From Call Of Duty Clips To 15 Million Subscribers

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We sit down with Jordi “Kwebbelkop” to trace how a teen posting Call Of Duty clips turned into a creator who studies CTR and retention like a sport and now runs YouTube as one department of a larger business. We also unpack his AI detour, the backlash that followed, and why he believes the real winners use AI to unlock new audiences rather than replace the human on camera. 
•the origin of “Kwebbelkop” and how an old gamertag became a career identity 
•how early Call Of Duty uploads evolved into tutorials, myth-busting, and viral growth 
•what his first viral video taught him about demand, packaging, and repeatable patterns 
•why watch time and click-through rate still drive YouTube distribution 
•how Skype and Discord creator groups accelerate learning when the feedback is real 
•the hidden cost of grinding daily uploads and why chaos eventually catches up 
•building systems that remove you as the bottleneck and make long-term planning possible 
•why he regrets skipping business strategy and risk assessment early on 
•his reboot plan for bigger, sponsor-funded videos and a slower upload cadence 
•the real timeline behind quitting, experimenting with AI, and launching Blue 
•how he evaluated AI backlash using subscriber loss, brand interest, and audience signals 
•why AI dubbing is his favourite “adds value” workflow for global channel growth 
•how health, therapy, and higher standards changed the way he leads and creates 
•his blunt advice for new creators: post first, then refine the system 
If you’re listening to this and you’re interested in having a little group of content creators, we have a free Discord. You can join. There’ll be a link in the description and in the show notes. 

Transcript

Backlash, AI, And Posting First

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A lot of people say that I I switched to AI and I got so much backlash that I quit. But it's the other way around. Like I quit and then I thought, let's play around with AI. I hate videos being made. But I feel flattered because they make them because they get views. Have you posted a video yet? If you haven't, just go post a video. All the time, and it's always been like this. They come up to me, they go ask for advice, ask how many videos have you posted? They say I've not posted a single

Meet Quebecop And His Origin

SPEAKER_00 0:25

video.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome back to the only podcast that will go across every single time zone to bring you the best content available. And today I have an incredibly special guest. I rarely get to talk to someone who's been on the platform as long as Jordi. Over 15 years, 15 million subscribers, 7 billion views. And he's the guy who really was the first person to say, you know what, I think this AI thing might be something. Jordi Quebel Cop is here. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Thank you for having me. Thank you for the introduction.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

You've done a lot. You may have forgotten some of those things. I wanted to remind you.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I have a good memory, but yeah, so sometimes I'm I'm a little bit uh tired of all the things I've done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Well, we'll talk about that as well. And if you're new here, we'd like to help you grow your YouTube channel a lot of different ways. And today we're just gonna talk to Quebecop. Before we get into anything, what is Quebecop? What does that mean? Why what is this name? What it's so I try to spell it five different ways, and I get it wrong every time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Your your first of all, your pronunciation is flawless. Thank you. Hey, and and and it it's Dutch. I'm Dutch. Uh it was my nickname, uh, my gamertag, pretty much. Uh and it's named after a doll that I had as a kid. Okay. And Quebecup means chatterbox. Uh so my nickname became chatterbox, someone who talks a lot. And and and that was my gamertag, and then that became my YouTube uh uh handle, and then now that's become my my yeah, my my real life nickname. People know me by Quebecup. Not many people know me by Jordy.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So let's talk a little bit about the kind of the content that you used to do and stuff, and we'll go through

Early YouTube With Call Of Duty

SPEAKER_01 2:00

kind of your history. Uh, I want to hit a little bit of everything because you have um a unique history in everything, but it's particularly relevant right now because in a couple of months uh a game is coming out that you might be aware of. Uh they call I think it's called Grand Theft Auto 6. I think it might be.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Oh, they didn't know it was coming out in a couple of months.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

It's a little indie game, I think. Some people might be interested in it. Um, so I definitely are gonna want some feedback from you on that because obviously Grand Theft Auto V was like kind of what blew you up. Let's talk about your beginnings. When you first started on YouTube, you actually didn't start with like GTA, you were doing other things uh 15 years ago. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

I started off with uh Call of Duty. I I was uh I I I played a bunch, I played uh semi-competitive, I was so good at the game that every time I went to school, I I told my friends, hey guys, I did so well and they wouldn't believe me. So I thought, okay, you know what? What if I just start recording it? Uh and then from that came tutorials to commentary to montages, and then slowly that rolled out into Call of Duty myths. So I did myth busting, Easter egg tutorials, and uh that that's really how it started. And slowly that also a little bit of uh GTA, but GTA tutorials, and then when I was in GTA, that uh uh I don't know, I stumbled upon an idea and I started filming it, uh, and I called it hit a stunt, and it was really me doing a let's play, like doing a funny funny stuff in GTA 5, and that really started blowing up uh and then I I branched out to many, many, many more games.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, let's talk about the beginning. I think um when you started uh Call of Duty, Call of Duty is a huge game. Let's just be honest. It's always been a huge game. Were you getting lots of views at the very beginning, or was it were you just uploading and it was more for your friends?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, so you just post a video and then and then that's

