 I'm 17, 18, and I drop out of college at 50,000 subscribers. She's like, no, I don't think you should. And I'm like, why? And I'm like getting frustrated and she's like, we just crossed under our last $5,000 in our account, savings and checkings. And then I film a sneaker collection video to just touch the water of maybe getting back into shoes. And that's where I stole your thumbnail. It was legit Tim's sneaker collection video. And I was at my lowest point, I'm sitting there overlooking the party, realizing how crazy my life just went from zero to 100. I went from making videos at Ross in the South side of San Antonio to being around the hottest superstars on the planet. I am making way more money than a doctor. Which is how much? You want to know? Yeah. A dog, I think at that time I'm making like. Typically on the podcast, I'll let everybody introduce themselves, how they would like to be introduced. And then we'll go over to accolades and we'll get into the story. So tell the people who you are, where you're from, what you're about. What's up y'all, my name is Tim. I go by legit Tim on social media. I feel like this podcast is gonna be crazy, man, because I'm really going to let you guys know in the real me as much as I possibly can. I, you know, so I've been doing YouTube for 10 years. I do YouTube, we do TikTok, we use Facebook, we do Instagram and I make sneaker videos. But I make them for a younger demographic, I make them for kids. And so pretty much, pretty much what I do. And not only that, you are the biggest YouTuber in the sneaker space. You have over a billion views. You're on your way to 10 million followers throughout all the platforms. So it's not only just like I make videos and I've been doing it for a while. You are literally like the top dog. Is that wild to think? I mean, I think like, I think statistically, yes, I just don't like to say it, you know? Cause I feel like, I mean, there's other people in the space, like, you know, Marco's at like, you know, but it's like, we're at this weird space with me and Marco, I feel where it's like, we're in the sneaker space, but we're not in the sneaker space. We're like make videos about shoes, but I don't know, bro, I don't even know what to care about myself. It allows other people to form an opinion to say I'm the big dog, even though. I just, that stuff doesn't faze me anymore, bro. Oh, I get it. Like I've been in this game for like 10 years. I really don't care who is the biggest. I give everybody their flowers. I think everybody earned their spot for a different way. I just, I stopped looking at the sneaker community years ago. So I wouldn't compare myself to the sneaker YouTube. I stopped that like five, seven years ago, you know? I just, cause like the thing for me is like, I don't even know if I deserve the credit for like the sneaker thing, because I got a million subscribers off doing sneaker videos strictly. And then I was expanding my content and I started doing more of the prank genre. So then I feel like I got another meal from that. So technically, yeah, but like also it's just... We'll get into it. We'll get into it. We'll get into it. I'm just jumping into it straight up. All right. So you're a big dog in the game either way at the end of the day. Sure. So the thing for a while, you got a lot of experience, you got a lot of knowledge. I hope to continue to learn from it. We had you out here on the trip for the past few days. First time in Portland. First time in Portland. I'm loving it. Shout out to Portland. It's a dope city. It's an amazing city. So before we talk about your trip here to Portland and everything, take me back to the grade school era, the young kid days. What was your mindset like when it comes to finance, like things in the home, however, you know, how was your relationship with the family? What did you know about sneakers? And what was that kind of first pair? And, you know, when you realize like, I got to afford these things myself, all that, break down that grade school. So born and raised on the South side of San Antonio, Texas. Higher, lower income family, five kids. I have four siblings, two brother, two sisters. I was the oldest. And I always loved performing. I always had like an act for performing before YouTube. I think I was always like a showman at heart, a true showman. And really like back in 09 when YouTube came out, I just remember going to school and the kids were like, we were in like computer class or something. And they were like, oh, look up YouTube. And so of course I looked up like the letter U and then two because I didn't know what it was. That was my first memory of ever finding YouTube. And I looked it up and I saw the website and that day I immediately went home and I created an account as far as I can remember. And I fell in love with the website. But back then I was living my life through the internet. Like I was a die hard internet kid, born and raised. And it's crazy because I feel like I was so much more advanced than my peers. Like people didn't know what it was at all. And I just fell in love with it, bro. Like I was creating web pages. I was like creating like, I was blogging. I was like creating web pages that I would add access codes that like only my four friends could access and we could like post secret stuff and like digging through like all of that. But I fell in love with YouTube. And so how it all started was I saved my money and I bought a $50 camera from Walmart with my allowance. And I was 11 years old. 11, okay. And I bought a $50 camera from Walmart. And I just, I was looking up to, there was a YouTuber back in the day called Fred and he was the first ever YouTuber to hit a million subscribers on YouTube. The first ever. First ever in the history of YouTube. To hit a million. And he was making entertaining videos for kids, for kids my age and I was consuming it. And he had like this, he did this edit where he was doing skits and he made himself into a character. The guy's name was Lucas, but he made himself into a character called Fred. And there was like story lines. And he was like vlogging skits as this character Fred and he would make his voice high pitched in the post production. But he would do things like dance in really fast and stuff. So it was just super, super funny to me. And I just wanted to duplicate that and I wanted to replicate it. I didn't know how to do the sound effects. So I was like on the editor and like, I doubled the speed and it just sounded like a chipmunk and it just, it didn't work out for whatever reason, but I just fell in love with YouTube. Similar to you and your story, we talked about it a little bit before. Me and my boy would be like the fifth grade filming skits about funny stuff that we thought was funny and we'd on a Friday night instead of like gaming up or like watching movies or playing sports, we were literally filming YouTube videos all night. Like all night and then we go to bed at the sleepovers. And it never went anywhere, bro. It never went anywhere. And I did it for like a good six to seven year. I did it for like a good five years before anything really happened. And I was just doing skits. And the crazy part about it is like- This is all on YouTube. All on YouTube, only YouTube. I mean, you had Facebook back then, but I never stepped on Facebook. My space, I never stepped on my space. But the crazy part about it, bro, is like every single Mexican YouTuber that I have met had their blow up from skits and only skits. Gotcha. And my skits never worked. So I went into completely different space. And I remember back in the swag era came- Before we get into all that though. Sure, okay. You gotta take me, you gotta continue to paint the picture, bro. I need to know like what was the first shoes that you fell in love with and how did you get them and what was you doing to get your swag right before the era? That's the crazy part though, bro. Like I literally, I'm still saying it before I even got into sneakers. I was in the swag era, but I was rockin' Supra. I was rockin' Volato. I was rockin' Creative Recreation. I was rockin'- Creative Rex was goin' crazy. I was rockin' Radii. I was rockin' Vans. I was rockin' skate shoes, like skate brands, DC. I never liked Jordans. Really? Cause I, yeah, I never liked Jordans. It just- What made you not like Jordans as a kid? What to now Jordans being one of your favorite shoes of all time? I just don't think I knew the proper, I wasn't, I wasn't raised with the shoe knowledge. Like I feel like where I'm from, like everybody just rocks team Jordans. So it's kind of just like, it was just like, I don't know. But when I learned about the history and I learned about this is the shoes and I saw retros. Cause where I'm from really nobody, I don't remember anybody rockin' retros till we got into like high school. Really? I mean, I feel like the kids had just team Jordans. So what was your first pair of retros? First pair of retros was the total bravo force. This was still before all the YouTube stuff though. Like we're jumpin' ahead way a lot. Okay, I'm just wondering, I was just wondering. Okay, so this is middle school, you're into YouTube. Middle school, I'm into YouTube and I'm into acting and- No sports? No sports. I was a- You just had a couple friends growing up. Cause we're still in middle school but I'm doing like theater. I'm doing like I'm playing Grease. I'm playing Danny from Grease, Danny Zuko. I'm doing the thing. Always the unathletic kid. And then you said you could beat me in football now. For sure. Ha ha ha. But like, no, so okay. I love the confidence. Steppin' in, steppin' in. I'm doing YouTube on the weekends. I'm doing YouTube on the side. School's gettin' in the way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Was money ever a thing at that time? Like was you trying to make money? Was you selling videos? Yeah, yeah. I definitely was a young hustler. I feel like when I was, bro, as far back as I can remember, like I remember just, I was not 16 and you could only get a job at 16. And there was this one particular day where I don't know why I wanted money. I think I wanted like Chick-fil-A or something for lunch or dinner. I don't know, bro. And like my parents couldn't afford it. And I just remember looking out the window and I was just like, mom, I wanna make money. And she was like, son, you know, you can't make money. You're not 16. You can't get a job. You're not 16. And every time in my life, those moments of like being told no, it really, really fuels you up. It really fires me up. So I had that hunger. I had that passion. And I feel like I was never really a competitive person in like sports or the thing, but I was always competitive within myself. So I think like even going back to like the YouTube thing, like I love telling this story cause it's crazy, but my parents deleted my YouTube channel five times. Five different channels. It was almost like it, different channels. Damn. Cause when you deleted, you can't bring it back. Right, they like deleted it. They reactivated at the time. So like, yeah, I just remember. So you're making videos of the low and they just found out? I was making videos. I never asked for permission and then, but like we were making videos about like, we're just being, I mean, what do you find humorous at that age when you're like 11 years old? Like underwear and stuff, you know? So I'm like, show them underwear, put it in on my head. And like my parents are thinking like, bro, like perverts are gonna watch this. You know what I'm saying? Like our son is 11 years old making videos about his underwear. And like, perverts are gonna watch this. You also like grew up in a church? Yes. I grew up always in the church. I was never not in the church growing up. I was just raised in a non-denominational Christian church. So that's a player factor. It was church every Sunday. Yeah, definitely. And so they deleted my channel and then I went behind their back and started a new one. And then it was kind of like at the point where it was kind of like on repeat. I remember where like, anytime I would get in trouble, instead of grounding me, they were like, we're deleting your channel. They just knew like, that was the ultimate consequence. That was the ultimate consequence for me, bro. Oh my gosh. So, but you're like, I'm not stopping. Like I'm going to make this video. So this was in what year? 2009? This was like, oh, nine, 10, 11. So you've been at it for over 10 years. Clearly. Way more than 10 years, bro. Way more than 10 years. Cause oh, nine. You're almost 15 years in? 2023. Almost 15 years in. That's crazy, bro. I'm on like year four, year three, four. No, I'm telling you, bro. I'm like learning still. And realistically, you're already ahead of me because year four through five, I never made any money, you know? And I don't even think that AdSense thing was a thing back then either. Nobody was making money. Everybody was doing it for fun. So, getting into high school, starting to find this like passion for fashion. And I started discovering all these brands and I'm looking at Karma Loop and I'm looking at Plunder. What a time. And... Name some of the brands that used to be on there. What was it? Dude, it was like Mishka. It was like dope. It was like... Wasn't famous on there? Famous was on there. I don't think I ever rock famous. Bro, I remember... LRG on there? Yeah. Or was LRG still somewhere else? Yeah, LRG was on there for sure. LRG was pop. For sure, bro. But I remember when I found Plunder. Like Plunder was like the ultimate for me because I was like, I'm not buying anything off Karma Loop for sure. It's gonna be Plunder. Like I was raised going to the outlets for my school clothes and it was like you have a hundred dollars to get. All year. To get clothes and shoes. Geez. Rough. Yeah, bro. I don't wanna jump up too far ahead because there's so much we can talk about in this space. For sure. Like I have so many memories as a kid, bro. Like what? Talking about shoes. I needed a new pair of shoes for school. Just beat. I remember going to like shoe carnival. My mom was like, all right, pick out one pair of shoes. And I got a pair of polos. Oh, man. They were like in the cool gray colorway, like the cool gray 11s. But they were like polo shoes. And bro, I remember we paid 20 bucks for them. And bro, I remember those shoes got beat so quick, bro. Like. Like are those even like, are those considered like fakes or what? Like it's like a legit brand, but it's like they're making a version of the Jordans. Like how do you even feel? Like obviously then it's way different than now. I just feel all the rage that I felt then right now, bro, because like they were $20 and they literally shredded up on me. Like they were horrifying. Really? I literally remember being in social studies class and one of the girls was like, oh, and I'm like, what? And she's like, your shoes like making fun of me, bro. Like literally, dude. And I couldn't afford anything else, dog. So I just had you another whole type of hunger. Yeah. We're gonna go get this. So, okay. There was multiple. Yeah. I got a lot of stories, bro. I just don't want to fast forward it too much because we're like in the middle school era right now. So talking about making money. I mean, dude, I was, I went to the Dollar Tree. I bought a pack of gum for a dollar and I was selling the little gums for like 50 cents. The sticks. The sticks. No, not even the sticks. It was like the cubes or whatever. Yeah. Like the ones wrapped like two zeroes. And I was selling in fifth grade. The nerd reported me for selling candy in school. That's crazy. But it's crazy because I was literally his only friend. And then he reported me to the teacher. He was hating. And I didn't get in trouble for it. But I was literally like, we're not cool anymore. You know what I mean? Cause like, this is my thing. Like you're- Was he the same dude who was making videos? You're hurting my bread. No, no, no, no. Okay. So that was your friend's school. It was like a weird, like really, really nerd guy out of shape, like had no friends but I was cool with him cause I was just a nice guy. But when he hurt my bread, it's like, bro, he's taking my livelihood away. So then I just remember, bro, like we went to recess or lunch or something. And then one day I came back and like all the gum was stolen, bro. No way. Like they stole the gum on my backpack. But yeah. Yo, my money. Dude, so, but I sold candy bars. I mean, I sold Mexican candy, Lucas. We cut grass. We cut like the whole neighbor's grass. I freaking would sell snow cones door to door in the neighborhood. So I'd go get a thing of shaved ice in the ice chest and get the syrup. And then I would go sell the snow cones door to door in all the neighborhood with a wagon. I teamed up with like one of the house builders and he was paying me to like turn on the sprinklers at a certain time and turn them off so that all the yards would get watered. We would, a little bit later, I mean, I started selling on eBay but like it was all a game of like hustle when I was younger. Okay. What were you like hustling for? What did you want? You just wanted money just to have things? I just think I wanted money just to have money, bro. Right. I wanted the women. No, I don't know, bro. At that age, I was just hungry for success. I think I was raised in a family where like my grandpa had his own business and he had a toy store that he grew, that he like kind of like we would work there for him. And that's kind of like my first taste of business. And then like my uncle has his own art gallery, my mom's brother. And then my aunt has her own fashion boutique. It's like a punk rock fashion boutique. And then my mom used to sell like maternity clothes on eBay before I was like when I was a little kid, like when I was a baby. So business has always been in my blood. And so I was just hungry for the success. I don't know if I'm still a true businessman at heart. I was just talking about that the other day. I feel like I'm turning into more of like an artist. Just the innovator, the creator, the, that's all. Yeah, I mean, I think like, I don't, I still, to this day, I don't love negotiating. I don't love being in charge of people. I don't love being the boss. I just love making things happen, being creative and- The visionary. Discipline. I guess so. Yeah. I guess so. So yeah, man, like, so making money, doing the thing, working hard, doing good in school. I was the kid that it was like, they would come to my door and my friends would knock on my door. Hey, you wanna play? And I'm like, I got homework to do. I was always very, very disciplined. You're getting into high school now? Yeah. Getting into high school? You're- So summer of eighth grade. Building up, or what happened summer of eighth grade? I kissed the neighbor. No, I'm just playing. No, summer of eighth grade. Me and my boy. Making YouTube videos at the time. I'm getting into fashion. I'm into skater shoes. I'm into snapbacks, but not like sports snapbacks. I'm into crooks and castles. I'm into Obey with the cheetah print, with the strap on the back, with the cheetah print. