Ben Uyeda – a respected architect and creative genius. Listen to hear how Ben makes money off YouTube, earns serious subscriber numbers, and acquires some pretty sweet assets.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Accidental Billionaires
- What CEO do you follow? – N/A
- Favorite online tool? — Steller
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— About 6 and a half
- If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Just to be nice and patient with people”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:38 – Nathan introduces Ben to the show
- 02:21 – What Ben does on Youtube and how he is monetizing it
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- 02:28 – Ben wanted to give affordable design to the masses
- 02:43 – Started to make videos of how to make affordable modern furniture
- 03:00 – Product immigration into the video content itself is how you make money
- 03:20 – Producing a video product is more difficult
- 03:45 – First branded deals
- 03:55 – Homemade-modern.com
- 04:15 – DIY concrete design deal
- 04:30 – Home Depot is Ben’s biggest client
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- 04:40 – Created a series of content packages
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- 04:50 – Step by step video instructions and social media posts
- 05:10 – Creating a bunch of products at once
- 05:18 – It is often rare for big brands to have a real YouTube presence
- 05:38 – Ben started in this field in 2013
- 05:45 – First year revenue
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- 05:50 – First 6 months get Ben 10-15,000 subscribers in Youtube
- 06:00 – Brands that gave Ben donations
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- 06:10 – Ben made a deal of 10 videos per brand after getting 20,000 subscribers
- 06:38 – “You can’t get paid cash until you have 100,000 subscribers”
- 06:48 – Making a whole package of content
- 07:00 – Ben’s deal on brands versus traditional commercial
- 07:40 – Total 2015 revenue
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- 08:15 – Ben buys his own equipment
- 08:44 – Long format video is what Youtubers doesn’t usually do
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- 09:00 – Long format video is an over 20-minute video
- 09:09 – Youtube to TV
- 09:45 – Offering brands full-length videos
- 10:05 – Person to contact if one needs a full length videos
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- 10:10 – Brands have agencies that they work with
- 10:20 – Do reverse engineering to find a person
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- 10:30 – Message on Instagram
- 11:20 – Show the brands that you can do it
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- 11:33 – Put their tools in the video and get positive response
- 11:45 – Projected revenue this year
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- 12:05 – How to scale a business?
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- 12:20 – Scaling would be finding the right people
- 13:07 – Find 2 to 3 brands that are compatible
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- 13:16 – You can get promotional ad even if the brands didn’t pay you
- 13:43 – Collecting and acquiring assets
- 14:26 – Ben’s content is instructional
- 14:55 – Connect with Ben through Instagram
- 17:44 - The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- If you know you can do it, just do it – approval isn’t always necessary.
- There’s a right recipe for everything.
- Be creative – it can get you somewhere.
Resources Mentioned:
- Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
- Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
- Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- @benjaminuyeda – Ben’s Instagram account
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives