TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
TubeTalk tackles the questions that real YouTubers are asking. Each week we discuss how to make money on YouTube, how to get your videos discovered, how to level up your gaming channel, or even how the latest YouTube update is going to impact you and your channel. If you've ever asked yourself, "How do I grow on YouTube?" or "Where can I learn how to turn my channel into a business?" you've come to the right podcast! TubeTalk is a vidIQ production. To learn more about how we help YouTube creators big and small, visit https://vidIQ.com
TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
From College Vlogs to Millions of Subs! How Hafu Go Succeeded!
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Hafu Go shares his eight-year journey from making lip-sync videos as a kid to becoming a successful YouTube creator with videos that garner millions of views. His unique perspective on the step-ladder nature of YouTube growth provides valuable insight for creators at all levels.
• Began YouTube career making videos in his mom's house, spending 50+ hours editing videos that initially received just 200 views
• Committed to pushing through for at least one year, which helped him overcome the temptation to quit when growth was slow
• Documented his experience studying at "the Harvard of China" (Tsinghua University) which helped transition his content
• Describes pivoting from college vlogs to Shaolin monk training as a "life crisis moment" that ultimately doubled his subscribers
• Emphasizes the importance of "wedging" when transitioning content types rather than making abrupt changes
• Embraced YouTube Shorts early, with his first dedicated Short reaching 50 million views in a week
• Creates thumbnails and titles before filming videos, with multiple versions tested for performance
• Focuses heavily on pre-production planning to make editing more efficient
• Believes your "rate of progress is going to be equal to your rate of learning"
• Hiring editors and ideation people to support his growing channel
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that's more awesome than even you are. I'm Travis, and today I have a very special guest. It's Hafu Go. What's going on? What's up, man? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. We are just a podcast that tries to help you grow your YouTube channel, as well as every once in a while, we talk a little bit about candy.
Speaker 2:We probably won't be doing that today, but Hafu Go is giving us a little bit of his time. I'm really appreciative of that. So first of all, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:I know you're super busy producing them videos. No, no, no, always got to make time for the number one podcast. You're exactly right about that. It's more awesome than you are. You have no idea. But anyway, if you're new here, make sure you hit that subscribe button. We're here to help you grow your YouTube channel. We talk to different creators all around the world, as well as give you tips and tricks to get your channel where it should be.
Speaker 1:So let's start with you. First of all, I'm going to ask the question that I'm sure a lot of people who are listening to podcasts a long time ago. We have people that have been listening for years who might be thinking Hafu Go, what does that mean? What does that mean? What is that? That's just my name, that's just your name. Hafu Go, that's just my name, that's just your name. Hafu go yeah, that's just my name. So, just like go and that's you. You're hafu go, I am him. That is I'm him. Bro, we need to thank your parents because that's like amazing. That's like the best youtube name. I thought, literally you, you came up with that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing no, that that's just my name. That's my given name at least.
Speaker 1:At least your last name isn't like thort swap or something where you have to change it Because Go is like easy. Yeah, it's easy, that's amazing. All right, well, look, let's talk a little bit about YouTube content creation, how you started on YouTube and everything. How did you start and what made you want to start on YouTube?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a long journey. You know, I've been on YouTube for over eight years now and even before that like, I made YouTube videos as a like elementary school kid just for fun, because I used to watch a lot of Smosh and Nigahiga and they used to make skits and me and my friends would try to like recreate some of the skits and those were my first videos and I also did some lip syncing to Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1:Okay, love story All.
Speaker 2:Story, the lost arc of Half U Go. Yeah, that's how it started. I mean it just like started, because I always watched YouTube as a kid. But then, when I took it seriously was in first year of university. That's when I was like looking for a passion, looking for something to do, and I bought a 300 used camera off of craigslist and made my first youtube video and I didn't even know how to edit, so I was watching a youtube tutorial on how to edit the video and to edit the video.
Speaker 1:That's amazing yeah, I actually have a question about that. So, um, not, this isn't true for all youtube creators. I ask this pretty much on every creator uh, is the first video that's on your channel your actual first video?
Speaker 2:because a lot of times the answer that is no I mean there's, there's some stuff before then, but uh, nothing that you guys need to see ah see, that's what it always comes down.
Speaker 1:It's like well, yeah, but no, but yeah but no because the reason I say this? Because your first video is like a kale video or cooking kale or something, and it's yeah, I mean yeah, like my first official video on this channel is the kale video.
Speaker 2:Okay, but um, there's like, like I said, like the lip syncing videos.
Speaker 3:I don't even know where they are you don't know like I can't find them like I want to find them, but I can't find them fair.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's fair. But I mean, even in that video the editing and stuff was kind of at a level that a first-time YouTuber wouldn't normally have. I'm not saying it's like where it is now, but I'm saying as someone who's watched tons of videos and helped content creators of all sizes the first video never looks quite like the way you had it, did you practice it, did you have it set up and eventually did you think about it. What was going on there?