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm into Pink Dolphin, the hundreds. Yeah. I'ma keep spitting. That was like probably like, everything was like Fairfax Street in LA, which I drive there all the time now. Wait, when was your first time going to LA? This was like way later. Okay, so you haven't experienced LA yet, but you were seeing these things on the internet? I was just captivated, not even by the stardom of LA, but the fashion, at this time in my life, I had more of a passion for fashion than I did for acting or, I mean, yeah, I still was acting at school and stuff, but fashion was my thing in eighth grade going into high school. That was my everything, streetwear brands. I had it as my wallpaper. I was just so just captivated by the whole industry of like being fly, having swag. Wait, you were making reviews of the clothes, weren't you, like with the hats and stuff? Yeah, so that's what I'm getting into. Cause like the thing is being like raised in, okay, raised in like going to church and like being about my stuff. I was the kid that I was like very nerdy growing up. So, and then like the kids in my neighborhood, we lived in a really good neighborhood. So all their parents were very successful. So homeboys that worked for Microsoft, homeboys that was a motivational speaker, his mom was a news lady, and they raised their kids well. So they were all nerds too. So we were all the good kids living in this nice neighborhood on a kind of poor side of town. So we were kind of like the nerd. So when I found fashion, it kind of made me realize that I could kind of like express myself and kind of have like this certain swagger to me that I never had before and just styling the fits and Instagram had just came out back then. So this was like 2010, 2009. And girls were on Instagram. And I didn't have to just talk to like girls from my high school because all the girls from my high school knew raise up like, oh, that's the unathletic nerd. But then when I started getting swagger, it was like I was pulling chicks. The DMs were going crazy. I started becoming this like cool guy for once in my life, I think. And it was all because of fashion. And so getting into it, summer of eighth grade. Yeah, I met, I hadn't met my homie Rudy at the time. And he went to a different school, but he transferred to my school for a little bit and completely changed my perspective on the way I looked at a lot of things and kind of helped develop me as like this cool character. Chill a little bit. And we were both into like swag and snapbacks. And so there was, we made the videos. My sneaker collection that summer, which was all skate shoes. So it was no Jordans or anything. We did my snapback collection and then we did a video. Me and Rudy did a video at his house. I was staying the night. It was the summer, we were up late and I was like, let's film YouTube videos. He was into it. So we did two skits and then we did how to wear a snapback. At the time I did kind of like an algorithm hack. So. But you didn't realize it. I didn't realize it. So it's how to wear a snapback. Just a skit, we were being stupid. Like we were being funny. So it was like, you know, the multiple and we would put like 10 hats on top of each other. It's like, this is the way to work. Because we had seen other creators that were doing how to wear a snapback and they were making it funny. Crazy thing is full circle right now. I'm just gonna say it right now. There was this guy, there was this guy named Ken and his video blew up on it. And this was like, dude, this was like 10, 12 years ago. Okay. He made how to wear a snapback. I made my video because of him. Now he's one of the like coming up comedians that is like traveling the US with Ralph Lee Barboza. So he's a Latino and I hit him on Instagram and I'm like, cause I see his reel of his stand up. Like, bro, this is the kid from 12 years ago that made the snapback video that kind of like why I made that whole video that blew up. And so we're cool now. We're gonna link soon. But it was just crazy, bro. So he made the how to wear a snapback video. I made a how to wear a snapback video. And back in the day, you could reply to a video instead of putting a comment on the bottom of the video like they do now. YouTube had innovated and they made to where you could reply as a video. You could comment on the video as a video. Oh, shoot. But you could finesse it and put- I don't remember that. Dude, it was such a long time ago. It was like this, I was in middle school, dude. So you were like freshmen or something. Yeah. So I had put the video as, I had put my how to wear a snapback video as a comment on one of those guys' videos that they had pulled like 600K or something and he approved it because you have to approve it or disapprove it. He approved it. So immediately whenever they would go to his video, my video is like one of the little videos right underneath, literally right underneath, bro. You know where the description is now? That's where like the video responses were. So then went offline, bro. So you post that video with your friend. How many views did he get? His thing. So he ended up going back to his old high school. I ended up going to my high school freshman year. First day of high school. I'm on the bus going home. It's a hard day. Freaking hated it. I always thrived in school, bro. Like I was like student council president and like, theater and yearbook and I did great, but I hated high school, dude. So first day of freshman year. I'm on the bus going home and I open my phone and I go to YouTube and I look at my video. 30,000 views. This is big back then. This is when I'm pulling like 60, 100 for like five years. So I tell my boy and I'm like, and it's funny cause I don't really talk to him but we still have each other on socials. But I bet if I told you now he's gonna deny this but I specifically remember hitting him. And I was like, bro, the video got 30,000 views. And he said, there's no way video got 30,000 views or whatever. I'm like, bro, we gotta keep running it, bro. Like you got 30,000 views. He's like, no, bro, no, no, no, no, there's no way, bro. Your video did not get 30,000 views. So I'm like, bet. So I start running the fashion videos. Freshman year, I discover Air Jordans. That was when the, sorry, I was, I was, I'm doing the fashion videos, right? I'm doing the thing. And then I think skip to my, skip to my sophomore year, a year later, I'm still doing the fashion videos, getting a little bit of traction. It's doing okay. I don't have money. I don't have money for stuff. For the videos. For the videos. Right. It was weird cause like this is a weird story but like my uncle, he passed away but like he was a big manager of like a thrift store chain in San Antonio. They got a lick of guitar hero sets with the guitar on it. It was like the guitar hero one. So it was like, at the time, it was kind of like not really the hottest game but it was like, you couldn't find him anymore. They were kind of vintage. So my grandpa, having the toy store, bought the whole lot for very cheap. So my grandpa tells me, he's like, I'm into eBay at the time. And my grandpa tells me, he says, if you can sell these on eBay or the internet or whatever, I will sell you them for $15 each. Okay. He has like 15, 20 of them. I list them up on eBay for a hundred bucks each. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Bro, I'm making sales like crazy. Every day it's like selling one or two. I'm making crazy bread, bro. At church, it's like ringing. It's going crazy. It's going crazy. This is when the Fire Red Threes came out. It was the summer before sophomore year. The Fire Red Threes were- Fire Red Threes was at 2013? Sure. Okay, it's probably 2013. Fire Red Threes just came out. Toral Bravo Force had just dropped. Fire Red 2012. That shoe changed my life forever. It's kind of weird because, I don't know, red was really big back then. I don't know, Yeezy 2 came right around that time. Right. So seeing the Toral Bravo 4, Jordan 4s weren't even popular back then, bro, like they are now. The Toral Bravos came out. They sad. They're easy. They're pretty easy to give. I knew nothing about Jordan. So by the time I decided I wanted the Toros, they were gone off them all. I literally fantasized about this sneaker night and day, bro, I was like looking up reviews to just teasing myself on TV. I would just be watching everybody's review on the Toral Bravo 4s going crazy. I had to bind the Toral Bravo 4s from eBay for stupid, I don't even remember, but I had the Guitar Hero money. And so that was my first pair, but then the well ran dry. I sold all of the Guitar Heroes. I had money to keep doing the videos. So at the time, it was like Halloween and my mom was like, well, let's go look for Halloween costumes at the thrift store. And I was like, no, mom, that's embarrassing. What if somebody sees me? I don't wanna go to the thrift store. Like that's embarrassing. That's horrible. This was way before all the vintage community and all this took over. Nobody was thrifting back then. Right. I don't even think Beth knows this story, but. Today's partner is ShopDNAshow.com. Are you tired of wearing low quality gear? I completely understand. I made a personal mission to go out and find higher quality stuff and give it to you guys at an affordable price. And not only because of that, I have to wear this stuff every day. And I don't wanna be wearing cheap clothing all the time. So I wanna make sure that you guys know about it and our understanding that we have a lot of cool stuff coming out as well. Hit the link down below or pand or wherever it may be. It's gonna be ShopDNAshow.com. There's new drops every single month. I'm excited to see you guys in the gear. And now let's go ahead and get back to the podcast. Beth's my wife, by the way. Now we're married, so we'll get into that too. So I go into the thrift store to get this Halloween costume and it's my answer on a Halloween party. I'm super young. I see the hottest girl in school in the thrift store. And she's like, hey, what are you doing here? My face flushes red, bro. Like just red on my face, dude. I'm like embarrassed, bro, I'm hot. And I'm like, I was just buying a Halloween costume, like I just thought, cause there's funny stuff here that you can't really find at the Halloween store. So I'm just like, and she's like, oh, I'm buying jeans. And I was like, at that moment, everything switched for me. She will never know, yeah, that girl will never know this story, which is crazy. Her name was Kimberly. And so then after that, I'm like, well, thrift stores must be cool if the hottest girl in school shop in here. And so after that, I started going to thrift stores and looking for clothing and stuff. Was you recording videos at the time doing that? Bro, there was like a really, really small subsection of YouTubers that, dude, they were not big at all. They were like 10,000 subscribers, 15,000. It was like the Iceman. It was Professor Snap. And those guys, they don't even do YouTube anymore. It's been like 10 years. But they were doing this thing and they were all doing it. And it was a title called Trip to the Thrift. And so like, I remember like the Iceman, he was like making it real cinematic. He had a DSLR. And then Professor... Oh, there's somebody else that does that right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen him. Probably. The black dude, what's his name? He does the same thing. He makes like cinematic like trips to the thrift. Like that's what it is. I don't know, bro. Now it's so big. So he basically just recreated that with that dude. The thing is, there's probably like 100 people doing it now. Yeah. You know, cause the vintage community just blew out of proportion. But back then it was like not even, like it was so underground, bro. And like Professor Snap was like the cool guy and he was like really big into snapbacks. And he would like go to thrift stores and he was like finding snapbacks. And then he was like showing you how to like customize snapbacks and restore snapbacks by like cutting the snaps off of hats and then like stitching them to other hats. And it was just like this weird like cool thing, bro. I just became obsessed with like that culture. And it wasn't hype these culture, it was different. It was like, I'm in Texas and I've always lived in Texas and it's like I'm here in. It's like a bunch of like huge thrift stores out there. Right. But like nobody on that like cinematic-y, like cool music, like at the time. This was when like Foozy Tube and like Vitali and Roman Atwoods are like going crazy with the pranks. And that was the only era that I wasn't on mainstream YouTube cause I was so obsessed with the fashion community. And so then I started doing trips to the thrifts and we're looking for vintage clothing and we're looking for shoes. And my mom, I couldn't drive cause I'm 16 at this time. And so my mom drives me every Saturday, bro. We go to every thrift store in the city. Just filming on iPod Touch. Really? Yeah. iPod Touch. I didn't have a phone. I had like a flip phone. Damn. That's crazy. I'm taking it home. I'm chopping it. I'm editing it. So we did trips to the thrift number one, two, three, four. We did like hundreds of them. And then it got to the point where like, so I got really lucky, bro. Cause trips to the thrift number four specifically, I had found a pair of breadfors at the thrift store. Oh shoot. And I knew nothing about thumbnails. Cause at the time you couldn't add thumbnails. Yeah. You couldn't add thumbnails. But YouTube accidentally framed the video. At that point. When I was just like, it was a big picture of the breadfors. And it was like trips to the thrift. And that video was like 30,000 views. Then another one hit when I went to the Ben Goodwill, like number seven. And it was like Jordan sixes, trips to the thrift. And then bro, like they just started hitting, bro. And I was just doing that and only that. And then I started like analyzing what I was doing. And I was like, okay, thrift store. Okay, thrift store. Let's do this new series. And to this day, I still, I'm the godfather of the series, I believe. Cause I added, this is probably a Mexican thing, but I added flea market fines. Cause like trips to the thrift, flea market fines. So then every Wednesday, the flea market was open. So I would go to the flea market in the morning and you're finding Jays, bro. You'd be finding like, I'd be like filming all of it on my iPod touch. I bought a GoPro. GoPro was my first YouTube camera. GoPro three or something. And I'm filming, going to the flea markets. And so it was like trips to the thrift and flea market fines. And it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom. Every Saturday and Friday. And I'm editing on my computer and I'm young and I start getting my license, you know? So I start going with my boys and me and all the homies are going and we're thrifting and they're into it. And they're looking for Ralph Lauren was popular at that time as we continue and, you know. Remember the being had polo? The which one? When they used to be like, being had polo. It used to be like a world star and stuff. I have no idea. You never seen that? I have no idea, bro. But like. Back in the day, when I was like, when polo was coming up, like polo's been around forever. But back in the day when polo was really hitting like that, when people was getting the sweatsuits and the little polos and everything. Like there was this skit on like world star and he'd be like, being had polo. Probably. Being had polo and he'd be like pulling up like all this polo, like these tees like on the hangers and stuff. Crazy. He'd be like, damn, his polo collection crazy. Like, bro, it was so viral. Polo and then, so at that time it was like polo Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Tommy Hilfiger has. Ed Hardy? No. Ed Hardy wasn't. Ed Hardy wasn't. That was after. But we were looking for specifically vintage polo and vintage Tommy Hilfiger. Okay. And I remember, bro, we found a polo and it's just like a polo with a little guy on it. And it's just like we're freaking out, bro. And we're going and like we're going with the homies and like it was like the thing. Nobody cared about money. Nobody was getting paid. We just did it to hang out. So then I start getting into more Jordans and stuff and I was never a reviewer, bro. Like I just, I never was that type of guy. But then I remember, I'm trying to think about how we got from A to B. Oh, so it was like thrift stores. And then it was from there I was like, what else? And this was like really, I was like known for the thrift store stuff. But this was what I was known for on YouTube. Like I was, it's funny because I've been around for so many years and so many generations. And like seven years ago, I discovered, Oh yeah, yeah, because so I added, I added thrift pawn, I added pawn shops. So I started going to pawn shops, seeing LeBron 10s for like 40 bucks. You know, seeing Air Jordans, seeing all these sneakers at pawn shops for mad cheap. I add pawn shops. It's like a Friday night, bro. I get my license. I'm not hanging out with the homies. I'm not doing, I'm not doing drugs. I'm not smoking. I'm filming pawn shop finds like for cheap. I'm going off editing it. I'm on my grind, bro. And then what really, really, really, really took me to the next level, bro. I started filming at Ross when you could find. Wait, so okay. How many subs did you have around this time? Like as you're on this grind, like. I think this is like from zero to 100. 