Marques Brownlee on Building an Audience and Other Advice for Creators

All right Marques Brownlee, how's it going?

Good, how are you?

Doing well! So I'm curious, I've followed your channel for a while, but I definitely did not follow it in the beginning when you were reviewing software on your laptop. You've been doing it for a long time. What would you attribute your success to on YouTube?

Well, I do tech videos, so I think that the obvious answer there is tech has been interesting and important for so long that just being in the tech space generally for that long has done a lot for it. Yeah, the channel itself, I mean, there's plenty of other successful tech channels, but it has its own unique style, has a consistent voice, it's been me for 10 years. Yeah, so I guess just if you combine all those factors, consistency plus tech staying interesting, that's mainly it.

Mmm, was there any particular inflection point where it really took off?

No, I get asked that a lot about like, you know, can I point to a certain video or date or month or something like, "What happened to go from like nothing to where it is now?" Because I've come to this day, I look back and it's mainly just like, you can look at charts, even it's just a sort of an upward slope from 0 videos to a thousand videos.

Hmm, you know, it's obviously when you get to certain points, like the reputability, is that a word? The repeatability of the channel becomes more significant, so you're more likely to subscribe to a tech guy with a million subscribers talking about something you should buy than a guy with a hundred. So that's helped, but I feel like consistency, again, is major.

Really? Because, yeah, I mean, I follow a couple subreddits on like weird YouTube channels and there are people that have a thousand videos reviewing elevators.

Oh yeah, simple, boring.

Well, I mean, there's always gonna be like niche stuff which people will get really into, but I think like when it comes to something as personal as a tech product, yeah, you kind of want some sort of history to go on or a sort of a reputation to look back on when it was like a thousand phones or a thousand dollars now. So yeah, I think that's helped, being able to have a history of stuff.

And because in the beginning you were just doing software, right?

Right, for the most part, free software.

Yeah, and then did you start getting phones sent to you in like the early days of influencer culture?

I remember early days pretty well. It was—I started with all this laptop stuff, so the first stuff that got sent to me was laptop accessories. Okay, a mouse, a keyboard, that kind of stuff, some paid software. I would get like a key for $30 off a $50 piece of software, and I could have that access, so that was awesome.

Okay, phone stuff didn't happen until much later. I remember the first event I ever went to was a Samsung event in New York City where I met a YouTuber for the first time.

Okay, that was probably like six years in. So it took a while. You were in it for a while.

Yeah, you know, I grew up getting like pirated keys off LimeWire and all that kind of stuff. Did you ever dip into that and think like, "Man, maybe I should review Final Cut Pro on mic"?

At one point, I definitely did a whole hackintosh thing.

Oh, you did?

Which was definitely not, you know, kosher, I guess, but, you know, hackintosh world is a whole world. So I was curious about it and I got into it. I don't—I was never really into like, you know, downloading pirated music or any of that stuff, but I could imagine that was its own world for a long time.

Yeah, yeah, because I was curious because as a kid you have no money when you're starting out your channel and I wonder if you grew up with that hacker ethos. Like have you done a teardown video before or anything like that?

Really? I mean, I used to be much more into building PCs and taking them apart, upgrading them. I had a Mac—that one—that was the tower desktop Mac Pro, the G5.

Yeah, I did like I was replacing the GPU and upgrading the RAM and all that and I had an XPS tower, had the same thing too. But I guess I never was really fully into the building process as much as I was the final result.

Okay, how well that finished product would work for you.

Okay, but when I watch your videos now, you're pretty into the stats of it all—like all those hard metrics with the products, right?

Yeah, yeah, so it attracts you in some way.

Yes! I mean, I think if you just look at—if you take a huge step back and just look at what the videos are about, period, especially with the reviews, it's like, how good is this product that this company made going to work for you? And there's a whole bunch of different ways to measure that I'm trying to measure that.

So what are those metrics? Like what's the—I've heard you talk about it before in the context of like this is a feature that's gonna maybe like spark some interests and this is a feature that I'm gonna use every day.

Yeah, like gimmick versus daily.

Yeah, yeah, that's one way. I mean, I kind of—you can pick up a phone and use a really cool feature for two seconds. You're like, "Whoa, that's amazing!" But when you actually buy the phone, are you gonna use that feature? I'm kind of trying to evaluate that.

Yeah, there's all sorts of benchmarks and things people do—like how fast is the storage? How much RAM does it have? How fast is this chip? And that stuff is useful obviously if you have more demanding needs for your phone, but a lot of it is literally just evaluating like, "Is this a gimmick or is this really gonna be daily driver material?"

One thing I was talking about on a recent podcast is how it's very hard for the market to recognize how good a product's quality is—like just that actual feel, like when you sit—when you touch an iPhone for the first time.

Yeah, right. And so like how do you go about quantifying that when you're making a video?

I mean, it's really—sometimes I see my job as like a professional user. Like I really just have to use it. And so you get the briefing, obviously, and the breakdown of all the new features and what is new versus what's not new, and you can compare it to things you've used before, but at the end of the day, like you actually have to use it to figure out if it's actually useful.

Yeah, yes, there's all kinds of use cases. They'll tell me about a new feature and they'll tell me exactly.

There's some New York for you.

