me uh talk, walk me through that. Because I literally just talked to a creator, it's on the YouTube channel now. If anyone's watching wants to see this, uh YouTube content creator who got laid off at 5,000 subscribers, asked his wife and said, Look, can I just double down on this and let's see what happens for three months? But you're in a different situation. A company's like, okay, we're we're willing to give you back your, you know, your your good job now, but you've kind of established this as working. Um, walk us through that, what decision you made, and and what that looked like uh just in general.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah. So when they they called me to come back, um I had a conversation with with Jose. So I was very fortunate that I was furloughed, but Jose, who also worked for Disney, he was not. Oh, interesting. Because he was working on Disney Plus. Oh, yeah. I love Disney Plus. Which was huge at COVID. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So he was busier than ever. Um, also by that, so so we had health insurance. We had, you know, he was my safety net. Um I also, though, by that time, because when I started the channel, it was with the thought that I was doing this on the side, and so my videos needed to be made within, you know, maybe 10 hours of work. By this time, by a year in, the video length had grown the type I had run through a lot of the history that I just kind of knew off the top of my head, and I was having to really do some deep research. So the videos were taking more like 40 hours, if not more, to make. And that's still what they take today. Wow. Um, and and so it was like, I can't do this and Disney, so I do need to make a choice. Um and part of it was my boss, uh, who was absolutely just a great guy, and I told him like what am I what I'm thinking, and and and was frank with like how much I'm making and everything. And he said, You are, of course, Disney will welcome you back. Disney's not going anywhere. Uh, if you want a job, you know, whenever you want, you can come back. Wow. But if you come back right now, I may have to fire you for being an idiot. That's great. And I said, Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

And since then, everything has been kind of just uh going fairly well, I assume. I mean, uh, that's been a couple years ago, but um you know, YouTube is always like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. I have been extremely fortunate that I've never had more than a couple months of like a bunch of low-ranking videos. Um, you know, how it always kind of compares your last video to your last, to your last nine, ten. Um so it's it's been fairly consistent. Um, and I've had enough of those big upswings when I did my series on the Titanic and when I revisited Garum, and uh when I did a video on hardtack, and I've had it some of those really big pushes that it's then sustained me. It like kind of adds wind to the sails. So then if you have a few videos that that don't do well, it's okay because the month on the whole was up. And this is the thing, and I actually

Thinking Long Term With Analytics

SPEAKER_00 36:39

I brought this up. I I recently got to talk to the head of engineering at YouTube, and I said, I wish that there was an easier way to compare your current video not to your last 10, but to what you were doing a year ago. Interesting or two years ago. Because if you're just looking at your last 10 videos, let's say you put out one a week, which is typically what I do, that's only two and a half months. So if if you're doing terribly in those two and a half months, it's dejecting. And it's like, is this the end of tasting history? But then if you zoom out a little bit and look at how you were doing a year ago or two years ago, two years ago when you thought you were on the top of the world, and you're like, but I'm doing better than that. Yeah. So, you know, that's what's gonna keep me motivated to keep working. Um, and and he said, Yeah, it is very hard to like make that comparison right now in YouTube Studio. So he's um gonna take that note back out. You know, who knows? That's a great note.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

That's a great note, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, and you know, he's at such a high level, he actually didn't realize how difficult it was to find some of that information uh because he's not in the weeds of it.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah, and that's one thing that like uh I love when YouTube does those things. Uh and I've been a part of a lot of their betas and stuff. Giving that feedback, uh, they do look for that, which

Workflow Team Support And Editing

SPEAKER_02 38:04

is great. So now, what is your work process? What's your day look like generally speaking? I'm just curious like what your day-to-day is now. Um, you said that you don't uh do you have like a team at all? You're just you or like what do you have? Not really.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

So I have an assistant uh who helps me mostly like she doesn't help really with the videos per se, but I put my videos up on uh my website and I put the recipes up on a website, and I I make cut downs of the video to put onto uh Facebook and stuff. She handles pretty much all of that. Okay. Uh so once the video is made, then she kind of takes over. She's also helped me, you know, doing things uh for my next cookbook, just kind of rounding up people to test recipes and stuff like that. So she she helps a lot with kind of that back end stuff. Um my husband, he does all the subtitles. Okay, and then he's just a great sounding board uh for any topics or things like that. Um and and then pretty much the rest of it is uh is is me. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Um so no help editing or anything. That's usually the first thing people get as an editor.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

So no, I do. Uh I have a she does the first pass of editing. So, you know, I I will have hours of cooking footage. Wow. And um, and maybe an hour of me talking with all of these little flubs and everything like that, and she cuts out all of the flubs and everything um and kind of distills it down. And then I go in and I add the images and all of all of that kind of editing stuff. So no, she's uh she's helped she probably saves me a good six hours a week. Um which adds up.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Which adds up, absolutely.