100,000? This is like over 10,000 for sure. But it's like maybe like 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 real slow, you know? And so I discovered Ross, dude. And I am the first and only guy to do videos at Ross. And this is when you could find the Kobe's, you could find the Katie's, you could find the LeBron's, you could find all kinds of people who are finding dorm-beckers, like at Ross's. Fragments. Yeah. Saw all types of stuff. So we were hitting the Ross. We added Marshall's. I was doing Burlington co-factory videos, trip to Burlington, like, cause I was continuing with this theme of like shopping in the thrift, but like for steals. So it was like just vlogging like my finds in Texas and they started calling me the Ross Boss. That was my name on YouTube was like, like the Ross Boss. That's wild. So you're like already establishing like. This was like a whole era, bro. This brand. It was like an entire era. Okay. So this is happening before we get into, you know, cause we're going to talk a lot about, you know, content, especially like at this point, you're making some money. Right. So you're doing brand deals, no brand deals. You're doing just YouTube adsense, no affiliate marketing or nothing. At the time it was just like YouTube adsense. Just YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, but I was pumping like probably every other day videos. So how many million views you think you was getting a month? Dude, that's too hard to tell. I don't even like a couple of million or you think you're getting more than that. Maybe not even a mil. Maybe like a mil. Maybe not even a mil. What a channel with a hundred thousand subscribers to get a million views a month is solid. Like that's very solid. I don't even think I was getting a million views a month. Which is like not easy to do for a lot of people. It's hard, bro. But I don't remember like making like 10,000 or anything like that. But you was like making a little bit of brand. Bro, I don't even think I was making like 4,000. Like what a month? I know what I was making. What? But I specifically, my boy was literally, he was working construction at the time. Okay. And we did a trip where I had my first car and this is when me and Beth were like dating at the time, me and my wife now. And he brought his girlfriend and we were gonna film videos in Austin. So we're driving an hour to Austin in my car, in my beat up car, bro. And we get to Burlington Co factory and I'm start filming looking at the shoes. And I said, bro, like you'll never, so like everybody started getting a job at the time. And I was like, I don't want a job. I kept doing the YouTube thing. Is this 17 years old now? Yeah, we'll say like 16, 17. Okay. 17, yeah, 17. Okay, so like junior year high school. Right, so I, school life at the time really would allow me to propel the YouTube channel is I got homeschooled sophomore year. So I had church. Why did you get homeschooled? Bro, it was just so much pressure. Like I, okay. So I had church. I had, this was when like you, you were in sophomore and high school. I was mascot. I was doing powerlifting. I was doing theater. I was like, I had like eight classes, biology. Like I was just stress out of my mind, dude. And I was doing YouTube. And I remember specifically, it was before Thanksgiving break. Cause I didn't even make it past Thanksgiving break. Okay. So it was around this time of year that I left high school however many years ago. And the one thing that really. To go out to be homeschooled? Yeah. So the one thing that really triggered me, bro, is I was really into fashion. And that's when Ben Trill was big. Mm-hmm. So about before Ben Trill. So I'm wearing a Ben Trill crew neck. And I specifically remember, I made a comment to some girl, right? In biology. And I'm like, I'll tell her something. I don't even know what it was. And she looks at me and she goes, says the guy in the Ben Trill shirt and the entire class. But it's out laughing. And I was so distraught. I was so destroyed. So I believe it, Eric. But I was so different than everybody else, bro. I went to a school that was like outside of San Antonio city limits. I went to a country school. They didn't know anything about brands. They didn't know anything about what was cool. The kids in the city, they were probably rocking with it. But nobody in my school, like, dude, they were like country stuff to school, bro. Or like, just like Hollister. Nobody was hip. Nobody was, I was online. I was seeing what these people were doing. I was seeing snapback restorations. I was seeing pink dolphin. I was seeing what they're doing on Fairfax. And nobody in my school, maybe like two people, had any idea what was cool. They thought that what was cool was like Hollister. Damn, so that you's just like, I don't want to be here. At that point, I stopped fitting in at all. And I'm such a loud figure that everybody in the school either loves me or hates me. At this point, I don't believe I was bullied. I was just notorious. Like the girls started going crazy for me sophomore year, bro. Like I was, it sounds stupid, but like I was literally the good kid for one. So I was super churchy and I would have like seniors that would be trying to sleep, like skip class with me to sleep with me. Like the hottest girl and seniors. And I'm so innocent and I'm so good and I'm so churchy that I'm like not for it. They're fighting. Dude, the seniors are literally fighting for me at this point. So it's like, it's like a lot of stress too because then it's like that was homeboy from the basketball team's girlfriend and they're hating on me and like dudes have it out for me and like dudes hate me and like, it was a big ball of just like, I'm just, bro, I am like the standout kid. I'm doing theater. Like I'm the star of the show. I'm freaking doing YouTube. I'm wearing the hottest brands like, bro. It was just like, it was a big ball of just mess, dude. So she says that comment destroys me completely. I'm like, screw these people. They have no idea what's cool. And then I had the opportunity. I was a freshman and going into theater. I guess, you know, glory God. I was so talented that no freshmen have ever skipped into competitions. As a freshman, you would not do theater competitions. I did theater competitions as a freshman and I won awards more than the seniors and like the people above me, the main characters. So my theater teacher at the time, he really sees something in me and he sees that I can be great and he sees that I can take over what the upperclassmen have built. But at the same time, dude, I'm doing mascot on Friday nights. I'm doing church play lead character that I'm going to rehearsal every day till like seven o'clock. Right after school, I'm driving from theater practice and I'm going straight to church practice to do more theater. And then I'm going home and I'm editing. I'm doing homework. I'm like just fully capacitated, bro. So Thanksgiving break hits and I was supposed to learn all my lines over Thanksgiving break. They give us homework over Thanksgiving break in addition to our homework and I'm rehearsing for church play. And bro, I literally, when it was time to go to school, I literally broke down and started crying, like sobbing. I just broke, dude. It was like this massive buildup of just like being hated on and like doing so much work and like just being not socially acceptable and it just like broke. And I was like, I don't want to go to school. I do not want to go to school. And so after that, my parents homeschooled me. So what was that like you? That was cool. Honestly, bro, if I would have never been homeschooled, I wouldn't have not been the man I am today. If I would have stayed in high school, knowing the lunatic that I am today, I would have gotten sucked up into the parties. I would have gotten sucked up into the like sex. I would have gotten sucked up into the drinking, the smoking, the like, I would have been a loser. You know what I mean? But I feel like at the end of it all, but I feel like because I was able to get away from all that right before it became so extreme. Cause sophomore year, you're still like fresh. Especially the beginning of sophomore year. Junior and senior year, you're going crazy. You know what's up. You know how to navigate. You're trying to figure it out. You're going crazy. You're like, oh, I got this. You're going crazy. Cause I heard stories about what happened when I left and they got crazy. So, I decided to just be on my grind. You're homeschooling, you're a homeschool teacher. Nobody, I have this online program. Okay. And when I came to the quizzes, I skipped, skip, skip, skip quiz, search it up, pop whatever. All the answers for the homeschool thing was all online. So basically you was just finessing this. I just copied and I pasted and I filmed my YouTube videos. So you was just prioritizing YouTube really? Yeah. And because I was homeschooled, I got out of biology. It's not required by the state of Texas to learn science. That's crazy, so. So I get my high school degree sophomore year. You got your degree sophomore year? Not my degree, my high school diploma sophomore year. For your diploma? It wasn't even a diploma. Like you graduated high school? I got your high school sophomore year. My GED. You got your GED. So then I started going to early, sorry, no, no, no, no. I do the thing sophomore year and then I started going to early college junior year. So what did you do about, like don't you have to take tests to like be able to get past like stuff? So I'm going into early college. They have a program for homeschool kids junior year. And I can't think it, I can't think it. This just does not sound right at all. So I take a test to do early college and I pass it and I pass it. So you did learn a couple of things. You learned a couple of things. It was like, dude, it was so easy. It was like stuff that I've known forever. So I pass it and then I'm able to do college and high school at the same time. So I'm able to finish high school while I'm learning in college classes. So during the first semester, I choose all night classes. So I can only do two classes a week because I'm still a high school student. So you're 17 at the time? 17 at the time. Two classes a week, night classes. Still making a ton of YouTube videos. Filming YouTube videos during the day. Right, okay. Going to college at night. Okay. So there's nothing, I don't do anything during the day other than film YouTube videos. So why? So I'm going ham. So by this time, you're what? Four years deep into YouTube on the low. I'm making money at this time. You got over a hundred thousand subs. Yeah, we're, what does making money look like? Dude, I think it was like 500 a week or something. 500 bucks a week. 400 a week. 17 in high school, making videos, doing your thing. And so late semester, and then next semester I do the day classes and I rekindle with all the seniors that were trying to get at me because now they're in college. Right, okay. And so I'm a junior and I'm chilling with them in college. Right. And so we ended up just like, they're more mature at the time. What was the college? It was like a community college. It wasn't anything special. Okay. It was a tiny community. Okay, so like a two year. Yeah. Okay. So then they're in college and I'm vibing way heavier with them because I realized now that like, I feel like the reason why I never fit in high school was because I honestly feel like my maturity level was so much higher than them at the time because they were so focused on things and I'm focused on YouTube videos. I'm focused on making money. I'm focused on the real life stuff. Right, okay. That like when they got out of high school it's like, damn, what do I do? And for me, I was doing that in high school. So, okay. So, I'm in early college. You're having success with YouTube at 17. You're making a little bit of bread each month. Yup. I don't need a job. I'm making enough bread so I don't need a per time job. I'm not like, loaded. Right, but you're making enough. You're still living at home. So now you don't have to worry about the overhead on that. You just got your car. Yup. Okay, so expenses aren't... Real involved in church. I'm driving a rinky dink. Heavy in church. Heavy in church, bro. So, second semester, I take the day classes. I'm vibing with the seniors from high school because they're mature, I'm mature, we're great. I'm making bread, I'm walking class to class. I'm looking at my analytics. So this time, I got super overloaded. This is probably my most, the time that I grounded the most in my life. So I'm gonna give you a day in the life of me, okay? So... At that age. At that age. So it's Wednesday morning. I'm hitting up the flea market. Early in the morning before I have class. So it's flea market I'm filming at 7 a.m., 6, 30 a.m. Immediately after the flea market, I go to my two classes. I do my two classes. And that pretty much lasts until, or I think I was taking more, I forgot, but I was taking classes when that ends. It's like three, four o'clock in the afternoon. I go to the gym and I lift for an hour. And then I go and swim laps in the pool for an hour. Immediately when that ends, I'm off to church to help with the theater thing over there, the ministry, whatever. So I'm in that to like, you know, sometimes when they have service on a Wednesday, it'd be like eight, nine o'clock, I'm getting out. I immediately go home from there and I start my homework and editing the video. So I'm up to like midnight. So it is a full day. You're like sleeping for like four hours. It's like a full day of just work. And that's when I was just like, dude, at that point I was just going crazy. You have that young, hungry energy. I'm in college, I don't have no obligations. My parents are going easy on me at this point. And everything's looking bright. Everything's looking good. And then after that semester, I graduated from college and I graduated from high school. So I start going to college full-time. I go to college full-time. I go to a different college, downtown San Antonio, community college though, still. I'm doing YouTube. I'm doing the college thing. And I think I'm still doing the church. I'm still doing the church thing. So when I met Beth, my wife now, yeah, so her family owned the church. It was right across from the college. Oh, okay. So you was like, I'm pulling up to a new- My grandpa had been going to that church forever and he told my family to go. So then I became really, really, really cool with all her cousins. And we're like boys and they try to convince me to let their cousin date me. Cause Beth is like telling my mom, like, oh, you raised such a good son. My mom's best friend is telling me like you should give that girl Beth a chance. Her cousins are telling me to give her a chance. Everybody's like, what's that? Everybody. Cause like, so I give Beth a chance. So are you 17 or 18 at this time? I'm seven, hmm. 18? I think around this time, well, cause I stepped back a little bit. So I'm like 17, 18 around that age in a place. So we'll say 18. So I'm 18, she's 17. No, I'm 17, she's, I'm seven. Yeah, I'm 17, she's 16 because we met when we were like 15, 16. So, but when we started dating, we were like 16, 17. So I give her a chance and we immediately hit it off. Everything's great. And her whole family turns on me. Turn on me. They hate me. What? They absolutely hate me. The cousins too. What? Screw you, Joel and big Tim. So they hate me, bro. And literally, no, Joel was the only one that didn't switch up on me. Okay. Which was my camera man and my GJ knows him. My camera man, my editor for like five years. But his brother hated