Yeah, oh, how it like—the ideal use case scenario, how it works.

Well, this came up recently because I did a video with an LG phone that came out, has this feature where you wave your hand over it and do these gestures to open up apps and things like that—it's called the G8.

Okay.

And like on the surface, like this is cool, this is like future-type stuff, but then you actually use it, you're like, "Alright, so I don't know what—I have stuff on my hands, maybe I'm cooking, but I just want to like open the YouTube app real quick and search for something." Like, now what? Like I have to still type in what I want to search?

Like there's limits the usefulness of that. So that for me fell in the gimmick bucket just because using it actually changed my mind.

But then what about the features where you thought it was great and that didn't catch on? Are there examples of that?

Well, there's lots of examples of things that are great to me that aren't a big deal to other people. Like, I love high-resolution, really nice screens and you can hand me a phone with a 1440p AMOLED great display and you could hand me a phone with a 1080p LCD display and I'd look and I'd immediately want the better one.

Yeah.

But to an average person, a lot of times, whatever, like that—they both look fine to me; is one of them bigger? I like the bigger one. So sometimes there will be things that I'll evaluate, I'll be like, "You've got to get this because it's got a great screen," and it won't matter to a lot of people.

Yeah, but at least then you can calibrate yourself to what I've in the past liked a lot. So in the past, I keep saying like I really like these phones because of their screens, and you know from your past experience that screens aren't a big deal for you, then you can at least say, "Ah, right, I'll discount this point because screens aren't my thing."

Okay, yeah. Because I've kind of wondered if we're going to reach a point of complete diminishing returns with smartphones, right? Like, oh man, you know iPhone 10 or whatever, like this is awesome, iPhone 11, is it a hundred percent better? Unlikely, right?

Yeah.

Do you think we're gonna reach peak smartphone?

Eek smartphone—it's a common question.

Yeah, I don't.

Okay.

And because—and the only reason I don't is because I've heard that question for the past like five years of smartphones, and then the next year I'm like, "Oh, that's new," and I think it's mostly because the trends change.

Like there was a thinness trend a couple years ago where it was like we got a nine millimeter thin and then 8.9 and then 8.1 and then 7.9—holy crap, there's a six millimeter thin phone! Have we reached peak smartphone?

And then it changed to like, "Okay, now we want these bezel responses, the thickness, whatever, it's just gonna be thin," that's just the way it is. But now can we get a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio? Can we get this notch smaller? Can we get 93%, 95%? Eventually, we're gonna be like, "Have we hit peak like—we got the whole screen?"

Yeah.

And then the next trend is gonna happen. I don't know what that next trend is, but I feel like because I've observed these cycles over the past couple years, it doesn't seem likely that it's just gonna—we're gonna get this end product of like the perfect phone.

I mean, maybe—

Well it would be great!

Yeah, but—yeah, I don't—I mean, I know a lot of people are holding on to, you know, iPhone basically five form file. That's definitely true. Phones are better and they last longer than they ever did.

Yeah.

So in that sense, we're closer to peak smartphone because if you buy an iPhone 10S now, that phone's probably gonna be good for like four years, like legitimately. iOS has gotten better, so it's true, you can hang on to an older phone longer than you used to be able to.

Yeah, but that's also something tech companies gotta think about when they make their next product.

Yeah, yeah. So what do you make of these new trends? Like some folding things, like new trends right now?

There's a lot of folding—one is one of those interesting ones because I'm trying to imagine the future of like why folding phones matter.

Uh-huh.

At this point, like generation one folding phones, I'm like, "Alright, proof of concept. Like if you can technically fold it," but there's a big ugly crease in the middle, and these bezels are huge, and you know, it's not really—it doesn't seem that useful yet, okay?

But that challenge is to like, "Okay, go like eight, nine years down the road," where it's like, "Oh yeah, you can just—you have a tablet and a phone and you just unfold your phone and it becomes a tablet," like in that world, it was worth it, like to 2019 folding phones were worth it because we got to that point.

Yeah.

So if we get to that point someday, then I think, "Okay, it'd be worth it."

But okay, so then I've noticed you filmed a bunch of Tesla videos, right? Based on you know the ratio of types of content on your channel, are you just betting electric vehicles are the next big trend?

Partially yes, and partially I just love the thing.

Yeah, I mean, but like a cool signal, right? Like I remember people wouldn't shut up about their iPhones when they got them, and the same thing is true for the Model S.

Yes! And that's a comparison I've heard like the Tesla is the iPhone of cars, again. Like it's kind of just that next wave in electric does seem like it's future. You see all these big companies like, "Yeah, we're gonna go electric by 2028," like it's great someday.

Yeah, no, I'm a huge fan of the Tesla and it's like, it's kind of like a perfect segue into me. I've always been into cars, but like I'm 25, like I went to cars—could I be? I don't drive all kinds of cars and stuff.

But the Tesla was a perfect segue into cars because it's a tech product.

Yeah.

Yeah, it has all these tech features—it’s basically a tech company. So it was sort of a natural segue into the car world.

Yeah, 'cause I've just been curious like on the performance side how much it actually matters 'cause if you look around, you know, obviously the Model S is nuts, right?

Yeah.

But then, you know, the Prius? Have you driven a Prius before?

Yeah, not the most exciting—it works, gets you there.

