Helping Millions Facing The Cost Of Living Crisis.

hey Matt welcome to the podcast um so I'm gonna get you quickly introduce yourself you can do it to that camera yeah I've seen this before hey guys I'm Emma do anything specific but where do you come from what did you do um I'm from a small town originally I'm from whakatani I've moved back to Auckland so that's kind of my story I grew up in on a farm that had pretty much no internet yeah and I was a kid that was addicted to the Internet so maybe it's that kind of uh juxtaposition I'd use the school Wi-Fi or like public hot spots to like download my YouTube videos for the week um and I've just kind of been obsessed with content and content creators

ever since I was a kid that's cool and now I finally made the leap to try it out and become one of myself that's awesome and um where was he going to get into your creative Journey but the thing I noticed when you walked in and literally like the 20 minutes before the podcast started it's all been on like tick like you just like geeked out on the Sony like you talked about all the stuff and this is the first time I've had that eh and any of them no one's ever done that ever and I think that's like that highlights something there and then to what you just said how you're like small town girl loved on internet like tell me about that like

what where did that interest start from I I don't know I guess like none of my siblings are really too much into the internet or Internet culture I think it was really the fact that I couldn't have it and so when I was at like school I'd be like researching and I was super into YouTube when YouTube was coming up um and I would just like watch endless YouTube comment content as much as I could like in the back office of my dad's work when I was there for hours yeah um watching creators kind of like from the ground up before content creation was even a big thing and it's just so fascinated by video content creation and what they could do just completely by

themselves yeah I was really interesting about that and you talked about the Sony's why Sony's what brought you into the Sony world because if a video yeah yeah they're like one of you know the big three but then Sony's like known for video and I was always like yeah I did Photography in high school but I was never really into photography I was more so into into video content because I loved YouTube so much yeah cool that's awesome that's cool I think it's actually a real interesting point and we don't have to spend too long on here but like like we said like I don't know what are you up to now 17 or something episode to it done and talk to creators and no

one's ever geeked out on the tech yeah no one's even cared and actually when you talk to them it's not like they don't think that way either they just think story and that's it yeah and not that you don't but that's all they think so it's quite interesting to like have someone because like for us like I mean for for Conor especially in our team all the videographers like it's cameras for well I've noticing cameras first but like hey like he's used to using camera yes and like actually going down to like Joni walking in and only being able to do anything on a phone it's so funny like she's like like I've tried to edit on my phone and I just it's so slow

Joni hated it on a computer but I reckon almost every Creator I couldn't tell you one I think of the top of my head who would have hit it on a computer a I've tried because I love the idea of like sitting on the train and just getting all my editing done but nah it's too slow for me because I've learned all that on yeah on my desktops what are you using desktop um I use Final Cut Pro okay cool um so yeah apple ecosystem is fantastic when you have iPhone you can just airdrop everything in in minutes and for me that's the fastest way to get a video at nice and are you editing on so you're editing on MacBooks or something like that

yeah yeah I have an iMac iMac a nice little green one oh yeah cool yeah they're new in months yeah yeah um how uh how is that actually I understood on this thing no because like I'm a third content creator but let's talk about yeah this is Stanley tick tick I thought they were ridiculous yeah why I mix I never had a desktop computer before and I already had a laptop yeah and I was looking for something that had better processing power and something that would get me off my bed and onto a desk yeah and they had the M1 chip so I was like yeah okay interesting yeah yeah yeah yeah that's really interesting and it was affordable enough yeah like the actual big

beasts that are good for video editing I'm like a game that's not really affordable so yeah we um so really if you haven't already watched all my stuff I hate Apple products yeah um and this is probably the one Apple product that I eat the ecosystem with airdrops everything about the same song on their heads or two yeah so they do have it like like my Google everything on the Samsung is already on my PC instantly synced um so you don't need full quality yeah yeah yeah it's just it's just a teardrop it's one it's just um Google Google Drive um but there we bought the guys where'd you get Max studio so we bought the guys next year's because but you know what the

funniest thing is the reason the reason I did it it was half the price of an equivalent PC no way the max fuse I thought you were gonna say you did it to keep your employees happy okay there was a lot of complaints there was a lot of old dogs yeah oh man the stop then I gave up Connor just win mate keep going all the time yeah um I got what I wanted I don't know if you could like force me to go back to Windows after being on Apple for so long I literally did it I saved eight thousand dollars that's awesome sweet and then he gets that I don't have to [ __ ] listen to and you know what you know I haven't

the first couple days yeah he was whinging about [ __ ] it's because I needed the laptop it's okay cool that was a random interesting to the Stan's planning podcast um but that's great because actually I think it's quite interesting um it's an interesting concept because it's not something we've had before but I do want to actually get into where I was going to start yeah where did where did it start you kind of touched on it just before like you made the leap to start doing it permanently yes tell me how did that happen so as you know a big YouTube fan girl like so I love content I always did like little like Vlogs on the side of like just holidays and I love creating

video content and um in uni I was doing com so I was doing a lot of that kind of stuff really wanted to get into advertising so that was kind of the career trajectory for me yeah um and my sister at the time my older sister she worked for um like the biggest organic a company and for food production in um Auckland and she was like we need social media content we need like videos like recipe videos do you reckon you could do that and I'm like I'm not actually like a chef or like a recipe person but I love tasty videos you know back in the day the classic top down I was like yeah I can film one of those yeah um and

so I did that as like a side hustle during uni and I loved it I was like this is great um five years ago okay yep yep yeah yeah so with my my old camera yeah rocking up to the the boss's house and we just filmed recipe videos together um and I loved it and I was like this is cool um and that maybe kind of led to the style of content that I do now um I always knew one day like I should give it a go like just creating content with my own name on it yeah um and I was very for a long time picking actually like picking my Niche like because that's what you do right you start with a niche

and then you can Branch out later yeah um and I was like super into budgeting and saving up for my house so I was like okay I can't start becoming this lifestyle person that like does interesting things every day because I can't afford to do interesting things every day I was like what do I always do I always cook yeah and I actually have a good repertoire of good like meals that I make every single day because I do cook for myself every single meal that I make um and so I was like I think this will be interesting to people and at the same time I keep using getting messages from like friends who are like just starting their Journey like living away from