me. So Beth went through like this really traumatic experience where like her sister actually passed away because she had something wrong with her lungs and she was in the hospital for like nine months. And I was trying to comfort Beth. We're talking on the phone every night at this point. Her family is going through hell. They're struggling through all this stuff. I went to the hospital that when she was passing and they literally kicked me out. I was there to comfort Beth. She was crying in my arms and then the grandpa literally kicked me out of the hospital. He's like, you need to leave now. Bro, like everybody would go over to their house after church to like comfort the family and stuff what they're going through. And they wouldn't let me come in. Like it was so toxic. Cause I was like 16, 17 being treated like, I was 17 just being treated like garbage or 18, whatever I was a young kid, just being treated like just the good kid all my grind in college at a young age doing YouTube. Like just everybody's parents wanted me for their daughters cause I was such a good kid at the church, but I didn't like none of them. They were the homegirls, but I wanted Beth, but they didn't want me at all. They'd like wanted nothing to do with me. Period. She wanted you. She wanted me. So at this point. At least you all was there for each other. So at this point I'm making bread from YouTube. It was one Bible study and I remember we do prayer requests. So we had Bible study on Wednesday, which is at my parents house. My parents had been doing a Bible study for like 10 years. And then we had youth group on Tuesday. So it was just really big in church. So it was like YouTube, school, church, gym, everything. So I remember one time at Bible study they were like, do you have any prayer requests? And it was like all of my brother's friends that were there, they were like still in high school. So I raised my hand and I say, I want to be self-sufficient by next month. And everybody laughed, but we prayed for it. And I got this one sponsor and they wanted dedicated, like they wanted to mention every single week, like not dedicated. I don't know why that's coming to my mind. Guaranteed, like guaranteed video every single week, long-term partnership. So they were paying me. It was that, I don't know if you should stress it. Capbease.com. And it was like where you put that little ad in your video. It was like, Capbease.com. Design your own snapbacks and hats. What? You know what I'm talking about? I don't think so. It was like a, they had their own commercial and it was like five seconds long. Oh, they saw all you had to do put it in there. So it was like, it was like, imagine having like the GoPro thing where it was like, like just the logo. So it was literally like just their logo. And it said, capbease.com.com. Capbease.com in text and the voiceover was like, capbease.com, design your own snapbacks and hats. And it was like five seconds long. And I had to put that at the beginning of my video. So the intro, 200 bucks. Every week. Five seconds, 200 bucks every week. That's good. I was making 200 bucks, five seconds, five seconds. And so I was able to get my first apartment and I'm 18. I'm moving to my first apartment. It's 800 bucks a month. They're covering it. Cause they were paying me 200 a week. So it was like, you know. Lining up. Yup. So the sponsor was taking care of that. I had my own place for six months. Still going through all the BS with Beth and her family. What was it like moving out of the house? Like getting your own spot at that age. Cause you already come into the office. I tripled down on the work at that point. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I completely forgot. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think about the time period. Right before I moved out, I dropped out of college. Okay. End of the, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. End of the school year comes. I decide there's this, so there's this kid from my city, right? Okay. Super into the internet. I met him somewhere down the line. Super into the internet. And he says he's making 20,000 a month. He's my age. 18 years old. 20,000 a month. And you know what he was doing? You do. Nope. Editing. Nope. Gaming? He was selling fake Yeezys. Oh my gosh. He was reselling fake Yeezys online. Yeah. And he was making 20,000 a month. That's crazy. But anyways, the reason I say that is because it was like, there is money to be made on the internet. Yeah. So I'm like, dude, I'm thinking, I'm sitting in my living room. I'm like, bro, should I just do this full force? I'm at, so you asked where I was at subscriber wise. I'm at 50,000 subscribers. Okay. Before I moved out, I'm 17, 18. And I'm at 50,000. And I dropped out of college at 50,000 subscribers. Okay. And then that's when I doubled down on everything. Started getting that sponsor moved out for my first place. I'm doing this. Bro, I felt great. I felt great. I remember that's when the week, like I first moved into my crib was a bachelor pad, one bedroom. Texas is cheap for rent. The weekend song came out, I feel it coming. I feel it coming, babe. So I'm just like listening to that song, thinking about like, I'm going to be a big YouTuber. Like I'm really going to do this. I started getting into Gary V's books. Gary V starts getting big online. I'm 18. I'm just like going to sleep, listening to his audio books, dude. Just praying to God. I'm like, I want to do this with my life. God, please allow it to happen. Like the hardest belief in my being, I'm asleep in my bed. And also at that time, I was not only doing the fashion channel still, but I decided I'm going to daily vlog. So I'm daily vlog, I got out of college. I got my first place. I'm daily vlogging called legit lifestyle, getting a thousand views a day. And then, and I did that for like a year, daily vlogging every single day. And I'm doing the fashion channel. So you got two channels, three channels. Two channels. One is daily vlogs. The other is daily to semi-daily videos for YouTube, for the senior channel. So I'm going to Ross. I'm going to Burlington. I'm doing the thing. I got my first crib. Homeboys are coming over from the neighborhood, from high school, like just like freaking out that I got my own place. And then Beth, you know, me and Beth are still dating and stuff. And then it got to the point where like, I was always trying to do the right thing. We were like going through fighting. You know what I mean? Like, you know, off and on, little kid stuff. I try to take off to the military. I try to join the- Really? What is it called? The National Guard. Okay. So my dad's friend's a recruiter for the National Guard. So he just like kept trying to recruit me. We broke up this one time. And I literally, I tried to go out into the National Guard. They messed up my paperwork. And I had like surgery down here. So like they, I don't know, they had a problem with it. So they just kept slacking. So I ended up not going to the National Guard, which I feel like I wouldn't have done YouTube if I would have left. That's crazy, yeah. That was when I was literally like before I dropped out of college. I was on the verge of just leaving everything to go to the National Guard. Cause I was pissed cause of Beth. That's why. Cause we broke up. So, I get my own place. I'm grinding it out. And me and Beth are just like boyfriend and girlfriend in the honeymoon phase. Just like going to sleep on the phone every night together. We start rebelling cause her dad still didn't want me around. So her mom's in on it now. We start sneaking out, like going on dates and I'm dropping her off. I'm still in my rinky dink car. What were you driving? You keep talking about this car. So I had a, my first car was given to me by my grandfather's wife, which is not my grandma, but my grandfather's wife. I guess grandma, now my marriage, I don't know. But it was like a see-on. Okay. Like a all gold, like little broken down car. The transmission was all broken and stuff. You know what, but yes, when we were dating I was, and then I forget if it was, I think we were still dating, but I ended up had bread. Oh, so my grandma, my dad's mom, she had saved up for us, like a savings account since we were a baby. She would put money into it every time and we couldn't access it till we were 18. I was 18 at the time. It was 10 racks. So I take it out and I buy a Dodge Charger, 2008 Dodge Charger all black. They got custom leather seats. So I'm whipping the charger, man. Woo, bro. I did, like before, when I was making money on YouTube, like before I started making 500 a week, like even the, the girl that I used to date in church was making fun of me like, ah, I make more money than you. Like I didn't make a lot of money, bro. Cause I was doing YouTube. They had jobs and like Chick-fil-A and stuff. So they were making like, okay, money. But YouTube with you, it's not like a, it's not like you're gonna for sure make this. So I'm, I'm whipping a charger now. I got my first place. I got a girlfriend. I'm doing the channels. I even got a job at a sneaker store to learn the expertise of shoe store. Cause I thought, you know, maybe I want to do this in the future. So I did that for like a couple of months, not too long. So then bed turns 18, I'm 19. And we're still having a really, really horrible time cause they're her parents and her family. Like horrific. For my 19th birthday, we got a, like a big house on the beach and all my church friends came, girls and guys and Beth's parents decided to come. And they like, she's like not talking to me at my birthday because she doesn't want her dad to get mad. And I just lost it, bro. And like I broke up with her and like, so we are going through like the worst boyfriend and girlfriend experience you could ever imagine. And she turns 18. Okay. I turned 19 one month before she turns 18. In February, she turned 18. So we leave the church right after the birthday incident when I turn 19. My dad's going to, we're going to churches and he just feels this calling on his life. He's been doing the Bible study for 10 years. And so he starts a home church. So he gets ordained as a pastor and he has a home church. I say this because when Beth turns 18, I'm like, you're 18 now. The way I was raised, you're an adult. Your parents have no say on you anymore. Right. We start like, we lose our virginity to each other. And I know that it's not right. Cause in the Bible it says that you're supposed to marry. You know what I mean? And so I feel like I need to marry this girl. And so she turns 18 in February. My birthday's in January, the big ordeal. We get back together, her birthday's in February. She turns 18. My dad's an ordained pastor. February, March, April, May, I get the bright idea. Let's go get married. Okay. My dad's a pastor, an ordained pastor. So we're there at my house, like sneak it off in my apartment. So your dad's the only one that knew? Yeah, so my parents knew that I wanted to get married and they were down for it. So we brought her parents over and we had a meeting with all four of them and I told them, hey, we're getting married tomorrow at the courthouse. My dad's doing the wedding. He's an ordained pastor. You guys are either gonna be there or you're not. And we don't want any of your family there. Just the grandparents. And so we got married the next day. Did they pull it? They pulled up and the dad was pissed. Shout out, Jerry. Bro, he's pissed in the photos. Okay. He is furious. I'm glad I said the grandparents though because her mom's grandpa, it was so nice to me. He actually passed away a while after that. So it was cool that he got to see his granddad get married. But so then we're married. We move in together. We get a two bedroom apartment in the apartment complex. Now you got a new spot. YouTube money's getting better. How big are you now? 200, 300 K. Okay, 300,000 subs, 200,000 subs, somewhere around there. And you, at this point, probably 200. At this point, you have been doing it for what? Four or five years? Full time? Yeah, like three or four. Or, oh yeah, full time. Full time. From originally messing around to that point right then. Right, right. We had conversations too in the past about like, your struggle, like you had a hump. You had to get over creatively, at least for your channel growth. What do you mean? I remember you were saying you had like, around 300,000 subscribers. You were like stuck for a while. Right, right, right. Growth was slow. Yeah, that's a little bit later I think. Cause I wasn't at 300 at this point. Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that for sure. But I remember like my first like, when I started, when it started banging. So at this apartment, this is when we actually started getting traction. And at that point, I specifically remember, I joined like this YouTube guru program. And it was like teaching us like, don't just do your niche, like do your niche, but add a twist to it. Find where you lie in the niche. So I'm like, okay, I do sneakers. There's the guys who do the sneaker reviews. They're gonna do it better than me. Doesn't really interest me. I tried it in work. But if I can mix comedy with shoes, then that's like a gold mine. So I started doing things like wearing size 18 sneakers to the mall. Banger blew up. I did wearing rags to the Louis Vuitton store. Banger blew up. I did, Bet did a prank on me where she was like selling my sneakers as a garage sale for $1, my sneaker collection. That video, like you're seeing the views come in per hour. Like it doesn't look real. Cause it's like blowing up, bro. My boy sneaker talk does a video and it's like wearing fake Yeezys to the Adidas store. And I see this video and I'm like, how can we do this? So I do wearing, so I go, I get like a print on shirt and I iron on Louis Vuitton. And I do wearing fake Louis Vuitton store, sneaking in there in San Antonio, filming it, blows up. I do. What was your like creative process during that time? At that time, I'm like, I just need to be making the most viral videos that I can. And I need to just blow up on YouTube and get to a mill. Okay. So really it's like more of, because I'm in the stage right now, I got a few hundred thousand subs and I'm more like, I'm worried about the core audience. I'm making stuff for my people. So the moment that's not what gets the views. The moment that my YouTube career changed forever is a manager told me. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I had a quick question. Are you guys interested in taking your shoe game to another level, but you just don't know where to start? I built a full program just for somebody like you, the six figure sneaker head. It's a eight week program that takes you through all the steps that you need to know. We have a full community where you can engage with everybody else that's going through the same program as you have monthly live meetups where you can connect with me and other members on the inside. And we set goals for each other and held each other accountable. Also, we give away a free pair of shoes every single month with different challenges. If this is something that's for you or you're looking to take your game to the next level or even flip your sneakers to turn that into real estate, this is the place where you need to be. I can help you with finding loans and remodeling properties and getting yourself on the right path to become a millionaire if that's something that you desire. If this sounds like something for you, hit the link down below in the description and get signed up today. This is more than just sneakers. I wanna see people grow and succeed in all aspects of life. Let's get back to the podcast. He said, you need to stop making videos for the sneaker community. And you need to make videos for people that love sneakers. You know what I mean? So like stop making videos that only the sneaker community can watch and make videos that the sneaker community can watch and the whole public that likes sneakers. So that changed my career forever. And that was around that time that I started doing all that crazy stuff. And then me and Beth were married and we're in the apartment and there's still highs and lows. Like it's not like all good crazy money coming in. We're not even probably making that much. We're making like 3,000, 3,500 a month. Okay. This is like 10 years ago. And I'm 18. Right. So it's getting, it's getting there. A solid. It's getting there. And then we meet these other YouTubers in SA and we all go to VidCon. And I'm 18. So this is seven years ago. So we're in 2020. So this is VidCon 2016. Okay. And bro, my life literally like changed after that trip. That's funny because my first experience with VidCon like I had already been doing it for a couple of years. But that was definitely one thing I noticed when I first started getting into YouTube was like, oh, I need to be at VidCon. Like I don't, I didn't go because I didn't, I realized I had a past experience with like the sneaker industry and events and sports and pro athletes. So like I was able to understand like, I'm not ready to go for this yet, but what I do I'm ready to optimize it. Yeah. And the thing is VidCon was so different back then. So I had the connections. I had that management, the MCM, the MCN that gave me access to the hotel. So at VidCon, there was the VidCon. Nobody goes to VidCon as a creator. You only go to VidCon if you're doing a meet and greet and you're