First Viral Win And Data Lessons

SPEAKER_00 3:51

it. Uh and then nothing happens. Nothing happens, nothing happens. Up until one day, I uploaded a video and it was like a clickbait video on how to defeat a boss, but you couldn't defeat the boss. That was the whole point. So I uploaded a video how to defeat him.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And it and and that video blew up like half a million views. And to me, that was insane. I got an email every time someone subscribed. So my inbox, I woke up one morning and it was just packed with people. Uh, but yeah, that that was my first viral.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Did that unlock something for you as far as content creation? You go, wait a minute. There's there's something to this, this impossible thing that I do to connect with people.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I thought, hey, okay. Well, it's very clear to me there's a pattern here, right? Or at least for me, uh uh, you know, a lot of people wanted to click on this video. There was a big demand for it. Um, and then I started doing that more often, right? More of those type of videos. Uh, but that was a first taste. Now I can look back and analyze it, but back then I was still kind of clueless.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

But then again, YouTube was a different place 15 years ago. Like there weren't YouTube shorts, there wasn't any of these things. And a lot of the analytics that we look at today didn't exist back then. You had to kind of guess a lot of it. Um, how much of that uh did you figure out in the early days? Because again, we didn't have CTR back then, we didn't have uh, I can't remember some of the things we didn't have. You just had to kind of guess what people liked, what they were clicking on, and it was all pretty much views. Like you looked at views and did they go up? Okay, that probably works. If it didn't, then it didn't. Um was that an easier time or a harder time, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I would say it was it's similar, very similar, right? Um, because the the the people who um who explore the frontier are the ones who who are succeeding the most. So back then you had analytics and you could dive in the analytics, but um a lot of people didn't understand the analytics. Uh and then at some point I I dove in, I dove into the analytics, I started seeing like, okay, there's a massive correlation between uh watch time and CTR. Uh and uh if you have great CTR and you have great watch time, your video tends to get a lot of use. And there was a pretty clear pattern there. Um so with that in mind, I started to realize, okay, well, if I just optimize for long videos with high average view duration and then high click-through rate, um, surely if if I can find patterns there and uh create the the right results that uh that result uh that will result in virality and views. Uh and and that theory upholds uh to this day.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Do you consider yourself a data nerd or or an analytics nerd, or do you have other people do that for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

No, I'm the biggest data, I'm I'm the OG data nerd here. Who would you say is the biggest data nerd in the industry?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Well, you you could the easy answer would be like Mr. Beast, right? Because but then again, he also has a lot of people probably do it for him. But yeah, I mean, I'm a data nerd. Like I love those things. I'll look at a retention graph all day. So I totally get it.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Early days, it's like you're you're in a call with Mr. Beast and a bunch of other guys and you're sharing data, right? And yeah, I feel like there's this small group of uh creators who who were there back then laying the foundation for so many, uh so many people to now you know run with. And all these theories that people are sharing or all these courses that they're selling, uh they all stem from uh from this this early day research, uh, I would say, which was like 10 years ago, 20, 2015, 2016.

Creator Groups And Useful Feedback Loops

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, when I've when I first started, um a lot of the thing, a lot of the knowledge I got was from these little groups that I would get into on Discord. And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're you're interested in having a little group of content creators, we have a free Discord. You can join. There'll be a link in the description and in the show notes. But um, for me, like there was a little Discord with like three or four of my friends as we were growing up together in YouTube. We were learning things and sharing it. Did you have anything like that? I know um probably early on, maybe not so much, but did you have anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, we had Skype, Skype groups. Oh, right, yeah. And and and and there there were there were there were a bunch of uh really fun people in the Skype groups. Um and and some people are still still successful. Uh DL Mighty is is one of the guys. Uh he does uh diving exploration videos. Obviously, Mr. Beast, and every interview he does uh uh about this, he he'll he'll he might reference some of the Skype groups, um and just so many others. And and occasionally you uh you forget about someone and then years later they pop up. Um the pro gamer Jay is is another one. He he was massively successful back in the day, and he came up with so many really cool ideas and concepts, then I don't know, vanished for a few years. And recently I realized he he does ideation for some of the biggest creators now. Uh so massive shout out to those guys. They're they're do uh they're still doing a great job. Um, but yeah, that though if if you were part of one of the Sky groups, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Is is this important, do you think, even today, for creators to to grow? Do you think it's an important aspect of growing on YouTube to have like a group of creators that are kind of around you?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

I would say you would create an environment that uh uh optimizes for uh uh quality, right? For for results and and success, whatever that uh however you might might you know uh define success. Uh and yes, you can have groups of people to sit around with and discuss and brainstorm, but the these need to be actual uh effective meetings, right? Uh you can sit in a meeting all day, doesn't mean you're doing a good job, but if you're dissecting uh uh and and researching things, then sure, that can be extremely useful.

Grinding To Full Time And The Cost

SPEAKER_01 9:26

When you were um first uploading on YouTube, you were you said you were still in high school?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Correct, yeah, I was just finishing high school.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah. How how long before you started making like a full-time living uh on your YouTube channel, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

So I was already playing around with YouTube for a few years, right? Uh and then I I I finished my high school. And here in the Netherlands, you finish at about uh I finished at around 17, 18 years old. Um, it then took me I would say a bit over a year, or about a year before I started making a decent salary. Um, and this was a year of me grinding, right? So it's you know, you're 18 years old, what do you like to do? Go out, go party, right? No, that that was it was just victory was the only uh option here, and there was nothing else. So it's me locked up in my bedroom, uh, and it was just wake up, make YouTube videos, post at least one video a day. Didn't matter what I had, right? Uh I had tons, my tonsils got removed for surgery. I had videos scheduled out, right? There was there's no excuse uh to fail this. I just said if I do it every single day, I need to get really good fairly quickly. Uh, and then at some point I was making I was making a good wage, and then from there on I had even more commitment, more focus, and then a year later, and then and then it blew up, and then it was it was uh uh eight years of just consistent uh uh revenue coming in and and and now obviously still, but that was just the YouTube, YouTube side of things.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I feel like it's important for people to hear what you said. Like you you you sacrificed a lot of social life to grind and make it to where you are today. Everything.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

I sacrificed everything. It wasn't just social life, it was health, uh, it was my social life, but my my health too. Like I didn't care. I was young back then, I could I could do I could do whatever and my my body would recover mentally, uh physically, done, exhausted. I didn't care. Uh and it and it was possible, right? So so I I took that risk, I went for it. Um, and and the main thing here is like to learn, right? Build systems that succeed, that you can improve uh on and and and learn so that even if you you come to a complete standstill or uh you you fail in a sense, you can still continue uh at some point in the future.