Yeah, right? And so yeah, I've been kind of wondering where the EV market will end up going because the Model 3 is also pretty quick.

Yeah.

But, you know, yeah, but what's your impression of like the low-end EV market?

The thing about EVs is you still get like that quick torque, so even though the performance from like, you know, your 60 to 90 might not be like high-end gas car territory, most of the acceleration and like merging and quick things you do on an EV, even a low-end EV, is still like zippy.

Like you still feel like you're in that like zippy go-kart type of feel. Even in like—I drove a Model 3 when it first came out, and so it was rear-wheel drive; I'm pretty sure the 0-60 is like 5 and a half seconds or something, which is fine, but like the car felt quick.

Ok, like I'd step on the pedal and I felt like zippy—like I was in Model S. So even low-end EVs will have that feel and that's attractive to people.

I think a lot of people overrate how much sound matters. Like in the high-end car market, everyone cares how their car sounds, but for you know, 90% of people who are interior or the actual engine sound, okay like when I hit the pedal, I want to hear it working for me.

That's a common resistant to the EVs.

So, but yeah, I think for like 90% of people or taxis or just commuter vans or just basic transportation, like silence is great. Huh, and in terms of features within the car, they tend to be ahead.

Yeah, I think—I mean, maybe I'm just because I'm looking mostly at Tesla, but like the amount of things—you know, having a smartphone-controlled app where you can summon the car to you, like all these remote start/stop features, gas cars are great, but when you look at the amount of—I mean Tesla's tech companies, you see all kinds of tech features.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I just kind of wonder, like where—because you spent so much time reviewing products, both like smartphones and cars and stuff, like you kind of get an impression of the bleeding edge, but I'm wondering like where you're seeing it going, like things that are just popping up where you're like, "Oh, that's actually a super cool feature that people aren't talking about or thinking about."

Right now, in the context of cars, I mean honestly, just going electric, and the number one thing you think about is charging. How do you charge it? Like how fast does it charge? How long does the battery last? Things like that—those basic questions—the more like those big companies think about answering those questions, like Ford and like Chevy and those big guys, the more you realize how far ahead Tesla's, but how much—how far there is to go to actually make EVs useful for most people.

But I think, you know, the basic premise is you're just going electric, right? You just put a battery in it, you charge it, and you drive it the same way a normal car does, but I don't think there's any sort of magic sauce to it other than that you just kind of have to get it on.

So it's more like on the infrastructure side—it's really important getting it on—this is less flashy and like, you know, magic feature that's winning the market over, but it's like that's what you have to nail to make a good EV.

Mmm, okay, and so now you're—You said you're 25?

Yeah.

So now that you're 25, do you feel like there's gonna be a point where you have less of a pulse on like the new—

I'm so scared of that!

Yeah, I'm 29 and I'm like, "Oh no!"

Do you feel that at 29?

Like I don't know. It's—I'm scared of being that like old guy who's like out of touch.

Like but at least I think that process would be slower for me because I'm so immersed in it now.

Yeah, like with music, maybe I'm already there. Like music, new music comes out of that, like I tried to listen to like the Billboard 100, okay, like whatever the other day and I was just like, "This is objectively bad. Like I can't—I can't do this." Clearly, I'm out of the loop, but I guess with tech, I don't know, maybe I’m a little more immersed, so that might take longer.

Yeah, or it's just near and dear to your heart, so it really matters.

Yeah, I'll just—well, there's also hope because there are plenty of money, much older you know, tech journalists and techie YouTubers who are doing the thing, so I mean if you stay like in that world, it's kind of just part of what you're doing every day.

No, and I know plenty of older people who are way more into music than I am, and I catch things early.

Yeah.

But it is this like core fear as a, you know, creative person where you're like, "Dude, my—yeah, my old school right now? Am I out of it?"

Yeah, yeah. So do you—does that fear like motivate you to try like weirder YouTube stuff or are you like kind of, "You know, this kind of phone, whatever video works and I'm just gonna keep banging it out?"

I don't know!

Yeah, I mean I'm definitely trying to diversify the kind of breadth of coverage you might call it. I don't think that's out of fear of like forgetting what's popular; I think that's just 'cause like I'm interested in other things—there's other ways to talk about them.

So there's reviews and there's smartphone stuff, but there's also the car videos now, which is the autofocus series, but there's also like I’m into production naturally because that's what I'm doing all the time, so I'm doing this whole like spaces series where I'm talking to other creators and how they use their space. I'm ideally starting a podcast pretty soon where I can just talk with people about things like this.

So there's—I think that just comes from like all the other things that I've become interested in, of course, through, you know, making tech videos.

Interest! So what else would be the focus on the podcast?

I want to talk to other creators, yeah, it's like probably in the main thing because that's not something that is readily available to me.

I think like when you get to a certain place in this creative world, there's no longer like an article you can go read to figure out how to do something.

Like when you're starting YouTube, you can figure out like what's the best DSLR for a thousand bucks and buy it and find the lens that works best with it and then start from there.

But like what I'm trying to figure out, like, "Hmm, how do I best like start a new series given the current uploads and like the pace of you know, the way things are moving?"

Like all these nuanced questions that don't necessarily have answers, but that other creative people think about too—just talking with people about that kind of stuff!