home and they're like Emma because I'm the only one they know that like Cooks every night or like you know flats for myself um and they're like how do you do it what's like some budget recipe ideas that I can like cook what are you cooking tonight what do you like what should I buy like can you share me like your receipt of your grocery list because I have no idea what to buy at the supermarket and I was like okay sure I'll send you all these I was trying to find videos online to give them yeah and I was like ah like if you search budget recipes it's all like either from the UK from the US and they're like use tomatoes and I'm

like tomatoes are really expensive you know like they're not in season with New Zealand yeah and so I was thinking about that and I was like oh actually like no one's doing this in New Zealand really and I could do this and they could just send the videos to my friends instead and be like this is what I'm making this is how much it costs you should make it it's cheap and it's using and seasoned stuff in New Zealand and when was that when did that start um that was a bit after the first of the other videos yeah yeah yeah so I kind of set myself a little goal because I started um is it last year so last January yeah yeah um so

I've been doing it for a year and a bit now um and I literally for like first of January decided to like I I've made heaps of content the months before so that I had like batched yeah like ready to launch um and yes started on that date and then set it out and just was like see how we go do you reckon we can get like you know 200 followers yeah in a year maybe I don't know I don't know I had no idea what goals to sit for myself but I know that growing an audience from scratch is difficult yeah so I was like let's just let's try it and see and what platform was first I did Tick Tock and Instagram same

time okay because reels were already available I knew it I was like yep sweet can repurpose content on both let's try it that's what you did just purely repurposing or did you do a strategy for each um I did my objective was to have as much content and most of my content worked on both so there's only a few things that I posted on one or the other yeah okay cool um now talk to me about the beginning then that so Jan 2022 you went to launch tell me about the months or whatever leading up making all that batching content and planning now tell me about that strategy like what was it how did you figure that out oh I'm a big fan of notion

yeah yeah so I had my little notion slide collected all the video ideas and I had like lists and lists of video ideas because my brain has been absorbing content for years so I'm like yep I've got this so many videos I want to make and then I just started like each weekend when I had some Spare Time made one video and then I was like edit save ready to go yeah and what was so so you have the content ideas you have the notion and all that sort of stuff um planning usernames planning yeah yeah what about different content pillars gonna be what was that okay can you share some of that stuff like what was how did you strategize it out what did

you come up with so I wanted to do like I knew that I wanted to have a series around budget yeah like because I knew that that would be quite topical and that that's what my friends were interested in and so I knew that I was going to have like a budget meal prepping kind of series um I was calorie counting at the time and that was really trendy and I was like okay cool we can do a little bit around that um oats were super trendy it was like baked oats using air fryer and all that kind of stuff so I was like hey cool I have like a layer of like Trend like trending recipes that I would do yeah um and then

I wanted to share my grocery hauls yep um because everyone that I tell how much I spend on groceries was like what so how much you spend like I spent way more than that and I'm like no literally this is a fine art I finished this is uni like you can like get really cheap groceries yep where did that come from at Uni like that I was terrifying so I like from small town at 18 left the house uni buying groceries for the first time I was like I'm gonna waste all my money I've been like because I saved for uni right so that I could I could make it to come up here and I was like I'm gonna buy limes when they're not

cheap and I'm not gonna know what what it is for a fruit to be cheap so yeah um I kind of just like completely analyzed it and it was like testing and learning with my groceries and back then it was 50 bucks a week yeah which was real cool that is crazy and now it's 70 bucks a week for just myself yeah that is um I mean yeah when I was so in 2008 I love this because yeah in 2008 I was living in the Gold Coast it was my cousin and my brother loving me we ended up being homeless for a bit because we what we were done we moved to Gold Coast in March with not many savings oh we had we didn't

have much but I got a job pretty fast but the thing is we we rented an apartment and we got it for six months real easy as great apartment it's quite cheap and like sweet this is easy we Meant To Go Renew and the guy's like no we're not renewing I'm like wait and why not and he's like because it's Indy the Indianapolis is on like you're right on the Strip of the Indianapolis like we're going to sell that for like 200 a night every single night for two weeks and I was like so they kicked us out but we didn't even plan we didn't even think that we're gonna have to find someone else and then because it's Indy no one's renting and so

like we couldn't get a place at all so we ended up living in like what we used to call Hotel Magna which is like I mean but at the same time the global financial crisis was kicking in so all the Japanese stopped traveling as tourists all this my my brother my cousin got laid off at the same time and so it was just my salary I was fine I was in hotels and Indie was on so I was busy as [ __ ] and it was heaps of money but oh not heaps of money but like heaps of work yeah and but I had to feed three grown men and that's that's rough all Islanders and you'll see because he's a good guy like three big men

and I was like nah nah I haven't got money for this [ __ ] yeah we're going budget yeah remember like I could feed yeah I could feed all three of us on 100 bucks a week nice in Australia and we had to cook it because we were 100 six weeks on the barbecues it was rough like it was a rough time I was young but like it was rough time but like I I still it's some of that obvious memories but it feels rough but we used to get like um a big bag of 5kg rice yeah so we've always had rice so always cook rice and then so we're cooking rice on the barbecues outside but he's got a pot from this um the like

that sounds like some adventure oh my goodness oh man just like life like literary things doing all the rice and then we get like chicken wings yeah because you get them from the butcher you get a 5kg bag for like ten dollars yeah and so I was just like we're just poor like a kg or two of chicken wings and cook those um because it's the cheapest meat to dollar ratio yeah it was chicken wings I love that you've done that math as well like yeah 100 and rice was most the most carbohydrates like calories per dollar yes it's cheaper than potato and bread and all that pasta and pasta so rice is the cheapest especially when you buy the biggest bags um so those

are like 100 bucks like three grown men and and for veggies uh because you could cook some veggies but I was like I was real worried about us getting yeah exactly I don't know if this is in hindsight this is so stupid but I was buying V8 juice and I was like I was like I was like bro guys you just got it drink it no to be honest I love that juice you got a straight couple day like we got to stay healthy and I bought these hot Mighty multivitamins because I was like bro like we're living in a car for six weeks like we needed and then like I got I cracked it at one point yeah and I was like like I'm

