TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

How A Tech Creator Turns Trust Into Big Brand Deals

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We talk with Andru Edwards about turning YouTube from a popularity contest into a real business built on trust, fair opinions, and long-term brand relationships. Andru shares what early YouTube monetization looked like, why he keeps learning, and how a smaller channel can outperform bigger creators on sales. 
• Andru’s path from tech blog to video and podcasting as the industry shifts 
• Early YouTube Partner Program history and why AdSense payouts changed 
• Work habits, staying motivated, and picking a niche you genuinely love 
• Personal adversity, self-belief, and focusing on where you are going 
• Learning as a daily practice, from platform shifts to AI 
• Views versus revenue, why shorts can mislead, and concerns about low-paid UGC 
• How we build brand relationships by treating companies as people 
• Why fairness and genuineness make brands trust you and audiences buy 
If you're new here, we're here to help you grow your YouTube channel. 
If you like that, hit that subscribe button. 
If you're new here and you'd like this, definitely hit that like button and then leave us a comment below. Like, what would you like Andru to come back and talk about the next time? 
If that is something that you connect with, hit that subscribe button, and we'll see y'all in the next one.


Cold Open And Big Claims

SPEAKER_00

He grew up in a situation that probably should not have allowed him to be where he is today. I've seen my mother get shot in the head.

SPEAKER_01

He works with companies that are huge, not just in the tech space, but overall huge. Airbnb, national car rental, WWE. If it's if it's a tech company, I've probably worked with them at some point in the past 20 years.

SPEAKER_00

And he's one of the few people who've come on here and told the truth.

SPEAKER_01

He doesn't care about his follower number, his view numbers. It's not about the views to me. It's not about the subscriber numbers. Like these are things I just don't care about.

Meet Andrew And The Show

SPEAKER_00

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that has hosts that gets guests that look kind of like the host. I'm Travis, and I'm here every single week. And today I have a very special guest, uh, good friend of mine, Andrew Edwards. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. That's a cool intro. I'm the fly, just off the top of the dome right there. I every time it's different. It's custom every single week. I try to listen. It's not easy to do that, but I'm kind of talented. But if you're new here, we're here to help you grow your YouTube channel. We do that in a lot of ways. Sometimes we answer your questions. Other times we have guests like Andrew and help you uh kind of learn like how to how this thing, YouTube, this thing called YouTube works. It works in so many different ways. So if you like that, hit that subscribe button. If you're listening to the audio podcast, there will be notes in the show notes to get to Andrew, which you will want to after this because we're about to talk about some really cool stuff. And one of the things that um I want to let everyone know is that we actually do know each other previous to this. We've known each other for like five years or something. Longer than that. Has it been longer than that? I want to say like seven. Oh my gosh, I'm old. Um the thing that the thing that uh I always joke with Andrew about is I see him at a lot of events around the country. Uh, but he lives like 20 minutes from my house. I've literally never seen him anywhere near this area. It's always been either in California or Vegas or actually recently in Seattle, but it's so funny. But Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01

I appreciate it. Yes, yes, that is funny. I've I've heard the same from other people in the area, like my friend Benji, for example, or Shelly. It's like, hey, anytime I see you, like we're friends, but we all live in the same general area. We never see each other there, though. It's always it's always elsewhere. But that's that's just the the life of being on the go nonstop. That's true. Let's talk a little bit about who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00

Tell us a little bit about you and your

From Blog To Full Time Creator

SPEAKER_00

channel.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay. Let's where do I where do I begin? Me, I'm Andrew Edwards. Um, I've been a full-time content creator. This is gonna age me now. I'm not gonna be as cool anymore after I say this, but it's been um 22 years that I've been a full-time content creator. Um, started with a website, a blog that I would do every day after coming home from work, just putting you know, an hour or two of my thoughts on the tech news of the day. And in about nine months, that became my full-time job. And then from there it became started a podcast. I was one of the first podcasts when Apple supported podcasts. Actually, I was podcasting before Apple supported podcasts and iTunes. So I was one of the first highlighted ones because it already existed when they launched. And then all the websites were getting bought up by these big media companies. And they I got an off a few offers too, but I was like, if I sell my website, what am I gonna do? Like I like what I do, like I like this. And so I didn't sell, but it be quick quickly became obvious that I needed to do something quick because when they would buy a website, let's say Engadget or Gizmodo get bought, their staff goes from one or two people to like 15 to 20 overnight. Yeah, and all of a sudden that's my competition. It's like I'm just one guy. So that's where I pivoted over to video in 2006. And I said to myself, the reason I'm gonna go with video is I want people to know my name and see my face and know my voice. Because if I say to you New York Times, right? Or LA, whatever, whatever, like a big newspaper, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But I bet if I say like the top journalist at that paper, like just their name, you'd be like, Oh, I have to know who is that, right? And I was like, I want people, if people are gonna know these big websites, I need them to know my name. So video became my method for doing that. I started um CES 2006 uh with video, and then at CES 2007, I was recognized as having the most video of any platform or any outlet. We did over 300 videos in one week, which was wild. Whoa. Um it was literally just going booth to booth, interviewing each one, like, hey, what are you what are you showing at CES this week? And you know, five-minute video, but it was like you know, to me, and I guess to a lot of content creators, it would probably like resonate. It's not hard. It's hard like to get started with everything, but once you once you have your routine, it's not hard to just hit record on a camera and just speak to it, right? So like if I'm not thinking of which I wasn't at the time, um, production quality, yeah, right. I was just thinking, I just want to get the information out to people who aren't here. So I'm just gonna go booth to booth and do this. And so, yeah, 300 videos in in one week was it was all because I just pointed the camera at, you know, or I had someone helping me. They pointed the camera at me and the person I was talking to, I talked to them for five minutes. Okay, let's go to the next booth, do it again. Go to the next booth, do it again. And just did that every single day for hours. Um, because I'm just so like when it comes to tech, so my niche is consumer technology. I'm so passionate about it. Like, I would, I would, if I wasn't doing this for a job, I would wish I was doing it for a job. Right, right. Getting to talk about this stuff with people that care about it, with a community that's into it. It's just even to this day, 22 years later, I cannot believe this is what I get. This is my life's work. It's just I can't believe it. So, yeah, so that's what I've been doing uh since 2006 is making videos about consumer technology because I love it and I love talking about it, and I love like having discussions in the comments about it and going on social media and talking about it. And I've it's never something I've gotten burnt out by. I've never been jaded by it. Um, it still blows my mind that I can hold a slab of aluminum and glass and have a face-to-face conversation with anyone on the planet, no matter where we are, as long as the internet is, you know, as long as we have an internet connection. That still blows my mind to this day. So that's me. That's what I do. That's a long-winded way of it.