Hmm, yeah, I mean it sounds a lot like just strategy, right?

Yeah!

We're like ten things can simultaneously be true but you have to pick one.

Yeah.

And that can be a little intimidating, I guess, and help—

Yeah, so like it's less math more just like, I don't know, it's just strategy!

Yeah, strategy and like creative insight!

Yeah, yeah! And so what are you going to try and like innovate in your podcast in any way?

'Cause I'm—what I'm kind of fishing for is like, you know, obviously YouTube video, right?

Like what are the other mediums that you're like testing out to feel like, "I hope maybe there's an audience here"? Like maybe I can break ground here?

Yeah, I feel like video as a medium is my favorite by far.

Mm-hmm.

So I think—I don't think about new mediums as much as I think of new ways to do video, new topics, new formats within video.

Podcasting being like a sort of an auxiliary way to also talk as a big speed—

I don't know that—it is big speed!

I've never even heard it in real life!

And I've never intentionally triggered Bixby, so that's like the third or fourth time that it's thought I've been talking to it.

Where was I?

Oh, I mean video!

Yeah! I—I think I'm still trying to figure out the whole video thing generally, and that might be a battle I never win, but I feel like that's—that's gonna be taking up most of my time, this is doing different types of videos.

Okay, okay. And so have you tried 360? Have you tried VR?

Like have you tried these new formats?

I have tried one! I've published one 360 video—

Okay!

One that I thought was a really good idea, it was a studio tour—so it would be like you're sort of moving around the studio, but you can also look around and see what's behind you and around you, so we sort of feel like you're in that space.

That's a good use of VR!

And that was fun, but that was one of those things where like I struggled to find other genuinely productive uses for it in my—

In my case.

Yeah, it's awesome for games! I love it for games! I love it for other stuff!

But for video, it's been sort of a head-scratcher!

Well, we did a podcast with Jessica Brillhart, who's a VR creator in New York, and it's a difficult storytelling challenge because like with film, you're inherently like controlling the viewpoint of your audience.

Yeah!

And with games, losing—

Explore, right?

Exactly!

So very like natively fits in, but even just like the prep involved in like shooting a 360 video, like right now, there's a bunch of like wires and dangling all over the place.

It's no big deal when the camera can control that!

Exactly!

Yeah! That's another challenge!

I mean, the rig we used was really cool, like we could have—yeah, basically like you—it's not like literally following me around, but it went from place to place, and we had a couple setup places around the studio, so the video would move between these places and you could follow me around.

But yeah, that's like—that to me was like peak 360, like I figured it out—this is the best use of the 360 in like a real estate!

Yeah!

But outside of that, yeah, it's been like maybe a car? Maybe just tours in general? Like a lot of car stuff is sorry because it's such a small space—maybe getting a smaller rig in there where you can sort of look around as if you're in the car—that's tough, yeah!

But do you feel limited by cameras in any way at this point?

Only slightly!

Okay, I feel like I'm like not even allowed to complain because the cameras I use are so seen.

But on occasion, I wish the camera had autofocus. I wish the camera was smaller. I wish the camera's battery lasted longer.

But those are like pretty minor things as far as I can still get the image I want, and then really if I work hard enough—

You don't have autofocus on all your cameras?

I don't really, yeah!

Just the lens or the actual camera?

The camera essentially, it has a really, really poor autofocus system, but it's a red camera and no one uses autofocus for red cameras, so they don't really work on it.

So it's not good, so it's manual focus all the time, and that has its downsides obviously especially when we're doing car stuff, trying to do fixed focus car stuff when the car moves—all this hierarchy.

There's a lot of weird things with fixed focus, but we've messed with rigs where we can do remote follow focus stuff and all kinds of other hacks to get around it.

Okay, but yeah, that's like one of those hundred things!

Do you do much drone stuff?

A little bit for cars.

It's funny because we—I always wanted to do drone stuff, but for the longest time, I was mostly doing like handheld gadget stuff, so it felt like, "What do I need this drone for? I like it's just gonna fly away from me holding an iPad, like that's not that compelling."

But now that we're doing car stuff, yes, there's plenty of use for drones!

Okay! Have you mounted anything to the hood?

I don't like those giant gimbals—have you tried that out yet?

We've gone—we've gotten a little into that, like we have this whole—I guess we're always trying to make you know setups for scenarios.

Yeah!

And I think the next scenario setup we're working on is like the chase car, how do you shoot a car from any angle you want from another car?

So you can obviously go out the side because there's a window, or you can get a sliding door; we shot out the back, so we have the lift gate go up and you can go like hold a gimbal out of the back.

But shooting the back of a car in front of you is hard because there's a sloped windshield, so it's distorted.

So do you hang out the side of a thing or off-axis?

So there's kind of a weird problem with shooting the back of a car, okay? That's like one of those things we're working on, I guess putting something on the hood would be a way to shoot a car in front of you, but then you're fixed in your height, so you can't really go low.

So then there's those camera cars that have a jib on top of it, you can go all kinds of angles, so that might be fun—but as of right now, that's pretty early.

Yeah, this is a funny creator problem because industry people have figured this out!

Oh yeah, yeah!

Like if you see like professional, you know, like Tesla shoots, like they got it locked down!