just gonna get a place like because like the problem was I couldn't afford to get us all through a place on my one thing yeah I couldn't pay rent for three of those and they probably wouldn't like sign you on with just one one two yeah so I ended up finding a room and it was so so good that the guy lived there uh my little brother ended up finding a place to live I found a place to live and then the guy had garage he was like oh does your cousin just want to live in the garage like there's a bed in there and all sort of stuff it was a good I think we ended up we're fine but um but yeah shopping

cheap can be done but people just don't want it I don't do it anymore I'm just gonna be transparent as [ __ ] radio yeah like the the 50 to 70. I don't know it's like are you always a ball out as much please thank you for working on a Friday afternoon I'm sorry this was the only time I was available yeah we've got um we're painting a fridge you would have walked I saw it yours which is kind of interesting hey do you know her Kate Richard I know you know I will definitely check her out yeah yeah yeah this is pretty similar but I feel like I've seen the fridge like painted video so I'm like yeah yeah 25 mil one yeah it's crazy that's

why we did that that's cool um but yeah anyway um but I love that uh tell me so you started last year yep where are you now in terms of like lifestyle like is this like a full-time thing is this a side hustle still like where are you at like tell me where your current situation is and just like work what are you doing how do you sustain this yeah well I work full-time so this is just a weekend thing for me um and it's a good side hustle cool perfect yeah and and you want it to grow into the long-term thing obviously because you're like a YouTube fiend or you love your job I I love security of a full-time salary job yeah but

I I have like I got time yeah I gotta I always got time to make content and I'm not one of the people that make three videos a week so I'm like very comfortable with like it growing slowly and what is thinking content what's the full my day job um I work in digital marketing oh cool yeah yeah no and so what role what do you do do you make content yeah but run all the ads on Facebook and meta and stuff so real big so you're doing insights crossing over so you're doing creative air needs yeah interesting yeah yeah it's cool yeah it's real good I love it yeah it's exciting because when I when I was like in high school I was like

okay my goal I want to do like marketing or ads like I loved watching TV ads and I was just like I want to make the world not suck as much when it comes to ads and I don't want boring ads because they suck and ads can be fun yeah and so that was kind of my mission um and then As I Grew Older social media evolved and suddenly ads look different now and and now ads live on social media and I'm like this is this is cool this is like YouTube content kind of but yeah but it's different right it's all changed now yeah I don't think you can ever predict when you are like in high school like your dream job doesn't exist

yet most of the time my mom still doesn't even really understand how like she's like wait LinkedIn like how do you make how do you build business how did you get into agency from like Hotel business completely randomly fell into it yeah so I learned LinkedIn like so like you I watch I consumed this is actually like a good point like for people who get invested into Worlds as like I consume Lots yes whenever you know people who are real good at on what platform was your favorite YouTube YouTube all day yeah it's still where I consume the most I only want to switch to tiktok oh anyway YouTube like because you can see your analytics on your phone and it used to be hours

of YouTube and now it's hours of tech talk oh I guess it's changed the only reason I spend time on Tick Tock is for hopeful work yeah I don't I love to like I loved it yeah yeah but I you're a long form content guy I love YouTube yeah and I like I watch shorts and Tick Tock heaps but I'm usually in there like researching like because I'm as soon as I see a video I like it I'm always scrolling and then I'm like this counts as research right I barely get through Scrolls like as soon as I find something that's interesting whatever it is I'll save it I'll go into that and I'll deep dive and I'll find out where things go but um

yeah I lucked into agency life like got into LinkedIn because yeah they use it in hotels and then made content and that took off um people started asking me to do it for them yes okay that makes sense yeah yeah okay well it's good so I moved back to New Zealand not knowing what I was going to do yeah so did you start off kind of freelancing helping people with their LinkedIn never really freelancing like yeah I wouldn't say it was freelancing at all like I because I consume dots and then I moved to New Zealand to and I used LinkedIn to meet people yeah and then lockdown happened to people like Stan I want that thing that you do for yourself can you teach

us and online that like I don't want to be a coach yeah another [ __ ] LinkedIn coach um so I became like a um I think they're linked influences now oh that's not even it is a fine okay LinkedIn coaches people who go on YouTube and learn how to make use LinkedIn and pay people okay all the knowledge that they've done on YouTube mine was about executing for people and that's why we always we always talk about we don't sell knowledge we sell execution and and so that just started from that snowboard like in lockdown it snowballed from there and then we got to this and then Tick Tock came in now we're doing YouTube awesome amazing office yeah and it just all blew out of

that cool um what I was going to ask though is do you talk about where you work no you don't want to talk about where you work no that's fine but what when you're doing creative for them do you treat it the same way you treat this or do we take a different approach for the business it's different because it's mainly ads not organic okay yeah which is really fun because I get to explore I almost get to prove that I'm good at organic yeah and doing and doing this yeah do you we need okay this is interesting I want to talk I'm going to stick on this for a little bit with your when you say I'm doing ads is um without giving us

too much weight is it product or service that they're selling product okay and are they consumable products or are they fmcg like fast moving Goods Okay cool so when you say you're making ads or you're putting them on social media and all social media no that's what I mean like web search all of them yep so tell me when you think of the difference between those that creative and this creative what's the difference for you um the difference is that people are more happy to watch organic for longer so you can kind of build a different narrative um whereas with paid Max you're going to get three seconds and so you have to kind of articulate you have to craft the story for those that

will listen for longer and also capture all the people that will scroll past in three seconds so that the branding is still there yeah and that's the difference I guess yeah cool interesting um and with your pieces of creative on average how long do you think they are for ads oh it's it's really anything anything it depends on the idea yeah okay yeah but you've always got like a three second bit to go it's always it's always like do we have the tick off as the as branding in the first three seconds and I kind of add that to when I do um paid deals for this just because of that knowledge I'll like always I'll sprinkle that in there make sure their logos or

