How Patrick Zeinali Went from Short form Success to Long form Dominance

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We dig into how Patrick Zeinali scaled from TikTok virality to YouTube long form by crafting historical, story-driven food videos and treating outliers as franchises. The through line: obsession, packaging, and human connection beat shortcuts and luck.

• short form to long form mindset shift
• first long form misfires and course correction
• building the “100 years” series and momentum
• outlier strategy and striking while it’s hot
• packaging with titles and thumbnails that earn clicks
• starting with just a phone and a niche
• using AI without losing the human touch
• authenticity, staging limits and genuine reactions
• workflow, hiring help and work-life boundaries
• diversification plans beyond food and into gaming

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Hit the link in the description or the show notes if you want to get some of that action today
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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you have an idea that works, you lean into that. Drop everything you're doing and make another one.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Like immediately. Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that goes to extremes to bring you the best content creators on the platform. As always, I'm your host, Travis, and today we got a super awesome guest. But before I get to that, I want you to know if you are into growing your YouTube channel, you're in the right place. We got you covered. And today I have an incredible guest, Patrick Zanali. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hey, I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. VidIQ is uh a goaded platform. I've I knew I knew about vidik since I mean, I feel like you guys were like the first guys to get into the scene with um YouTube analytics and all that stuff, key keyword searches. And yeah, uh, you guys are the OGs. So that's right.

Patrick’s Start And First Viral Moment

SPEAKER_01 0:49

That's right. And it's so amazing to have you here. Um, we're gonna talk about a lot of things. And for those of you that are joining us for the very first time, we're gonna help you grow your YouTube channels. And we've been interviewing a lot of really cool creators lately. And Patrick is one of those guys that has the type of content that I like because I love food. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today, as well as his entire journey. So sit back, relax, and enjoy. All right, Patrick. Let's start off. For those of you, for those out there who may not know who you are, explain who you are and kind of what content you do, and then we'll get into your background.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

My name is Patrick Zanali. I do food content. So, food entertainment, recipes, anything involving food. Um, so I started by uh doing short form, like a lot of people these days. Um, had my third video ever uploaded onto TikTok go viral. And um that feeling felt amazing. It was like, whoa, what's happening here? I was just like a regular dude working a regular job and getting all those views, likes, it kind of you know gets your endorphins going. And so after that, I was like, hmm, maybe there's something here. Kept building my short form, kept building my short form, and um eventually like became good at it, got a lot of views, and then is like, what's the next challenge? Long form. So then I started dabbling a little bit in long form, and that's thanks to my friend and uh now the head of our content in my company, uh Brian Maderos. Uh he convinced me, he said, dude, you got a lot of subscribers, um, and you're just doing short form. Let me help you with some long form videos. I understand the long form world somewhat. And I was like, uh at first I was like, no, dude, I'm doing short form. And then when I conquered it, kind of, um, I was like, uh, all right, let me see what you got. And so we started working together, and we've been working together for about three years now.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

That's amazing because the thing is, um, a lot of the content creators we have on are either focused specifically on short form and really good at it, or specifically at long form and really good at it. There's very few content creators on YouTube that have really done well in both. And we're definitely gonna dig into both of those uh with you because again, uh so many people uh write us in that are short form creators or long form, it's very rare that we see successful both. Why do you suppose that is?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So with short form, um the re it's a lot easier to get into, right? So um, if you want to make, if you have an idea, you could shoot it, edit it, upload it all in one day. So that you get kind of used to that because you're like, all right, if I got an idea, tomorrow morning I'll wake up, I'll go make a short form video, and I'll upload it. And um, the long form creators that just got into long form um are used to more storytelling, a longer way of like explaining something, kind of going through a journey, right? Um, and when they want to go to short form, they're all of a sudden need to like cut everything down to like 30 to 40 seconds or 45 seconds. Um so it becomes becomes difficult for them because they're like, I need more room here to save this, and and they're just so used to that long form um journey building, where short form it's like boom, boom, boom, bam, bam, bam, bam, done, right? So um, so I think going from long form to short form, that's that challenge. Going from short form to long form, that's a big challenge. That's probably bigger than long to short. Really? Yeah, because you got to think about it like this. So I get hit up by a lot of short form creators, especially in the food space, asking me about how do I get into long form? How do I do it? And I said, Are you obsessed with YouTube? Are you like eating, drinking, sleeping with YouTube? And they go, uh, no, I just want more money. I go, stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop. I tell them, I go, don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth the headache. You're making enough money doing uh short form. Yeah, it's it's a it's it's it's you're gonna hate it. You gotta have to love it to get into long form. And that's why I actually love long form because the entry or to the barrier to entry is a lot larger. So it's like only the people that are ups absolutely obsessed with it are gonna enter. And then so it became it becomes like a fun field of like, what is this guy doing? What is that guy doing? Oh, look at what look at what Nick did, look at what uh Mr. B said, look at look at what Ryan Trahan did, look at what uh some of these smaller creators that are obsessed with it, look at what they did. So it becomes a thing of like this weird obsession with it. So I if it's so much harder to get obsessed if you're not obsessed in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I I actually usually save this for later, but I don't want to forget this question. Who on the platform currently inspires you?