SPEAKER_00

That's a long way. But it's a lot of good information. It gives me an opportunity to kind of dig into some of it. So you have the website. I am very curious how that got monetized, but also I don't want to make it so far long ago because everything is different now than it was 20 years ago. Like to talk, and I do want to talk about how you first got on YouTube, but the YouTube you joined is not the YouTube, it's not even close to being the same thing. So let's

Early YouTube And AdSense Reality

SPEAKER_00

just start from there. When you decided to do video, um, tell us about what the YouTube of 2006 looked like and what that was like uploading and what your expectations were and what the like general performance of things were. Just give us kind of what that was like. Again, a long time. There was no YouTube when I started.

SPEAKER_01

Well, when you very first when I started making videos, right? No, when I started making videos, I had what's called a server. And I would I would I would upload my videos to my server and people would download them and watch them, and I would have these huge server bills. But it was like, that's that's if you want to do video, that's what you got to do. Yeah. So it was it was very, it wasn't like super reliant on sponsorship, but it was like that's what paid the bills. Like I wouldn't say at that time sponsors like were my big revenue, a big portion of my revenue, but it was enough to like allow me to cover the cost of serving videos. Yeah. Um, you said things are very different today, which they are, but the one thing that's the same today, back then, and even a hundred years ago is uh marketing is about getting attention of people and hoping that you capture a lead or sell something, right? Hopefully they take whatever the action is you want them to take, you're paying money in the hopes that that action gets taken by as many people as possible, right? So even back when I had my website, like the thing, the crazy thing for me that I was able to quit my job because it was like a company reached out and they were like, hey, we'd love to uh pay you, I think it was like $3,000 for 30 days to put our banner ads on your website. I was like, What?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now I had a large audience, but it just never occurred to me that that was a thing because to me it was it's almost like today, it's like people so badly want to get into the partner program with YouTube so they can be monetized. Right. And that's that's what I was running on my website, which is called Google AdSense. It's kind of like it's this actually the same thing, but it's for websites instead of videos. And I thought that was the only way to make money with a website. So a brand working with me directly, it just like unlocked my brain as soon as that happened. I was like, okay, so I don't have to just rely on the ads Google gives me, I can replace those with this much higher paying ad, and then just show Google ads when I don't have a sponsor.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, okay. So then it was like I'm making more from one or two hours a day of writing my thoughts on tech than I am eight hours a day at a job that I don't want to go to. It's time to make the switch. Um but YouTube back then, here's how different it was talking about the partner program. When they launched the partner program, they gave me a phone call. Whoa. Someone at YouTube picked up the phone and said, Hello, this is Andrew Edwards. I said, Yes, it is. Hey, we're launching this thing called the partner program, and we thought you want to be um, we were considering a few channels we thought you want to be interested. I'm number four, I was the 14th channel monetized on YouTube. Wow, like that's my one of my YouTube claims to fame. Um, I think there was a clip of me at a YouTube event where YouTube told everybody, you know, hey, this guy's number 14. There's over 2 million, 3 million channels now. He's 14 right here. Like, that's how small YouTube was. Like, if I had a problem, I would call them up, they'd be like, Oh, yeah, let me let me go talk to so-and-so, and he's fixed, and so-and-so was like three deaths down. Like, that was YouTube back then. Yeah, um, so you know, compared to now, it's it's way different. But the other thing was monetization. Now, I don't know the reason for this one. If someone can tell me, please do YouTube. I want to say 15 years ago, my AdSense, I made more than 10 times back then what I'm making now each month on AdSense. Now, imagine how much growth I've had in 15 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying, like my channel is way more successful. But back then, I don't know if it was because video was so novel and new that all the advertisers were just like, we just need to rush into this because we don't want to get left behind, and now it's just normal. Yeah, and so budgets aren't as big, or there's just way more people that the money has to be like shared between all these channels that exist now versus back then. But yeah, back then I could have I could have only done AdSense and lived very comfortably on now, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00

If you give me like an estimate of how much you would have made in a year in like 2007 or 2008, whatever those prime years were.

SPEAKER_01

Just from AdSense? Yeah, just from AdSense. Just from AdSense. Um just from AdSense, in one year, I would make like $180,000. And that's not even joking. And the views were nowhere near what I get now. And the subscriber number, I mean, obviously, subscriber number doesn't affect that at all, but I'm just saying, like the whole game is different now because if someone started today and had the views today that I had back then, they would not be making $180,000 just on ad sets. They'd be made, uh, make $20 or something. Like it's it's absurd the way the way that part of the industry's changed.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, that's it, it is crazy. So, okay, so you get going. And it sounds like you had a lot of success kind of early on because AdSense worked and everything. And you also had the unlock of sponsorships, which we're gonna talk about kind of extensively in this video. Also, if you like the sponsorship talk we're gonna be having, we did a video, I did an interview with uh Justin Moore, who tells you how to get those sponsorships. I'm actually more interested in something that Andrew really excels in, and I have a lot of respect for Andrew in this regard, is the the relationships he has with brands. I want to talk to about that later, but definitely hang tight because when you hear some of the brands Andrew works with, you're gonna want to listen to that. Um, but let's say so back in 2008 or whatever, things are going along, that since it's paying well, like what

Work Ethic And Loving The Niche

SPEAKER_00

was the life like? How were you uh balancing life, work, and and and all that sort of thing? Because YouTube was constantly evolving pretty much every year because things kept changing. Um tell me what that process was like.