their products in the first three seconds so they'll be happy yeah okay cool and then when you're doing these ads and stuff is it all performance is it all conversion is that what you're trying to do you're just trying to get sales from them no it's Oh you mean for ads if you have the beds for the for your work for my work um it's a mix it's a mix of top funnel bottom funnel it depends on yeah add top funnel and bottle funnel um I guess the yeah yeah like awareness adds a more around like a new product or getting that product out there to as many people as possible it changes the way that you set it up in the back end um

whereas bottom of the funnel is more for the the people that are loyalists to the product um and they're yeah consuming it so it's like more information around the product um and engaging the community that consumes it yeah interesting I find it real interesting talking to people in that world and the reason being is like we because so so we obviously do some of that work and ads and stuff like that and whenever we're like client come source with ads we uh we have like a real different philosophy on it oh yeah I know I've been watching you guys since the beginning I love it you guys are so much more focused on engagement the engagement than awareness which is yeah exactly no other agencies

doing that I feel no they're not really yeah because it's so driven by it's all about CPM getting their costs down getting The Branding up getting it as to as many kiwis as possible exactly and like we just like those ideas this is more about attention well that's it and it's more about like um we kind of think that like if you can get people to we actually like I actually think if your content performs organic that's the best ad the best possible way oh yeah and so like and like I don't know because the an organic view is worth so much more than a paid for you so much yeah but but even like even um even putting money behind it if it's gone

well organic and putting money behind it like but I but I would like to talk about that because I think it's quite interesting because you then make ads for your own yes yeah and I think that's interesting for creators who are doing ads because you work in the Ed space so you're obviously going to make pretty good ads like that one there the third one you're holding the ten dollar yeah that's that's outrageous yeah that is outrageous at 824 000 for the size of her audience like and oh that one was boosted by the race oh okay yeah I was gonna say I was going to say because the engagement's still really high like the engagement's still high yeah which I'm proud of which is

makes it okay and I think um so tell me about that like tell me about the process of making this like how did you decide like how was the process for making something like this like how do you strategize this out I guess for for a lot of the brand deals that I get they have quite specific briefs yeah and so my I'm a very much a people pleaser so I will just try and deliver to the brief as much as I can whilst keeping it in aligned with content that makes sense for my channel yeah um and I'm quite fortunate that um fortunate or planned strategically that I make content in a space in which the brands that reach out to me it's it's

food which is really easy so I can create a piece of content around that um so yeah so their their brief was to create um a um budget-friendly meal that a budget-friendly dinner that um spoke to the everyday low price range and so it was I was like sweet so I went through their entire website of the everyday low price products and I was like okay what meal can I put together with this and I did all the math so that I could get the price per meal um and then yeah worked it out and then I was like okay I know that it's going to be good to get footage at the store yeah and you'll be able to get more branding in there

that way because the actual products aren't New World products um yeah yeah so went out filmed it dragged my partner to like help me film it in the beginning I was like sorry but I'll treat you out to a nice dinner I love it um yeah made it is it it's quite similar to the rest of the content I do that video and that's what I wanted to say because like we had like um like turanga when he was talking about some of his stuff and even when we took them a bit off camera he was saying how he struggles with ads because the style of content he makes sense yeah it's so hard and so do you think that that's like if someone's wanting

to do this more that's if you were to redo this again do you think that's the way just make content you know ads will wanna or Brands will want to make it yeah so I guess because this podcast is mainly for people that are looking to create content and potentially make money creating content it is and it's the advice I give to my friends who are like I want to be a content creator too I'm like yeah sure what do you want to do it's like oh that that doesn't sound brand safe yeah so yeah it is some things to take into consideration because um I think about this all the time like when I was strategizing my account I was like oh a lot

of tech talk is like trending audios for example or there's this amazing guy that does cooking videos to music and he's like I love this content yeah but then like you if that is the content that constantly goes viral for you or if the content that does go viral for you isn't really adaptable for ads then you're kind of like you you'll still get ad deals yeah but they won't perform they won't because they'll be so different to the rest of your content and then you're like ah you might get not repeat clients I guess in that aspect so yeah it is something to think about if that is your purpose if your purpose is to grow and become viral and be as big as

possible you can do whatever you think is the most engaging yeah for an audience but yeah and I think that that's actually a real interesting point because like anyone who just wants to go for all they actually want to go far because they want to make money they yeah no they don't yeah there's very few there's very few who go viral it's a lot of effort it's a lot of effort to maintain an account and if you're doing it for the love of it I mean go you and it's not necessarily like you got to make money to be stupidly Rich yeah but if you really want to go viral make lots of videos all the time like you said it's time yeah it's time

and you need to do it full time yeah so to do it full time you need brand deals yeah and like I've said that to Joni before like you're not going to get brand deals as often because you talk about person on your partner like like you're not getting brand deals um just do that video and make sure that there's five videos after that so that that's and that was the most recent video someone finds this is oh sorry did I just pulled that hey um this is the thing that video set with no new videos for like 10 days and at the time that that is we win the one NZ Deal started and then Kimberly who we work with who's amazing and was

fine with it all yeah showed Joni's profile to her bosses and they're all like wait what these people you want them I was thinking about that because you um with all the attention to your content you also tag your employees in all the videos which I reckon is awesome but that's also quite a do do you consider the risk of like I guess do you have it in your like employee contract be like yo we're gonna tag you in content don't make any bad content if oh so we don't or we don't have people who make stupid content stuff that we wouldn't be okay with like I don't mind like for me I'm just like you're a weirdo Janie that you make this sort of

stuff anyway yeah put too much information but I think that if we had a staff member who went off and did stuff that was like um you know things that didn't align with our values or ethics yeah that they would probably be gone that one they probably wouldn't have got through the interviews super robust like we do a group interview they do an interview of the team they do an interview of last week we social media stalked the [ __ ] out of them yeah um and like we look into it and I I just don't think we would find that but if we did yeah they wouldn't last long they would be found out pretty fast like they wouldn't click with the rest of the guys

like well like the guy's allowed to be crazy as crap and like you know one of the one of the the guys in the team hasn't only fans that we don't know anything about or well I I I don't I know that anyone else on the team but I don't but like we don't care like it's fine go for it like and if if any client goes I'm not going to work with you because you don't need to hit a piss video or such and such has got to own any fans or those persons got the stupid thing on their Tick Tock it's like well you we're not going to work yeah they're like we're not going to connect that to everyone as an agency