Yeah, absolutely!

But like Marques, individual YouTube guy, like just to fly to LA and like film on the PCH, yeah, the question is like how do you do that?

And so those are the kinds of questions that you're curious about!

Yep, okay!

Yeah, and there's not like a YouTuber network where you just like call up—

What?

I mean there are YouTube friends that also have similar questions, like we can talk about it all you want!

I've had a couple friends who are obviously in LA 'cause that's where almost everyone is play, and we talk about gear all the time and like production strategy in a way, like how do you shoot these things?

We've collaborated! One of the last things we did was when we interviewed Elon, we did a factory tour, yeah, which was like, how do you shoot a factory tour with like two people walking through it?

Do you just have one person hold the camera while you're out, or do you have a person next to it? You know, that's like that was a whole thing where we figured out how to do that.

But yeah, and the industry's got it all locked up.

Yeah, but it's also—I think what a lot of people could get from you is like storytelling techniques because that at the core of it—like obviously the products are cool, right?

But like you're a storyteller too!

Yeah!

And so when you're gonna go and do an interview with Elon, and I saw most of your interviews like 10 minutes, 15 minutes long, yeah?

I assume it's cut down too.

Yeah, yeah, and a lot of it also is 'cause they're really busy people.

Yeah!

That's just it—all the time that we get with them, and it all we have—but yeah, that's like a happy medium of talking a little longer than a five-minute video, yeah, which is a nice format for YouTube.

Like we've tried both, and I mean, I'm so impressed with Rogan!

He's like three hour videos, and people are into it!

Yeah! So when you think about like, okay, I'm maybe—should do the product scenario, right?

Like how do you think about storytelling in the case of a review context?

So what came before it? What came next to it? What it's up against and momentum in a way?

So it's like a new phone comes out, you naturally compare it to the phone that came before it, and then you compare it to other phones around it and how much those step forward versus how much it steps forward and now, right?

There can be enough of an interesting story for a lot of devices that come out. I remember when iPad Pro came out.

Yeah, that story was like iPad was already so far ahead in tablets, and then iPad Pro took a massive step forward versus the last iPad.

Like this is obscene how much—like there is no other $1300 tablet I would even consider—it’s alone in its category, which is really fascinating.

So yeah, I guess those two things—the context of other products that exist next to it and what came before it.

Okay, and when it comes to storytelling of you as a person, like expanding it—like all the gross words, like personal branding on?

Yeah.

Where do you go?

Like how do you tell your story and then how do you fit in what your future plans and hopes are?

I guess I kind of—I do less of that because I consider tech the star of the show.

Okay!

I think I do inject my own personal humor or perspective on occasion just because it's fun and keeps it interesting, and that's its own challenge, but I've always considered tech the star of the show, and any way I can I try to make that the main story interesting.

And so that will just continue to drive future projects for you?

Yeah, I mean the one string that ties everything together is it's coming from me, so it's always the same perspective.

So like when you see a new car video, like with Top Gear for example, you know that guy's driven these cars before, so he's gonna think of it in the context of all those other cars.

Okay, so when I do a car video, you know I’m gonna compare it to the other four or five cars I’ve driven, which are electric.

So like that's—that's the difference between a car video from me and someone else, but at the end of the day, the car is the thing—this thing is the thing, like that's what I'm talking about and sharing with people.

But I guess I'm probably under weighting how important my own personal voice is, but I really try to make the tech the star of the show.

Well I think it's the focus in your video. I appreciate the modesty, look, but like there are how many million YouTube channels with people reviewing phones?

True, that's real!

Great, yeah, so you sit out in some way. So you got like a hundred plus questions from Twitter, so I want to answer some of them.

We're gonna skip the middle initial for 10 million subscribers.

Yes, yes, yes, of course!

But there are a lot of best practices around YouTube—you may have answered these before, but Marco Castro asked what advice you have for new creators on YouTube.

New creators, ah, new creators, being pretty broad because you can be a new creator in tech or a comedy or a new photographer, you know, there's all kinds of new creators!

But on YouTube generally, like if I was starting over today, yeah, I would kind of do a lot of what I'm doing now, which is like you take your inspiration from other places, but you always have to come back to your own voice and your own perspective.

Don't try to be something else that already exists, or there won't be any reason to watch it; it already exists!

So find your own new angle, your own new voice, your own new way of showing or talking about things.

Yeah, and then get started, and a lot of it just comes to luck, and YouTube's kinda saturated.

Yes, the consistency is very important.

When do you think you found your voice as a creator?

I think super early, really.

I've always been like, "I want crispy video! I want high quality!" I know what I want.

Like I think that came at the very beginning, even when I was, oh man, doing these tutorial videos.

Yeah, I watched a couple—

They're fun!

Okay, I'm sorry, I love those!

Gone like you went through puberty on YouTube essentially.

Yeah, yeah, there's all these—I did all these tutorial videos which are just screencasts—I just my screen at a mouse moving, and I was obsessed with getting the highest frame rate possible and the smoothest motion blur of my cursor on the screen.

In a—like that! It's so stupid! But like I've always wanted that production to facilitate the story as best as possible!

I want the quality to be like as realistic as it can be so that it's not a distraction.

Yeah!

And that's still the way it is!