Early Long Form Stumbles And Lessons

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Right now, I gotta say it's Nick Di Giobani, big, big inspiration. He's a good friend of mine, really good friend. We talk almost every other day. Um, his passion, his hard work is is unbelievable. And and and his team, I know his a lot of his team. Uh, one of his main guys is Zach. He is obsessed with YouTube. Me and him text all the time, Well, how do you like this thumbnail? Did you see this guy? And so we're like kind of just obsessed with it. Um, so it's kind of cool to look up to someone and be their friend. Um, but there's also other creators, obviously, Brian Trahan. Um, there's a there's a creator called Addy Bowley. I think he's an amazing storyteller. Um, just yeah, there and and binging with Babish. Like he is like the original, like food creator, absolutely kind of. Um he really inspires me. I mean, he's witty, he's smart, he's quick. Uh I just wish I had his brain sometimes because he's amazing. So that's those are my inspirations for sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

I love that. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. You were saying you were working, I assume your full-time job, and you're just kind of doing some short form content. And you said the third one blows up. Tell us that story. What was that video about? How did that happen? Like, what was going on in your mind at the time?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, so I make dinner for my my girl and I like every other night, if not every night. Uh, I love cooking. I actually do enjoy it. So I make dinner for us, and um uh and I was just I ever every time I finished the dish, I would just grab my phone, hold the plate, and kind of walk it towards her and record her. She didn't know the food was coming. I didn't know what I was gonna do with the footage. I was just filming it because I'm like, let me just film something. So I kept, I had a bunch of these shots of me just, and and she wouldn't even ask, What are you doing with those videos? I'm like, I don't know, I'm just like collecting it. I don't know, it's kind of cool. She's like, cool. I'm on Twitter and this app, TikTok, keeps getting advertised to me. And I'm like, oh god, what is this app? It keeps getting advertised to me, man. What is this thing? And this was late 2019, so pre-pandemic. And uh, I was like, all right, I'll download it. You you spent like a billion dollars in ads, I'll download it.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Let me try it.

Cracking The “100 Years” Concept

Ride The Outlier: Doubling Down Fast

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I download the app and I'm like kind of swiping through it. People are dancing, I don't get what's going on. You know, I'm like, what is this? Like, this is kind of weird to me. But then I was looking at the likes and comments, and I was like, wait a second, this random guy just got 200,000 likes? Like, who is this guy? Yeah, and I just kept seeing that. I'm like, random people are just going viral. And I'm used to Instagram uh 2018, 2019, where you have to be a celebrity or someone to get views, likes. Like, it wasn't just like, you know, there was it wasn't just like kind of given out like that, right? And I was like, oh, random people could go viral. I was like, all right, huh? I was like sitting at the office, I was like, wait a second, I got all these videos. Let me just make a compilation of my of the video of me filming my girl giving her food. It's genuine reaction. Let me just like put a compilation of that and upload it and see what happens. And so I make the video, I show it to my coworker, I tell him, dude, look at this video. I'm gonna put it on TikTok, it's gonna go viral. He goes, No, it's not. I was like, all right, let's see. And I upload it and it got like 200 likes in a day. And that was kind of cool to me. I was like, 200 likes? Damn, damn, I never get likes. You know, that's kind of sick. And uh I went to dinner with a friend that was in marketing, and I was like, Did you hear about this app, TikTok? He's like, Yeah, yeah, we've been talking about it. What is it? I'm like, well, let me show it to you. Opened the app, it had 2,000 likes. I was like, Whoa, what? And I'm like at the table going, like, oh dude, like, look at this, blah blah blah blah. 2,000 likes, that's crazy. And he's like, Oh, cool. And then I showed him the app. Run home to show my girlfriend 10,000 likes. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's happening? Yeah, and that night it just went 20,000, 30,000, 40. And it was just like gaining, gaining, gaining. And we were like going crazy. Yeah, views are going up, and then the next day I wake up, my DM is going crazy on Instagram of other big pages going like, can we share your video? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, have it, have it, everyone have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those went viral. It went viral on Twitter, it went viral here. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm just getting spread around like this. It felt amazing at the moment. And uh, and I was and then after a few days, I'm like, okay, it died down. Let's just go back to regular life. And I was like, nah, I can't do this. I need I need another hit. I need another hit. Yeah, yeah. So uh I just like I like cooking, let's make a cooking video. Made a steak video, got 500,000 likes, and it just kept snowballing until like TikTok reached out, said, Hey, we want to have a rep for you, you're doing really well. And I was like, Whoa. So I was like one of the earlier food creators on TikTok um at the time. So I think that that there was like a void missing, and I was kind of filling it in, and then you just kind of started seeing everyone slowly start getting in. And then you went from TikTok. When did you come to YouTube? So YouTube Shorts came out. I I forgot when, maybe 2020, 2020.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Maybe around 2020, yeah, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Somewhere around that. Yeah, I immediately started uploading. I was like, I'm uploading like this. I love YouTube. I I mean I watched Casey Neistat at the office every day, you know, like it was something I looked forward to. And then when Ryan Trayan came out with the penny series, I was like, oh my god, something to look forward to every day for 30 days or however long it took him to get across America. And um, I was like, dude, I love YouTube. So I just started uploading, getting like a thousand views for like a month and a half, two months. But I was like, whatever, just keep uploading, keep uploading. And then one day, all my videos on YouTube Shorts just started taking off. Really, whoa, what's happening here? Yeah, and got to a hundred thousand subscribers in a in a few months, and I was like, dude, this is crazy, and uh and uh yeah, so then that kind of just started snowballing, and that's where Brian, when I had like I think 150 or 200,000 subscribers, he was like, dude, you should consider long form. And that's when I was like, nah. And then after like six to eight months, I started really considering it.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