yeah like when like when we talk to like you should see the way we are with one indeed like when they're in the room like it's pretty messed up yeah um and Kimberly like works out of here a couple days a week and but not even just that just all our other clients like especially our personal brand clients we can't really talk about them like people know I swear heaps like people know we all are the way we are in Chris and we do dumb stuff but they also know that like there's talent and the guys when they know we can deliver yeah and so most of our clients are in that space like they just wants you to deliver but in saying that the

main point that I think is here and is good for young creators is this curation of Let's Make content that makes good ads just organically because like that is still content you enjoy making so that you can be consistent with it yeah yeah and what how did you figure that out like like tell me through that process like how did you figure out that this was the content that was going to work well it all kind of aligned right yeah because I was already that freelance gig that I had at Uni was food content creation and I'm like every every business that creates something with food needs content for their social media yeah and so actually kind of along the beginning I always knew that

I wanted to create an account I wanted to do videos for my friends and make recipe videos so money aside I knew I wanted to do that anyway but then back in my mind I was also thinking like ah like yeah obviously I didn't there was no guarantee that I would start getting an audience and so I was actually considering like oh I could I could probably get that side hustle back up again um because ugc is yeah becoming more and more trendy yeah um it's funny that they call it ugc but it's basically just being a freelance videographer for um for a brand and it looks like social media content yeah and so I knew I was like oh I could do that like

I could sit my profile up have a couple of recipe videos and then I might be able to start doing some Outreach to to Brands be like hey unless you haven't posted on your social media in a while you're gonna make some recipes with your product and I can send you the videos and Google Drive yeah um so that was one of my ideas that I had um do you do that um you used to or no you don't really this is where I struggle with because I still would love to do that yeah but now I have this yeah and I'm and I have an audience that friends would pay for yeah and I'm like because my face is in this yeah and with

ugc Trends yeah they'd probably also want your face to be in that too only I feel like I've exhausted this face yeah now the space can only be well and also they won't pay for the face as well yeah but I never had to do Outreach that was the that was one of my ideas that I would do yeah yeah never got around I wonder if just like um I wonder if you could do you know like like uh cooking a beverage like how you barely see his face at all I mean he's got that distinct voice but like that style where yeah I probably could yeah I probably could that is a style that he could do yeah um because you do see stuff

especially in the way that you do it there's heaps of work in their day it's needed every business needs social media now and so many businesses I mean that's why you started this right they don't know how to especially in food yeah because food chain like it's a something we buy every day kind of thing so it's like they need stupid amounts of content for it um yeah that's another thing that led me down and it's something that I consume every day and it's not something that's going to cost me extra because I have to buy groceries anyway so I was like yes that's a good one yes I don't have to become a fashion influencer and then spend my hard-earned money on like outfits

all the time yeah spend on money I'm like doing that anyway especially that is the cool thing if you're like getting paid to do an air deal yeah and like grocery sorted yeah nice actually on that yeah I don't know if anyone else cares about this but like in your and stop me if you can't talk it too much but in your contracts do you does your price include the fee for buying the stuff or do you add on the cost of goods depends on the brand like interesting because they yeah some will send you some some will say like send us the receipt yeah and we'll reimburse you and some of them are like just know this is included in the fee so you

don't have a standard for you do it you don't and it doesn't really bother you no yeah because you're probably not it's not like I'm eating it anyway exactly yeah I just wanted that because that's an interesting thing like costs on top yes like yeah are you quite and when you start off as a content creator like sometimes it costs to create content are you pretty good now like like talk about it fine like without getting into full details of money like financially budgeting for production do you think about that much on how much it's going to cost to make a video like when you take on an ad or when you take on even just this it doesn't cost much because it's just yeah

it's just food most of the time yeah yeah and if it is a product like for an ad like they'll send you I hate writing down the exact hours it takes me to do something because I eat it a little bit and then I just seem pretty intuitive but I do want to make sure that you know that's worth it for the hours that I put in and then I do a little bit like I wonder obviously with every ad that you do yeah like I want to be creating like pieces of content in between yeah yeah and that takes time as well but it's fun right so it's like yeah it's all it's all work in the end but also I love editing videos

and creating content so I'm like it's it's not bad and it's a side hustle for me so it's like do you what do you think of like do you ever think of like what your hourly rate as a content creator is do you ever think like that um do you have an idea of how much your value is it changes because each each deal is different so yeah um but it's cool yeah yeah it's definitely cool when you're like yeah making more than Mo like yeah per hour than my day job that's awesome so you do consider it though I do consider it because you know what I'm very much a budgets person no no that's why I was asking you because like it's not

a normal thing I reckon only in this I only in this conversation that we've had only probably Hannah probably thinks that way hey like she's the only one that like thought about it budget I mean she's the same she does budget yeah maybe Kate yeah maybe Kate to a yeah actually yeah Kate does yeah actually Kate does yep yep yeah there's only three out of like 18 or something yeah like think of it that way yeah but yeah at the same time if you're in like I know that like the hours it takes versus the the cost of like how much you would get paid that's important to consider and if you're very much lowballing yourself versus the time you put in that's it's not

the best but if it's on top of your other stuff and you enjoy doing it that's just extra income right like all the side hustles that I've done and I've like done heaps because I'm a super creative person so I'll do like things here and there for anyone who asks yes um some of them are not worth it per hour and I'm like ah you know it's extra money that it doesn't get otherwise and I'm saving for things like I managed to buy a house so like it's all it all adds up and so yeah if you've got time and you want to do it why not why not and tell me about like other sort of side hustle stuffers there's all creative things um

no uh I'm like yeah as a person addicted to the internet and YouTube I was in like so many different fandoms and cultures so I was like I love I taught myself Photoshop so I love design as well um and I do like I bought myself like a Wacom tablet so yeah Digital Arts like back when that was like really like growing up love it um for like the books that I read or the TV shows um that was that was me in high school doing digital art and I was like oh I wonder if I could make money on this and then I saw all the talented artists charging like five dollars per illustration I was like that doesn't seem like a good use