Scaling With Delegation And Risk Planning

SPEAKER_01 11:50

I think that's an important thing, talking about systems, because at some point you you know when you started blowing up, um just like for any YouTuber, it starts to become overwhelming. Um it's not just making the videos, uh, you have to make them at a higher standard because as you grow, people expect more. Um, more people want your time, companies start reaching out, like all these things start to happen. Maybe people are like maybe becoming like quote famous or whatever, like all these distractions start coming in. Talk to us a little bit about what that was like coming from high school, but pretty much right in. It's not like you were a career, like corporate person who went into this, like this was your life, uh, but you were growing up through YouTube. Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, so at the start, fairly overwhelming, and your your ego uh uh does get fit, right? So that was the first thing, which I would say I overcame pretty quickly uh because of the good people around me. So I was able to stay fairly down to earth fairly quickly. Uh, and and that helped me realize, okay, this is not gonna last forever. Let's think about the future and and let's invest. Also, because I didn't really have a life outside of uh YouTube. I just invested all my money, which I'm to this day extremely thankful for. Uh, because that means I right now can uh uh do the things that I love doing. So so that was that was one thing. Another thing, like time management. I had no I had no idea. Like I I was one of the guys that would say anxiety, burnout, I don't believe in it, right? That's BS. Um I was one of those guys and it would just grind through the pain. I didn't care. Uh but that caught up uh after a few years. Um and uh uh, you know, time management. I I didn't have any time management. I would just wake up, do everything, and I wouldn't delegate things. Uh so that's how it started off. It was just complete and utter chaos, and it took years uh before I had proper structure and systems in place.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Do you think part of that is um an immaturity of not working for someone else in a like a quote adult job before you became a YouTuber? Because you became your own boss. So you have to learn skills that you're not necessarily taught in school. You have to learn how to, you know, be productive, how to be um at times like uh, you know, the bad guy, even to yourself, if you're lazy, if you're not getting things done, it's easy to give yourself a pass because you're like, oh, I know what I'm doing best. But if you had someone to like, quote, manage you at that point, maybe you would am I am I right on this, or do you feel like you did a pretty good job with it?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

No, so so I I would I I get what you're saying, but I I would never I would never say that I was lazy. I would say I was the opposite of lazy, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Well, that's what I mean. Like sometimes you also need to turn down a minute. Like, is that were you able to do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, so so I think there's these, and I had I had a bunch of jobs before this, right? But I never had a job where people would build companies. I like I was never part of a startup that that became successful and grew to what 50 employees or so, right? So so there's these very valuable skills that come with it. And one is okay, you go successful, you you go ballistic, right? You you get you you make a hundred thousand dollars a month from from nothing to 100k. Um and and you are the you are the system. You're not up, you're not uh orchestrating or you're not the architect of the system. No, you are the system. And uh I I built a great system and it works, but the problem with the system was the fact that I was like completely uh uh inside of the system and I had to be in the system. And uh, you know, sure, like you you never you would never in that position think, oh, I can do this for 40 years or 50 years, you're only thinking like I want to be relevant next year or I want to be relevant next month and I want to get views next week or this this week, right? So you're because it's such a high stress environment, you're only focused on the short term. And the issue though is that if you build a system that doesn't need you, you're low stress and you can plan for the long term. So it is like this vicious cycle where because you're so focused on the now, you cannot plan for the future. So you cannot build for the future, and it's a really hard balance to have. And it took me a few years of stepping back and saying, okay, you know what, let's chill for me to be able to build these systems, which is where I am right now. Um and yeah, it's it's it's a really hard one to juggle. Um, having the right person there could have helped for sure. Um then again, I don't I'm not the type of guy that at that time would have accepted uh the help of anyone there. Uh at that time, right now I'm I'm a very different person, but also I I know much better what I'm doing. Um and it could have also gone sideways, like hire the wrong person uh and and your career is override, and you or you sign away uh some important stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah. What what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes you made early on uh that you wish well, I mean, obviously we learn through our mistakes, so it's not like you necessarily want to take them back, but what are some of the bigger mistakes you made kind of early on?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