there for like an hour. When you're not at VidCon, you're at the hotel. At the hotel, that's where the brands throw the events. I mean, you know now, I'm explaining to them where the brands throw the events where all the YouTubers hang out. Back then it was like 10 times what it is now. So you're going in there and keep in mind I'm a kid who was raised off this. We didn't have cable. Wait, so was that your first time to LA? 2016. For VidCon. For VidCon. Okay. So it wasn't even LA, it was Anaheim. Anaheim, right. But then so I go to LA and I'm 19, that's 18. And we go to the Studio 71 Lounge and Wolfie Raps is there. And I grew up with all this. Everybody that I ever watched since I was young was there. Like I met Christopher London. I met all the OG YouTubers, Smosh was there. Smosh, which was the number one YouTuber at a time. Like, bro, it was like going into somewhere and you are like, all you watch is NBA, your whole life and every NBA superstar is in one moment with you. No, for sure. That's definitely a good example of what VidCon is like. So at this moment, Beth is like, I don't know who any of these people are. Cause like I'm raised on this. I know everybody. So she went with you. She went with me. She's like, I don't know who these people are. All of a sudden she turns around, Team 10 walks in. Team 10, tell them who Team 10 was. She goes, oh shoot. Tell them who Team 10 is. Team 10 is when Jake Paul and Logan Paul were single-handedly taking over the internet with the daily vlog. It was everything everybody was watching before Mr. Beast, before everything. So this, this, you said 2016, right? This is their prime. This is their prime, bro. Prime protocol. This is like Jake and Logan Paul. People were at VidCon wearing backpacks, playing Logan songs. Everybody's a Logan Paul, either you're a Logan store or you're- Oh, cause they were doing the little rap beef stuff. You have no idea how crazy. This was 2016, right? Okay, so I sparked like my like interest in YouTube at the end of 2017. So I had just like started to see like who Casey Neistat was, who Jake Paul and Logan Paul is, like all these people. So like, when 2018 rolled around, it was like, that was the year I was like starting to like watch YouTube more, like get back into it. So I had seen like all that stuff that you were like living in the prime of it. You just saw it. But I was like- It was like your first taste of YouTube. Catching the like aftermath of it a little bit. Okay, okay. Like cause I think the Cloud House has just came around and stuff like that. Cloud House, Ricegum, Banks, all those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that's what was like popping. Like Peter McKinnon just came on the scene. It was like stuff like that. Yeah. Peter McKinnon was on a completely other spectrum, but yeah, he was on- Well, yeah, you know me. I watched the different stuff. But that was like, okay. So this was when LA was literally at its prime, bro. Facts, everybody was in Fairfax. Like GTA V. So then I'm going to LA. I'm seeing Team 10. We get invited to the Studio 71 party. I am a studio, I'm a sign of Studio 71. Okay. Everybody. It's like a line all around the whole shopping center. It was at the House of Blues in Anaheim and- Oh yeah, over there. They did a party there a couple of years ago. Bro, there is like everybody that is everybody, the hottest club you can ever imagine. There's like 700 people online, all YouTubers. Yep, the top creators. I get in there, bro. I get in there, bro. I'm meeting Cash Nasty. I'm meeting Flyrex. I'm meeting DDG for the first time. Like we're both 19 years old. I'm meeting Wolfie and his crew. Bro, I get VIP access because I'm a Studio 71 to the top floor, the VIP level. Top, yep, yep. I see Logan at the party. I take a video with him and take a picture of all that. And I go to the top and it's like an overlooking of the club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's like seats. Yeah, it's got like a few. There's like a couple of seats lined up and then there's like a little section. And sometimes there's like little booths up there. I went to the party a couple of years ago. Yeah. I don't know exactly what you're talking about. I'm sitting there overlooking the party, realizing how crazy my life just went from zero to 100. I went from making videos at Ross in the South side of San Antonio to being around the hottest superstars on the planet. You're like having this moment. And it's not even like, they're not like Justin Bieber but this is everything I am consumed with. Right. Your world is, this is a huge thing in your world. So then Logan comes and Logan just sits right here with his girl at the time. But at the time too, he was big but not where near as big as he is now. He was like blowing up at that time. He was, it's weird. He was bigger in the YouTube space but he's not big internationally. Cause like at that time, at that time he was shutting down the Dubai mall. Yeah, but how many subs do they have? Like five, seven mil? Like 20 mil or something. But like they were pulling bro, they were pulling like 10 to 20 mil every video, every day. They were cooking. Either way, they were cooking. I remember that. So anyways, for me, it's the biggest YouTuber in the world. Sitting right behind me, bro. At that moment, you know, I just didn't feel like my life was real anymore. It wasn't going to, from that moment on my life will not be a normal life anymore. You just knew like, this is different. I just knew this was it. Yeah, it's fun. I like it. It's interesting. And so then I'm going and everything that I fantasized about since I was in middle school, the mecca of all meccas, I go to Fairfax Street. I see Supreme, I see Diamond Supply. Nikki Diamonds is there. Flight Club was there? I end up on a Nike documentary about Diamond Supply, about Nikki Diamonds. I go to the hundreds, I go to Flight Club. My mind is just blown, bro. We go to the team at 10 house, which was near Fairfax, like two streets down. Oh, damn, they were that close? Kids are outside, bro. Like 15, 20 kids are outside, like waiting for them to come out. Dude, I go home back to San Antonio. And I'm like, LA, LA, LA is where I need to be. So then we take a road trip because me and Beth can't drive at the time. We can't rent a car at the time because we're not 25, we're 18 and 19. And her mom comes with us because we're so young. So we literally drive all the way to LA nonstop, 20 hours, we're switching. Oh my gosh. And we get an Airbnb. It was like a loft right off Hollywood Boulevard, which is the craziest part ever. Wait, is this the road trip that you were talking about when you went to Red Lobster? No, this was like, that was like way before. That was like when I first got YouTube money. Tell us about that one real quick. So when I first got YouTube money, when me and Beth are dating, I'm still living with my mom. I got a brand deal. It wasn't the brand deal that got my rent, but growing up, my parents could never take us to Red Lobster or Olive Garden because it was way too expensive. So there was a moment where we're driving back from somebody's house and we're on the highway and we see a Red Lobster. And I had gotten paid like $300 for my brand deal that day. So I'm like, we can literally, if we wanted to, I tell Beth, go in and sit down and eat at Red Lobster. She's like, yeah, I'm good. She thinks nothing of it. I exit the highway and I turn around and I go to Red Lobster and I said, we're going to eat at Red Lobster. And a kid having no money growing up on like the, you know, one of the poorest side of the town, like we could eat at Red Lobster now. It was massive for me. It was massive. And then I remember like the first time I had my first place. And I was like, I wish I had a TV in my room. And I had the bread to just drive to Walmart and go buy a flat screen TV. I didn't need to save for months at 18. Those two moments, so anyways, it just, the impact was just insane. Crazy. So you're on the road trip back to LA. I gotta go back to LA ASAP. And I'm in LA for a week. We're in like the worst part, which is like a right off Hollywood Boulevard and it's crazy and there's homeless and I'm scared. And I'm going to the Supreme store and I'm filming wearing fake Supreme to us, to the Supreme store, which is a banger by the way, three mil and like. You say war fake Supreme to the Supreme store? To a Supreme job. The dudes are like trying to buy the Supreme off me. And like brands hear that I'm there. So I'm going to like brand offices and I'm doing a studio tour. I'm doing the office tour of Studio 71 in Beverly Hills and seeing like all the movies they did and like all the deals they did with like Epic Mealtime and like Smosh and like Logan Paul was signed with them. So I'm like, really, we're there for a week. And but it's just so scary, bro. Like LA is so crazy. You're talking about like Texas, small town to like this wild homeless or screaming and freaking people are like robbing each other and like I'm 18 and 19. And then Beth's mom flies home and we're there. And we're just like by ourselves. We don't know anybody except for the guy that works for Studio 71, the manager or whatever. Were you guys staying at a hotel? We were staying at Airbnb in Hollywood. Okay. And I was like, let's just go home. I was just so like scared, bro. Like I was so scared and it was just like so much, dude. It was just so much. So then we go back to Texas and we're like, okay, you know we had our time with LA, but like what's next? So then at that time we're making like 4,000 a month and I'm still doing the comedy bits and we're doing like crazy videos. We're like getting NMDs and we're making them like Gucci NMD customs and like we're like painting like Gucci and doing like off the wall stuff, like crazy stuff. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. I was really never in the sneaker community. I was just like, did videos about sneakers, but like I was just crazy. Doing random stuff. So basically I was like, what can I do the craziest stuff around? I was just viral. I was just a viral guy. Right. Yeah. And so then dude, like we ended up moving into like you've seen the Tower of Americas. The what? The Tower of America in San Antonio, the big tower. It's like a big. Oh yeah. So we moved to these condos. Penthouse, like not a penthouse, but like these condos floor to ceiling windows, hottest spot in the city. Our view right outside is the Tower of America just spinning and all this city overlooking. We were on floor 32. We took an elevator up. There was a valet service. There was a concierge. You're like, I'm a big YouTuber now. I'm doing my thing. I got my shit going. At that point, at that point, I was like on top of the world, bro. But I was still so hungry for that meal. Yeah. I was still so hungry for that meal. So then at that spot, we hit 300, 400. And so I think when I was making videos but just about shoes, that's when I was stuck. And then when I found out like entertainment mixed with shoes, that's when I got exposed to a bigger audience, like a more viral audience. So you think the biggest point USA is definitely like. That's the biggest turning point in my YouTube career. That's the biggest point in my YouTube career, for sure. Cause yeah. So then we're out there, but then like, bro, I still feel like LA is calling. So then at this time, I'm meeting all these managers and I meet Foozie Tube's old manager somewhere along the line. So we go back to LA to visit and no, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. We didn't go back to LA to visit. We meet the manager and we're talking about signing. And so we go to LA, we're staying in Airbnb and I meet up with a Foozie Tube's old manager and which is my boy to this day. And he tells us Foozie's old building. And he's like, you guys should live there. So then we move all of our stuff from Texas. No, no, no, no, no. We drive out there. We're still paying for the condo monthly. But we're like, let's go get the place and then we'll drive back and bring all of our stuff. So we're searching for a place. So we go and it's like, it's like, Weoshara, La Brea, which if you know about that area, it's like mid city, but like those apartments still have heavy construction to this day. There's crazy people all the time. The roads are screwed up and it's just like not a good area. So I go over there and we move to LA. Finally, the dream, we move to LA and it is so stressful. I have so much anxiety. Like I'm just so scared and just, the videos at this time were hidden big numbers. I was doing like $500 Nike challenge and like Nike outlet challenge. And they were like climbing to like a mill and like everything's doing great. I moved to LA and I don't even know what to film because I don't know what is around. I don't know like the people are kind of different than Texas. They're not as nice. So like filming there, like Louis Vuitton's like shutting us down. Like, no, you can't film in here. And like the Ross is like sketch. Like we're filming the Ross videos in there and there's like weirdos in there that are like homeless people and like bad people, crazy people. We buy mattress, we're at that apartment for three weeks. And I broke my, and I'm like, I don't know what to film. The views are just not doing good in LA. So then I just break my lease and I moved back to the condo that we still have in Texas. So that lease never got rid of that spot though. Yeah, but at that time, like, bro, I was lit like before I moved to LA. I was shooting music videos. We were doing music videos. You shot a music video. We were doing parodies. We were doing like Hype Beasts. And they call me and the Louis and Supreme. Like to RTK, do you look? It's still on. It's still on your page? Yeah. No, it's not. Yeah it is. I have to find this. I have a bunch of music videos, bro, that I did back in the day. And we would film them in Foot Locker. And I would do it. So I became friends with like the whole Foot Locker staff. We would be filming pranks in Foot Locker. We'd be filming challenges. Oh, I was texting. Millie, Millie, Millie, Millie, Millie, Millie. My boys are filming for me. We're crushing. We're doing every other day. And then so I go to LA and dude, I'm thinking about all my boys being in SA. And there are my filmers there and my boys that are in my videos are there and Foot Locker's there. And everything's great. So then we move back. And then we end up just going 10 times harder. Filming every other day videos. So you hadn't hit a mill yet. Hadn't hit a mill. Okay. End up going with my boys on a cruise in the summer. Videos are banging. Oh, sorry. Before that, right before I hit a mill, I'm like 900,000 subscribers in the condo. Which was crazy. That condo was, dude, I was like breathing in and out YouTube. I was not doing the ministry anymore at church because I decided to take the time off to focus on my career. I was not going to the gym. I was really fat. I was breathing in and out YouTube. So you just became obsessed, insane, out at YouTube. Like insane to like another level, bro. In that condo, we went from like 250,000 subs to over a mill in that condo. So okay, what do you say was the key? I just kept consistent, entertaining videos every other day, banger ideas. So you were dropping a lot of videos. Every other day. Consistently coming with viral content. Crazy viral. It was like, we're gonna make a fake supreme bike and then we're gonna like take it to the pawn shop and then like another video was like trying to buy Air Jordan ones with only $1 bills. Like off the wall stuff that like the sneaker people never would ever think of. I was like, in my own freaking road, bro. Where was you coming up? Like how was you? Bro, I was just being as creative as I could be. Like it was like. What was your creative process though? Like what would you do to be creative? A lot of the stuff was like, what are the other YouTubers outside of sneakers doing? That's the thing that I feel like a lot of people trip over, trip up over is in my career, after my manager made that comment to me, I never looked at the sneaker people anymore after that. It's funny because I don't really watch them on a sneaker YouTube either. I never watch the sneaker people. I was watching stuff about like finance, real estate, I was kind of like. But I was watching like what is Ricecom doing? What is Wolfie doing? What are these viral people doing and how can I make it into sneakers? So then there was a video where Mr. Beast had like bought a car full of pennies at the time and it was like viral. He wasn't even Mr. Beast yet. It was just viral. He had the Wilbur. I remember that. I went and like the Travis Scott ones dropped and they were 800 bucks. So I got $800 worth of pennies, pulled up in a Wilbur to a sneaker store and bought the travesties in pennies. Like that kind of stuff nobody was doing. Nobody, like I was in my own lane. I wasn't rich kid. I didn't have all the hottest shoes but the creativity and the entertainment and the personality and the comedy in it really, really sat me apart. So I was on the road to becoming like one of these legends bro, like realistically, like, you know, I was on the road to like, so what really, really I feel like was the, the really big breaking point of it was like, me and my boy sneaker talk. He was another YouTuber from Canada that would do shoes. And we was kind of like me and you where we just go out and film and we decided to take a trip to Asia. So we went to the Philippines. We went to Japan and went to Singapore. And after that trip, like all the like fans from Asia came and subscribed. So then after the summertime hits and I'm with my two boys and they're like working for me at the time. So I pay for their cruise and we all get on a cruise. And I end up hitting, the cruise ship is in the middle of the ocean. And we have wifi. I'm about to hit a mill in the middle of the ocean on a cruise ship. We get go on live stream. We get the champagne bottle. You still got that video? Yeah, it's a live stream on my channel. It's on your channel, bro. I have to dig deep. So it's me, Beth, and my two boys. And we're there. And you know, they start unsubbing and all that. But like, bro, I end up hitting a mill. We pop the champagne bottle, bro. Life is good, dude. Like life is way too good, bro. Everything that I had worked for my entire life had paid off at that moment. So how many years? So at this point, I think I'm like, at this point, I think I'm like 20. So that was like, I started when I was 11. So that's nine years. So you had been doing YouTube for nine years before you got to a million subscribers? Yeah. So Beth is 19, I'm 20 at this time. We're in the condo. And I'm like, I gotta go back to LA when I hit a mill. So we moved back to LA. Glendale this time. And the crazy part is, bro, this time, the videos are going even crazier. So what year was this? 20. I'm 20, so this was five years ago. So this was 2018. Yeah, okay. So this is when I was starting to get into YouTube. So I had seen you before. And then that's when, remember the next year when I had hit you or- No, this is what, that was before. That was later. That was later. I think you hit me during COVID. So that was 2020, so that was two years later. Okay, so, but I had seen you when I was doing my research on sneaker creators because I remember seeing you doing a thing where somebody was like creasing up your shoes in your room or something like that. And you came in and you were all pissed and everything. And I was like- Oh yeah, yeah, that was during COVID. That was my sister. Was that during COVID too? Yeah, that was Sarah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so maybe I was a little bit after then. That was during COVID. 