of time um yeah yeah it's great so I've done like little things here and there but then I'm like in lockdown I did some like commissions I opened up commissions for illustrations but I'm like this is not I can't do this when I when we're out of this because it's not worth the time no yeah that's interesting um the reason why I want to ask is that is that yeah there only are there is only a few and maybe yeah Hannah Kate of people who who do who budget really well um make like have a lot of side hustles and like I always they have the same response that you had it's like I had time I could do it why not do it I

get extra money that attitude to the way things done uh the way that you do things sorry is like um quite an interesting uh a lot of people wouldn't see that way because it's eating away your own free time uh you know what actually a lot of people don't like no no a lot of people don't even think like that so there's like my version which is like very much like my time's worth this much yeah I want to work as little as possible making as much money as possible exactly mine's like I want to work as much as possible making stupid yeah yeah yeah but then there's people who are like like you which is like I want to I I've got time I

can do it I love doing it so yeah it's all creative stuff so it's not like exactly yeah and you budget really well and you know you you know the value of money really well but then there's the people who just like like no Direction like they're just like I'm just making [ __ ] and I'm hoping it works like a lot of the time the biggest influences especially uh content creators in New Zealand yeah are just like really funny people right that have just fallen into this and so that's understandable that they're not really like not thinking but like that way right yeah they're not and it's not like you have to think of it like that way there's there's not at all what it is

but um like I like we bring up on this podcast a lot they get to a point where oh well I want to do it full time yeah and I don't now know how to make that that leap and I think like if anyone's watching this like I think you're a good example of well maybe you need a first started super Channel or something else that is because maybe the way you got blown up but also from the get-go can you change that narrative really quick like um I kind of had that same narrative with um enough topping ticks here later today from matakai food yes and I've said to her and a couple of messages back and forth like like her content's great because

it is the same thing but like she just struggles to know how to charge for it and that's just her own self thing but like I watched that episode too and that was like when I was starting this yeah I as you do when you tell people that you're starting an account they'll give you millions of pieces of advice or like my parents would tell me like the video is too fast slow it down or like other people would be like oh you should start doing like restaurant reviews because like you can get free you can get free dinners and all that kind of stuff and I'm like yeah okay but in order to do that I have to spend money going out to restaurants

every week and I don't do that and then like oh then the the cool thing is is you get to invite all your friends out for like a free meal at a restaurant and that's pretty cool yeah um but I'm like ah I'd rather just do home cooking videos yeah you've got to build it up first right and that's expensive yeah and yeah I mean there are you I love what you said there are definitely should be restaurants that we're willing to pay enough for for food content but they are also most of the time small businesses right they don't have as large budgets they don't have as large budgets there has to be some give and take with the smaller guys I mean uh

there are plenty of restaurant groups yeah yeah and they and they're actually the worst culprits for like giving the least because they know they can they got power and yeah Status and fine supply and demand but I do like I do think it's a really interesting way so anyway now that we've sort of gone through that I thought that was that's quite interesting where are you at because um because one I like uh it does not really obvious that this isn't your thing like from my perspective from an outside person that this looks like your full gig kind of thing you know um and which is cool which is with 20 something K followers this looks like you know what business lady that I met

well I've been I've I've been introduced to and I know through she has seven thousand followers yeah and she makes about 300 Grand does she do ugc she does macro active okay do you know macro active no so sounds familiar though macroactive is this massive tech company in Kingsland okay outrageous yeah they have they probably I don't know they they're super big nine figure big company no one knows them but if you ever find like a um a meal plan app or a Gym training app or any of that sort of stuff probably powered by them cool so she has like seven or nine thousand followers yeah she all her recipes and stuff all live in this thing she charges like 10 20 a month

to be a member and so it like makes this sort of content and she's and like that's like almost most of her users or her followers yeah subscribe cool um and I thought that was a real cool one because like it is one of those things I I've I've bought small creators stuff like that before because I'm like I know I could just watch it here and I've probably done more in the fitness space um I know I could watch all your stuff here and get enough but like when I'm at the gym and I need the thing like I want it there you know how I consume it so I thought like there are people who can do and and yours could because you

do recipes and stuff like that so there are ways of monetizing that way where you could have like a I mean you don't seem like the type of person because you give away to all your friends and stuff like that so you're doing a different way and I don't think it aligns with your values right to do it that way but like you could have like a little thing which is like stupidly affordable that you could um that people can subscribe to and I have seen it so so anyway it's interesting that you've got a whole career so what I was going to ask next as we start to wrap this up because I think we're almost at an hour is um is what's the

future like what are you guys like are you real career driven are you real security driven or are you like I really want this to be something I I do love my career yeah so I don't think I would give up on that to pursue it full time just because it is manageable part-time um I don't I'm quite happy with my account obviously the the goal is more followers there's more views at the end of the day like creating better content to reach more kiwis because I do think a lot of my content is useful for a lot of kiwis and I do like yeah helping helping people budget and helping more people like cook meals at home um and be more affordable is real

cool yeah I don't know if I something that I it's like itching at the back of my mind to do like next year and I don't know maybe you can give me some tips on this yeah expanding my Niche okay so this is my Niche and it's great and I love it and I love creating content in it but I'm like I love all content yeah like so I could do I could do any type of Niche really like yeah and so I'm like okay if I did lifestyle thing is I don't want to ruin this account yeah with lifestyle content I know the idea is that like you start off Niche and then people start following you for you and then you can do

whatever you want yeah but I I do like yeah the closeness of this account and so I'm like I'm sure I start another account yeah yeah yeah do I start a lifestyle account no just do me and that's where you want to do lifestyle I why lifestyle I mean there's nothing wrong though again just because it's yeah it's easy and it's it's cheap to start making content about your life um and I am getting kind of into the into the voiceover Vlogs you know that kind of stuff um and I kind of want to just try it from a creative Outlet perspective is that why you want to try it was because I can put anything into it yeah yeah um so I can talk