I I think it's uh strategy. Uh I never really set uh set down uh for proper strategy. My focus was always uh a lot on um how to be successful in YouTube, uh how and then specifically how to make a YouTube video successful. Um I didn't really take too much time to focus on business strategy and uh uh uh uh risk assessment. Um so, an example, uh let's say, let's say we're running, we're running uh the a podcast channel together, right? And uh everything is going great, production is going great. Um I would have just said, okay, let's let's focus on the next video, let's let's put our focus there, let's focus on the next video, let's put our focus there. Um what what I think we would have been better in hindsight is to sit down and say, cool, well, we can continue producing, but what's the biggest risk? Like, what's a hurdle that can uh surface in the in the next three to six months that could derail this entire operation? And one thing that you might say is, well, my lower back is starting to hurt. I don't know for how much longer I can do this, right? And and uh that then could mean like, okay, let's say we have two more years of runaway uh before you might want to retire. Let's start introducing a new host or maybe two new hosts, so we we uh we de-risk it even further. And and that's just an example of a strategy, uh a session or conversation um that I didn't have back then. Back then it was just I don't care, grind, grind, grind, and then I hit a wall at one point. It was just totally not prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah, let's talk about all these things. So the I know people are what listening going, oh, okay, that's great. Now you're glazing Kreble Clopp. No, I mean I want to understand the background of Jordi, the the guy, right? Because there are things that have happened in your career that have maybe you aren't proud of. I again I do want to talk about AI in a little bit because it's such a big part of who you are. And in some ways, while at the time it seemed like a bad choice, we look at it now, AI is literally everywhere. It's like you almost predicted it in a way. Um, so we'll get to that in a minute.

Rebooting The Brand With Bigger Videos

SPEAKER_01 19:07

But you did for a while there, like you were collabing with friends and stuff, and then you had like a falling out, but then you kind of got things back together. Can you take us through a little bit of that? Like having content creator friends is one thing, right? Um, it's another thing to actually collab with them and then to start doing business with them. What did that complicate the friendship at all?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

No, it was business first, and then the friendship came, right? So we we weren't necessarily friends before that. Uh so that made things much easier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. Was there any is there anything that you kind of wish that you had done differently throughout? I mean, you guys are it looks like you guys are kind of working together again, which is great. But is there anything you wish you had done differently back then, or do you think it was outside sort outside kind of influences that might have made things not so positive?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Uh no, so so a lot of people assume there's always hate or or or fights or drama, but uh you know, behind the scenes is really not that like it gets blown up by by by by everyone. Uh behind the scenes it's like more chill. And and the better way of how to look at it is like we're adults, yeah, like we're full grown-ups. We're not like we're dad territory, right? And uh so so and we we met when we were like kids. So, you know, your lives take separate routes and separate paths. I'm super proud of all like literally everyone I've collabed with. Um I'm super proud of everyone. I have no no no no beef with anyone, no hate towards anyone. Um, and and and looking back, it's like this is uh uh the only thing that could have happened for us in our situation. Um and you know, and and and this is just a natural way on how it evolved. Uh yeah, no, no really doubts or any concerns there, honestly. I think it we had like a tremendous run, which I'm I'm super proud of.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah, and you guys blew up and and a lot of great content came from that. Um looking forward, are you looking to kind of be more um a solo kind of content creator, or do you still want to do collabs with people? What is the strategy kind of moving forward? Are you still kind of establishing that?

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, I think collabs are always on the table, right? Like uh, you know, you shouldn't limit yourself to not doing a collab. But the main the main difference right now, because I'm working on a reboot, which will be really fun. We have with two long form videos recorded already, they're they're being edited, uh, is that I I want to step away from like my brand has gotten much bigger than I had ever intended. Meaning that the moment I do something that I did back in the day, people just say this is not good. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? I was making pizzas, I was making pizzas every day, then I stopped making pizzas, and then I everyone goes, make pizzas again, and I get make them a pizza, and they go, Well, we were expecting a five star Michelin Chef, seven course dinner, and I'm like, I never did that, but yeah, but that's what we expect from you, right? So it's like my the expectation kept growing. Well, well, well. The content that hadn't evolved. So now I said, okay, well, you know, if if Jordy would have to start YouTube now, what would Jordy do? Right? And you know, back back then I was just making let's play videos in my bedroom and you know, press record, send it to the editor, I don't care, and it would get a lot of views. But Jordy now says, okay, well, all right, let's look at the game. Uh, we're gonna do something special, we're gonna do something clickbait, and then we're gonna fulfill on this clickbait. We're gonna spend way too much money on every video, and we're gonna build systems that uh can make it possible to do this consistently and for us to do things that no one else can do, right? Okay, that's a starting position. So so I'm gonna we're working on videos like that, right? So I could give you an example. You tell you tell me if it's a good video idea. I would love to hear it. All right. Um so you know, sometimes your your parcel is lost, right? It gets delivered to your home, you order a package, it's it's it's it's lost. So we called up one of these places that collects these lost parcels, and we said, how about you sell us a thousand of them? And we're just gonna open them up to see what's inside. So so so so that that's kind of what we started off with, and then we said we thought, okay, well, we can do this with suitcases too. You know, the airports lose suitcases and they get auctioned off. So let's buy a hundred suitcases. That's the video we're working on. Um, and then we thought, okay, well, what if we go to a store and we just rent out the entire store, fill it with lost parcels, and then we say anyone who enters the store gets a free lost parcel to see like, okay, well, what's inside? Maybe maybe they find something special. And then more some some more crazy videos we're working on right now is buying an abandoned gold mine, and then we're gonna look for gold, right? So exactly. That that's a reaction I was hoping for. Okay, that means it's a good video.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

But by the same token, that sounds incredibly expensive. What kind of runway of money do you have to make these videos before they have to start making money back?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Good question. And and so we have we have the whole creative team uh ready and functioning. Uh we have all the systems in place there, right? I would say I'm really well, my company's really good at building that. And and the only thing holding us back right now is the funding. Then again, I have a lot of businesses that can fund it, but uh uh for it to be uh uh long-term and and sustainable, uh we need um we need to turn a profit on every video. And thankfully, we have a ridiculous amount of sponsors lined up. Oh so we have we have we have a bunch of sponsors who want to work with us, who see the vision, who are excited about the content. Um so most of these videos have already been uh uh funded for, and then we film them, we make a great video, and and and and hopefully the sponsors become returned customers and they want to do more videos.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. It's definitely uh a departure from what you have been doing and stuff. And that's obviously purposeful. Like you're looking into the future, the things you want to do, and things that are uh beyond the scope of just gamers. I mean, these are just general interest kind of videos where the the total addressable market could be potentially a lot larger.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