Like I might put up with a whole almost like schtick as like overproduced, like really going in under Lois, and there's a lot[inaudible].

Exactly, overly realistic!

But to the point where like if you look at this video on your screen, you'll feel the closest to actually holding it in real life.

Like that's the goal, so I think that—I don't know if that's my voice or just my style, but I found that to be a priority pretty early.

Well, I think it's kind of a combination, right?

Because you both—you have your taste, which I think the world has decided is good, sure, and then just you're like hardened opinion that this is gonna be super high quality.

Right, right!

And so did you grow up with these like values given to you or is it a personal thing you just were born with?

Ah, I guess it must have been instilled in me in some way.

I mean I've always been into tech and tech has always had a like an emphasis on like we're the best, we're the high—

That's good! I like hardcore, like this is the highest quality mentality!

It's a great question! I guess it's just what I decided I wanted at some point and I've really thought about that.

It's just—it seems like it would be everyone's goal when I think about it!

Like striving for the highest quality production, it was a no-brainer to me and I guess it's when you end up in the position where you're able to use really high-end equipment and like you can make more of what you want because of the position you're in.

Yeah!

It's even more of a no-brainer because the barrier is lower, but I guess, yeah, that challenge to make like the perfect video is like so—the air quotes for audio listeners—like that's—that's always probably gonna be a moving goalpost!

Yeah!

You're always reaching for it and it's always slipping away, but there's something innate in you, right?

And I think in a lot of people who are—maybe I wouldn't go so far as always calling people perfectionist, but to like want to do it over again and over again and over again until it's just right—that's the thing.

That's the thing that creators have to overcome, and that a lot of times you don't want to.

You—like if you end up like—I would consider myself borderline like perfectionist and some stuff.

I remember doing like SAT stuff where it was like, okay, you have to write this essay, you're gonna get the topic, and like you have to write it right then.

Like I want to think about this for a couple days before I actually put a pen to paper, and like you just have to spit out three pages and hopefully it's good enough.

Like that's kind of the way YouTube is!

Like a new phone just came out, go!

Like you don't get to sit on this for a while.

Like you form the best thing you can, and if it's 95% there and it's done, that's better than 99% there and still working on it.

That's a barrier for me! Like I wish I could take more time with a lot of stuff, but tech just moves fast, so you just kind of have to evolve your production and ideally make the best thing you can and you follow your listeners—you follow your gut when it comes to making choices.

Is there like a data-driven approach to what kind of videos you're making?

Mmm, no, it's—I'd say it's almost no data at all!

You get—you have comments of people who are like, "This part of the video is cool, I enjoyed that," or like, "You could have spent more time on this," or, "I wish you'd gone into this more," or "I was wondering about this and I'm glad you addressed it."

Like certain things like that, okay, um were—and I guess the only data it comes down to is like I made a six-minute video on this phone but I left out these three things; I wonder if an eight-minute video would have been watchable.

Like knowing, you know, all the other things that go into YouTube and retention and how long people watch and the attention span of the Internet—I guess that's all data, but at the end of the day I'm just like, "I guess, yeah, I probably could have included that," or "Maybe I didn't have to go into that much detail about this new camera; it's almost the same as last year!"

Yeah, like that kind of stuff!

Wow, 12-minute video could have been nine minutes and said almost the same thing!

Information density is my writing challenge!

I'm trying to fit as much structurally sound information that's like followable to most people as possible, which in tech is—I don't know if that's more or less of a challenge.

Probably more!

Well, it's tough to decide what's most valuable to people!

That's mainly it!

Like a lot of people will—the best comments you get really or that I get are from people who've never seen the videos before, and a lot of times they'll say, "Oh, you know, these are videos for like the mainstream buyer, like not for the hardcore tech person."

But all the information that goes into saying those top-level things, the way I said them, came from all the depth of using the device and all the hardcore stuff that I left out.

So in a way it feels like, "Oh, I should just include everything so that they know that I'm like really into what I'm talking about!"

Yeah, I'm with you, I swear!

But it—it becomes less presentable that way! It becomes verbose that way!

Like I can say the same thing five different ways, but the shortest, most succinct complete way is usually the best way, so that's what I've been trying to do.

That's kind of a mark of someone who really knows what they're talking about too—like if you can teach it to someone who's 10 years old.

It's true!

Then you can explain it!

It's also the selling point of a lot of great companies, you know?

Apple, absolutely!

Almost all right!

Before we go more into the YouTube questions, Matt dude, how do you deal with YouTube comments?

I've—it's—I think people really hate YouTube comments, and for whatever reason, it hasn't been that bad for me.

Okay!

Now, I can't say lately meme culture has made its appearance in my comments section far more often in the past couple months for an unnamed reason.

Yeah!

I'll just say it's Will Smith's fault!

But I think the comments section has actually been pretty helpful and pretty great for me for the past couple years, and whether that's like because I kind of—I can also separate the comment section into kind of three categories.

One of upload—which is like useless—it's mainly just people saying either first or reacting to the title and thumbnail and not actually watching the video or just like getting something in to hopefully get a response.

Like the first hour's not really very useful!

Then there's like hours 2 through 24, which is like people watching a video and being somewhat thoughtful before leaving what I'd consider a useful comment.