about other things that happen in my day and like there's a lot of other interests and hobbies that I have yeah that would be cool to share with people yeah um yeah so it's kind of like at the back of my mind I'm like you should just try it and see it yeah just start it um we like I'm very much on like uh I don't think there are really any rules I think if you do anything well you can make anything work so I don't I think I think 100 you could just start making Livestock on this so that could work right but because you don't want any like this and I get that like yeah um there is like Peter McKinnon do you

watch Peter McKinnon on YouTube the photographer guy so maybe yeah eight million whatever he his content now I don't like because he shifted it yeah it was very photography learned how to do shooting and he's gone into he's gone real artsy which is fine like it's cool stuff it's not what I'm here for yeah so I barely watch his channel anymore has his views dropped or yeah like the one that went out just this week I looked at it was like 85 000 views and for him he's like eight million you know so like it's way dropped and that's fine he's built the audience so now he can just do whatever he wants now but also he's um because he has other business ventures that

also do well and he's fine he's not worried about money yeah um he sold this the print that he did which is this one picture he took and I think he sold thousands of them at like thousand dollars of each right so he's fine but so I guess so first yeah I get that having a channel where people follow for the niche is right yeah changing it into lifestyle sometimes does you you piss some people off or whatever also I just I like having high views on my videos and like yeah yeah those mean hit yeah and so I'm like I know that if I started doing lifestyle they'll have lower views than the other content and I'm just like ah I'd rather that yeah

so I get that I think that there's nothing wrong of having multiple accounts and different niches if you can manage it yeah that's the managing of it that I'm just like and also just like picking because even with lifestyle you got to pick your Niche to start off with and I'm like oh which aspect of my life do I pick and how do I go about that yeah have you thought about doing lifestyle just on a different platform like like do you just go onto YouTube and try it there uh I know that you talk about YouTube shorts a lot and I would love to yeah but my content is so kiwi focused and that's a big that's been a big plus for me so

but not so much taking this stuff but like what is your lifestyle ah but even then even then I feel like like because I watched tick tockers from the from the get-go from the beginning of tick tock yeah and I remember thinking like oh I'm one of the few people that have Tick Tock downloaded and then you'd see like the sky tower and a tech talk and immediately you'd like it because you're like it's a kiwi like you think you're getting all this content from America and I feel like that's a big leverage just to have and to be local and that doesn't exactly work on YouTube because I don't think they have the same Geo algorithm that pushes con like local content to local

people no Tech talk does no it doesn't yeah because all my content goes to the US yeah um yeah they can't hide oh actually they could hire you oh yeah yeah one of the brand deals we did for tears was Albania yeah true yeah yeah yeah and we do right like we we have U.S clients and hence why we're going to push over there more this year but on YouTube what I was thinking for you is like why you could like from a creative Outlet perspective could you go into landscape yeah oh I I used to do Landscapes travel Vlogs back in the day yeah hey maybe that's another one instead of having two tick tocks the thing that to manage so yeah the one

thing about having multiple accounts and if you were to expand into niches as time goes on isn't so much about the content creation that's not the issue the issue is like the the Community Management on them because like yeah because that changes because they're not always the same people no they're not the same way you have to think differently you have to be swapping back and forth accounts I know I'm a master of that though yeah I do that no no no but as you get more and it does more like the more you add to it yeah that's true the more it becomes like at the moment but I'm like I respond to comments anywhere and everywhere okay and that's that's fine if that's

if that's a not a challenge for you then it might be helped but that's like one of the biggest challenges we find is like or especially me yeah it's like because they're very different if you're doing a very different Niche then you've got very different audiences you speak very different like the way I speak to the guys on my personal Tick Tock to the way this is interesting do you do comment replies on that account yourself okay yeah yeah yeah so I do I I do come in replies on tears and mine and then on the weekend I had to do some for one indeed because oh really it went off and I got in trouble yes yeah but that's my problem right because I'm

not very good at switching uh yeah yeah now you gotta now you gotta speak in the tone of voice of one NZ exactly so if you think you can manage that then I will just do multiple accounts yeah like absolutely and multiple accounts are cool like we do we've got projects I don't know maybe seven why do you reckon how many of the internal internal projects accounts not let's keep the satisfying accounts as one oh because that's about 400. um so they got their possibly times tears educational yeah about six or seven different full profiles yeah um yeah well that will be like full-time projects it's like like tezas they're not fully all started and then under the satisfying one there's probably going to be

like 21. oh yeah there'll be like 20 12 plus so so the only reason why we're doing that I've had to tell Connor and the team is like we need a resource up like what are the resources needed to do this because it's so hard to switch back and forth when you're doing completely different styles um and then just the workload that comes with it but the reason we're doing that is because if you Niche down in a thing it's way better way more successful and that's for all platforms Instagram YouTube whatever it is so I would definitely start anyone cool because and that's because like I'll plan for it then it'll be my next year goal yeah like do you watch Hogwarts uh do

you watch um Harry Potter yeah so it's like the Sorting Hat right like if you want it like they'll take yeah yeah yeah I always think of that as a stupid reference but like I always bring Harry Potter references I like it yeah but it's like if you want it if you want it yeah but if you want it the rule is what you want yeah so at the end of the day like it doesn't matter if it's better to make your lifestyle thing on this yeah you should take into consideration what do you actually want yeah if you want is like misguided that's different thing but at the end of the day like you should be doing it because if you don't do that

then you won't like it and then you just screw it up it just won't work yeah yeah so um back to that same question career driven then is a real thing you love your career you want to keep moving forward with that what do you where do you see that career going like is that just keep climbing the ranks in digital marketing oh yeah I mean digital marketing is only growing like massively and so I feel quite secure in that career pathway choice that I've kind of fallen into um and yeah I just I enjoy it I love training people as well so interesting yeah yeah growing up that had a couple of interns that I look after and that's real fun so I do

love teaching I love learning and like learning through my job and also learning through this and then just like teaching as many people as possible like how to do it whether that's in my personal being friends or at my job with yeah do you have any goals in the career like not it doesn't be specifics but like how far do you want to take that like is that like you'd get into like CMO level I mean why not yeah why not yeah I mean yeah that is interesting like an ambition I'm still kind of young so but yeah I I definitely why not yeah I can do anything and then still run this all on I do I do like one of the things though