We're gonna go to 100 million subscribers. That's the plan, right? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So what's the timeline you want to do that in?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Ten years. Uh yeah, this is the this is not something you can do in a year, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Is this something not from the position that I'm in right now? Yeah. In earlier part, you said you know, one of the problems you had before was that you were the center of everything. It sounds again like that's a thing. So you could be technically the uh the log jam of everything. What's the strategy moving forward to create these kind of bigger videos, which are going to take a lot more production time, but in a faster way? Or do they even need to be fast? Is this once a month thing, or what are you looking at?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Exactly. Yeah, you're you're answering your your own question right there. So before I would do double daily videos and I would have to be everywhere, right? And now we're more looking at one video a month, bigger, a bigger productions, uh uh bigger, bigger teams working on it. Uh so I'm not really needed. Uh and and it's all delegated up to the point where, you know, just like here, you invite me to this podcast, my assistant has briefed me, it's in my calendar, I get a notification, time to attend the podcast, right? Yeah, and the same thing. I so I was doing all of these appearances all the time, and I I thought, well, how is it how is it possible for this random shoot to be better organized than my own recording, right? Because I have no prep work here, I just show up. I don't even press record, you press record. I press record, yeah, yeah. So I thought, okay, well, I need that for my own recordings. I just show up, someone else presses record. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So I flipped the script on myself there, and I said, well, for a shoot to me should feel the same as if it's a third party and it should be that properly organized. So I get picked up by my driver, I go to the shoot, I'm like briefed there on the spot, and the camera crew knows exactly what to do. Rather than what I had before, was I would bring the camera, I would set up the camera, I would do everything, then I would send it to the editor, I would brief the editor, I would uh right. So and and that's just not scalable. So I'm really trying to think like how can I scale, how can I do this long term, um, and and how can I have this this proper business balance? Um, and but but like this is this is not like advanced business talk, right? If you're a starting creator, you gotta do everything yourself and you gotta understand uh everything yourself too.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, but you've been there, you've done that as well. So it's not like you fell into the success part, you actually had to grind through it as we talked about before. Um, what would you say is something that is uh you're misunderstood uh by the

Quitting YouTube Then Building Blue

SPEAKER_01 27:40

general audience? Like what are they what do you think a big misconception of Quebec is currently?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Um I don't know. Like occasionally uh it's like I find it flattering too, but there's a lot of these like uh hate videos being made, yeah, but I feel flattered because they make them because they get views. And yeah, that's true. That's true. To me, that's such a like it's such a weird compliment to get. Um, but there's a lot of like there's there's so much misinformation going around. Uh like occasionally people say that I'm broke. Like, I'm I saw you made a video about that. Yeah, I'm in a better financial position than I've ever been in my life. A lot of people say that I quit YouTube or that I quit because of like I think that's the main thing. A lot of people say that I I switched to AI and I got so much backlash that I quit.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

But it was the other way around, like I quit, and then I thought, let's play around with AI, right? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Well, let's dive, let's dive into that. Let's just this is the perfect opportunity to do that. Let's do that. Back, what let's see, what year was this when this happened? This um it seems like only yesterday, but this was a couple years ago. Um, when you first started dabbling into AI. Talk to us about how you initially tripped into it, your your thought process at the time, because you said you were kind of quitting YouTube and you want to try AI. Just talk us through that entire story.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Sure. Okay, so so picture this. I've been doing YouTube day in, day out for multiple, multiple years, and I'm I'm kind of done, right? I'm I'm done for from the repetition. I didn't have enough room to uh innovate, and and it was just boring at this point. So I thought, okay, well, what would I love to do? I would love to start a YouTube channel that's not linked to me, that can run without me. So if I need to take a break, I can take a break, right? Because I couldn't take a break, I was burnt out. So that's where I started Blue, virtual influencer, and a few projects before, but blue was the main one. And blue's still up and running, 3 million subscribers right now. And well, I would say a wildly successful experiment, and and and it's going towards 10 million subscribers. Wow. So I started off with Blue, and and uh, you know, I was doing some other business things on the side, but I just really was burned out from YouTube. So I thought, well, why don't I just uh slow down or quit, right? Uh because for I like sure, I was making a lot of money back then, like ridiculous amounts of money, but I didn't I didn't need the money. Um, so I stopped uploading, I said, hey, you know, I'm announcing my like sabbat whole retirement, whatever, like it's just a break, whatever you call it. It's just a break. Breakslash quit. I didn't really know. Um, and I started focusing more on other sides of the business, other business things. Um, and I was doing that for quite some time, right? And I was getting a lot of uh uh uh energy back. Occasionally I would do a recording and I would be like, oh, this this is fun, but still, like I wasn't really feeling it. I thought, you know what? You know what? Screw this. I'm I'm gonna quit. I I'm done, like I don't have to do this, I haven't posted in a year or so or whatever. And in in the meantime, I have my my research and development team in-house just working on tools, building things, and we we launch projects all the time, like a thumbnail generator, or a dubbing tool, or or a like a new YouTube channel, faceless channel, movie channel, you know it. Um, and at some point I thought, okay, well, why don't we make Blue look better? We had a terrible avatar. Why don't we make him look better? Yay, let's do that. So we threw some money at it. Boom, now Blue looks like a Fortnite character rather than an anime character, right? Okay, we like that style. Blue's doing great, blue's blowing up, and uh blue has completely filled the gap of the Quebec of revenue at this point. Wow. So we're just sitting around the table and uh we're gathering a lot of this research on blue because we didn't know if we could swap voice actors off blue uh without the channel crumbling, right? Uh and and and then we thought, okay, well, we still have the Quebec IP laying around here. Why don't we just do the exact same thing as what we did with Blue, but then with the Quebec IP? So we made, we got called up the designer, we said, hey, that Fortnite character, make it of me, and then we launch it, and we have a friend of ours run the channel, uh, and then we'll see how that goes. Uh which we did. And to us, it was just yet another Friday afternoon. So we launch it. I I I'm on my way to a um a premiere, a movie premiere, as a like a paid appearance, and I'm sitting there, I'm wearing my Apple Watch, but it's like the first time this movie screening is occurring, right? So there's security guards everywhere, and they're the moment you grab your phone, you're you're done. Like it's game over, you're like, banned, though, the don't touch your phone. And I'm sitting there, and the launch had just happened, and we were just like, oh, that's that's cool, okay, whatever. And my Apple Watch is just vibrating. It's my friends texting me. It's like I'm getting tagged, I'm getting DMs on Twitter. It's like Moist Critical made a video on you, Slogan made a video on you, uh, wire wants to in Wired wants to interview you. This person wants to interview you, that person wants to interview you. The CEO of NVIDIA is interested in you. And I'm like sitting there in this movie premiere, and my my I can't I couldn't grab my phone because the security guards would catch me, and it's just looking at my watch. I'm like, how what am I supposed to do now? So that went way more viral than I had ever anticipated. And it was never our intention because we were just we were just like, oh, let's just gather some data and and and maybe maybe go successful, maybe not. Uh and then that blew up, and then we said, okay, let's let's double down on this for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