So when you first so at that point, you've been a short form creator for quite a while. You were established you you were you were feeling yourself, you were really in the pocket. You knew it, you got it. Okay, I know how to tell the story in a fast-paced way that people will engage with, people like, will watch to the end as much as possible. And then you're finally like, okay, I gotta do long form. He's been bugging me to do this, I'm gonna finally do it. What was the reality like when you first started doing a long form right after doing short form for so long? Like, what did that feel like? Uh did you have imposter syndrome? Like, tell me everything.

Bridging Trends To Personal Brand

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah. So when we first did our first long form, uh Brian, uh, my head of content, came up with the concept, which was I created the original Big Mac from McDonald's. I saw that. Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the time I was like, all right, yeah, that sounds cool. Uh like, how do we shoot this video? I don't know where to even start. He goes, Well, let's go to McDonald's, let's try to ask the drive-thru person if we make it. And I was like, Oh man, I don't want to bug people. I hate those like prank videos where they're bugging people when they're shopping and whatnot. Like, leave those people alone, especially like someone at McDonald's, it's like, dude, I used to work at Domino's Pizza. You think someone stuck a camera in my face? I'm like, get out of here. I don't want to do it. But he said, Listen, we'll we'll we'll we'll respect the person. I'll I won't show the camera. And you just ask them, like, hey, I'm I'm filming a video, and you just kind of gauge it. And I was like, All right, fine. I hated it. I I was really nervous doing it. We did it, and then I remember it took the whole day to shoot the video. And um, the person at the window at McDonald's said, sure, I'll I'll come and try it. And so um, and so we asked them what time they're getting off, and this it was all legitimate. We didn't make any of this up. Like, it was like I get off at five. I'm like, oh wow. So in like three hours, you get off. That's yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, I gotta go shopping. So we went shopping for the ingredients, and so after we were done with that shoe, I didn't love it. I didn't love it at the time. I was like, I think for me, it was what up, is it gonna be us bugging people all the time? Like, I don't want to do this if it's that's the case, because people are working, like, don't leave them alone. Like, no one wants to deal with our like like YouTube videos, like, unless like we somehow ask for permission and stuff, I'm okay with that. But just going in and like filming all these people working, they don't want to be on camera. So I maybe that was the reason I didn't love it. Um, and I expressed that to Brian, uh, my head of content. I was like, I I don't like bugging people. He goes, All right, well, and the video didn't do that well. I think at the time we got like 6,000 views. Oh wow, I'm used to like millions of views, yeah. Of course, like 6,000 views.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, yeah. You're like, Well, but what was the point of this?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

What was the point of this? Yeah, um, but but Brian's like, dude, it's your it's your first time uploading a long form video. Your audience is from the short form side, they're not used to this stuff. Yeah, you have to build a whole separate audience for your long form.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I was like, What?