SPEAKER_01

Man, um, I mean, I don't know that I'd recommend this answer to most people because how did I balance things not well? Uh now again, I love what I do and I've never been burnt out. So when I say not well, I don't mean like I was in a bad mental state. But what I mean is I can do this 24-7. Like I can and and have a great time doing it. So when you say what was my balance like, it was really like wake up, work, and then keep working unless I had to like have a meal or something, or like, you know, planned like to hang out with someone or um be with my significant other. Like besides that, though, if I didn't have anything going on, I'm working even till this day. Like, like this podcast, right? I would consider this like part of my work day. I was just recording a video. I stopped recording like 10 minutes before you and I got on here. When we're done, I'm gonna have a call uh with Apple, then I have a call with Roku, then back to editing the video that I just recorded. And then when I'm done, like in here, this is my office where I record and edit. Um my evenings, even now, is like, okay, my TV usage is like 99% YouTube. Yeah, me too. You know what I mean? I'm not like watching shows. Yeah, like I'll watch, I'll watch like wrestling.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01

Um maybe I'll watch a show here and there if something catches my eye, but really it's like I'm spending my time on YouTube. Number one, because I find it entertaining and like I it the algorithm knows me so well, so well what I'd like. Number two, I'm constantly learning. Like if I'm enjoying a video, it's almost like, okay, why did I enjoy that though? What was the hook? What caught my attention? Why did I not? Right? Like it's like I'm dissecting as I'm enjoying. It's almost like the way I watch, I don't know, a basketball game is different the way than like LeBron James is gonna sit down and watch a basketball game, right? He even if we're both like watching for entertainment purposes, he has a totally different mindset about what he's seeing than I would. It's kind of like that. Not that I'm LeBron James of YouTube, but I'm just saying, like it's it's my profession, I'm watching as a professional as opposed to just a viewer. Um, so yeah, back then, but it was it's it was really all about the idea that I'm just gonna I'm gonna do this. Like I'm going, this is going to be successful. There's nothing that's going to stop me. That was all really my mindset at every at every step, actually. When I started the website, I had just had my son. Um, and it's like, okay, I have a secure job. The website, again, nine months later, Brandon's like, hey, can we do 3K for a month? And I'm like, all right, I need to make this happen, and I'm going to make this happen. And like telling my wife at the time, like, hey, I'm gonna quit my job and do this writing about gadgets thing. Whereas, by the way, at the time, like I had to, people are like, why did you start this? And I my answer was always, I had to find a way to make gadgets make me rich instead of poor. Because that's what was happening to me. It's like, yeah, I would make, you know, again, I'm in my early 20s. I'm making stupid decisions like, all right, listen, if I don't pay my phone bill, it really doesn't get cut off until 60 days later, which means I can still have my phone, but I can go buy this, you know, random piece of tech, right, and then just make sure next month I have the money for the phone, right? It's just like, what the hell am I doing? Right. Right. Yeah. Um and so it was like, I need I need technology to make me rich instead of poor.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And once I got that into my brain, it was like every single step from the blog to the podcast to starting video was all like, I am not going to get like kicked out or become irrelevant in this space. I have to remain relevant. Um, so that's why the podcast started. And then that's why when I saw, okay, everybody's getting bought up. I don't want to just sell my website for, I don't know, 400k or whatever, which I know a lot of money, but like I've the amount of time I've been doing this, that would have been a stupid decision. The amount of money I've made doing what I do, selling for 400k like 15 years ago, would be just atrocious. Um, so like believing in myself and knowing that 400k is gonna be nothing compared to what my ambitions are, what my plans are. And I know for a fact that those plans and ambitions I am going to make into a reality. So that was really like my mindset and my hustle was succeed, success. I'm going to succeed. I am going to make this work. And no matter what I need to do, it's going to happen. Um, now that and the and the one thing I want to go back to when I say that is I found a niche that I love, right? Burnout has never been a thing for me when it comes to this. If it was a different niche where it was like, I see that this niche has a high CPM, so I'm gonna go for that, or you know, just something that's like a fad or trend, it's like this is really me. Like, this has been me since I remember when I put that my first quarter in Super Mario Bros. at the laundromat and like being mesmerized that I can control what's happening on this screen because I'm used to just watching a TV, and to me, this is this is a TV I can control. Like, what? This is crazy. Um, I remember the first time signing on to AOL in the the early or the mid-90s, like I can talk to people who are in other towns or cities just by typing and just like logging on this on this laptop. What? Like that has always been me. So that's that's like the unlock. Like, if this was a niche where someone was like, hey, talk about finance because you'd get these high CPMs on finance, or talk about freaking mesothelioma because that was the big one in the blogging days. Was like, if you start a blog about mesothelioma, you're gonna get these high-paying ads because all the lawyers at the time were like, all the law firms were like buying ads because mesothelioma was a thing based on um what was it? What is it asbestos or something like that? Yeah, yeah. So it was like I didn't chase, I didn't chase it for the money. I chase it because I genuinely love this. And I feel like if you find that thing that you genuinely love, the internet is so big, you're gonna find a community of people that love that thing just as much as you. Um, and then you just have to put the time in and the genuineness to like make it happen.