And then it

AI Backlash And The Misinformation Spiral

SPEAKER_01 33:26

there was some backlash. Talk to us about that. And it did that uh make you adjust anything in the moment, or were you like, this is still actually successful and haters are gonna hate?

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yeah, so so we we looked at the backlash and we thought, uh, is this valid backlash and is this hurting our operation? Uh and it's not because um what you would have expected is for you to upload something, and um uh if something is really, really, really uh um controversial, you end up losing a lot of subscribers on the channel. We did it, right? So that was the first thing. Yeah, so that was the first signal to us like, okay, well, so the it's a lot of noise coming from outside, it's not coming from our existing user base. Um so so that was the first point of uh uh uh for us that it was like, okay, that's interesting criticism. And and then we thought, okay, well, if there's a lot of noise here, let's just dig deeper into this wound and and let's figure out okay, well, uh uh what is it here that is uh uh so um annoying to people or so controversial? And because it's controversial, but it's also not. It's like just me doing some creative expression, and then everyone just has an opinion on it. I'm like, like, come on, man. And and now everyone's doing it, right? So I guess I was just a little bit early. Um yeah, so so that that's kind of how that's kind of how we viewed it. And it's not like brands wanted to stop working with us, it's actually brands wanted more brands wanted to work with us, um, and and brands wanted me to speak about this, and so I traveled the world and told told the story to to a bunch of politicians and business people and and just key decision makers. Um so yeah, it's a it's a fun one, but on Twitter, which is a different world, yeah, it is. It is I I I I it looked like I was being uh standing in front of my house with with pitch pitchforks, and I was being cancelled, and this is the end of my career. And it's like this is such a such a delusional uh uh uh uh image. That really was not the case whatsoever. Uh, but it did get to me like I like I'm used to quite a quite a lot. Um, but it it was really frustrating to see so many people spread lies and misinformation uh when when this is a was a project that I was deeply passionate about, and then I look back on and I would never never like not want to do again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

So this is interesting because um you were talking about when you were younger, it was grind, you didn't care, grind, you didn't care. But I think like any human, when you're passionate about something, you put something into it, if people don't like it, it it starts to like chip at you emotionally and mentally. Was that breaking into you? Again, you had kind of quit YouTube a little bit, so you were kind of right.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

So, yeah, I get what you're saying. For me, it was slight a bit of that, but a lot more of the rest. And the rest was the fact that it was so obvious to me that this is where the future was gonna go, that I was frustrated that no one wanted to believe me. Wow. And I would just talk to people and say, like, this is the future, you know, like AI influencers, they're gonna be everywhere. And they would go, No way, look at how bad this looks. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Look at how how much worse it was a month ago. Like in two months from now, I'm gonna call you and then we'll see. And then two months later, I would call them and say, All right, what do you think now? They're gonna like, yeah, it's a little bit better, but it's still not there. Like, you cannot replace a human. And then nowadays, this is everywhere, everywhere, and people are sending me videos saying, Oh, did you oh my god, look at this? And I'm like, it's it's fully gen AI. There's nothing real about it. And then the whole this whole commercial is AI, and that's AI. So it was more the fact that I was there informing everyone. I was going on podcasts, no one was taking me seriously, and now it's like uh, you know, and I was a laughing stock at the time, and now I'm the expert in the field, and people come back to me and go, you know, you were kind of right about that one. And and to me, that is it's a very satisfying uh uh conclusion to this chapter of my career.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Yeah, it's so crazy because there was such backlash, uh, but I mean now it's undeniable. Um, and whether you like it or not, because there's a whole other section of like whether people like this or not, it is here. But I, you know, your channel has kind of gone from being AI and having a lot of AI to you're saying like no AI, but AI workflows are definitely something that's in the content creation sphere. I was literally talking to Hafu Go the other day, and he uses it for a lot of things. What portions of AI do you currently use now in your like uh production