Work-Life Boundaries And Hiring Help

Starting From Zero With Just A Phone

SPEAKER_00 14:54

And I was like, dude, no way. Yeah, he's like, Yeah, but and and I I just kept watching more YouTube videos, and I started realizing, wait a second, we don't need to bug people, we don't need to do this, right? Like, let's go into recipes. People know me for recipes. Let's just start doing like four-minute recipe videos. So if you look back on my early YouTube, you'll see four-minute, five-minute recipe videos of some of my viral recipes. And we did that, and I think I started realizing, I'm like, ah, this is also kind of boring. Like, I already do that on the short form side. I want to do something a little different. Ryan Trahan uploads a video, 50 years of gaming. I'm like, 50 years of gaming. Interesting. Brian, 50 years of school lunch. He goes, No, no, no, 100 years of school lunch. I was like, wait a second, we're on to something here. I love that idea. I was like, okay, um, this is how we're gonna do it. I like I came up with the whole plan. I go, we're gonna have push in shots, we're gonna do this. Um, I'm like starting to build on this idea. Getting excited, I'm getting excited, and I'm like, wait a second, has anyone done this before? We search Epic Curious and uh who's the other person? Rhett and Link did this idea seven years ago. And I was like, oh man, they already did this idea. He goes, Yeah, but your whole and Brian's like, yeah, but your whole format's different. Like, we're good. Like, don't worry about that. I'm like, oh, but I don't want to steal people's content. He goes, dude, this is YouTube. Hello. You know, I would I'm in the world of like, how do we come up with unique ideas? It's like, why are you trying to recreate the wheel? Like we see it worked seven years ago. Our format's gonna be different, our thumbnail's gonna be different. Yeah, it's gonna be a different video. I was like, all right, fine. We did it, we uploaded that video. I woke up the morning because every time we schedule an upload, I make sure, hey, did it actually upload? I look at it, I'm like, and at the time it got like I think like 3,000 views in the first hour, and that's never happened on my channel. Yeah, that's actually pretty good. And I was sleeping. I remember I woke up, I'm like, and it uploaded. Oh, 3,000 views. That seems like a lot, anyways. Going back to that. Um, and then I I woke up like an hour later, and I think it hit like 10,000 views, and that was like, whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah, what's happening here?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

And it just started snowballing, snowballing, and snowballing, going down. And I was like, whoa, these these views keep going up 30,000, 40. I think at the end of day one, we ended with 50 or 60,000. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on this, but still, even so, yeah, that's tremendous. Yeah, and at that time, I think that was like the most like it was obviously one out of 10.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah.

Packaging, Thumbnails, And Data Mindset

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Uh, if anybody doesn't know what that means, it's uh it's how YouTube ranks your videos, your uh your last 10 videos um in the certain amount of time that you uploaded, it ranks how many views you have based off of that time and your last 10 uploads. So we were one out of 10, which means it's performing amazing. And um, and so we just kept we just kept, I just kept checking the numbers and it kept going up, kept going up. And I think after 24 hours, we hit like over a hundred thousand views. Which was like, yeah, I was like, what is happening? Yeah, that's crazy. And then I think like two or three days later, we hit a million views. I was like, crazy. Two million views the next day, three, four, five, six, it's going, it's going, it's going, going. And I don't I didn't understand how YouTube worked at that time. So if anyone's in this position, real quick advice if anyone, if you guys ever come up with an idea that's snowballing like that, drop everything you're doing and make another one. Like immediately, immediately try like drop everything, stop your life, cancer your life. Like I should have done that. I made that mistake because that idea was so solid, so strong, and I didn't understand all these tools that are around YouTube. And what happened was there's a channel called the Stoke Twins, and these guys are have all these tools to see what videos are outliers for certain channels. And they go, huh, this channel with 2 million subscribers that averages maybe 60,000 views per video just got four million views on this video in like five or six days. We're gonna do it. So they went and made that video, and their video surpassed my video. And I was like, Oh, snap, they made the same video 100 years of school lunch, shamelessly. And um I was like, oh man, that kind of hurts, and uh that kind of sucks. This is the war, you know, you come to reality of like, wow, this is how this is how stuff works, huh? And then I saw another YouTuber do it, and another YouTuber do it, and another YouTuber. Oh no, boom, boom, boom, boom. They're all doing it, they're all coming in. Yeah, yeah, they're all taken away, they're all saturating that 100-year idea. Yeah, and I was like, kind of cool that I started a trend, yeah. Uh from just thinking of this, I mean, kind of getting inspired from Brian Trahan and then thinking of this idea with Brian. Um, but also kind of like I after that video, we went back to a recipe video, which was so stupid of me to do. I wish I didn't do that. I wish I stopped everything, got Brian on board, and uh we we just kind of worked on that because I at the end of like week two, or sorry, uh after a month or something, I think we hit like 18 million views on that video, which was it was still my biggest video ever. So we we did lean into that idea for sure, and we got views on other videos and they performed really well. But what I should have done is realize that after one million views, like this is our top performing video ever. Let's go make another one because all these people are starting to come in. So now I know now we're prepared, now I have the infrastructure to do something like that. But yeah, man, that that was like from the beginning of doing the McDonald's video and like being scared to recipes to then getting bored of recipes and then doing this hundred-year idea and going like sick, people love history, people love entertainment. I want I want to do that because I love that.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, no, that's amazing. And for those of you listening, uh, actually, we have an outlier tool here. Hit the link in the description or the show notes if you want to get some of that action today. Let me ask you a question about that video. If you could go back in time and follow up, what is the next video? I mean, you can't do the hundred years again because you just did it. Like, what would have been the follow-up video for you? So I would have done another hundred views.