Speaker 2:I made some videos for Facebook and stuff Just for my Facebook friends, so I had a little bit of practice editing before that video, but it just took a lot of time. My first video took me like 50 hours to edit just because I was trying to learn Adobe and the premiere is really hard to get started, so it was like learning a whole new language that's incredible.
Speaker 1:So, um, even back then, obviously the editing part was taking a long time. Were you storyboarding or scripting, or were you doing any of that for your first couple ones, or is that something that came much later?
Speaker 2:No, I was not that sophisticated. No, that's good. You think too highly of the younger me.
Speaker 1:Well, I watched a lot of the older stuff just to kind of get a vibe for what was going on so long ago. Again, it was like seven, eight years ago, which is first of all. I have a lot of respect for that because, quite frankly, we'll see some creators pop up out of nowhere and have tons of subscribers and views and they've only been around for two or three years, but you've actually been on the grind for a very long time, so I respect that fact that you really went for it. Um, what was it like for this first couple uploads? Were you getting did? Did you get a couple that popped off, or were they all kind of slow growers?
Speaker 2:no, it was uh actually very demoralizing let's talk about that.
Speaker 1:I think we really need so I want just so you know, our audience are a lot of smaller creators. There are some larger creators to listen to, but a lot of smaller creators who are putting out videos they think are really great and then they're just not getting views. Talk us through what that was like for you and how that, what that made you feel.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's exactly how it felt, like I was putting like 50 hours into a video and it would get like 200 views. Or I was like, okay, next time I'll do better. And I was like trying to copy BuzzFeed. At the time I did like a coffee review video where I actually went to like like seven different coffee shops in my city, vancouver, and that took like a whole day to film, and then I was trying to do all these effects and stuff and that one took me like almost a hundred hours to make and it ended up getting like 500 views.
Speaker 2:So, um, it was very depressing. It was, uh, like you put in so much effort. You would expect a little bit of something in return, or like be rewarded for your efforts. But I think that pushing through that down and pushing through that hardship is what differentiates the good creators from the ones that never made it, because it's going to be a lot of times where you put a lot of effort into something and it just doesn't pay off, but you just got to learn what your mistakes were and just keep pushing forward?
Speaker 1:what pushed you, what made you not give up?
Speaker 2:you know, I was, uh, I was tempted, you know, like I was in school at the time. Um, I was studying in college, so, uh, I, I had like all this other stuff I could have done, like I could have just focused on my academics, I could have just went out partied, but I think there was something. There's two reasons. One is when I was young, I had a habit of quitting things when they got really hard. Like I would like try all these skills or whatever, like I would try to learn something and try like social media management, like I would just like quit when it got a little too hard. And I had enough self-awareness to recognize that about myself. So when I started YouTube, I made a promise to myself that I will stick through it, no matter what happened, for at least a year. And I think that's what drove me, because I didn't want to be a failure in my own eyes. I wanted to prove to myself that I could actually stick through this.
Speaker 1:That's funny. I did a similar thing. I guess I'm doing this for a year at least, because we're kind of similar in that way. I don't know if you're familiar with how Google will come up with these companies and stuff and then immediately like terminate them and like there's, there's a website of like Google companies that they've they've closed down and canceled. I felt like that was kind of something that was going with me and I was like I'm doing this for a year and I had a goal and everything. That's really cool that you went through that same process. So, yeah, what happened at the end of that year that made you go? Okay? No, I'm actually going to keep going.
Speaker 2:I mean nothing major, nothing major, but it wasn't like a video really took off or something. I think it was just a couple hundred views, maybe one will get a couple thousand. It wasn't like any major breakthroughs. But I was heading into a new year of college and I was going on exchange to China, yeah, and the school that I was going to exchange to. It was called Tsinghua University and this is kind of like the Harvard of China or the MIT of China, wow. And they have, like, actually a lower acceptance rate than Harvard itself.
Speaker 1:Wow, Because there's so many people in China, right, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:Of course, yeah, of course of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as a kid, this was a dream and it's such a prestigious school. I wanted to document the process of studying there and what that was like and what the environment was like, talking to the people, talking to the students, and try to learn from them. So that new journey was my driving factor for keep making videos.
Speaker 1:I love that. What was it like? Culturally? It's different there in China right now. I actually just watched a little documentary yesterday about like these street streams, these streamers that are like on the street and everything. It's a big popular thing.
Speaker 2:Like there's a. When I went to New York, by the way, like a couple months ago, I saw the real life npc on new york streets. Yeah, he was live streaming just doing emotes and stuff that's hilarious.
Speaker 1:That must be wild to see that in person. Like, wait a minute, I've seen that guy. I mean, you know, yeah, um, but back then, culturally, what was it like to be a YouTuber on a college campus in China? Was that widely accepted, or was it kind of looked at weird or what was that like?