AI Dubbing That Actually Adds Value

SPEAKER_01 38:11

uh setup?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, so there uh there's one thing that uh I would say is the absolute uh biggest, and then it's a semi-plug here, uh if you don't if you don't mind, Travis. Um but but what what happened was uh we started doing all these launching all these AI tools internally to figure out well which one is sticking the most and which one's adding the most value. One that's people don't like is obviously replacing the host with AI. Uh that one we we realized. Key here is replacing the host with AI. If the host was AI from the start, it's a different story, right? Interesting. Uh but replacing the host, the moment you replace the host, people people hate it. Um we tried AI thumbnail tools, which still wasn't really, it's still a hard one. Um, plus the return on investment is hard to measure. Um but uh the most exciting one was AI dubbing. So we started testing this with uh blue. We had we have all audio in English. We would then uh grab this English language, and the theory was well, with AI we can translate it to uh Spanish, and then uh we have AI read it out in Spanish, right? And capture the emotions well. So we built this tool for ourselves internally, um, and then we started adding these audio tracks to YouTube because it they allow that, right? Uh and and our measurement to for success, one of them one of the key data points was average federation. Guess what? Guess what? Okay, we would have an eight-minute average federation on a blue video on English. We would dub it to Spanish. What do you think the average featuration was?

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Uh well, I would imagine a lot of Spanish people hadn't seen videos like that before, so maybe more.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yes, that's exactly what our our theory is, too. So the average federation went up. So, first of all, it meant that okay, we can we can capture all the nuances and keep the video entertaining, but also we can reach this new audience, which is hungry for this type of content. Yeah. So we did Spanish, and then we said, okay, let's do 10 more languages. Uh, and that really helped us uh blow the blue channel up even more and and you know gain a few hundred thousand subscribers very quickly. Uh and more recently did we start offering it to other creators. So uh we have this creator, um I don't want to name any names because I haven't had explicit confirmation from them. Uh but they're um there they do construction videos. Um, and they came to us and and their subscriber count daily was pretty stagnant. Um so you know they were hovering near a million subscribers, and then we started dubbing videos for them in into a few different languages, uh, one of them Spanish, one of them Portuguese, and a few more. Uh and they started like overnight blowing up. So now I think since we started dubbing for them, they've been gaining 3,000 subscribers a day. And this is on content in on their older library, this is on their newer videos. I think they've posted like two videos since, but on their entire entire back catalog started blowing up again because of the uh AI dubs. Uh and I I I don't know exact numbers, but uh uh according to our math, they uh they made a return on their investment within a month. So they they they paid us for the dubs, it blew up, and now it's just pure profit for them. And and to me, that is the success tying this back to like AI tools, AI workflows. It is an AI workflow that adds value to uh uh to content uh which wasn't possible before. So me replacing myself, it's a replacement, right? And uh it doesn't add value. Us doing AI dubs, it opens up things that weren't possible. I before this, I couldn't be dubbing my videos, it it wasn't just realistic, right? So that's why I'm a really big fan of AI unlocking new uh uh industries and and unlocking new uh audiences rather than uh doing the replacing.

Rebuilding A Company That Runs Without You

SPEAKER_01 42:11

You're you're definitely have an entrepreneur's uh mindset, CEO's mindset. Would you say at this point in your life you are a content creator who is an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur who is a content creator?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Oh now I'm an entrepreneur who's a content creator for sure. Yeah. Okay. Before I was just a content creator trying to be an entrepreneur. No, I I'm I'm a C I'm a CEO first, a hundred percent. I'm I'm the unc in the company. I'm I'm I'm the I'm really uh I have I have great leadership, but the majority of my day and the majority of my thoughts are focused on running a business and making sure the business is successful and YouTube and the Quebec brand. Uh that's a part, that's a department of of the business. Uh, it is it is one uh uh sheet in my entire Excel, right? Yeah, uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Is is there an exit strategy for you from the content creation side?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

No exits.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

No, no, I'm I'm deeply content to just be doing content as well as being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Yeah, I'm deeply passionate about the industry, I'm deeply passionate about content creation. Uh I've made I've made my fair share of money. I don't think money would would would make me like more like I don't think an exit or or uh you know exit strategy like selling or or replacing myself, like I don't think that would make me happy. I'm uh very happy with what I do right now, and I want to do it until the day I die. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