Using And Responding To AI Creatively

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Oh, so okay. I would have done a hundred years of well, we did it already, but I would have done 100 years of hospital food. Oh, 100 years of uh we did one with uh uh a celebrity chef named Chef Rush, really cool guy. We did 100 years of military food. Um, the the hundred years idea, I mean, there's so many we're still doing it till this day. We actually shot another one. Um, and now we're going. More into like something way more interesting versus like we did we did one where we uploaded 100 years of pirate food, which is fun because it's like pirates have been around for thousands of years. So I would have went and um if you guys know there is a there's a creator named Hangtime. Um, his name is Michael Turk. I believe his last name is Turk. I don't want to butcher it, but his name is Michael. Um, his channel is called Hangtime, and he started his channel with I mixed every candy into one, I mixed every Sodopop into one. And he just kept making that video boom, boom, boom, because it kept working. He did the first one, it did really well, and he just kept doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. And then he built this like long-form audience, and then he started veering off a little bit. Like, all right, here's an upload of I turned my room into a gaming room, whatever, right? Um, and now he's like this established long-form creator, has a long-form audience, and it went off of one idea that was repeated. So I think that is if you have an idea that works, I mean, again, an outlier, you lean into that.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

I would.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

That's my strategy now.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Patrick, we could be YouTube buddies because I was literally just about to ask you, how do you because a lot of people will create content and it's great to give views, but ultimately I think most YouTube content creators want people to follow them rather than the subject. And you literally just explained, like how what I call wedging from a popular topic you have working on your channel to where you want to be, which is more about you and the things that you're interested in that are outside of that thing. So let's talk about your brand specifically. You love cooking, so this actually just works out for you. Food is great for you, you're into it. Um, so that's great. But I'm sure you have other interests too, and some maybe some content that you might want to explore. How do you balance that with what you have going on?

Authenticity, Staging, And The “Line”

Diversifying Content And Future Plans

SPEAKER_00 23:52

For us, it's you could think of any idea, and how can we involve food in it, right? For me, like I said, I love history. I I think it's so cool. And I'm not talking about, guys, if you're young and you're like, Oh, I hate history class. Me too. I hated history class. Trust me, I still hate. Don't put me in a history class. But if you're like, yo, dude, did you know that McDonald's started in 1940 in California and they they had this like weird machine to make fries? Whatever they didn't. I'm just making an example. That to me is like, huh? Really? Where do we come from? That's kind of sick. That's amazing, right? That to me is more interesting. So we were like, okay, I love history. I love, I love like um entertaining people. So it's like, boom, we found that. On the short form side, um, what we did was um uh I I we we I collaborated with this one creator that has a Schwarmer shop in Canada. And all they when they came over to my house, we did a video for my channel, which was like, we're making this, five ingredients, whatever. And he's he's in it, and we made like some fun little dish. And then he said, Do you mind if I make something from my channel? I go, sure, what do you want to make? He goes, Cool, it's gonna be a skit. I was like, Oh, skit, okay. Um, he goes, I'm gonna deliver this thing to your door, and you're gonna say, You're missing the churros, and I'm gonna barge into your house and say, How can I mess that up? Let me make you churros. And I was like, Oh, okay. And it was so fun because it was so different. It was acting, it was comedy, it was it was chaos, and I absolutely loved it. And I was like, This is fun. How can I do more of this? So I hit up my friend Albert. He has a channel called Albert Can Cook, primarily a shorts creator, and he also collaborated with the same guy. And he goes, Dude, did you have fun with him? I'm like, it was a blast. He's like, let's do one together. I was like, All right. So we did uh we did one where I delivered, it was me, I delivered like these cook uh crumble cookies for his birthday, and he opens a door and I and there's cookies all over my face, and I go, I didn't do it. And he's crying, goes, but it's my birthday. And I'm like, So then we came up with this fun idea and we realized, wait a second, making skits is fun, being funny is fun, and then the food is right there. So it's it's just taking whatever is fun to you and then involving it with your niche, right? So if I'm a I'm a sports, if I'm a sports guy and I want to do it, you could do a skit with sports, you could do history with sports, right? I mean, you could do anything with any niche, with finance, with uh yeah, with whatever you're into, you know, uh electronics, like I love MKHB, right? I love his channel, but I find more fun in Mr. Who's the Boss, uh, because he's more entertaining, he's putting things to the test. He he is more on the entertaining side. MKHB is like entertainment slash educational, right? So I I think that just taking your idea and then how can you insert it in your niche? You could do anything.

Closing Notes And Subscribe CTA

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, Aaron's cool. I I've known him, Mr. Who's the Boss, for a couple of years. He's uh he's a very smart guy, really very uh intellectual, and especially it comes to content. Let's talk a little bit about um your balance of personal life and content. Uh, as creators, especially when it's a full-time job, it's very easy for it to meld into your life. And I've talked to several creators that are like, I don't really have a life, it's just YouTube. Like, this is a this is me. How does that look for you? Is it most of your day? Is it all of your day, or do you have a separation between the two? Because the thing is, some creators will have a studio outside of their house so that it's not too melded. Is it all in one? Is it all your life?