SPEAKER_00

You know, one of the things that you just said there, um, that I've noticed over the course of talking to a lot of creators recently is uh a lot of them have made it sometimes in spite of their kind of surroundings and their life. I'll give you an example. Um, by the time this episode comes out, the episode with Tayo is probably out. Uh, he uh is a very popular and very successful uh travel vlogger, but he was born in Lagos, Nigeria. And his first job in order to get the money to do this uh was as an Uber driver, but he didn't own a car. So he borrowed one from a friend to do Uber driving. And to me, he's in a situation, and I we talked about this, he's in a situation this should be impossible. Like you want to be an Uber driver to become a big YouTuber one day. None of this is gonna happen. You don't have a car, you don't, I don't even think he had a phone at the time. Like he had none of those things. Yet because he believed in it so much and he wanted it so bad, you'd be amazed at what you can accomplish when you want something really bad, and you don't let all the obstacles tell you that you can't do something. It's something that you hear people say, but it sounds like the storytelling, like, oh, just believe in yourself, which is not always the right thing. But in this case, and I've seen it so many times in here, um, it does get you the rest of the way there. Like the skill and everything, you still need those things. You can't just be terrible and believe in yourself because some that's not a that doesn't always work. But if you are good at something and you believe in yourself, you'd be surprised at how many gaps that actually can can fill. And the other thing you talked about, which I love, and I can definitely vouch for this, is you're always learning. So the last time I saw Andrew, and the way that I got him on here is was at a Seattle um YouTuber conference where you know they were giving speeches and stuff. And by the way, if uh if you I think by the time this one goes live, you would have seen the episode with um Dan, the producer from uh Pocket Monster, who did gave an incredible presentation on storytelling on YouTube, and that's on the podcast channel. You definitely need to watch that. It's incredible. And Andrew was there. I mean, in so many ways, people could look at you and go, you have 600,000 subscribers, you make tons of money every single year. You don't need to learn anything new, but you all I see you at all of these events. Tell me about why that's still important to you even to this

Surviving Trauma And Betting On Yourself

SPEAKER_00

day.

SPEAKER_01

First, let me go back to something you said a minute ago about the uh believing in yourself and all that. I really think challenges are real, right? People have challenges in their lives. Everybody has challenges in their lives. So this is not to say that that doesn't exist. Um actually, I know I know it very well. I lived in 26 different homes from age four to six as a foster child. Um I I've I've seen my mother get shot in the head and she survived, she didn't die. Like it was but I've like I've seen as a child, like I had a crazy you would think I would be like a gang member or dead by now. And instead I was a straight A student my entire life. Um that was because I said to myself, despite all these challenges that I'm going through, literally at a young age, I remember telling myself, like I'm not gonna allow people to think things about me based on what other people have done. In other words, whatever my mother did or whatever company she kept, right? Just because I'm her child, that doesn't reflect on me or should not reflect on me. So I'm going to show people like who I am.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And instead, and you know, I had a I had this um, I was very insecure about being a foster child, and I was very insecure. I got adopted by like the best family, but I was I was insecure about the label of being adopted. And so, like, you know, as an adult now, I can see how ridiculous it is. Like, if I if I see a child who's adopted, or I'm not thinking, oh, that there must be something wrong with that, right? But as the child, yeah, I'm like, oh, people are gonna think I I suck, right? Yeah. Because I'm adopted. Um, so my goal was like, I'm going to be the child you wish your child was. Wow. You're gonna you're gonna wish I was your child instead of your child being your child. Yeah, um, so that's all that to say is like I know struggle. Um, my son, when I told you I quit my job, I just had my son, my son was born three months early. He weighed less than two pounds when he was born. And he was in the hospital for three months before we could take him home. Um so he had challenges, right? So even still, it was like I know I can do this and I need to do, like, I can't not do this. Um we lived in Olympia, Washington at the time, and he had to be in, he was in Tacoma because that was the only hospital that could like have like an ICU and could like, you know, bring him to the health that he needed to be, hopefully, you know, that was our obvious wish. And so the amount of money I had at the time was like so bad. Like I was surviving off of like friends and churches and stuff, giving us like gas gift cards and like grocery gift cards, like it was not good because the medical bill, his medical bills were over two million dollars.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

Now, now that did not come out of my pocket to pay that, but that was what the charges were, right? So it was just like it was bad. But at the same time, it was like I knew it's like the only person I can bet on is me, right? I can't bet on anyone else and like with a high degree of certainty, right? I can't bet I can bet on myself with a hundred percent certainty. I know what I will do to try to make things happen. And if you have that mindset of just like I know what to do and I'm gonna do it, that's really it. Like, I really feel like that's it. I know what I need to do, and whatever it takes, I'm gonna do it, right? Just like the example you gave. It might sound ridiculous to others, like, wow, he took a job as an Uber driver. He didn't even have a car, so he borrowed a car from someone else. Right. But I bet to that person that did it, it was just this is what I'm doing. Yeah, this is what I'm gonna do. Like, there was no like, oh, this sucks. I gotta miss this. It's like, no, this is what I'm gonna do. I want to make this happen, I'm gonna make it happen. This is what I'm gonna do. So if you want to start this, if you want to start, and it's really anything in life, not this has doesn't apply just to YouTube, right? This is anything in life. You want to start something, you want to be successful at something, and you have the gumption to do it, and you can bet on yourself, as soon as you place that bet, go for it and just do it. And you find it's gonna be so much easier than you thought it would be, because now you're just in the groove. Almost the same thing like with my son. Like anytime I had seen, I remember when they walk me over to my son, right? They're like, We're gonna introduce you to your child, because I wasn't allowed to be in the room when he was born. It was like an emergency. And I look so I'm like scanning the the ICU of all these babies, right? Because I don't know which one they're gonna walk me over to. And I'm like, okay, as long as it's not that one over there, that's cool. Because because like this one, like that one does not look like he's gonna be around for a while.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