Speaker 2:So funny thing about China is like they're actually like very advanced in terms of their technology, so like social media was already a huge thing in China as well, just not the Western social media. They were using like Weibo mostly. It's kind of like Facebook, right, right, facebook and Twitter mixed together, so like they were using mostly Weibo and I would actually sometimes see people filming content on campus. Oh yeah, so it was pretty widely accepted.
Speaker 2:People were like into it. You know I could like get other people students and stuff to like come be my video.
Speaker 1:It wasn't too hard of a push so then did you, uh, do any of your content on the chinese social media um websites as well? I did, I did. Did I do well or better or worse?
Speaker 2:I did really well because they like that, like cross-cultural references. Right, I can talk as a foreigner about Chinese culture and then I can talk about the Western culture to the Chinese people as well.
Speaker 1:So were you more popular on those platforms than YouTube at that time? Or about the same.
Speaker 2:You know, at the time when I went there, I had 200 subscribers on YouTube. Okay, it took me a year to get there, so I was very proud and it was my goal. It was after six months, so that was my study period. It was my goal to reach 1,000.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like that, I love that. That's cool, yeah. What do you think about goals? We're going to talk a little bit more about where you are now, but I still want to do this early journey thing. Do you think setting goals early in your YouTube career, in your content creation career, helped, hindered, hurt or was neutral in your journey Setting goals?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think it depends on the person, but for me, I think setting goals was really important. It was like, I think, one thing I realized is that I always end up reaching my goals, but just not the exact timeline that I set for myself. That's fair. I think having goals is important because it gives you a place to aim for, it gives you, like, a vision for the future.
Speaker 2:And when you create, you can like look forward to that. I think less so about goals. It's more about trying to project forward and visualize your life what it would be like in a year, what would be like in two years, five years, ten years, like you don't have to set concrete goals, but if you have a concrete vision, you can like work towards that.
Speaker 1:I love that kind of visualizing what you want things to look like in a certain time period.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for example, at the time, really popular creators was. One of them was Jake Paul. Of course, jake Paul was actually you can argue that still today.
Speaker 1:But yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, he's no longer creating on YouTube, but at the time he's creating, though, but he is creating in his own is yeah he was vlogging on youtube and he was like at the top of the game, sure, and also casey neistat and all those people.
Speaker 2:But I can remember like um, I think jake paul said in a video or a podcast I don't know where exactly, but I think he was saying like he spends two thousand dollars on a video. When I I heard that, I was like, damn, I wish someday I could spend $2,000 on a video, because at the time I was in school and like spending $30 on a video even felt expensive to me, like buying all those copies in every coffee shop was super expensive, it cost me like a hundred bucks and I was like, whoa, this is such a high investment video, but now our videos cost thousands of dollars to make. So I think I had a vision in the back of my head, even if that wasn't a goal per se.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. That's really cool. So when would you say, before we get to the kind of when things started picking up? I saw that you also did a TED Talk. That's kind of unusual for a lot of people. How did that happen? What? I saw that you also did a TED Talk. That's kind of unusual for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:How did that happen? What is that all about? Yeah, the TED Talk is like. It was an interesting experience because I was through my university. They had like a program for mentoring high school students and I was like mentoring these high school students and then they hosted a TEDx event and invited me to speak there. Wow, what was that like for you? That was really fulfilling. I think I really enjoy the public speaking element and I enjoy giving back what I've learned. It's same thing with this podcast, like the fact that I can share my lessons to a bigger audience and maybe they can take away something and start their journey or progress faster. That's really fulfilling to me.
Speaker 1:Do you do any of that now? Do you go to VidSummit or VidCon or anything like that and… do anything, or are you still kind of in your own thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm doing a lot more speaking this year and also a bit of last year. So last year I spoke at VidSummit Very cool, if you know that one. I love VidSummit, yeah. And then this year I spoke at a few marketing events and then I was actually just at the Google headquarters speaking as well.
Speaker 1:Very, cool, that's amazing. So let's go back to a little bit earlier in your career. Things started picking up. When was that, and what was happening? What was going through your mind during that time?
Speaker 2:The way I view YouTube is I see it as step ladders. So basically, it's never like a constant growth upwards. It feels like it plateaus and then it takes a huge step up and then it plateaus again, and then another huge step up and then plateaus again. Sure, yeah, yeah. So that's how I feel like my journey was. So the first real breakthrough was when I was on exchange. I was making weekly videos about my experience there and I think I got to 1,500 subscribers by the end of my exchange.
Speaker 2:And some videos got like 30,000, 50,000 views, so that was really impressive to me. And then, after I came back to Canada where I was studying, I started vlogging just to continue the school niche. I started doing these day in the life vlogs and they were really popular. So one blew up and got like 50,000 views in a day and eventually got like 100,000 views.
Speaker 1:What was that?
Speaker 2:about? What was that video about? Do you remember? It was a day in the life, that's it. It was a day in the life of a UBC student. Wow, ubc is where I was studying. Okay, because at the time, day in the life was really popping off.
Speaker 3:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:You know, like Elliot Choi, Sean Rizwan Nicholas Jay, so that was intentional.