Future Projects Travel And Podcast Idea

SPEAKER_02 39:54

Is there is there anything that you feel like you wish you could do more on the channel, but because of the momentum you have and the success of what you're doing, you kind of have to stay in this specific format. Do you feel like there's something else you could be doing that might be better, but you're maybe afraid to do it?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

So not really with the videos as they are. Um, I mean, part of me is like, oh, I wish I could have multiple cameras and you know, have better shots of the food as I'm testing and stuff. But I I film alone and I like to film alone, and I don't want other people in the room when I film. So that's just how it is. You know, it's it's it's just how it is. Um, I do wish that I could do more travel filming.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Um, I have filmed a couple videos while traveling and have found it very difficult. And uh so now I use travel for research, and then I will come back and actually film the video in my kitchen. Um and uh and and there are aspects of that aren't necessarily with the video that I would like to do. Like I would like to have a podcast that leans a little bit more into long-form uh history conversations and stuff like that. And we're working to to see if that can actually happen. Um, but I will need help. Yeah, of course, you know, to do those. I am I am at my max. Uh, you're out of how much I can do.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Yeah. Um, okay, just a couple of last things. If you had to tell the Max who was uploading for the first time that you're taking everything that you've learned over the last couple of years and you're trying to min Max, you're trying to get Max to the the listen, you I want you to, I've made these mistakes, I don't want you to make these mistakes. What conversation are you having with that Max? Which maybe some of these listeners that are listening right now are literally that Max, they're at that point in their journey. What are you telling them to shortcut them from either making mistakes or things that you've learned that are more important than

Advice For New Creators

SPEAKER_02 41:53

you thought they were? Anything that you can get the secret sauce.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Make the videos for you. Make the videos that you want to watch and stop trying to guess what people want to see. Um because they don't know. And so when people this this goes from my channel. I don't know that this is the case for everybody's channel, and I don't know that it's the case for every creator, just in general. But when I make a video that someone else wants me to make, but I'm not, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna do well because people are really into this topic right now or whatever, but I'm not really into the topic, it doesn't do well.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Um people can tell when I people can tell. Yeah. When I do a video where I am super excited to make this video, even though I I don't think it's gonna do well, it does typically do better. And if it doesn't do well, I don't feel like it's a loss because I got to tell this cool story or I got to make this dish, and you know, I finally covered a topic that I wanted to cover. Um, but in general, the best the best critic of taste for your channel is you. You know, if if if you like it, other people will like it. You're we are not as special as we would like to think.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Uh, you know, it's it's like if if I'm a fan of something, there are a million other people out there who are a fan of something. Um I mean, when I first started the channel, I didn't even think that there were four million people who would enjoy food history in the world, and clearly there are. So it's you know, yes, listen and take critiques, yes, listen to suggestions, uh, but at the end of the day, you need to be making videos that you want to see. Look out on YouTube, and what's not there is what you should make.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

That makes sense. It's what we sometimes call the um content gap. Um was there ever a time where you felt like you were burning

Burnout Management And Priority Lists

SPEAKER_02 44:13

out? Maybe I mean some people get to the point where they want to quit, but I'm not saying that ever happened to you where you're at the point where you were burning out.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Every day for the last six years. And what do you do? What do you do? I put together Lego and I play with my cats. Um no, there are days where it is really, really hard to make a video and and get to work, but it's a job. And it is just you you just sit down at your desk and do it. And sometimes it literally takes me two hours of sitting at my desk putzing around, watching other YouTube videos, and you know, let me let me literally do anything. I'm going to clear off the desktop for the next two hours, just anything to not work. And eventually then I'll get around to actually working. Um and it, you know, it's it's harder if you're not doing it full time. Um, I think if you're if you're trying to fit it in with another job, you don't have the luxury of putzing around. You just gotta do it. Right. You just gotta do it. Yeah, um and so yeah, no, there's constant, and then there's the constant, well, what am I gonna make? What's the next video? I've run out of ideas. I haven't. I have a list of 400 of them, but none of them are exciting me today. Right. And I need to be excited today because I'm gonna be spending the next 10 hours reading about this topic. I need to be excited about it. Right, yeah. I can't make a video about football because I don't like football. Um, so it that's that's actually one of the hard parts. And then there is the burnout that comes from being just overwhelmed. Yeah. Um, I have a constant kind of running list of tasks that I need to do. And if that list ever gets too long, I I become overwhelmed and and kind of feel the and I'm just not gonna do anything. I can't I can't even look at it, so I'm just not gonna do anything. So at that point, I just cross some stuff off the list. Whether I I haven't done them, but I just cross them off, and I'm like, they'll be on the next list because I can't even look at them, I can't think about them right now. Um whether it's you know my uh my thing is the only thing that matters is the next video. Yeah, and so why on my list do I have come up with an idea list for June? Well, that can wait. Um work on ideas for you know the the podcast. I don't even have a podcast. Uh you know, write the script for for the short on whiskey. Well, that's not going for four weeks. I don't need to do that. All I need to do is edit Tuesday's video, write the script for the following Tuesday, and everything else can wait and it will wait. And so just having a smaller list for me actually helps a lot. Just not having so many things to think about.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Nice. Finally, uh, I asked this of a lot of creators. Um, this is really more of a kind of mental exercise. I want you to, in real time, uh, tell us what you're thinking as you go through this. You can use uh any of the knowledge you have over the last couple of years as a YouTube content creator, but you can't use any of your resources, which means you know a lot of your money or even maybe your nice cameras and stuff. But you're gonna create a new YouTube channel that's not in your niche. It's not about something you've done before. Talk us through what that niche would be, what the niche would be, and what your first couple of videos idea would be. And literally, as you're thinking about it, I'm we want to hear the thoughts because the reality is a lot of people that are listening to this podcast, some are still trying to figure out what their niche is and how to get there. And to hear the thought process behind someone who's actually done it successfully is really valuable.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