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So it was last year. Um last year I was just doing everything all day, every day. Um, kind of like it melded into my personal life. Um, and I uh I didn't love it. Um but I so right now, what I'm in right now is a studio. So this isn't where I live. This is where we shoot, and then I have a home. Obviously, I still work at home. Um obviously, it's still a lot of work, but what I've learned was instead of sitting on all this money that I'm making, let me just hire some employees, let me hire some people to help me. I used to do the shopping, the prepping, the um uh and on set, I would just have one camera guy and I would be running around setting everything up. And I realized it's not it's not worth the pain. So now, um, so now that what I learned was instead of like sitting on all this money and trying to live maybe a lavish life and going out all the time and spending it, let me spend it on employees that could go shopping for me, that could clean the studio for me when I'm done. Like when I'm done shooting, I just take off my microphone, peace out, guys, and I leave. And they and then the studio gets reset. Um, that to me was so pivotal. And then I get to get go home at a reasonable time. I don't have to be home at 9 or 10 p.m. after shooting. I get home around like 6, 7 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

I knew it was coming.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

It's in me. I have to do it. Uh around that time, yeah. I eat dinner, I chill, I watch a show, and then sometimes like around 10:30, I'll just get a little bit more work done. But there is definitely separation, and I have one full day where I don't do anything, I don't answer anything, especially on Sundays because nobody's working on Sundays. Right. So on Sundays, it's like like just me day. And then I love that six days of work, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Okay. Um, so let's put you in the challenge. I do this for every content creator that comes on and has an established thing. You you've been in the the business for a while now and you've been successful so long that it's easy to like if you wanted to do a new channel, you know how to do it. You have the the financial be able to do it if you wanted to, and we'll talk more about maybe should is there a chance where you should pivot things? But I want to go back for the people that are listening that are newer, they're like, that sounds great. I would love that life, but I'm here. I am Travis, and I got a phone and I don't have an idea. Uh what would you do if you were content creating now with just your phone and no established audience? How would you attack it? Tell me everything. Like you can even real time be thinking and saying, okay, I'd probably do this. I mean, it there is no perfect answer. I'm just curious. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

So if I had nothing, no resources, no money, just a phone and um uh and maybe a light, yeah. Um, I would first of all figure out what niche I want to get into. You should figure out what niche you want to get into, just because if you're like, I want to do everything, but you're gonna, it's gonna be so much more, you have a higher mountain to climb if you want to do everything. Um, it's very difficult. Like if you think about early YouTube, people still had a niche. Casey Neistat, that's a niche. Lifestyle, you went through his day. It was the format was pretty much the same. Like it didn't change much things around. So find that niche, right? So if you're into let's just say sports, right? Um, what I would do is again, I'm a history guy, right? So I would say I would talk about the history of sports, right? So you don't need anything for that but a phone, it'd be a talking head video, it would just be on me. I'd set up a phone like that. I would figure out what they're doing in my niche, right? I explored the history of football, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Or I uh maybe like I like let's put you in these these exact steps. Like if you wanted to do this, if you challenge yourself this weekend to make a YouTube channel in this exact thing, what would you do specifically?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

You mean yeah, you uh I love tech. I would do tech. Okay, all right, I would go into tech, okay, and then I would I would find the most interesting story about some sort of tech stuff, right? So, like for me, I like gaming. Gaming and tech kind of go together. So I'll figure out like the I I love Nintendo, so I would want to know where Nintendo started and how it progressed and all the challenges in in between that. Create a story out of that, and what I would do, this would actually be fun. What I would do is I would learn about the history. Let's say, let's just say an example. I haven't done the research. So I would I would do a ton of research of like, where did Nintendo start? And let's say it started, I I don't even know when it started, but I'll just say 1970, right? Maybe that's when it started. So it started in 1970. What I would do, I would go, I would order 1970 clothes from Amazon and I would return it after the shoot so I get my money back. Um I'll go get a credit card and just uh make that happen. I and I would recreate because right now what we have the challenge is AI, right? So if you're just doing a bunch of graphics and stuff, I mean you could just have AI do that. It's like people aren't connecting to somebody. So what I would do is I would recreate it.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

So let's say uh in So Nintendo, by the way, started out selling uh cards, playing cards. I don't know if you knew this or not. Playing cards? Yeah, yeah. Perfect, great.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

That's even better. I would order playing cards from Amazon and then return it later.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

So I love the honesty. God, keep going. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I love it. That's doggy dog, right? Let's go. So let's say you started off with playing cards. Yeah, I would react, re-re-create all the stuff that I'm talking about. So let's say 1970 um uh uh Japanese um uh businessman was think loved gaming, right? And he was thinking to himself, um, I want to sell games to people. So then I would dress up as like 1970s guy, I would act like the Japanese guy, I'd sit there, I'll I'd just shoot a bunch of uh different angles, different things of me playing the cards, looking at the cards, right? And then just recreate everything I'm talking about up to the point of getting a Nintendo, right? And uh and it would even be, oh, it'd be so funny if you go to like Best Buy just to have that Nintendo and be like, by the way, like in the middle of the story, you go, by the way, I can't afford a Nintendo, so that's why I'm in Best Buy here. Use a cuts, you look around, but let's get back to the story. So, you know what I mean? Yeah, I love it. You could go into Best Buy for free. So that's what I would do. I would recreate by myself, so it would be no AI, and people love that. Um, by myself, of like just kind of reacting, uh recreating those moments of of that history of Nintendo.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