Speaker 1:All these were my peers, so that was intentional to try to do that type of content because it was doing well.
Speaker 2:A little bit, okay. I mean a little bit of it was intentional, a little bit of it was just continuing the niche I was in.
Speaker 1:Okay, Cool. So, as that was taking off, what kind of things were going through your head where you think okay now, did you know about doubling down? Did you know what that meant audience-wise? What was going through your mind?
Speaker 2:I mean it wasn't that sophisticated, but I definitely knew I needed to do more of this. So I like kind of honed in on the college niche okay.
Speaker 1:So, as you said and this is common for a lot of creators they'll have this moment and then things will slow down. Actually, one of the first things I always say to a content creator who's having one of their moments when things are blowing up is okay, you need to prepare for the next thing, because it's going to slow down. It always does 100% of the time. It slows down when things kind of slow down and it wasn't continuing to go straight up, did that worry you at any point, or were you just kind of like no, I get it. This is part of the journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you said, it always slows down after an explosive period, but your baseline will be higher, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wasn't worried because my baselines were higher and I could see growth overall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you actually were able to kind of look at the step back from it all and go no, this is still heading in the right direction, Not that, oh my God, I've been canceled Like all of a sudden. Things don't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's good to zoom out a little bit once in a while, just because we look at a 28 day period, especially on youtube studio, and that has a lot of fluctuations, a lot of ups and downs. Right when you see a gray arrow in a month, that's the breath yeah, that's terrible, but but I look at my year-long statistics from time to time and I'll tell you this, travis I've never had a year where I didn't grow faster. Let's go. I love that. I never had a gray arrow on a year-long.
Speaker 1:On a year. That's such a clutch thing to say, because it is more because we actually get people to email in. We do like these. We have people email in um, we do like these. We have people email in. We answer their questions on the podcast and we hear a lot of the oh, I did this great video and it did well. But now everything seems to be dead. But it's only been like two weeks and it's like no, it's, it's more than this two weeks. It's not this. Don't let the youtube one of ten things make you think that that's your entire career.
Speaker 1:It's like you're you're going to have a ton of 10 of 10s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like zoom out a little bit, Take perspective, Like look on a yearly basis the trajectory. If it's upward then you don't need to worry, right, I love that that's so clutch.
Speaker 1:Now you were doing like you said, a year in the life of a college student thing, but of course at some point, hopefully, you graduate college. So you know you can't do that forever what was the pivot. How did you pivot? What did you like? How did that process Take us through? I'm doing the day in the life of college stuff, but I need to do something else. Take us through that whole thing.
Speaker 2:That was a life crisis moment for me.
Speaker 1:Talk us through it. I love that. You just I'm hooked. I need to hear this.
Speaker 2:Tell me well, it was my whole identity college vlogging, youtube, uh, studying like all that was my entire identity. And I could sense the end of it as I was like nearing the last year because I'm like, okay, what do I do next? Right, like I don't think my audience will like anything. Um, because, like, they only like, they care about you to a certain extent, but they care more about like you being in that college environment, so they want to like, project themselves onto you. So if you are no longer in that college environment, they have no reason to watch you.
Speaker 2:And I've seen other people in my niche do different types of transitions. So some people they focus more on street interviews. They started interviewing college students and then they focused more on street interviews. Okay, that was the transition. Some people focus on vlogging, just like vlogging your daily life.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking about my own transition and I personally didn't want to do the vlogging aspect of it. So I did more productivity videos right away because it was kind of related to the niche. But then COVID hit and I couldn't travel anywhere because the series that was doing the best for me at the time was a campus tour series. So that was actually my next step. Right, I was going to finish college and I was going to tour all these like Ivy League campuses and interview the students and get like study tips and like maybe show some of the student life on each of these Ivy League campuses.
Speaker 2:I did four but COVID hit couldn't travel. I was stuck in my room and I was like what do I do? So I transitioned to productivity and then I did productivity for 10 videos and I got so bored I was like how much productivity can you talk about? At a certain point, you just got to do your work, man, right, right, I love it. You trying to optimize every single minute is wasting more time than if you just go and did the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're speaking truth, go ahead. So I was like really burnt out and I didn't make videos for three, four months, wow yeah. And then in that time I was doing a bit of soul searching, you know, just trying to like figure out, like, hey, what do I want to do next? Because, for YouTube, I feel like it's so connected with who you are as a person, like the type of content you make is so connected with who you are as a person, like the type of content you make is so connected to who you are as a person. So when you're brainstorming new content, it's almost like you're trying to reinvent yourself and you're trying to go through this journey of self-discovery. So that's why it took so long, because I wasn't just thinking about content, I was thinking about me as a person. And eventually I landed on this thing that I've always wanted to try, which is I, as a kid, loved watching kung fu movies.