It would cost a little bit of money, okay. Not too much. At least and I I I could start off with it basically

Starting Fresh With Museum Art Videos

SPEAKER_00 48:15

costing nothing, actually. Okay. Other than I would take my iPhone and I would go to museums. Oh, okay. And I would film the different pieces of art, and I would then talk about those different pieces of art i in in detail and what kind of effect, like what was happening. So it's it's kind of in my niche, actually. Well, I mean, it's but it's enough different.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

No, because it's a passion. I think that's what's important from this segment is that because you're passionate about it and you have a knowledge of it, this becomes your superpower for that particular type of content. And they're probably, I mean, there might be a couple channels to do that, but I mean, I certainly haven't seen any where they just go to take a picture of art, look at a video of art and like go into history without a whole bunch of stuff. Like if someone's starting out and they are really passionate about history, this actually makes sense. And it's something that doesn't cost a lot. You probably already have your phone, and you can go to a museum. And as long as you have the knowledge, I think that that's a really interesting idea.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Well, yeah, because so my my mother was obsessed with art, um, and and she taught humanities and uh is obsessed with art, uh, taught humanities. And so in her class, we would often look at a piece of art, and it was like, oh yeah, that's cool. I've seen that. It was famous, whatever. Um, but then for the next two days, she would talk about not only the actual piece of art, like what went into it, but what was the context, what was happening in the world, what was happening with the artist, what was happening politically, that you, if you just take a look at it, you don't get because you don't have the knowledge set. But then you learn about oh, this was social commentary. It was mocking somebody, but you would never get it because it's a oh, he has a spoon next to him. Okay, that would totally go over my head. But in actuality, that was a comment because that is, you know, there are just so many things in art, um, in general, whether it's music or a physical piece of art, where it's like nobody's explaining this to me when I go to a museum. So often you go to a museum and just, you know, it has a little blurb at the bottom of who painted it, the name of it, where it was painted, and when. But what's the context behind this piece of art that makes it? Why is it in this museum? Why is this important? Why is this special? Um and it I think so uh art appreciation is essentially what it would be. I love that. What would be the name of the channel? I don't know. Tasting art.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Take a long take a long time to come up with.

Wrap Up Links And Mayonnaise

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Well, Max, we thank you for joining us today. It's been absolutely delightful to go through this history with you. If you're listening to the audio podcast, we'll have show notes that'll link you to his YouTube channel. Of course, if you're on the YouTube uh channel, you're gonna see all these things. Links are in the description. And of course, you can go over there and check out tremendous stuff. I just saw that you did a video not too long ago about mayonnaise. I'm a huge fan of mayonnaise. I know that sounds really weird. Um, that's great. I don't know if I want the mayonnaise that you had in there, the 200 year old mayonnaise, but uh, I love mayonnaise.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Uh you know what? Take out the gelatin and you will want it. It is absolutely delicious. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm curious. Okay. You make it with tarragon vinegar, it just adds a special zing to it.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

I feel like so. I like mayonnaise a lot and I use it on just about everything. I just don't know if I want to make it myself. I'm way too lazy for that, but this sounds interesting. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Maybe I'll YOLO one day. If you want to YOLO, go over and check out Tasting History with Max Miller. And if you like this interview, I got ones just like it right here. We'll see y'all in the next one.