Like, I'm like worried. I'm like, okay, and that's the one they walk me to, right? And and and the second they walk me over to that child, I'm in love with that child, right? I don't want any other baby in this room now. This one that has a million wires all over his body and breathing tube, and this is the one that's for the I don't want any other one now, right? And I would think to myself, like, probably like, oh my god, how how difficult that must be as a parent to try to have that? No, as soon as it happens, that's that's the situation I'm in. Okay, it's fine. Let's go, let's roll with it. Let's go, right? So decide what you want to do and go for it, and you're not gonna, it's like you don't feel the struggle anymore. You're feeling or seeing where you're going, and you're like focused on where you're going, not where you're at. Um, now I answered, I answered one part, and I didn't even answer the other part of your question. What was the other part of your question?

SPEAKER_00

About learning, constantly

Staying Sharp Through Constant Change

SPEAKER_00

learning.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, constantly learning. I love learning so much. Like, I can't imagine saying to myself, I know it all. I know it all. I'm successful, I know it all. Because the one thing that is constant is that there was always changes. That is the one constant. There's always changes. Something new, something different, right? And the funny thing is, I have friends that do this. I'm not throwing any names out there, yeah, but people will clown me for some of the things that I will notice and like we should we should start doing this, guys. The first one, Instagram. Why, why we're making videos? Why would we need to focus on focus on putting pictures out there into the world? Like, we it's like, whoa, I think brands are gonna be into this. I think there's something here. We should start posting on Instagram, and I did day one. Um, the next the biggest one I was clowned on TikTok. Oh what what do you mean? That that app is for little girls doing dances. Why would you want to put tech content on this? I mean, I still feel that way, but you're right, but you end up being right. But it's like, listen, like you have to know, it's like, where is the industry going? I don't care where it is right now, where are we going? Right? That Wayne Gretzky thing, like I skate to where the puck is going, not where it is. That makes perfect sense. Where are we headed? And how do I get there? The big one right now is AI, right? What do we need to? There's a massive shift coming.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Bigger than the than the smartphone, bigger than the internet, right? This is huge. This is going to be life altering, not just for people, for everybody, all over the world. This is gonna be life altering. There's no way I'm gonna ignore that and be like, well, I already know how to make videos and talk to sponsors, so I'm good. Right, right. I'm already like figuring out how do I integrate AI into my processes? How can I use AI to help others? Like, that's one pillar of what I'm doing now because I'm not going to get left behind, especially as someone in tech. That's ridiculous. Right. Uh, I'm going to always try to be ahead of the game. And so going to these conferences, now, the one thing I don't really do much anymore is pay to attend conferences to learn. Like, I love Vid Summit, but I haven't been in a few years just because like I don't want to pay like I don't even remember what it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a thousand dollars. Fantastic for creators, to be honest. It's fair, but for what you're about to say is important because there's a differentiation. So go ahead, feel free.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. What I'm gonna say is this is a fantastic place to be. But for me, I find that when I attend something like Vid Summit, I am more having conversations where people are asking me questions and I'm like giving them inform. I'm paying to give people information, which I don't mind giving people information at all. I'm an open book, but it's like I paid a thousand dollars to get to like to go come in here. I had to get my hotel, this and that. And it's like I'm just here to like give people information. It's like, but if when I'm learning, no, like I said, every single day for hours, I'm watching YouTube trying to like better myself and trying to learn and trying to like stay ahead of the game and trying to figure out what's working, what's not working, what's changing that I didn't I didn't realize or think about. I feel like that's how you stay at the top of your game. Like the one thing I one thing I admired about um Tiger Woods, like I don't really know golf at all, but I remember several years ago, like halfway into his career or whatever, it's like he took a break to relearn how to golf from the basics, like as if you're a new person. That's my understanding, at least. Like he's already a world-class world champion, multi-time winner. And he's like, you know what? I'm gonna go back and relearn how to golf. Came back even better. Like, you can't just say to yourself, I know it all. The second you say that, you don't know it all anymore. Right. So because I want to remain relevant in what I do, I feel like learning is essential. Especially now though, like I don't know how how true this is, but I feel like like I'm 45 years old. How at what age do I hit where people hit play on my video and say, I don't want to learn about tech from this old dude. What's how does he know about you know, like for my niche in particular, I wonder if there's if that's gonna be a thing. That's a good question. And so if it is, I need to make sure I'm sharp at all times so that I can at least mitigate that.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, and I and as someone else who's in is in a similar niche, I I yeah, I understand. Um let's talk a little bit about so people have gonna kind of understand you and your mindset.

Views Versus Business And UGC Critique

SPEAKER_00

So let's get to the the meat of the potatoes. I know people are like, okay, tell me how to make money. How did you do this thing? So let's talk about the brand you work with. Um, if you can think of any major brand, Andrew has either active is actively working with them or has worked with them, and it's mind-bending because again, Andrew does tech, but when you hear some of these companies, you're gonna be like, I don't, I don't even understand the connection. But I can name a couple off the top of my head. WWE, which is an amazing one, how fun that is. I I mean I I'd love to hear stories about that. Um, Microsoft, of course, tech, Apple, like the what other companies are are out there that you've worked with over your 20 years of stuff that people might even be surprised on. National car rental was like a huge one for free, right?

SPEAKER_01

Like um, but yeah, all I mean if it's if it's a tech company for sure. If you've if it if it's a company that's been featured in like a best buy or an Apple store, like obviously Apple, but all the stuff Apple sells at like I've probably work with them at some point in the past 20 years. But the the ones you mentioned, like Airbnb, um, national car rental, WWE, uh, the these ones are just like, you know, I again, I'm I'm not only mind blown that I get to do this for a living, but I'm also mind blown by just the opportunities that that just spring up um based on just things I've done in life.