Speaker 1:I did too. I met Jackie Chan, interviewed him. Oh, you did.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. I just did a collab with Karate Kid, the new Karate Kid, yeah the one that's coming out.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna check it out, yeah yeah, out With Ben Wong, but anyway. So I loved kung fu movies as a kid. I wanted to train with a Shaolin monk, because that's like the stem of kung fu, right. Yeah, that was something that I've always wanted to do and I was just like thinking about all these type of content directions, and the Shaolin monk direction really stuck out to me. It was like a super ambitious project. I didn't know how I would do it it's completely different than college stuff but it just stuck out to me as like a good piece of content and yeah. So I was like working on that. I was kind of just like architecting the storyline. I was kind of just like architecting the storyline. I was trying to make it like super viral and eventually somehow one of my friends introduced me to a Shaolin monk. What are the chances?
Speaker 1:of that. Who has friends that know Shaolin monks?
Speaker 2:Well, like I was, I said it in a Q&A video, Like people were asking me like, oh, what's a video you've always wanted to make but haven't? And then one of my friends saw the video and just reached out to me it was amazing. So, yeah, I found a Shaolin monk and we made this six-part documentary series of me training to be a Shaolin monk.
Speaker 1:Wow, and and. Then that's where things were like.
Speaker 2:now this is cooking and that's where things really took off Because at the time after I graduated, I think it was about 200K subscribers, sure, and then I made this Shaolin Monk series and it doubled to 500K.
Speaker 1:You were cooking, then huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it didn't hit right away because my transition from productivity to kung fu was instant and the audience was like what the heck? What's going on? Yeah, like this makes no sense to me. Yeah, um, and it took it the video, the first video I published on shaolin monks. It's at nine million views right now. Yeah, but when I first uploaded it was like a 7 out of 10. Yeah, and it just sat there for a while. It took three months for it to find the right audience. I love that. It never gave up Because it was good content. I love YouTube because if you make a good piece of content, it will find the right audience eventually.
Speaker 1:This is a really interesting piece of information you're sharing, because we're actually going to do an episode on pivoting in the coming weeks and what you're saying here is so important because pivoting can be very scary, especially if you had any type of success previous to pivoting and you're just done with it. Because I'm kind of in that space, jen's in a space, and we talked a lot of creators in that space where it's like, okay, I've done that thing, I'm not really interested in it. The next thing is slightly different. And then there's always this question of creating another channel or pivoting on your own channel.
Speaker 1:Now, we're still going through your process of where you are now, but let's skip ahead a little bit. Knowing what you know now, would you have told yourself, generally speaking, to have pivoted on a new channel or to have done what you did, which is keep it on your main channel? It seems like it's no brainer to keep it on your main channel, but you see a lot of channels now that pop up with really good videos the first three or four and they get hundreds of thousands of views right off the bat. What are your thoughts now?
Speaker 2:I probably wouldn't have done the exact strategy I did back then. Interesting, completely 180 on my audience. What would you do now? I would pivot more slowly. Yeah, interesting, I would try to have transitional videos in between I've literally I call it wedging.
Speaker 1:I've been talking about this for years. Talk to us, speak it. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's confusing, both from an algorithm perspective and an audience perspective, when you upload something that's completely unrelated. I mean, it worked out for me but like it was to the detriment, like my strategy was detrimental to the success was to the detriment, my strategy was detrimental to the success, it wasn't complementing the success. So I would suggest to you hey, let's say I wanted to do the Kung Fu thing, I wanted to upload that series and I was currently in the productivity niche. Then maybe I'm just thinking at the top of my head, maybe I would interview different productivity experts and then that could be like a transition and eventually I get into more like personal development, and then eventually I interview the monk about personal development, and then that transitions me into the monk sphere, right, and then I can go into the training kung fu, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah so like I. There's definitely a smart, smarter ways I could have done it. I was a little barbaric. I was just like you know what? You know what, yolo, yolo baby, let's get it.
Speaker 1:I love that and yeah, that's the thing I've been explaining for a long time. People have heard me use the term wedging. He just explained it probably better than I could have. All. All right, let's talk a little bit more about, kind of more currently, where you are. What are your thoughts, generally speaking, on YouTube Shorts? We definitely have thoughts here on the podcast, but I'd love to hear what are your thoughts on YouTube Shorts? What do you use them for, what are your expectations in making a short and what's the strategy behind it?
Speaker 2:YouTube Shorts are undoubtedly the fastest way to grow on the platform right now. Right, and when YouTube Shorts first came out, everybody was hating on Shorts.
Speaker 2:They were like it's going to split your audience, you're going to get no views, it's going to basically destroy your channel if you start uploading Shorts on your main channel and I just kind of took a look at that and I saw shorts as an opportunity instead of like a thing to avoid. Okay, so I dove like head in. When shorts first came out, I was like, all right, we're going to try to figure out shorts and really really like hone in on that. Okay, and in the beginning it was complete white space because nobody was focusing energy on shorts. They were just transporting content from other platforms. So, like we made content dedicated to shorts and the first video that I made specifically for shorts, instead of reformatting long-form videos the first video that I made specifically for shorts it got 50 million views within a week. Wow, and that growth was something that I've never seen before Throughout my years of uploading on YouTube 50 million views in a week, never seen that before. Insane.