And then there's people who are finding it in search, so this is no longer subscribers; this is people who were looking for something about this device, found this video, clicked it hoping for something, and left a comment based on what they watched—those are the most useful comments!

So if you can divide that, like if all you're reading is the first three hours of comments, they're like, "This is useless, I hate YouTube comments!"

Yeah!

But if you can sort of stitch those out into like what's coming from what audience, then it can actually be somewhat productive! I think for—

Huh!

Yeah, I always—I always struggle with the personal attacks!

Yeah!

I think they just kind of get drowned out, and that's probably another benefit of where the channel is like—

Yeah!

People just bury that stuff!

Oaks is pretty great—that's great!

Yeah, and you didn't get it when you were a kid!

I definitely did, and I ignored it!

Oh, go with a thick skin from that, and now it's just kind of—I probably still exist and I just ignore it!

That's awesome!

Okay, so Austin Ryder asks, "In the early years of the channel, Marques took a several month hiatus from YouTube but then came back with a new video format and seemingly renewed drive. What happened during those months off?"

That's a great question! Very dedicated! That's a very few people know! That was when I was in high school, and that was my senior year, and I just had to finish—get my grades up, college applications, the last year of ultimate, like three days a week practice for hours—like that was just like, I don't have time!

I want to make videos so bad, but if I do, I'm gonna get in that rabbit hole again, and I'm gonna try to make five videos a week, and I'm just not gonna have the time for the things that matter right now.

So that was the end of high school where I was buying to colleges, going to all these things and interviews, and pre-college, and all this stuff, SATs, the whole deal!

Okay!

And a renewed drive was just exciting; I was like, "Hell yes, I'm back five days a week, let's go!"

College, no schedule, I'm in it!

Yeah, that was a pretty good time!

Okay, right on! A bunch of people asked the same question. Winston asks, "What's your daily schedule?"

Because I'm particularly curious because you also maintain a level of fitness for ultimate.

Yeah, yeah! I practice last night! My daily schedule, so I kinda—I would separate it into weekdays and weekends!

Okay, weekend and weekday, I guess, are divided again into production days or pre-production, post-production days.

Production days are filming, editing, the meat of making videos and writing especially, and pre-production or post-production days are more of like the inbox, the strategy, the what comes next, the travel, all that sort of stuff that comes in between the videos.

And then there's nights which are either like the leagues I play in, or practice.

Or so I play for the Pearl Ultimate Team for New York. We had practice last night on Randall's Island; it was cold—so cold.

And then weekends are ultimate!

I don't—I don't work on weekends and that used to be a thing I would just work in between frisbee, but frisbee happens on weekends.

So that’s traveling, that’s playing, that’s resting, that's like disconnected from the internet type stuff!

And so you train by practicing?

Yes! There's no like other regimen.

I'll gym in my basement, I like—ask anyone who's like around me a lot, I'm usually there at night.

Okay!

But as far as like, like playing a lot, that's kind of the best training you can get!

Yeah, that’s right!

So in your gym, what are you doing? Squats? What are you doing?

I have a bike, I have the treadmill, but then I have a lot of free weights—I believe in free weights!

I don't have that many machines, so it's mostly just, yeah, the dumbbells and the—I don't even know what the bar is called!

That—oh, that’s called the—

Oh, Carla Murse!

Now you're standing in it, and it's just to do dips and stuff to do squats or to do—dang!

I don't know the names of any good deadlift like when.

Yeah, like a deadlift?

Oh no, that was called hexagon thing!

Yes, that then—that seems like it, I’m sure that’s why it’s called a hex bar!

X bar?

Yeah, you got a hex bar!

Yeah, sure, that's some pleats!

So yeah that’s like some of the time, but then eventually you just have to throw, and I don’t want to get into like ultimate advice, but like I said, you a scar on your hand, is that ultimate-related?

It is ultimate-related!

I in college went to go lay out to get a defensive play and I on the turf skidded forward and snapped my finger in half so I had—I got a little plate and screws in there now—fixed that bone, strongest bone in my body now!

Reinforced!

That's great!

Yeah, I got that screws in my shoulder; I feel the same way.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, I'm Ed Kahn asks, "Are there any problems that you see your face that you really wish engineers or developers would solve?"

Engineers and developers—a lot of them are kind of on it—they're kind of on it. A lot of times there's like the beginning, like folding phones, for example; like you kind of see the beginning of like some potential, and I like—oh, I hope they go all in on that; that could be really cool in the future!

But generally, like it's all being worked on! I wish some of it was being worked on more than it is.

I'm reviewing a lot of phones right now whose cameras are just not close to the Pixel's camera in particular.

And I know they could get closer! I know they could put a little more into that but they don't, and that's their own choice and their own priority.

But they totally could, so stuff like that—that's just like things that I prefer in some devices I wish were more of a priority!

But generally I think we live in a pretty good world—nothing really sucks anymore!

You know, like the tech we use even at the lower end just kind of works pretty well!

Yeah, no, it's very salt!

I haven't upgraded my phone for that reason!

Yeah!

It's fine!

Yeah, it’s great!

It's like, could use a better camera, but it's okay!

Yeah!

So one question was from a startup founder, Chris Giordano.

Yes?

Any tips on how to engage with influencers when you're a very early-stage startup with little or no money?