That's cool because if you think back a couple years when you quote quit and then were replacing yourself with AI, it sounds like you're in a very different place. What changed between then and now that like now content creation is kind of you're falling in love with it again?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, so I I went all the way back. Like I did a lot of reflecting on okay, well, where did things go wrong, right? And just chipping at them one at a time. Um, and and I I really zoomed out um and I I took a break. I just stopped, stopped in my path, and then I observed and I realized, okay, a lot of things I I've built aren't functioning properly. So let's rebuild them. And I've rebuilt my entire company from the ground up. So back then I had an I had an office. I said, I don't need an office. Why do I need an office? I could just do everything remote. And I really started questioning everything and every person and every department. And I was very ruthless with it. And with that came building new systems that could function without me. Back then I was super interwoven into the company. So I rebuilt everything that so that it could run without me, so that we had checks everywhere. And I was just slowly chipping away, you know, first starting with the finance team, making sure, okay, everything runs good there. Then starting with doing HR, making sure HR runs nicely, making sure leadership is nice in my organization, and doing sales and doing blue. And then eventually all I had left to do was Quable Cup, right? So I had I had cleaned up everything and I was really enjoying this cleanup process. I wasn't creating videos, it was just cleaning up and building and building. And eventually I stumbled upon Quable Cup and I was like, ah, this is a mess, right? What do we do here? Well, first of all, get rid of the entire team and find a new team. So I found I so I thought, okay, who's the best in the world? Who has the best resume? Uh anyone who worked for Mr. Beast. So we started headhunting all the guys who worked for Mr. Beast, and we said, okay, well, either Stokes Twins or Mr. Beast, they both have 100 million subscribers. We need you in our team, right? So that's how we started. Um, and then we started building the systems. Okay, well, how does it work? Someone comes up with ideas, writes scripts, preps everything. How can we make it in a way so that it's just it's it there it has longevity for me so that it doesn't burn me out, but it's more fun for me. Um, and that took quite some time and quite some iterations, and now we're at a point where I thoroughly enjoy a recording, right? And me enjoying the recording, that's all I focus on. And then I I focus on making sure the end video is good, of course. Uh, but but I trust I trust the people involved there. Um, so that's really what has changed. Uh I it's it's like it's a long journey, but I had to summarize it. I hope I hope I hope that's a little bit clearer for you and the listeners.

Health, Therapy, And Higher Standards

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Finally, I want to ask more about Jordi, the person you've been through a lot throughout your consecration career. Um good, bad, indifferent, all the stuff in the middle. From a mental and you said at the beginning, I didn't believe in mental health stuff, like who cares and stuff. But in the end of the day, like you have family, friends, and loved ones who also see what you're going through. Were your relationships there ever strained, or did you always prioritize them? And also, did you ever have any moments where your mental health was kind of like this is actually harder than I thought it was? Let's talk about the real Jordi.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah, sure. So, so right now we've just been talking business, and uh alongside this journey of me uh quitting YouTube and stepping back, I also went on on a personal development journey, right? So there were some things that decisions that I made that uh you know that wasn't really true to Jordi. Uh and and and and that kind of started nibbling on me, right? Uh so I thought, okay, well, if I take a step back, like how do we build this up? So first thing uh prioritize my health, and I mean physical health. So I started eating healthy, I started working out religiously, sauna sessions, meditation sessions, whatever could, you know, make sure my body is in a good state. And and and I do regular blood draws now, I do full body scans, like I'm health obsessed. Uh, because I feel like if I sleep well and if I if I f if I if I live healthy, I can be way more productive uh in work and business. Um but alongside this, yeah, of course. I like I went to therapy, I spoke to a bunch of people and and I uh unwrapped a few uh um a few things that I didn't know were bothering me. Um and then I started realizing okay, maybe I need some some some healthier friends around me, and I have a great support system around me and healthy friends, but it was very gradual. There weren't there weren't any absolute insane situations that occurred, but it it was more of a long, slow journey. Um and and now I can look look back on that and say, you know, I'm I'm proud of myself for doing that. I recommend that to anyone. Um and uh yeah, that that was just that's just part of the story. That's just how it how it had to go. Uh I feel like uh uh you know it uh if you believe in in God, I I don't particularly, but uh people say God has a plan for anyone, everyone, right? Um and and and and so so does the universe, right? So so that's really how I view it.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Do do you feel like you are easier to work with or for now than before, or do you think you're harder because now you you have like a goal or that you're trying to accomplish a very specific kind of way of working?

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Um if you if you're capable of of get landing a job inside of my company, then uh I think you're you're you're up for a good time. But I have very high, I have much higher standards now, I'm much more strict now, uh, but I'm much more fair too, uh, I would say. Um uh but yeah, back then I would say I was more immature. I had good intentions, but I I didn't know how to convey uh uh all the all the right things to people.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

You have over a decade and a half experience with a bunch of uh views and subscribers

Advice For 2026 Creators And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 49:36

and everything. If you had to tell a content creator who's starting out now the things in 2026 they really need to be focused on to be successful, what would those things be?

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Uh first of all, start posting. This is the the the the the rookie mistake is to focus. Like if you're listening to podcast, uh if you if you're listening to this, I don't know, it might end up as a clip, who knows? If you're listening to this and and you you're waiting for advice, the first thing that I'm gonna confront you with is have you posted a video yet? If you haven't, just go post a video. Don't care. Don't just don't worry about it. And then just post a video every day or or or every other day. Just pick pick a time frame and then post a video every every single time frame, right? Start off with that because it's it's you need to start building a system that can produce content. And only then do you want to refine the system and make the system better. But first make sure that you build a car and then figure out how to make the car faster. I think this is what a lot of people forget all the time, and it's always been like this. They come up to me, they go ask for advice, ask how many videos have you posted? They say, I've not posted a single video. And I'm like, then my advice is pointless to you. Go make videos. Um, so yeah, I I think that's gonna help the most people out.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

I've been uh looking forward to this interview for about a week now, and I think you've you've smashed it. I appreciate your time. If you're interested in Quebecop, there'll be links in the show notes. If you're listening to the audio podcast, of course, links in the description for the video podcast. I can't thank you enough for your time, Jordy. You are a super interesting guy with a lot of experience that I think a lot of people can grow from and really learn from. So, again, if you want to see Jordy's next couple of videos, which I'm now super interested in, as he shared with us earlier, some of the new things he'll be doing, make sure you check him out. And uh, if you're new here and you like content like this, I got another video for you right here where I talk to someone super interesting as well. I will see y'all in uh the next one.