Speaker 1:And what was the impact on your overall channel? Did that change anything or was it just kind of helped your shorts, your future shorts, get traction faster?
Speaker 2:So in the beginning it was like a split right, like it was like you had like a shorts traffic and then you had a long form traffic. They weren't really correlated, but I kind of viewed it as a investment strategy. It's kind of like a hedge, because if at some point YouTube as a platform figures out how to bridge the gap between short form and long form, then I have this audience I can leverage to push into long form. And eventually they did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2:So it was like I was like there is no downside. If I looked at the analytics, it did not reduce the amount of views I got for my long form videos. A lot of people were saying it did, but I think it was just because their long form videos were tanking anyway. Yeah not doing well. Anyway, don't blame their shorts, bro. That's fair. No, that's fair I like that.
Speaker 1:I like that so like.
Speaker 2:I just took an objective look at the data and the best thing about YouTube is they give you so much data and I saw no negative correlation between shorts views and long-form views. They may not correlate like in terms of they not have like more shorts view didn't correlate to more long-form views. They may not correlate like in terms of they not have like short, more shorts view didn't correlate to more long-form views.
Speaker 2:but I saw that like okay, there's no downside, so I might as well, just focus on this, because it's the growth that you haven't seen anywhere before. Right, because when platforms push out a new feature, they're really likely to promote that feature. Youtube now made a dedicated button on the home screen for shorts, so you're definitely going to get a lot of benefit by jumping on trends early. So now shorts have evolved. Right, it's been like almost three years I don't know three, four years since shorts came out. Almost three years I don't know three, four years since Shorts came out. And now there's a lot more creators putting in a lot of effort, like MrBeast is doing Shorts and he's spending like thousands, hundreds, tens of thousands of dollars on each Shortform video. So there's a lot more competition. But I would still say there's opportunity there. There's still white space there for people to come in. Interesting Shorts is the number one way for discovery. You seem pretty passionate about it.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love to hear that let's talk about some other aspects of creation you may or may not be passionate about. I'd love to hear this let's talk about the thumbnail process. Obviously, you have some banger thumbnails. How does that work?
Speaker 2:I mean you don't have a video until you have a thumbnail, I would. I'm glad you said that how do you do?
Speaker 1:you do you already have the thumbnail and title figured out before you shoot your video, or where is that?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, good, I I would say the biggest change I made, that blew up. My channel is really, really being stringent on that rule where we have to figure out the packaging before we upload.
Speaker 1:I totally agree on this. I totally agree on this. So how long does it take you to do like I assume you have a team that does thumbnails and stuff how long does the process go from, like, the idea to the end goal, to the end result of the thumbnail now?
Speaker 2:It varies, but maybe like a week or so, maybe two weeks. It depends on the thumbnail. We usually create multiple versions of each thumbnail.
Speaker 1:Are you using A-B testing or no? Yes, okay, have you found that useful? Yes, very useful.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was doing it before just manually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just going back for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. And is this one of the parts you liked? You liked helping out with the thumbnail process. Do you do the thumbnails yourself, like, how does that process work?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am very involved in the creative process for thumbnails and the idea itself. Because as I level up as a creator, there's like people that work for me. Now I have to think about like what my role in the company is right and where I can have the most leverage with my time. And the thought I had is the earlier I can get involved in the creative process, the more leverage that time has. Because if it's in the idea phase, one little change to the idea can drastically impact the views and one little change to the thumbnail concept can have really outsized impact on the performance of the video. So I am very involved in that process. Really outsized impact on the performance of the video. So I am very involved in that process. But the later it gets into the process for example, like, let's say, scripting or whatever it's like yeah, scripting a scene might be cool but like it's not gonna impact the views dramatically- Editing does, though.
Speaker 1:So how in depth are you on that and like, how involved are you in that? And is that something that takes a long Because you were talking about before you were doing 100 hours and stuff? Where are we at now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have editors that work for me. I still review the video, so I try to review at the beginning. I try to review at every stage, but it's most importantly for me to review at the beginning where the ideas and the thumbnails and important for me to review the final version of the edit.
Speaker 1:And how often at the end are you like, ah, we just need to change so much of this. Is it normally like you have a team that is so in tune with your vision now that you don't have to do that, or is it still a lot of push back and forth?