SPEAKER_00

Like and I need to ask you about this before you go too deep because I literally talked to a YouTuber, I'm not gonna say who they are, uh, with millions of subscribers, millions of subscribers, hundreds of millions of views per month. And what after the podcast was over, I was talking to them about like sponsorship stuff, and they are lost. They have no idea. I'm fairly certain that A, you make more money per month than they do. And B, I know for a fact you work with larger companies than they do, despite the fact that they're quote, many times bigger than you. Interesting. Why is the how, why, how?

SPEAKER_01

I can tell you why right off the bat. Uh this is clip this one. Uh people want to build successful YouTube channels, and I don't. Oh, here we go. I love it. I know what you're gonna say. Do it. I want to build a successful business. And there's two different things between a successful YouTube channel and a successful business, right? It's not about the views to me, it's not about the subscriber numbers. It's like these are things I just don't care about. Like, I'll be on social media sometimes with people are like, man, I posted this thing and I lost 20 followers. It's crazy. Like, like I wouldn't even know if I lost, I don't know what my file number is. I I I genuinely do not care. Um, the only time I care, like if I see one of those like uh milestone numbers, I'll put like a thank you out there. But I don't personally like it doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is a number in the bank account. Um, and that's not to say that I will do anything for a dollar, but that profit and loss statement is what defines am I doing good by my business or not? And so, you know, I was I was actually hanging out with someone a few days ago, and it's someone who I've been telling, like, you need to get into long form. They do short content. Like, you need to get into long form, that's where the money is. And they were like, Yeah, but look at all these views. And I was like, All right, let's look at all these views because you're you get way more views than I get. How much money did those views make? And they were like, Oh no, I'm not I'm not monetized. I'm like, wait a minute. Do you oh so you get is it brand deals? Like they're like sometimes, sometimes get brand deals, do some UGC content, which I think is like the biggest scam in the world, by the way, UGC content. Um, and the reason I say that is because of the rates that UGC UGC was like seemed like the marketer's way of saying, hey, no one is accepting when we say we want to pay them $100 for a video. Um, how can we get people who are more novice at creating videos to accept low numbers? Hey, let's call it UGC. Hey, you want to be a UGC creator? We'll pay you $100 to make a video. No way, right? This is crazy. But anyway, I digress on that. Um having a successful business means making sure your your time is like the time you're spending is is valuable to what you need to get out of it. Like any other business, like YouTube is not any different, or I don't even call it YouTube, like content creating being a content creator or an influencer or whatever you want to call it, is no different from the business perspective than any other business on earth, which is you're either giving time or expertise or whatever, and you're getting something back out of it. If you're just spinning your wheels, making shorts content and looking at your view count go up and feeling really proud of the number of views you're getting. I liken that to like if I went to Times Square right now and I made like um a ter uh or even a great a great piece of art and I and I and I put it like um glue on the back of it and I slapped it against the wall um on a street in Times Square, tons of people are gonna walk by that and see it every single day, and I will make zero dollars. The views don't, who cares? Yeah, who cares? It's not a business, that's not a business. What I just talked about is something that gets so many views, but that is not a business. That's just getting views for something I made. Whether I was gonna say a sucky piece of art because I'm not a great artist, but um that doesn't mean like people aren't making great shorts. You can make great shorts that make you no money. So what's the point? Right now, if the point is just I just want to be creative and be a creator, and this is not supposed to be a business, nothing wrong with that at all, right? You do not need to get into this for the money. But if your goal is I want to do this for a living, and all you're doing is racking up views, views are not gonna pay the bills ever, right?

SPEAKER_00

That's just not how it works. I want to talk to you about this because there's an aspect of this that I know because I've seen you in certain scenarios, and I want