2020, I think is when you found me. But 2020 was my first full year. Yeah, yeah, your first full year. During COVID, that's crazy. COVID was the hardest time for me. So okay, we're getting there though. So the momentum is building. I am making way more money than a doctor. Which is how much? You wanna know? Yeah. Dog, I think at that time I'm making like, should I say it? At that time I'm making like, in just AdSense alone, I'm making like 40, 50K a month. Okay. So that's the limit. And I'm 20 years old. You just hit a meal? I'm 20 years old, bro. Yeah, at that time it was 10 minute videos. Not eight minute videos forever. Yes, and I'm still dropping every other day, but I'm doing even crazier ideas because now I have bread. So I start doing the challenges and I'm still taking from YouTube and I'm putting the sneaker. So it's like, guess the and I'll buy it for you. So I'm going to Co-Kicks. I'm like, guess the sneaker as I'll buy it for you. Three million views. Part two, two, like three million views again. Part two, like I'm collabing with YouTubers out there, bro. I'm doing the thing. Everything is great on a work standpoint. From a living standpoint, I don't have any of my homies. I don't have any of my family. I'm getting all the work done. I started getting into this weird depression. And you're still like gaining weight and everything. No, at that point, when I moved to LA, I realized I needed to stop gaining weight. So I started eating healthier. We were working out at the Equinox. We ordered a Tesla. Okay. We had the hottest place in Glendale with a penthouse, massive balcony overlooking all the mountains. We had the most expensive in the building. So you're just living it up like a million subscriber YouTuber would be living there. But I was like grinding hard. Right. But what comes out is a lot of sacrifice, right? Yeah. So then you had to like, what would you like it? But that's all I'm doing. That's literally all I'm doing. You think that made you, like you say, go into that depression. Friendships, family. I'm flying back to SA like as much as I can because I miss everybody. Okay. And then I start getting into, so I started getting into like prank content, like public pranks. So then I hit, dude, I'm, I started doing breaking iPhones, which is like having to do with iPhone, not even sneakers. So I did stepping on shoes because I saw another YouTuber did it. That wasn't even, it was like a skater. So I did stepping on sneakers and then buying them new ones. So I was like, what else can I do that similar to this? Some guy did cutting people's headphones and giving them AirPods. Oh yeah, I remember everybody was doing that. So I did breaking people's iPhone, iPhone and giving them the new iPhone 10 that I just dropped. Six million views, filmed in Glendale, California. Is that like your biggest video at the time? At the time, that's my top video. Okay. Pranks are going crazy for me. Entertainment, sneaker pranks, but then I'm able to get out of sneakers. Okay, so you're like, I'm getting out of sneakers. Massive audience. Okay. How was your like CPMs changing? I don't even remember the CPMs at the time. I didn't, it was changing, but I didn't notice. Cause you wasn't really hip to that. Cause I was doing pranks and sneakers still. I wasn't, I didn't just give up the sneakers. Okay. Did you hear a monthly ad rev go down because of that? I didn't even care, bro. I was so young. I didn't need that much money. Right. Okay. So like you could have been making like 40 or 50K a month and you might've been making like 35 or 40. Right. But it just, it's just the same for me like, bro. I literally was so broke all my life. But now I was an older wise YouTuber. I wasn't wise. I was 20 years old. No, I'm talking about now. Oh, now, bro. Like you understand. That's crazy. The difference between CPMs. And that's what like, I can't even understand. Jake Paul was like my age making millions a month. Right. You know, like it's crazy. So anyways, so I get really sad and I ended up moving back to Texas after four months of living in LA. You lived there for four months and you was running it up and you already moved back. And I moved back cause I'm just depressed, bro. That's crazy. It's crazy. But the thing is nothing's happening for me. Like it's just YouTube. So I'm like, bro, I could be doing the same thing at home. Right. Cause I was. So then I go home and I cop a crib. And I bought a house. I bought a house. I bought a, I'm living with my mom for a little bit. I buy a four bedroom house, two story, theater room, big backyard, everything. How'd that feel? It felt cool. I was like, the only reason why I bought the house is because all these old heads were like, you gotta invest, you gotta invest. I was much more of a condo person. I didn't care. And I was making so much bread and the real estate's so cheap. I'm just like, yeah, I'll take this house. Whatever you can get the fastest. Right. So I just bought the house. Okay. How much you bought a house for? Like 280K. And then you just did like a down payment on it. We was our first house. So our down payment was like 1%. Like a 3% down payment or something. Yeah. Oh yeah. So you get like, oh, I thought you 15 down here real quick. So everything starts elevating with the homies at this point. I'm back with all my boys. Okay. It feels great. I'm doing pranks now. Okay. Every video I'm doing, every prank video is hitting like between two and 10 million views. I have a house. We're getting lit in the house. Everything is great. We go on another cruise for my 21st birthday. Okay. Is this like you're taking everybody on the cruise? Yes. Or like your homies is going with you? No, I'm paying for everybody. So I'm paying for like seven of them except for sneaker talk, pay for his own. Like where's the cruise out of? What city? Houston. So we're driving four hours to Houston, Galveston, and then we take off to Mexico or wherever. Okay. So you're paying for the cruise. Bro, life is great at this point. That's when Drake song came out working on the weekend as usual. You know what I mean? Life is good. Everything is great. I am the most egotistical mother ever. Ever. Right. I literally have on that cruise for my 21st birthday. I made the nastiest comments that I will ever make to anybody that I will never talk like this again to people. My head was massive. I just moved back from LA. I lived in LA. I'm making stupid money than anybody my age could even imagine. Right, right, right. I'm 21 years, I just turned 21 years old. We come back from that cruise. My birthday's in January 22nd. We come back from that cruise in February. 2020. Everybody starts making jokes. Oh, did y'all catch the Corona virus out there? Right. I'm like, what are we talking about? Whatever. Right. I can't film no more pranks. We going to lockdown. Oh yeah, because you were filming public pranks and now you can't because everybody's locked down. I'm done with shoes. It's only pranks. And you hadn't been doing shoe videos for a while. I hadn't been doing shoe videos for like a year. Oh, okay. So now that you've built this audience, you created a new audience. Right? You kind of got like, how many subs did you have at that time? Like 1.5, 1.2? 1.5, yeah, 1.2. Okay, so you've cultivated an audience and then structured a new audience that is now paying attention to your stuff but you just like lost the audience. Yep. So then COVID hits, I can't film anything. Everybody's in lockdown. You can't still outside. I'm going crazy, bro. Like I'm literally going crazy. I fly back to LA with my boys, peak COVID, we're the only ones on the flight. Cause I'm like, bro, I gotta film, I gotta film, I gotta film, I gotta film, I gotta film, I gotta film. Film bits in LA, go back to Texas. This is like when I started like. COVID's getting worse. COVID's getting worse. And I'm just at the bottom of the world at this point. Everything's just flat lined. Everything's like going down quick. All the views. Yep. I learned about, I'm trying to figure out how I could pick it up. I learned about Daryl Eves. Okay. I joined his program. Okay. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm running four channels, before the Daryl thing. I'm running four channels at this point, trying to see what sticks to the wall. Daily gaming videos, daily reaction videos, daily family channel videos. Daily. Or not daily, main channel videos, but like weekly sneaker pranks. Oh my gosh. Four channels, three channels are daily. And TikTok, because TikTok was new to the scene. So I'm just like BSing on TikTok. I'm like whatever. I get 500K in like one week from TikTok. But it's like bro, YouTube's my bread and butter. So nothing's working at all. And we're had a savings account of a lot of money, but it's going down because we have nothing coming in. So we bought a Tesla, we bought the house, you know. And so I joined Daryl's program and we're in it for a couple months and nothing's picking up, nothing's picking up, nothing's picking up. And then I decide to try anything. So I'm like let me film a sneaker collection video, see if it just does good. And then I film a sneaker collection video to just touch the water of maybe getting back into shoes. And that's where I stole your thumbnail. It was legit Tim's sneaker collection video. And I was at my lowest point and I didn't have a, I Photoshopped like a bunch of air mags in my hand. And then I researched like a random sneaker wall and we used your sneaker wall. And then that caught your attention, which hit me up, which how we got connected originally on IG. All right. At this time, like you said, you were a part of Daryl's thing. I went to Vid Summit in 2019 in October. That was later though. That was way later. In October. No, I'm saying. 2019. Oh yeah, I didn't go in 2019. Right. I went in 2019. Okay. Okay. I had just got like established of like, I'm gonna do YouTube. Right. I had known who Daryl was for a while, but I just never. I had like, I don't know, was messing around for like the year before or something. Had like 10,000 subs. So I was like, I'm gonna do YouTube, go to an event. I go from 10,000 at the end of October to 30,000 on New Year's. Then I went from 30,000 to 100,000 by from New Year's to November. So I went like, basically I grew 100,000 subs in under a year. That's fire. That's fire. Yeah. So during that time, you're going through the struggle. This is, I'm just pointing pain to picture for myself. But this is 2020, 21. Right. So then 2021 comes, I'm now establishing myself on YouTube. Yup. I'm seeing what? Oh, this is what happens when you're a smaller creator. People take your stuff. They take your idea. They take your thing. I just looked it up on Google or something. No, no, no, no, I'll get it. But you know the same thing. I'm trying to defend myself. Yeah. But you know how it goes. It's a part of the game. You feel offended. You're like, dude, what the heck? Yeah. Like I'm trying to be creative. I'm trying to do something different. I'm trying to show my uniqueness. Right. And then somebody else goes to the same thing or whatever. Right. And then again, there's not like, who is truly original, right? Like everything comes from something. I get that as well. But when you're a small creator, trying to get to a million subscribers, trying to do those things, it does suck. It hurts, it stings. It feels like, right? So for me, I had saw his thumbnail and I'm like, bro, that's my whole shoe wall in the background. Like what the hell? So I sent the photo of him and then I sent the picture of my wall on my Instagram to confirm like it was my photo to him on DM. And I was like, yo, this is my wall or something. But you were cool about it. You weren't like, you're unpissed or anything. I was like, man, at least like let's work on something or something, you know what I'm saying? Right. And that's when I was like completely out of the shoe community. Right. I hadn't been in it for like two years. So I'm like a new person on the scene. I didn't know any up and comers. I hadn't been watching it. I had never known it. I hadn't been looking. Exactly. And I still was into shoes, but like at that point, I had already bought everything I wanted. Right. But you know what's funny? The 2019 of its own, I did pull up too. Oh, you did go? I did pull up to it with my sister. They flew into LA because we were living in Glendale. And this was when me, Ryan Treyhan and Tyler Olavera were like around the same size on YouTube. What? I met them at the same time. We were at the same time on YouTube. Were you? And we literally. Yeah. I went for one day. You weren't like in the back, like when they were all cracking jokes, like the first day. No. And then we all walked to subway together. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because I'm thinking like, if you was a part of that group, that's all the people I met when I started on YouTube. DJ, you gotta realize I was so cocky and prideful at that point. Like I sat with Ryan and Tyler for one single speech. Cause I knew Tyler cause he did like GameStop videos. I think they had just hit a meal or something like that. Yeah. So I'm at like one meal too. So I'm like same size as them. Yeah. I remember there was like a little click of people. So Tyler had done GameStop videos. I was doing GameStop videos and but mine were like absolutely crushing. So we link, we have phone calls. We're cool. So then I see my vids on it. I meet Ryan for the first time. I don't know who Ryan is. Oh, I met Ryan actually at VidCon, but in the gym real quick. So I'm sitting with them for one talk. Dude, just one. Hold on, hold on, hold on, bro. For people that don't know, Ryan Trayhan is now taking over the internet, killing it. How many subs does he have now? Dude, like 13 mil or something, 15 mil. 13 mil, yeah. I don't know. He's amazing. He literally went from like a million subs to like 10 million subs in a couple years, just over these past couple years. He's been crushing. Tyler's destroying right now. Tyler's getting two to three vids a video. Tyler has been redoing his stuff and he's killing it right now. Crushing it. My boy Pasha works for him. He works with him. Yeah, yeah. Both of them are killing it. So they're still great people, but they're very analytical. They're very looking at the analytics and into data and what is the CPM. And I'm just over here living in LA looking at them. And I'm like, do your thing, bro. And I'm just like watching the talk. I hosted for one talk. Right. I was like, I'm out. And I didn't come back. Yeah, see, I'm all about the analytics and everything. So then come full circle. I'm like, I need this now. So we're in COVID. And I mean, I'm young too. So it's like, I wasn't like super cocky, but like you're young. You're making crazy money. You don't need to learn. You got humble. Right. For sure. I did get humble, got humble me for sure. So I needed an answer to pay my bills and stuff. So I joined Darrell's program and I'm doing his method with the pranks, kind of trying to do what I can, but it's really not really working. And then I get back into shoes. And I see traction and I see comments and they're like, this is a team we've been waiting for. This is a team we miss. And then like everything starts gaining momentum. Again, momentum, momentum. Like this is so good. So I'm living in my house two years. I could pay the rent, but I'm at this point, I'm like at rock bottom and I'm starting to come up. So what I did is I literally was like, I was doing the family channel at the time. I mentioned the family channel was a little bit successful. It was over 100K. Because when I was crushing it, I started doing that. And then it was at like 150K. I moved in with my mom full time at that time. And I turned her garage into my bedroom. One, because I wanted to do the family channel full time to try to see if it works. With Beth. With Beth and my siblings. Okay. And we had dogs, so I moved in with dogs. She's with it and she's a real one. So we turned the garage into a room. She loves my sisters, bro. She loves being around them. So she loved being there. So we move into my mom's garage and I'm trying to do the family channel and then I'm slowly coming up with the shoe stuff. But I remember I was literally like this moment too, I never want to get to this point again and I will do whatever I can so I don't have to. I never look at the finances. I never have in the whole relationship with Beth. When we were at our highest, I never looked at our bank account ever, anything. I was just always creating. And I told Beth, I need to order all these shoes from DHgate to make a video. Babe, I don't think you should. What? Babe, we're starting to get views. Like the shoe stuff is doing kind of good compared to the pranks. She's like, no, I don't think you should. And I'm like, why? And I'm like getting frustrated and she's like, we just crossed under our last $5,000 in our account, savings and checkings. That's it. Okay. We are at rock bottom. We have no income coming in. Okay. We are rock bottom, bro. I literally became a monster, bro. I literally was in Darrow's class studying, reading his book, running five miles every single morning, even on Saturday and Sunday, studying algorithms, studying analytics, studying the graphs, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking. Me and Joelle are going crazy, day in and day out, phone calls, hour long phone calls. How can we make this video better? How can we do the challenge? How can we do this? We're living at my mom's, I breathe it, I'm consuming it. The videos start hitting a mill again. Every video, every week starts hitting a mill again. And boy, we worked our butts off and we got back up. And after that, I had recently taken some trips to Austin and we were always filming Austin when I was younger. So we lived there for a year, did our thing, channel was great, kind of, you know, still doing good. We're doing great, taking trips to LA every month still. We meet up with you, we're hanging out, we start going to all-star weekend last year. And you know, I'm going to LA every month. Channels back up again, it's doing great. We're hitting millions again. We're meeting big creators. And this year, we moved back to LA. We've been in LA for about four or five months. Already ready to go. Doing sneaker stuff still, doing bangers back up again. And we're here today. Yeah. So. Crazy, right? It's crazy. It's funny because we go on retracking a little bit. We, again, I was giving them shit about the whole thumbnail thing. And then there's been plenty of times throughout me and you knowing each other that I've shocked you on things and it'd be funny because you'd be like, wait, what? You what? It's just always funny. So I remember hitting you about pulling up to Vid Summit two years ago now, I guess. One year and a half, whatever, I don't know. Pulling up to that one out in LA. And you're like, yeah, I'm going. I'm like, oh, dope. Like, let's link. And then that's where we met. Right. And then I remember we were meeting and I'm like, okay, this dude is a character. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna vibe with this guy yet. I was wilding out, bro. I was still interested in you, but I'm like, could you not? I was like, it was weird though because this was when the channel was back up. Everything was doing great shoe stuff though, again. But I was just having the time of my life in Austin. I was just a nut. I was a lunatic, bro. So I'm like super hyped up on coffee. I'm like super going out and stuff and in the gym and yeah, I didn't expect you to be there at all. Right. So you're already there and you're like, what the hell? I was the only shoe guy that really crossed the line into the real other types of YouTube stuff, like outside of the community. Outside of the community. And I wasn't used to anybody doing that. So when I see you there, I just freaked out. I was like, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at SneakerCon with everybody else? And then I was like, yeah, this is my third event. Right, right. And you're like, what? I'm like, yeah, bro. I was like, you go to other events other than SneakerCon, bro. He was tripping for a minute, but I don't know, I think that another thing. You gotta not only branch out with the content, but you gotta branch out with where you're learning, how you're learning, who you're learning from, not only just in that same industry, but other people as well that can help to that industry, or maybe even a whole different industry, but like business is business. Yeah, bro. And it's crazy because literally when we met at Bit Summit, we realized all the verticals that we had aligned. So I ended up running into DJ, like at every single event that I'm at that year, because with us, it's not just sneakers, it's like sneakers, YouTube, basketball. So it's like, that year, I saw you like every month randomly, because it was like, we ran into each other at Bit Summit, and then it was like, Hi. No, when I see you at the, SneakerStores, we start filming at the awards show. We start filming at SneakerStores, and then I'm still thinking like, I'm still thinking like, this guy's like a sneaker, YouTuber, whatever. He really doesn't know, cool. Like he was at Bit Summit, I was like, you're in LA. I don't like the term sneaker YouTuber at all. Okay, okay, okay. I'll stop saying it. No, no, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. It's not like, I don't care that much, but it just sucks that like the viewer says, Oh, sneaker YouTuber, right? Right. It's like, why can't you just be like a YouTuber or a creator or whatever. We're both out of the community, I would say, for the most part. It's interesting how that's like, how it works because. Well, I feel like sneaker YouTuber is kind of like an old term, because I feel like it was like a bunch of- People say, ShooTuber or whatever. But I feel like that's becoming an old term, bro. Cause that was like really like that, that group of YouTubers that would like travel to SneakerCon, which is like 20 of them. It was really big like three or four years ago, but it's not the same. So I feel like people that are watching this right now have no idea what we're talking about. Cause it's kind of an old term now at this point. When I hear like the word influencer or like sneaker YouTuber or ShooTuber. Yeah, I don't like influencer at all. I don't like influencer at all. I don't like none of that because I'm like, we're also like, again, you're bringing joy and comedy and different things like that. And then I'm bringing joy, comedy, but mainly like education and then bringing different and showing people there's other options in life. Creating creators. So I'm like, I don't even know. I don't even know if I want to be called a creator. Like I don't even like that. I'm like, what's up with that? I don't know. It's just- I gotta tell the story about the Streamys. Oh yeah. So DJ is visiting LA. You're filming At Untide and I'm at home. And I'm visiting LA. I'm visiting LA. I'm living in Austin. Yeah, yeah, you were visiting LA. And me and Beth are there and we get last minute wind that there's the Streamy Awards, which is like the Grammys for YouTubers. And so- It's like a big deal for- Yeah. We are able to go because we didn't even get invited but we know a lot of people in the industry. So we got this credit card, this influencer card and they got a table. Last minute they were like, yo, do you want to go? So they ended up locking it down for us. Which also I'm a member of that same card. Right. And you didn't even know that. At the time, I didn't know. But I didn't get invited from there. I got invited from somebody else. Me and DJ are like acquaintances at this point. Well, we're like becoming friends because we're filming together and stuff but like we're not super tight yet. And also I'm the type that's like, if I didn't met somebody before, one time for two minutes or 30 minutes and I feel like a good vibe. Like I want to work with this person in the future. Like I'm going to approach them like they're one of the homies. For sure. So I'm going to be like, oh, what you doing, bro? Like let's do this or whatever, right? So you hit me and you're like, what are you doing tonight? And I'm like, oh man, bro. Like you're already becoming a homie. So I'm like, DJ's my homie, but also like, I don't want to like, how should I tell him that I want to be like going to this big award show? Like that I'm going into this exclusive award show. Like he's not going to be able to come. Like I can't bring him. He's a smaller YouTuber. He's a smaller YouTuber. Yeah. And so I'm like. At that time I had like a couple hundred thousand subs. So I'm trying to explain it to DJ and I'm like, hey dude, every year they have this award show. It's for big YouTubers. It's called the Streamys. And you're like, I'm here, where you at? And I'm like, boom. I'm like, how? How, bro? I barely got in like last minute today by like the string of my teeth and you're like already there. And I thought you were going to be like, yo, you want to grab some food or something? Bro, I was like. That's why. I don't understand why you would even assume that I was there though if you were there. Cause it's for like massive YouTubers. Well, my thought was like, you had over a million subs. Like it's an event that people would go to. Like I'm going, I'm sure you're probably pulling up. So then that's when Beth and Alexis met because both of our wives meet at the after party. And we ended up like, that's when I feel like we officially locked in in his homies. And then it's like the next month after, me and Joelle fly to All Star weekend because we signed with new management and they give us free tickets. So then we land and you're like, yo, where are you at? And I'm like, this guy, I'm like, this guy is everywhere. Literally everywhere. And then bro, I don't even want to, that's your place to tell them our stories from All Star weekend. But you have the craziest connections. And I'm thinking like this guy's just like a small sneaker, a smaller sneaker YouTuber. Like, sorry, you don't like the term. But you know, he's just a smaller YouTuber. Because I feel like when we think about people on YouTube, like sometimes at the peak, that is like, right, that is like their peak in life, right? So it's like, that's like their degree. Exactly. You had an entire life before you started the channel. Right, right. A lot of people, this is a part of my life. Right. A lot of the people were nobody's before they were nobody's and they were broke before they did YouTube. You were not. You had stuff going for you. You met a bunch of people throughout your whole life. And that's something you definitely got to get into. But. I told a little bit on my channel, like how it went, like same thing like the Travis Scott thing and like all the other stuff I talked about. About All Star weekend? Yeah, I made a video. I did a pickup video. So I kind of went over some of the shoes I copped from the weekend. This guy is crazy. Like literally, the first thing we do is like, hey bro, I'm working with Jordan Brand. Do you want to come to the Zion Williamson event? Right. Closed off event to the public. And yeah, the only reason why you got in was because. Yes, yes. Jordan Brand does not know who I am or they don't care. So I'm the only guest really standing there. The only cameraman I got to get. Zion Williamson is just there performing in front of a bunch of kids. Afterwards, I dab up Zion. Dude, like taking pictures with him. And that was the first super crazy experience. Second crazy experience was like, uh, Travi. Yeah. So we're shopping and I see Travis Scott walking to his pop up and I get star struck. I don't get star struck. Cause we had just left his pop up. We just left his pop up. All of a sudden he Travis Scott in front of me and I'm like Augusto and just all of a sudden DJ just walks in to go chill with Travis Scott. And I'm like, who is this guy? Like who is this dude? And then bro, the last straw was the freaking Hennessy party, bro. The Hennessy party? Oh yeah, that was live. Well, okay, bro. So that's the thing. You know me, like I do a lot of cool stuff. I appreciate all the things I do. I appreciate everybody who supports me and I'm thankful for that. And it's just building genuine connections with people as much as I can. Again, you can't entertain everybody or talk to everybody all the time. But I truly do care about like having these conversations with people, building my network and doing these things. Because like I said, in the past, I don't know if you want to call it my past life, but yeah, selling shoes, doing my stuff, being in the game. You met a lot of people, athletes. I don't work with a lot of pro athletes, rappers, you name it. And I'm not here to flaunt all that stuff on my channel. Yeah, I'd be talking about my experiences and some people see it like, all you trying to flex, but really I'm just like, that's why I made the channel. I want to share my experiences with y'all. You know what I'm saying? Because I want to look back on these videos and be like, I remember these times and now I'm making the videos. Back in the day, I wasn't making the videos. I just had the memories, a couple photos and then just like you, right? You could tell the story and be like, oh, he's not lying. Yeah, yeah. But again, sometimes people don't believe this stuff. I'm telling them if I were to like really tell all these stories from the years, like people just won't believe it because like, how could you be the one? How, why are you, right? And to me, I'm like, that's okay. Disrespectful to me. Cause I'm like, if you don't see my hustle, you don't see my grind. Like, come on now. But it's because you come across so humbly. I feel it. You didn't come across being like, yo, what's up, bro? I work with these athletes and what's up? I know you're a YouTuber. I could probably connect you with all these people. Like you don't talk. Right. You just like should do. And I'm trying to help everybody out. Like again, how do you do it? Cause when you first approached me, I'm a bigger YouTuber, you literally could have said, like you could have flexed everything you had cause most people do when you meet them. I'm this person. I do YouTube, but like, you know, that's what I'm trying to do right now. But like, bro, I know what I normally do is like, I know this person, that person. But you don't come across as like that. I just let it come, like I said, when everything aligns, like you see it, like if it aligns, it makes sense, then that's why I'm at. So like same thing with you. Like I met you and I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah, you got subscribers, all this stuff. Great, like, but if it doesn't align, it doesn't make sense with me. It doesn't make sense. It's just, and at this point, bro, I'm just like at the point where I've done it full time for like 10 years now, like it doesn't even the followers, the money, like doesn't mean anything to me anymore, dude. It's like, and that's my biggest thing. That's what I said. Again, when it comes down to like viewership on my channel and stuff this right now, I did have a long, I don't know if you wanna call it slump, but a long period will say like views may be down or whatever, but my impact was higher than views. Well, yeah, I think for me, I think for me, I'm realizing, dude, that at the core, I am an artist and I think that I appreciate the art and people enjoying the art more than the business side of it. Like for me, having those crazy ideas on YouTube was my art form. And I am at the core, I'm really not a business man. I'm really not an entrepreneur. That's why I don't do merch. That's why I don't do all these things. I am an artist. I was just talking about this yesterday. Like you and your wife have the perfect duo. She's the integrator of the visionary. Right, for sure. In any successful business, you put a visionary and integrator together that both excel in that position and they know their role, it's hard to fill. Well, I feel like that's the, cause truly, I mean, we could just keep talking, but like team works makes the dream work. So back when I was in San Antonio, I'll talk about my boys, my boys, my boys, but like I was the visionary and they worked like hell to make it happen. I've always surrounded myself with people that are like hardest workers in the room, but it's my vision and my lead that kind of gets us there. You know, like they, they're top videographers and stuff like that, but like without the vision, you know what I mean? It's hard. Yeah, you definitely have to have both. It's a crazy thing. I appreciate that, Gloria. Yeah, no, I think just for like creators, especially like having you on being, I guess essentially the first YouTuber on the chain channel, my boy is a YouTuber, but he be bullshitting. So that's why I'm calling you out, bro. But being the first YouTuber on the channel, I feel like it was great to have somebody of your caliber. 