Speaker 2:We most of the time don't have to change the video dramatically, because that's like a lot of wasted effort. Like I think in the beginning, when I first started, when I was filming by myself, editing by myself, I would kind of just YOLO the shoot. I would maybe think of the idea like in the, and then I would go out and film and then I'll be like, okay, I'll figure it out in the edit. Okay, yeah, but that was so much work. Sometimes the edit just didn't turn out how I wanted it to and then I have to figure out okay, what is the storyline here? It just took so many hours and over time I found the more time I put into pre-production, the easier my editing Interesting. So now we try to plan the video out completely scene by scene before we even start filming. So every piece of content that we film we'll make it into the edit. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to it into the edit. That's awesome. All right, we're gonna go into the last section here. I'm gonna do some shotgun questions here in a minute, but I just wanna tell you a couple of videos that I watched that I really like, and mainly because they are things that I personally enjoy. The RC cars one actually was heavy and still kind of am into RC cars now, so I saw you actually one of the cars at the end. The black one is one of the ones I wanted to buy last year, but I'm like I think it's so expensive, so so amazing. Though it's fine, I think like 70, 80 miles an hour, you're burning out tires every three minutes Like I wanted that car, and to see you drive around have fun with it seemed like it was just a lot of fun, and I was a former magician, so the magic episode I just watched recently was really fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was it like doing those? Because those are just like, it's like you're just playing. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:It's like the most fun ever Like.
Speaker 1:What kind of a job is this? You're just playing. You're watching magic tricks, learning magic and driving RC cars. What is that like now?
Speaker 2:I mean, the one thing that we try to keep on the channel is we have an element of learning in every single video and these like fun hobbies are like really great way for people to like kind of dip their toes into what it takes to do the hobby, the fun parts of the hobby, and maybe like learn some life lessons as well. So I really love doing those type of videos.
Speaker 1:And you say learning a lot. There's a lot of science stuff you're doing now and kind of teaching and stuff. Is that kind of what you would elevator pitch to someone who's never heard of you or never seen you before you go? This is what my channel is about. It's about teaching in a fun way science or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would just say we showcase science, tech and innovations in the world in a fun way.
Speaker 1:We got some questions here. I think these are going to be kind of fun, mainly because most people don't ask these questions. When you do podcasts or interviews, I like to try to do things that are different. Have you ever unlisted or deleted a video on your channel? On this channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean some stuff that just didn't align with the content right now.
Speaker 1:Was it older stuff, or was it kind of even like in the last two, three years?
Speaker 2:Some mostly older stuff.
Speaker 1:And it was mainly it was like algorithmic reasons, because it's not who your current audience is.
Speaker 2:No, it's just kind of like. I mean, those videos weren't getting that many views in real time anyway, so I don't think it affected the algorithm, but it's just more of like a branding perspective. When someone comes to your channel, if you have like videos on 10 different topics, like, what can they expect? Right? So, I just privated some videos where it was no longer related but, like you can still see a distinct transition between my college days and what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:What is the favorite video you've ever done?
Speaker 2:I think the Shallon series was really fun. It was something that I planned out for months and I'm really glad that it turned out the way it did, because it's kind of like the modern day Karate Kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would you do an updated version of that now, since you liked it so much, or is that something that you think maybe you're probably past? I think maybe Like a different twist on it, or something.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to count it out.
Speaker 1:All right, that's fair. Which video did you think when you made it was going to do really well, but it didn't? Was there one you could think of, like you're like, oh, this is going to be a banger. And you're like, eh, it didn't really hit the way I wanted it to Not, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Let me see.
Speaker 1:And everything is relative right. So your non-banger could be a banger for someone else.
Speaker 2:I mean I think in the beginning I had more of an expectation. Oh, do you not have expectations now? Well, I mean I have expectations now, but they're like more met on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:Listen, that's great, that's awesome, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's great. In the beginning I had expectations that weren't met.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's really important to have because, like, if you have these expectations aren't met on a regular basis, then it definitely is a demoralizing kind of thing to go through what you were talking about kind of earlier in your career too. Yeah, if you could do one of your videos over again, which one would it be?
Speaker 2:I don't think I would do any videos over again. Wow, no regrets. I think they were the best I could do at the time.
Speaker 1:Okay, I respect that. Is there any videos that you uploaded, done that you kind of wish I wish I didn't do that?
Speaker 2:do that one like you kind of like feel ambivalent about now again, I just don't like to dwell on the past and I'm like okay, a video did well, didn't do well. I liked it, didn't like it. I I think I just like take what I can from that and just focus on the next one was that always your thought process?
Speaker 1:if you have, you all, because a lot of people can't do that yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, like, what's dwelling on the past video going to do for you, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's important and I think it's hard for people, because what you said earlier and I think this goes for a lot of creators is to put a lot of time and effort into something, and your channel and your videos are a reflection of who you are. So sometimes it feels like a rejection of who you are, but you don't feel that way. Is that what you're basically saying?
Speaker 2:No, I do feel that. I do feel that I definitely feel rejected. Okay, but you're able to A dwelling on the rejection and the feeling of depression is not going to get me anywhere.
Speaker 1:I just recognize that. I love that. Is that something that's always been something with you, or did you have to learn that kind of skill?
Speaker 2:I think that muscle and that strength and the tenacity develops over time, you can start somewhere right.