Relationship Building With Brands

SPEAKER_00

to unlock this. And also I'm gonna say that this part is not something that um anyone can necessarily do right off the bat. You have to kind of earn it. But I've been to conferences where tech conferences where the PR people, you know, they're they'll come in and they'll introduce you and say, hey, you know, sit over here for this, that, and the other. And I was at one with a major brand, and they all were like, Andrew, hey, come over. They all slapped you up and everything. Like they know Andrew at all of these events. So it's not just like, oh, yes, uh tech YouTuber, come over here and sit down, like Andrew. So it's always this thing. And it's about relationships. And I need, and I assume that had that that gets you into sponsorships. I want you to talk about how you know you've had relationships with these companies, these brands, how you've cultivated them. And then at the end, when someone is new to the to the field, they don't have those built-in relationships. You were around for so long that you almost have this legacy relationship with a lot of these brands. So that's kind of unfair for someone who's new. How would you approach it now? So let's go with like your current relationship, how you got there, and all that stuff. And then how would someone get into it now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think you're I think you hit it right on the money, which is I've been doing it for so long that I'm in people's phone contacts for for 20 years, right? So that's that's number one. But when I started, I wasn't there, right? So I had to develop relationships somehow. And that's really was like by design. Like, how can I make friends with or or acquaintances with people? And my goal has always been, and I feel like it's gonna sound like like that it's not genuine, but I promise you it is like I I genuinely appreciate the friends and acquaintances I made at all these companies. But the idea originally was I need to be memorable. I need people to remember me. I need people to, when they're thinking, hey, we're gonna do an event or we're gonna do a sponsorship campaign or we're gonna do like I'm one of the names that just pops into their head or one of the people like and I find like if I want to, let's say today, I just want to collab with somebody, right? I just want to collab with a content creator. I don't do that anywhere near it nearly enough, but let's say I wanted to. Well, the first people are gonna pop into my head are people I know, right? Just by default, not that's not even strategic. It's just the people I know are just naturally gonna pop into my head. And then if I want to be strategic, like, oh, let me let me actually do some research. Like, but if someone knows you and is friendly with you, they're comfortable with you, they trust you, well, of course they're gonna want to work with someone they trust and know, right? Versus just a random name on a sheet or they they search, you know, top Seattle YouTube creator or whatever, and then here's a list. Like so it's really about the relationships, and is like what is the common ground you can find with someone? And I feel like interfacing with people on social media is an easy way to do that because you know, you go on Instagram or Threads X, which I'm not a big fan of anymore, but whatever. And people are posting more than just about work, right? They're posting, you know, the movie they just saw, or what they and their significant others celebrating a anniversary, or you know, whatever it is. And so it's like you get these insights into people's lives and comments on them, and you can see what, oh, I wanted to see that movie. I'm like, hey, how was that? I was thinking of seeing that movie, right? Or you know, from like someone watching WWE, and it's like, oh, that that's cool because that's kind of a, I don't know, I forget what the car is, but there's some sort of car, maybe it's a Jeep or something, where like when the drivers are see each other on the road, they like wave at each other a certain way because like, hey, we're both we're both Jeep owners, what's up, right? Like there's like that kind of thing for wrestling fans as well. So it's like, oh, okay, that person's watching WrestleMania. Hey, what's what do you think of this or that, right? Like all these things, oh my god. Anyway, so it's like finding those things with people at the companies you want to work with, it takes it from this you're looking at them as a corporation and now you're looking at them as a person, right? Like a few weeks ago, one of our or another content creator, Sam, Sam Cole, right? He was talking about this thing that with Apple. He was like, I can't believe Apple did this. And I was like, because it was something that happened at the Apple store. And I was like, okay, so I understand that Apple did that, but really you're talking about an employee at the Apple store that woke up at 8 a.m., went to their job, and left at 5 p.m. Like that person did that. Apple, right? There's a difference. Yeah, and obviously that's an Apple store employee, but I think that applies to, you know, whether it's a PR person or marketing, whatever. It's like people see them as this huge, like, I'm trying to get a hold of Sony. How do I get a hold of Nintendo, right? This this large company. It's like, no, I just want to uh I'm trying to get a hold of Phil, right? I'm trying to get a hold of of Melissa. So it's like, how do you get a hold of that person? And it's much easier when you look at it that way, like I'm I'm a person and I'm just trying to interface with another person. I'm not, it's not like I'm this little I'm little Andrew trying to figure out who to talk to at gigantic Tesla, right? Yeah. No, it's just like, how do I I don't need to talk to Elon Musk. I just need to talk to the the the person whose job it is, right, to talk to people like me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And once you do that and you start, you know, you develop a rapport, um that's really it. So I guess the short answer is this is a strategy for Making money, but the strategy is more than about making money, it's about making connections, real ones. Yeah. And it's like these are connections that will serve you. Like literally, when I told you I have after this, I have a call with Apple, then I have a call with Roku. The call with Roku is because the person who just got hired over at Roku to manage influencer stuff is someone I've worked with 19 years ago. And that's why he read he was like, hey, Andrew, it's been a long time. I've I've worked with him like in between since then, but I probably haven't talked to him in like probably eight years. He's like, hey, I'm at Roku now. I'm back in the tech industry. Would love to catch up. Like that all goes back to something that happened 19 years ago with this guy. So it's relationships. Exactly. Anytime I saw him in person, it wasn't just like, hey, thanks for, you know, thanks a lot. Fun working with you. It's like, hey, what are you up to? What are you doing? Like, especially when I see people in person, like I'm trying to get to know them. Yeah. So it's like, we have a rapport, not just, you know, I think a lot of people, they get a brand deal, they they work with the person that's like on the brand side doing the brand deal. They publish the video, boom, move on. And now they're in search of their next brand deal. Like, there's no like relationship built. And I'm all about building a relationship.

SPEAKER_00

So for these bigger, and you know, the funny thing is, is this episode's gone so fast that I have like 30 more questions, but a time for like two. I don't have very much time here. So I'm gonna try to squeeze in some stuff right quick.

Fair Reviews That Win Big Deals

SPEAKER_00

Um, so how is it that in a in a kind of the industry we're now, how do you break that, break that ice to the point where you're like, maybe I don't get a cra a crap ton of views on my videos, but I really want to work with a big channel, like a big brand. You work with huge brands that normally only work with channels that get maybe hundreds of thousands or millions of views. Uh the fact you're working with uh, you know, WWE or Apple, they routinely only deal with like super huge creators that get dumb, stupid views. How? How now? What's the what's the way in? I the relationship part makes sense, but like what's the actual A to B to C?

SPEAKER_01

So the relationship part is important, but we already talked about that, so let's put that aside. Yeah, yeah. So pretend you already have that and understood the relationship part.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