Yeah, my biggest tip would be to offer something that would make it—it’s got to be a win-win for everyone involved.

So even if you're not a startup, even if you're a company who's just not into influencer marketing yet, the whole idea of creators working with companies is obviously they need to—the financial support, but also they want to be able to make something that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to make.

So whether they give an access to something or they're given a behind-the-scenes look at something, something like that you don't have to like always pay them a lot, but like if you can get something like that, that suddenly their audience is really into, that's a win—so if that's a win for the audience because I got a better video, that's a win for the creator because they could make something better that their audience now gets to see, and that's a win for the company involved because now your stuff is in front of a new audience.

So even if you don't have the financial means to just dive right into paying for ads, you can always offer something that can make a video better.

And if you do like—I also notice a lot that not a lot of research is done; they kind of just have like this list of tech channels, and they just sort of—they just blanket and carpet everyone the same email.

But if you really want to work with a certain creator for a certain reason, make that clear!

Like that you've watched their videos and you noticed a theme, and you think there's some potential for building on something there that's worth expounding upon.

So in addition to this kind of influencer marketing, where do you see the future of individual creators supporting themselves as businesses going?

We give this question most often in relation to podcasts, right?

How are people gonna monetize?

If you can shake here on YouTube, especially lately, just because of where we're at—and I get it, the easy answer is just be PC and be super clean, and never push any buttons, but like at a certain point, that's not where you want to be.

You kind of want to be able to explore and do different things!

Yeah!

So you have to diversify your income, that's the simple answer, so at this point, I can use myself as an example; the channel obviously has ads on it, and that's been one version of income.

As an independent creator, there's also something called affiliate income where you—you talk about products a lot, you might as well share the availability to buy those products.

So Amazon has an affiliate system, B&H has an affiliate system, there's also a merch store.

This is something not every creator can do, but if you can, why not?

I very recently—super late—got into it, but like trying to make a sort of—people ask me all the time what sweatshirt I was wearing in videos, so I figured I might as well offer a sweatshirt at some point.

You can—you can turn that into sort of a fashion brand, if you will, and just having different ways of supporting the same thing where they all sort of point back to the same thing.

What about those paid subscriptions or even like, oh, yeah, I don't see how the Patreon—

So at a certain point, you can ask dedicated viewers who really want to support what you do directly if they want to contribute more.

Oftentimes they won't have a problem with that if they really like your work or if your work isn't common.

I think a lot of times if they feel like they can just find what you're doing somewhere else, then there's no reason for them to stick around or pay for it, but if what you do is like less frequent or it's really high effort or it's not something that they're gonna find somewhere else—

Yeah!

Then there’s no reason for them to help out.

So that will come from you working on your craft for a real long time, then oftentimes they'll have no problem deciding they want to help you out!

Cool!

And when it comes to you now that you're a pretty successful channel, what do those ratios look like? Do you know off the top of your head?

Yeah, I would say the—I'm still at a point where like the YouTube ads are probably 40-40 to 50 percent.

The—I don't do a whole lot of sponsored stuff, okay?

If I did, that number would be much higher, but I think right now sponsored stuff is probably about 20 percent, so 40, 20, and then affiliate stuff being another 10?

So where I like—what’s 70?

Now, so I guess, yeah, YouTube ads is probably bigger.

YouTube ads probably 50% of what the streams look like!

Hmm, so you think your biggest problem right now as a creator is like figuring out how to do these more difficult things?

Yeah, yeah, I mean I’m still on that quest of production like I know my videos can be better!

Like there’s still always a gap between like a great YouTube video and a movie!

Of course!

Like everyone can tell a YouTube video from a movie and everything, but like I ideally—that seamless like production where I can tell the story I want, show what I want to show and not have any barriers in the way as far as production—that would be ideal; that's probably my biggest challenge.

And then one of those like, I feel like an octopus like chopping off one of my arms and handing it to someone but like having other people who can edit, having other people who can do set design and can contribute on things that I'm doing—eight things at once—I wish someone else could take the load off me, that kind of stuff is also a challenge for me right now, but that's something I'm working on too.

That's interesting!

All right, so I guess my last question for you then, Matt, is your long-term goal!

Like what are you shooting for in 10-15 years?

Well, in 10 years, I'll be 35—over the hill!

Yeah, man, no longer relevant!

I guess a long-term goal, as much as I've said before, like I don't have long-term goals, but most of my forward-thinking is like two to three years out—like where I want the company to be, where I want the in-process to be.

But I guess if you look 10 years out, that's more of like a media company type stuff, like ideally there’s a—you know, there’s a YouTube channel, maybe a second YouTube channel, there’s a podcast, there’s a production aspect to it where you can assist with other channels, things like that.

And I think it’s nowhere near on its way there yet—I think I’m still so focused on the actual video side of it and making that what I really want it to be that I haven't really set foot in these other categories yet, but maybe someday soon!

You gonna make a movie?

That's funny you asked that!

Like long-form stuff, long-form being like 45-minute, an hour-long videos, has been fascinating to me on YouTube because it's been proven to be not that unreasonable, especially lately!

So who—the Shane Dawson's of the world—like really hitting it home!

I like to make a movie!

Yeah, cool!

All right, man! Thanks for coming in!

Thanks for having me!