Speaker 1:You get more unfazed over time You're like a thicker skin. Yeah, so for a content creator, we'll just talk to our content creators now that are watching and listening, newer content creators that are in the space. I mean you're in a kind of competitive space. If you were new today, what would be the things that you would tell the new Hafu Go who's just today starting a channel? Maybe has 100 subscribers? What are the things that that person needs to know now Good, bad and different, like even the things that that person needs to know now good, bad and different, like even the things. Like things are going to suck, like that's a that's a perfectly valid piece of information.
Speaker 2:What would you say to that person, that creator yeah, I mean things are gonna suck for sure, but uh, definitely push through it. I think just when I started on YouTube, everything was a guessing game. Click-through rate wasn't even a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:And there was so little information out there about how to succeed on YouTube, so I had to figure out everything on my own. But now it's pretty clear figure out everything on my own, but now it's pretty clear. You can get a very clear roadmap on how to succeed on YouTube for free by watching your videos or just whatever videos on YouTube that's out there. So I think the most important thing is just be a learning machine. That's all you got to do right. Every source, every piece of content that you can learn. Take that in Every creator you can talk to. Take that in Every video that you upload. Analyze it, see what kind of feedback you're getting, see the data, take that information in and try to improve the next one. So your rate of progress is going to be equal to your rate of learning.
Speaker 1:Yo, that was fire. So really focus on that. That was fire. Okay, we're gonna finish up with something I like to do every once in a while. So one of the things that the MainFit IQ channel does a lot is we audit a channel. We'll take a look at a video, the first 30 seconds or something, and kind of critique the hook or whatever. We're going to do that here. I'd love for you to take a look at this video. This is from I think I can't remember what the channel is. All right.
Speaker 3:I ain't holding back.
Speaker 1:You ain't going to hold back. It's going to be. I think it's like a 30-second clip. We're just going to look at the intro. This was a small creator. See, this is an older video. For them it's called my two year search for a perfect black t-shirt, which I think is a-.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's my video.
Speaker 1:Hafu Go. I think let's take a look and see what the heck let's see Bro's trolling me.
Speaker 2:He can like bait me.
Speaker 3:Have you ever wanted something so badly that you'd be willing to risk everything just to get it? For the past few years, I've lusted, fantasized and chased after the perfect black t-shirt. Today I finally found it. I want to share with you my story.
Speaker 1:All right, that's like 25 seconds in. What do you, what do you thought of this young creator? I think they, they got a, they got a future ahead of them, but what? What are your thoughts on this video?
Speaker 2:wow I haven't looked back on my older videos in a long, long time, but uh pretty cringe, very cringe but it's ambitious, like I love.
Speaker 1:First of all, I thought it's kind of for people who are listening to audio podcast. You got to go to the YouTube channel to watch that. It's very intense. He's got a like it looks like a CGI thing of Kanye there, like a whole bunch of stuff going on A red background with was this like in your apartment or something.
Speaker 2:It was in my mom's house. What was the idea? Instead of like a long rope across and then just hung shirts in the background.
Speaker 1:Where did you think of the idea of the perfect search for a black t-shirt? That's crazy. That's an interesting idea.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was like a genuine thing that I was doing. I really just love wearing black t-shirts. I now have like 20 of the same black t-shirts. So I did find a perfect black t-shirt. Because black is so simple. You just put it on 20 of the same black t-shirts. So I did find a perfect black t-shirt. Um, because it's like black is so simple, right, you just put it on.
Speaker 2:It looks good, you don't have to worry about stains so simple so I was like okay, it may be kind of interesting to make a video on the topic and I'll tell you this now there have been fashion creators that made a video on a similar topic within the last two years. That got like a lot more views than I did because they didn't approach it in the cringe way that I did. They were like more like reviewing different black t-shirts like one dollar versus a five hundred dollar black t-shirt. That would have been way more viral as a format. But I don't know. I think when you're beginning it's good to get these like creative ideas out there, just so you can exhaust all your bad ideas and you can eventually get to the good ones get to the good ones, uh, so no, hafo go black t-shirts, uh, on merch.
Speaker 1:Huh, we're not gonna get that are we gonna get that. I mean because I can be kind of fire, I can be kind of fire. Anyway, we thank you so much for joining us. Hafu, um, we're gonna have links for his channels and everything in the description and the show notes for the audio podcast listeners. Hafu, anything you want to tell these content creators before we go today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to say I think you just got to keep making more videos. Like I said, just keep making more videos, learn from each one, and I am hiring. Hey, am hiring, if you are for wait, if you want to work behind the scenes on youtube. If you don't want to be in front of the camera, please reach out to me via the email that you'll leave in the description.
Speaker 1:I I 100 know you will. You will get people, get people. That goes without saying. There we have some very hungry creators out there right now yeah, I'm hiring for editors and um ideation people amazing. Well, listen, this might be your opportunity. You never know. Listening to the podcast could change your life, and we're here to do that for you every single week here on the podcast. We'll see you, guys and gals, in the next one.