For me, at least in this niche, right? Because I can't speak for all niches. I don't know how every niche works. In tech where you're working with PR and marketing and all this, I find it's always, always, always about fairness and being genuine. Like, and I feel like that's like that's not even a cop-out answer because I feel like people say it, but they don't do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Like when I say fairness and being genuine, I'll look at people and like, well, my I make I make fair content and I go to their content, it's like you literally do hot takes on purpose. Like it seems like you you try to be incendiary on purpose. Apple lied about XYZ. Did they really? Like Apple intelligence was supposed to be, they lied. No, I don't think they lied. I think they were just caught with their pants down. I think they thought they could do something that they actually could not do, and they didn't even have the knowledge to know they couldn't do it. I don't think they lied. So just using that as an example, it's like yes, you might think, but did you really stop and think, like, hmm, would Apple lie to all their like, would that make no one? Like, so it's just like, so for me, it's like fair. My fair point is not, hey, let's defend Apple intelligence. It's, you know what? I think Apple really was just behind the eight ball here. Um, and there's several reasons why I can I can say that. And here's here's the five reasons why, and here's what I think they need to do to turn this around. And I'm kind of doubtful that they will, but maybe they can't. Right. That's me being honest and genuine about it. I'm not glazing Apple, and I'm but I'm also not like, oh, let me like say the thing that will generate the most comments and get the most shares. And because again, I don't care about those numbers. I appreciate comments, but I don't care about the share number, I don't care about the view number, I don't care about the like number, I don't care. I appreciate them, but they're not where my attention goes, I guess is the best way to say it. Like, I don't care, sounds flippant. But it's just like that is not what I pay attention to, if that makes sense. It is all about genuineness and fairness. If you can, those are the two things. And again, I started this by saying, I love this stuff. I would do this all day, all night, and I do do it all day and all night. But if I wasn't getting paid to do this all day and all night, and I had to go to work, I would be at work trying to find the coworkers who want to talk about tech. And I would come home and I would watch the YouTube channels that are talking about these things because I love it so much. I feel like you have to find the thing that allows you to get there because I could not be this passionate, genuine, and all that about like, I don't know, even video games, which I love. I don't think I could I could have a video game channel that wouldn't burn me out at some point. See what I'm saying? Because as much as I love it, it's not where my my true passion lies. It's almost like a it's like an outlier of tech, but it's not what for me, it's like consumer electronics, it's my thing. So brands are gonna see that. This person is fair. This person is fair, is a fair when it comes to commentary, reviews, et cetera, in our industry. They're fair in their YouTube channel, they're fair on social media, they're fair on LinkedIn, they're fair wherever I see their content, whether they get amazing views or not, the one thing I can say about this person is they know what they're talking about and they're fair. Okay. Right? And I can tell that they believe what they're saying. I feel like that goes a long way. And and I feel like I'm the proof of that, I guess, because I've heard not just from you, but from others, Renee Ritchie, et cetera. Like your numbers don't match like where you are in the industry. Like your numbers, you know what I mean? And again, I always wanted to be in the place that I'm in. Yeah, the numbers, I don't care. And and and this is this is kind of proof of it, right? Like, yeah, because like you said, I can have numbers that are four times as much. Real short story. A brand told me that a channel, a tech channel that had, I believe it was like 30 times the subscribers I have. So you if you think about that, there's only a few, right? Um, they they paid that person roughly 30 times more than they paid me for the same campaign.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

My tracking link sold five times more than theirs did.

SPEAKER_00

I believe that.

SPEAKER_01

Right? Yeah. And so I should have got that 30 times more money. 100%. I digress. But it's like there's something to not focusing on numbers and instead of focusing on relationships. And the same thing with the viewer. Like, I the viewer I want is the viewer that cares what I have to say. If you don't care what I have to say, that's totally fine. You don't have to. But I'm not tripping at the fact that, oh, that person didn't subscribe and like what I had to say. Oh no, I need to change what I said so I can get more subscribers. No, right? Because then the genuineness goes away.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it's really, it's really is about just that, I

Closing Story And Subscribe Ask

SPEAKER_01

think. Genuineness and fairness.

SPEAKER_00

I believe that like we have gotten through half of a conversation I wanted to have. So we're definitely gonna have to do this again. If you're do a read, yes. If you're new here and you'd like this, definitely hit that like button and then leave us a comment below. Like, what would you like Andrew to come back and talk about the next time? Because I feel like I still have other things I want to talk about. Uh, and I our time is up. But uh, Andrew, I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you're listening to the audio podcast, there'll be links in the show notes and of course in the YouTube description to Andrew's channel and some other things that he's doing. Um, I I, man, I'm I'm blown away. I love it. And some of these questions I've personally want to ask you for a very long time. I'll end with one personal story. Andrew, I think kind of knows this because this happened a couple years ago. So when I uh when I first started on YouTube, one of the things I wanted to do was learn from uh other YouTubers in my area. So I did a Google search for um YouTubers in uh the Seattle area and uh or in the area in general. And two of them came up Linus Tech Tips, who is in Vancouver, uh, and Andrew Edwards. And I sent emails. So this was part of the hustle in the first year that I was doing YouTube. I wanted to learn from the best. I wanted to learn how to grow. So I was gonna I offered to intern for both uh Andrew and uh Linus Tech Tips. Linus Tech Tips, uh, someone from there emailed back and said, Well, because we're in Canada legally, we can't do that, but thanks for writing. Uh Andrew got back to me about a month or so later and said, and said, Yeah, that might be kind of cool. Uh, you know, tell me what you, tell me what you're thinking. And I wrote an email back. I was super excited. I'm like, oh, cool, I get to learn from someone who knows what's going on. And then the next time I heard from Andrew about this was a couple years later, after we had become friends, and I told him the story again. And he goes, Well, if you still want to do that, and at that point I was like 30,000 subscribers, I was fine. I'm like, no, I'm good, Andrew. I don't, I don't need to do that anymore. But maybe I should have. Maybe I should have. Even then, when I was like, no, I've I've kind of made it, I'm I'm pretty good. Maybe I should have. And maybe that's a story for someone who's listening right now. The hustle never stops, and only excuses will hold you back. Andrew is proof of that. He grew up in a situation that probably should not have allowed him to be where he is today. He works with companies that are huge, not just in the tech space, but overall huge. Apple, Google, Airbnb, WWE, and many, many more. And he's one of the few people who've come on here and told the truth. He doesn't care about his follower number, his view numbers. He cares about the relationships with his viewers and the brands and his reputation. If that is something that you connect with, hit that subscribe button, and we'll see y'all in the next one.