I I can tell just by talking to you, you like really love the content creation portion of short and long form, and just kind of even the ideation sounds like it's something that really connects with you. I can saw the excitement as you were just doing that. It was very cool to see.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun, man. I mean, listen, it's it's something I'm obsessed with. And it's it's not, I'm not, and also when I'm thinking of these ideas, what's going through my head is what's cool to me. Yeah, right. I obviously you want to think about the audience, always think about the audience. But if you don't have data and you're just starting, just do what's cool to you and then see if it works. Even if people go, I I I love when people go, but I only give 500 views. I'm like, damn, that's good data. That's great data right there. 500, 100 views. That's good, that's data. And and with YouTube, it's like early on, it'll be hard to get even 100 views, but you kind of just engage with, I mean, you'll I'm sure you'll get a comment. I'm sure another thing I would focus on before all that is packaging of YouTube, right? How to how to package a video with title and thumbnail. Um, and try to avoid too much AI in your thumbnail because it's it's easy to tell and people get turned off by it and want to just kind of like swipe, like not even click on it uh for right now. Uh so kind of understand the packaging of YouTube and then go and make the video and have fun with it. Just like put up the the phone. If the phone falls, play that into your story, you know. If if the lights go out because of electricity outage, you play that into the story, you know, and and people love that.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

So awesome. Um, I do want to talk about AI though, because it is such a huge thing right now. And um I think the thing that makes it most interesting is we're at a really weird point in human history where AI is growing faster than anything else we've ever experienced in human life. So, like when the internet kind of first started, um, I remember when I was on the internet when it first started, it was dial-up, right? And it took a long time to get to broadband, it took years, right? And then even when you got to broadband, we weren't getting speeds that we have now in like six months, but we're seeing changes within months where AI is getting better and better and better. What are you doing in a world that's progressively becoming more AI to kind of either uh understand it, uh use it where possible, or keep from being overwhelmed by it? Like, what are you currently doing with it?

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yeah, I mean it is overwhelming because what's happening is we are AI channels are uploading at a rapid pace. So we're like kind of like almost competing with AI. But what I think I uh the pendulum always swings the other way. So what's gonna happen is people are gonna consume a lot of this AI, and eventually I think they're gonna want that human connection. Uh, what we do, I think the coolest thing for us, at least um what I was talking to Brian about, is instead of like too many graphics, let's put like let's do what Casey Neistat did. Write it on a piece of paper, right? Get that, and and make sure you're you know, just so it looks raw. And um, and so because you'll always combat that. I think you always like come up on top. I think people will always appreciate that. There is a channel called Fern. Uh have you heard of this channel, Fern? No faceless channel, amazing channel, great storytelling, great, like, but it's faceless. Okay, they are first of all, faceless channels are the first ones that are gonna get hit, uh, but they still do really well, even with AI doing top of its peak. They started their video with this video was created by humans, and people loved it. Interesting. It was like the comment section was like uh putting that in quotations and going like chef's kiss, right? Because they're kind of going like, we've been in the game for years, and I'm just letting you guys know this is made by humans. We spent hours of uh time researching to make sure. So I appreciate that. I really like that. So I think more and more of that people are gonna appreciate. So if you're gonna do something that's faceless, start your videos off with these are made by humans, and uh and then start your video. And I think people would appreciate that. Now, obviously, can you lie? Of course you could lie, but I think humans are getting better at training our eyes to figure out what's AI. Like, even like the best AI videos right now, I could still see it's AI, right? We're training our eyes to like catch that. Now, will it get better? Sure, I think it will. Um, but I don't think about it too much and I play into it. There are some short form videos. I'm actually gonna make one after we're done with this call, um, where I look at an AI video that involves food, and I'm like, let's try to recreate that. And people love it, and people go, and people go, uh, humans afraid of AI? No, AI afraid of humans, because of like I was able to recreate it. So people actually appreciate that.

unknown 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

I guess um, just to start to lay on the plane here, what where is your line? Because you mentioned this earlier, and I didn't want to say anything until now. What is your line as far as in move in the video? I mean, sometimes some of your videos look closer to movies and videos, but uh, whatever. Um, where it's not lying, but like fibbing or kind of just making it more entertaining for entertainment's sake. For example, you might go, Oh, I went over and went over to this friend's house and we're gonna do this thing, and he knew you were coming and he had everything ready to go, and it wasn't really obvious. Like, you're not outwardly lying. Where is your line in your content? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