100%. I think the biggest advice I could give any creator is just like, if you're in it for the money or you're in it for the followers, just stop doing it because it's not going to come. It sucks because they hear the cliche statement and they just don't want it to go through their skull and realize that's the facts. That's what it is. Like stop doing it for the clout. Stop doing it for the money. Like that's why I say impact and enjoyment. But it's real when I say it though, because I did it before the AdSense program. No, for sure. So it's like, if I did it before the AdSense program, if they took away the AdSense program tomorrow, I will still do it, you know? But what if they took it away tomorrow? If they took it away tomorrow, then Nickelodeon and I'm coming for you. Snack time, here I come. Snap chat, snapping away, baby. Nah, okay, so let's talk about the creation process a little bit more too. For sure. And just mindset behind current era, because you know, we have, gosh, I hate current era. The vlog era, the prank era. Mr. B's ruining too old. Who said that? The Mr. B's era, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, so. I was just playing by the way. It's interesting and what I want to learn too. Did you hear what I said? I heard you. I heard you. I'm just playing guys, cut that. But what I want to learn too is like, I always ask all my friends like to have a million dollars, a million subscribers, a million whatever, right? I always ask them different questions to see like, where they're at now. Sure. And kind of where they want to be with their mindset, how they plan to change their mindset and what they're actively working on with their mindset in their state. So I can see your point of view from where you're at, whether it's whatever metrics that we're measuring. And then I want to talk about that because I can then take that, learn from it and say, okay, if this is the thing that you're now just getting onto at 1.5 million, 3 million subscribers, whatever, you know what I'm saying? Let me adopt that at 300,000 subscribers. Let me adopt that at three properties in my portfolio or X amount of dollars in my channel. 100%, 100%. So what are you like really focusing on in mindset? For me, I just feel like I've been on YouTube as long as YouTube has been. I've seen people come and I've seen people go. I've seen people go get rich and I've seen people get broke. And ultimately YouTube is, it's a hamster wheel. It's a hamster wheel. For sure. Where you just make content, make the money, make content, make the money, make content, make the money. I don't see, I don't see you just doing YouTube and things magically happen for you. I think like you have to use what you've built and kind of like use it in a way to make other things outside of YouTube work for you. So whether that's Logan Paul using his fame for getting on WWE or whether that's Mr. Beast using his fame for and his money for starting a chocolate bar business that can run if the channel goes down tomorrow. Like this game is not, the money is not promised and it comes and it goes and it's not consistent. It's never been consistent. There's been high months and there's been low months. And it's just, I mean, I think in a lot of things in life though it's like high months, low life, low months. Whether you do real estate or whether you do, you know, you have your own business, there's high months and low months if you want to be an entrepreneur and if you want to be in this game not working a regular job. Yeah, I mean, I just think like YouTube, the platform changes so much and so quick that I think like I just think you gotta have things working for you outside of YouTube for sure. I think for me I just got so comfortable with like making the money that I was making that I never really felt like doing anything else. Like building a business. And I also feel like it also held me back from the other things that I have to offer to this world. Like I don't see myself being 40 years old making videos about shoes and that's all I'm known for my entire life. I feel like I have that era in my life and I feel like there's so much room for me to grow. I'm only 25 and I feel like the world is an oyster and I feel like there's so much more to offer to this world. And I feel like it's kind of like the guy that peaks in high school. Like I don't want to be the guy that peaks in high school. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. We used to have our whole lives living. It's hard too because I feel like I'm gonna love shoes for everything. For sure. And I'm gonna always have a fire collection. For sure. And I don't think you should ever stop YouTube. I don't think I'll ever stop YouTube but it's just like chasing that hamster will. Yeah, and it's hard too because yeah making pivots on your channel or starting a new channel like pivoting is not easy. No. Retraining the algorithm. It's funny cause people say oh, no you do need to retrain the algorithm. You do need to redo some videos or hide some videos to let your algorithm to see new SEO and get on that new pattern and know what to push because if you confuse the algorithm that it's not gonna know what to push because it's whole goal is to what? Put videos in front of the viewers. And I also think like you have to be full force on YouTube like at all times. Like if you don't have a team, you gotta be studying. You gotta be seeing what did well, what didn't. You gotta see thumbnails. You gotta see retention. You gotta see creation. You gotta see ideas and trendy new ideas too. I think that's been my biggest problem lately, especially. Like I mean there's other external factors that aligned with me slowing down a little bit but I was always like, I made it for the passion of it and helping people like learn through tutorials and building evergreen videos which has a great long-term effect. But at the same time, I know how hard I have obsessed over YouTube. And I know that the peak of me obsessing over YouTube was not enough. Like I could go harder. But I have to sacrifice something else. So now I'm in the state of like, what do I sacrifice to get to where I wanna be? Yeah, bro, the moments that I've done the best, YouTube is it. That's all you breathe. And I remember that when I played football and I know those moments. I know those times, trust me that lasted for a while. But at the same time, I was running a six-figure business. I was a college student and I was playing football trying to pursue the NFL. And I remember the peak of that, but I'm always doing something else. So it's hard, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm in that weird position of still like, bro, I can do this, I can do that. And then I'm still trying to grow my portfolio and all those things. So I'm like, how can I align growing my real estate portfolio with content and all the other ideas? And they always say like, it's like, oh, just hire employees, but the employees are not gonna care like you do. Bro, it's just gonna hit different. Yeah, I don't know. Life is a really tricky thing, bro. And I think like, for me, it's like, yeah, don't get too comfortable with YouTube. But at the same time, it's like you gotta focus all in when you really want it bad. And it's funny, like, it's funny hearing you say that, not like I haven't heard it before or whatever, right? But sometimes you need to hear it that 17th time to hear it, right? And I was at Vid Summit a few months ago and one of my homies, he's always been real with me. He's got a few million subscribers. He does food content. And he's like, bro, he's like, I was telling him, it's crazy because in the moment, and there's different ways to look at it, bro, but it's crazy because like I said, external things. Like my grandpa passed away in the summertime. Like I've been going through a lot of stuff with my family before he passed away, going through a lot. This has been like a rough ass year for me, like going through a lot of different things. And as I talked to him about it, and he's like, oh, what's up? What's the growth look like? Cause I'm supposed to go out there and collab with him. Three different, two different occasions. I haven't been able to make it. So, so whatever. And then like the other one, I don't, he wasn't mad at all. Like literally it was my grandpa's funeral. Like I'm like, I'm not going. Of course. You know what I'm saying? Cause I had it scheduled and then like things changed. And he was like completely understand. But at the same time, when I seen him in person, all love, all everything. And he said the same thing. Like, you have to obsess over this. And everybody needs to understand that this is your number one priority. If you want to get to where I'm at, if you want to get these type of bags, you want to have this type of impact. If you want to get this type of audience, you have to go crazy with it. And I'm like, that was what made me be like, damn bro. Yeah. I mean, I'm at a point bro, where I feel like I've lived multiple lives. Like you too has blessed me. God has blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined with YouTube. And I've done it all bro. Like I've done it all. I've been to like, you know, after the Logan Paul fight, we were at the club with like David Dobrik and Jake Paul and Wolfie and Chris Brown and like in LA and like, you know, I feel like I've done everything there is to do on YouTube. So I feel like next 10 years, I want to dedicate to something else, which is getting into acting, which was my first passion before YouTube, which is a much bigger scale and a much bigger ceiling. Personally, I think that like, bro, if YouTube is your passion right now, then chase it and get it dude and grab it because it's only getting bigger. But I think like for me, I am beyond blessed. Even if I kept doing YouTube for the next 10 years, still be blessed to do it. But I feel as I've, especially with the shoe thing that you can relate to, my whole career, I felt like I've been in a box and I feel like I can't grow outside the box because of the algorithm won't let you from the shoe stuff. You know, I had success one time with the pranks and then I just came back in the box. Right. And see, that's the thing too, like what you're talking about right there, like I'm hearing that from people that was bigger and I'm like, again, I'm measuring, cause it's all about how you measure success, right? And the way I'm measuring it is looking at what, like I said, impact, this video has huge impact. That's my highest priority towards success. So I'm like, oh, I'm fine if this video gets 12,000 views and this one gets 700,000 views and it doesn't have as big of an impact. I'm like, the one that I care about most is the smaller one, right? But again, then it's like you gotta find the balance. I think it all comes down to passion, bro. Passion and not following the money. And yeah, I mean, I'm just really, I'm just trying to grow outside of what I, I'm trying to push myself to the limit and do what I know that I can do, which is really be one of the top actors in the world. And we say it here and it sounds crazy. Oh, I mean, I don't think it sounds crazy. It's funny because I was just talking to, I was at a event and somebody was like, talking about how, cause he's a billionaire and he was like, talking about how he's gonna create the next Walt Disney. And the lady sitting next to me laughed and I looked over at her, I said, what you laughing at? He getting money and you not. Like what is so funny? Like it's funny because people really be laughing at that stuff. It's funny to me that that's the funny part. The people that are laughing. 100%. I'm like, you're crazy, bro. These people are the ones that's actually making stuff happen. So for me, I mean, it's hard for me to tell you like what to do next with YouTube. Cause I've kind of like, it's happened for me, but if you want it bad enough, you'll get it. A YouTuber told me this many years ago before I hit a mail, he's like, you'll get it. You'll get it. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't believe him cause I was like, but how, but how as a little kid, like how I want a million. And he was like, I see it in you. You'll get it. And if you want it that bad, then you will get it. But I have to say, I have to do the same thing with acting now. I have to want it more than I want to breathe. I have to breathe it in and breathe it out, study the grades day in and day out, you know? So I think it comes down to passion. Your passion will fill you and it'll allow you to do the things that you want to do and then everything else will follow. For sure. For sure. Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm excited. And you see like, like you said, it's a breath of fresh air when you come on my channel and film videos. Cause it's like a whole different vibe. 100%. It feels organic. 100%. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just like, cause I'm like, this is the stuff I really want to talk about. Like, yeah, I can make the video that goes, gets a lot of views, but I'm like, I don't want to talk about that stuff. I don't care about that. Right. Like, why am I making a video? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I'd rather take the long road. It's going to take a little bit longer, but it's cool. Like we're going to get there the right way. 100%. So that's kind of how I'd be. I'm proud of you, bro. Appreciate it, bro. You too. And big things only from here. Okay. Let's, you want to wrap it up? Yeah, they've been here for like 10 minutes. Oh, the girls? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right, the girls are out. We've got to do a part two next time in Portland. Yeah, we just got done shooting my new videos. We've been filming a lot, y'all. We've been filming a lot. We've been going crazy. All right, fire around. Let's hit them up. Let's just finish it up right here. Yup. Okay, fire around. Oh, what's the greatest shoe of all time? Oh, Concord 11, Jordan 11. Oh, greatest shoe of all time. Bro, you say that so quick. What? That's my favorite shoe, but like greatest shoe of all time. Bro, you're not the first person that said that on that podcast. I don't. I know, but like you're like the greatest shoe of all time. Like I haven't had time to think about that, bro. People ask me the question all the time, so I'm just re-spitting the questions out to y'all. Okay, sure. That was like a freaking fire around. How many pairs of shoes do you have in your collection? Maybe like 70, but like some in Austin, some in San Antonio, some in LA. Okay, what is the most you spent on a pair of shoes? $7,000. Nike Air Mag. Nike Mags. Couple years back. They went out. And you ran a mile in those. What did you do? I ran in the Heigton. He was hiking. I was breathing for YouTube, bro. I was breathing in the YouTube. And I said, I do not care about the shoes. I'm gonna get a million views. Get the views. No, I wasn't even about the views. It was about the heart. Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right. Break it down from a business standpoint. Oh, for the Mags? You paid it? I paid, okay. You paid $7,000. So when you get a million views for a video around the time, the CPM was like $6,000, $7,000 for a million views. Yeah, that's about, okay. Every video I would film with the Mags would hit a million views. So I multiply my investment times five or something. I feel like over and all the time. So you spent $7,000 and you made 30 or whatever. Yeah, we'll take it. Just for example. Just for having them in the video. Buy the shoe, make the investment. So all small YouTubers buy the Mag, not try it. Right, right. No, they were trendy at the time. It doesn't make sense anymore. Yeah, yeah, I know I got mine late. Right. But I ain't even made no videos. I don't know, maybe it's still work. I don't know. We'll see. I'll barely take mine out of the case. We'll see. Okay, how many shoes you got? What you got there? Boom, boom, boom. If you could only have one shoe in your collection for the rest of your life, what would it be? Presto Off-White, All-White. All-White? All-White. Really. Most comfortable shoes I'll match with everything. I feel that. You should go with the black though because then it'll really go. I love white shoes, bro. I feel it. Concord 11. I feel that. Okay, all right. Well, you want to wrap up. Tell them where they could find you. We'll have everything linked down below. All right, y'all. You can find me over at Jimmy Donaldson. Y'all can find me at Legitim. Everything Legitim on socials. I appreciate you guys for watching. Jordan Brandt invite us next time at the Zion event. I don't want to sneak in as a guest. Peace. All right, y'all. We all don't forget to subscribe. Don't forget to download. Don't forget to do all those things. Give us a five-star rating as well. I appreciate you guys' support. Oh, and this year, DJ went to the Streamies and I snuck in. Because of DJ, so shout out to DJ. Oh, that got him in. That's actually funny. I forgot about that. I snuck in, baby. All right, we out.