I'm not, I I I we don't try to fake our videos, of course, like the setting things up is very important for us. But my line would be like, if we're going over to a friend's house, the only thing I'm telling my friend, and let's say I got I'm gonna look go through his cabinet, the only thing I'm telling my friend is like, hey, dude, I'm gonna shoot this video. Can I just show up at your house and uh at this time and at this thing? So I won't tell him what the idea is because we try to get as much because more genuine it is, like I said, my third video was my girlfriend genuinely reacting to food is ready because she's working and she looks over, she goes, like it's all genuine. So from that point, I realized genuine reaction equals better video. So we did this other video which we're working on, so I don't want to say the idea in case uh that's fine. Folk twins are listening. Um we we had this idea where we have this, like we have this, we have people send us this like secret thing. And um I was like, Well, how are we gonna do this? Well, whatever, I'll just know what the secret thing is. And Brian was like, No, no, no, I'll just package everything and you're gonna live react to it. I go, love that. That's great. That's actually even better. So any secret thing that they send me, I didn't know about it until the day of the shoot. And we shot that, and then I had to make recipes with it. So we shot it one day, my reaction. Then I went and did a bunch of research, got recipes for it. Then the next day we started making the recipes. So we'll we'll we'll do things like that. But I I try not to fake a lot of things just because um it's I don't know, having a like messing up on a dish, I think people relate to that more than like being perfect all the time, you know. So um yeah, there if we fake stuff, it's very minor. It's like the chocolate broken half. Okay, let me remake this, or or whatever, not broken, like the chocolate cake didn't come out good. Let me remake this. We already shot how to make it or everything I did, but that's what we'll fake the most, is like this didn't come out as nice as I want, let me remake it.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

But ultimately, like people are watching the video for for a little bit of genuine stuff, but to be entertained. And if the reality is kind of boring, then no one wants to watch that anyway. So there's kind of this thing where you have to ride this line of, okay, but the reality is terrible, so just give me a break on this one.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

And and the other thing is is like for certain YouTubers, when they make like, have you seen those like trendy videos where it's like I turn my basement into a secret room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have like a whole construction team that you don't see, right? So they so like, but do I fault them for that? No, because they don't know how to build a room and they want the room to look cool for the video. So it's like that's kind of like great for you. Yeah, um, I probably wouldn't show the construction workers as well, just because it would kind of ruin the video and be like, you didn't do this, like somebody else did it. Um, so I get those stuff, like things that are out of my element. Like, we're gonna do one video where is it cake? And um I'm not, I can't build it, I can't build it at night. So I'll hire someone to come build it for me and make the cake look good just for the camera. So stuff like that, like we I don't mind doing, and I but again, as minimal as possible, genuine reactions. Like I said, when I'm going to if you're going to Best Buy to make this video about the history of Nintendo, yeah, and like kind of being like I'm at Best Buy and kind of being self aware, people love that.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

So lastly, I want to talk a little bit about diversification, and that means a lot of things. Obviously, you're across multiple platforms, it's really smart to be that way. Um, but let's talk about diversification of content. Is there a time where you think In the future, that you would have a channel or or a group of channels that is not has nothing to do with food. It's just something else you want to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yes, for sure. Um, I don't know what that is, but I have been thinking about a second channel. But to run a second channel, um I I want it to get I want it I want it done right. So um I'm not like leaning into that right now. I'm more focusing on the main channel. But this for for something else is like behind the scenes or more of my life, something that people can connect with me more, um that uh that they might not see on camera as much. So, but it I'm not sure what it is, but I've seen other food creators kind of create a separate channel and just do recipes. To me, that's a bit boring. I don't want to do that. Oh, it's still it still needs to be entertaining for me. So um, yeah, I'm not sure what it would be.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

But uh but what do you do for fun that's not YouTube and food related?

SPEAKER_00 45:01

I play Valorant, it's a video game.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

That's fine. There's tons of Valorant people love Valorant.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

I play a uh I play video games, I love video games. There you go. I play Fortnite, I play Valorant. Me and Nick play Fortnite from time to time. Uh I love video games, and of course, traveling, but it's tough when because we're what we're doing right now is weekly uploads on long form now. We're we're actually just started. Um, so every week we're filming, so it's hard to travel. Yeah, but um traveling and seeing the world and seeing different dishes and getting inspired. I love doing that. And then uh video games. I love love video games.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

It's so so well. Listen, when you start your gaming channel, hit me up. I can't wait to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah, maybe I'll start a gaming channel.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

I think you should. I don't think that's even a question. I mean, you might as well record it while you're playing, right? I'm sure you have silly moments. You know what I mean? Exactly. It's a ton of content. Well, everyone, if you've enjoyed Patrick, there's gonna be links in the description in the show notes. Check him out. He's got a tremendous amount of content. But to be honest, like for me, the coolest thing about this interview so far really has been getting to know you. You seem like a super cool guy who just loves creating content, and we love that here on the podcast. We absolutely adore that. So I can't wait for everyone to check that out. If you're new here, you can hit that subscribe button. Of course, there are everything you ever need in the show notes in the description. Check out Patrick. He is waiting to eat some food for you, do some ridiculousness, and get that gaming channel going real soon. We'll see y'all in the next one.