is that I struggle with if I guess in a corporate letter sense is that you can get further if you sidestep out of digital marketing yeah the problem is I love digital marketing so I kind of just want to yeah keep growing in digital marketing I reckon because how old are you 25 yeah so I reckon yeah you're super young your generation anyway like the the word digital marketing disappears yeah and we don't I don't even think of it like that anyway it's just marketing yeah because print marketing should just like it's not it doesn't work it's not that it goes away but like print marketing has a place and it's less effective every day yeah but it's always going to have a place because

there are places to print stuff yeah um it'll just be always in the virtual reality now um but the the marketing world I don't think any decides it I was just saying like you're walking down the road with your goggles on and this air just pops up oh yeah bro that's what they think right like that the conversations are already switched to Vision Pro yeah the the apple one do you know did you like Research into Google Glass back in the day when that was coming out I'm like I was such a nerd for Google Glass I was so ready for it and now that Apple Vision Pro is coming out I'm like this is exactly finally a company's gonna do it right but you

know what I don't know I I yeah Cowboy just like creating ads for people's Vision I'm kidding I'm just driving it just pops up I don't think yet and and the investors would tell you the same if you watch the stock uh Market of Apple then it's not a mass Market product yet yeah no no no and and but also exciting to dream about the future yeah I just don't think they've got the use case right yet like oh no I don't think they're like use cases um you can it'll be great for flights and you can watch movies and immerse yourself Also the battery life is two hours but hey it's early stages yeah I think so there's a cool video I think so

too I love it I I I think the AR world's really cool and I'm real Keen to see it go I don't think it's really going to take off until um it becomes small enough that it's small company it has to be but I think it's cool that we're living in this time though because literally like generation of growing up without internet to having internet and we're towards the end of our Lives we're going to have VR like how amazing is that in like a time in history yeah you know what's real funny this is like like it's the same with Ash like um you talking that way as a 25 year old cracks me up because it's like it's not the time we live

in you guys just lived in small towns like okay okay you're 25 like like when you were no I had dial-up internet and my friends did too but I just had it for a lot longer than the rest of them that's what I'm saying so like you were 10. so that was like what was that 2008 or something yeah I think I think some of my Mathis yeah no no I [ __ ] yeah I was born in June 2008 yeah in 2008 I had I had already had like high-speed Broadband okay cool you know like no no no because like yeah when Darla went away when I was in Clark's Beach so that was when I was like 2002 2003 is when we first got Broadband

but you know what I mean like it's just funny yeah [ __ ] all the time even me though I remember I used to get two gigabytes a month yeah that was me for a long time as well on the farm like we could only get dial up and then the stick internet came out the USB stick I was like please let me plug it into my computer and they were like only for a short time we need the Internet stick that's so funny dude um my dad's mate's house you had to run up a hill like you couldn't even get it at the house you had to run up a hill and like take a laptop and it was like a connector thing like not even

oh it was just ridiculous when I went to town I like I mean they're still around but you know the telephone boxes that they converted into hot spots and they had like a limit of like either a gigabyte or two gigabytes today that was me that was me sitting sitting outside with my laptop or my phone like downloading videos so like I realize now hearing some stories I was super privileged because I grew up in manadour so it's like poor neighborhood But Central School yeah but yeah but it was one of those Central so monitor Essentials like in like is that a decile one school or whatever right like it's a real low school but the old boys of that school have an endowment that

they've done because they're all being super successful and so I know essential like one of the poorest schools in the country has this endowment fund that's outrageous and we like I remember when I was I must be nine so you know some time ago 27 years ago yeah I was like 97 or something like that 1997. we had like dial up internet running stuff like we had computers everywhere and so like we had computers not laptops because laptops were like waiting right yeah so we had like desktops all desktop PCS or all people but it was just like one subject that you went to for us every single classroom now because this is primary school we had just an IT room if you were lucky

like once or twice yeah you had that as a subject I don't even think we had a computer yeah really so I used to this is way off standing topic right now and yeah she's getting pissed off at me but like this is brand this is not a brand and this is way over time I don't care yes this is a clippable when I was at primary school I used to live up the road from from primary school so I was about 400 meters away and I used to get out really get to school at 7am when the teachers would get there yeah so I could get the computer first so I could play Carmen San Diego where in the World is Carmen San Diego

have you ever played that game oh bro anyone who's watching this who knows it where in the World is Carmen San Diego that is a throwback it was like one of those games where I was like pitches yeah and like ticks would come up and be like make a decision like where oh and then we got this other game which has these boats and you had to park the boats in the harbor yeah yeah are you sure I played that one yeah yeah I assure you it wasn't the drinking game version the ship came into the hell no um yeah no we had these games and the thing was is that like um the teachers let us do it because I mean we're from out

of there so they're like these kids want to be at school yeah let them do it that's real cool and then when I went to intermediate um in form two oh so what's that year it's eight mice our class we got a Game Boy emulator and we all played Pokemon emulator did you how did you download that onto the computer oh floppy disk bring them in put them in put it on yeah we're getting viruses up to the school computers so good that sounds epic yeah yeah it was so good like that's how um yeah that's how funny my childhood does playing [ __ ] emulated Pokemon okay bootleg Pokemon it was so good I love that stuff that's so funny geeking out of that we kicked

out about them like this this whole episode is just going to be like a mashup of geeky on Tech we should have done a tech geek tell me the last thing I want to ask you just to piss off Ashley a little bit more is what is this what is your favorite fandom or top three oh you can't you can't answer that I have to it's the top what do you need okay well like for like in the history of my life or oh just like okay or okay you can either choose history of your life yeah I'll okay I'll do three for different stages of my life okay starting off first fan it was like book fandom yeah so like like reading books like

it wasn't quite Harry Potter yeah it was actually Percy Jackson oh yeah Percy Jackson yeah that's serious and that's what really got me into art and I like was like closer to your generation just into that yeah a lot more generation of a person love Greek mythology literally did like yeah yeah how many books on Percy Jackson series um there's more now there's more now because there's side of spins but yeah anyway yeah and then I was actually say the next one is YouTubers so like just the era of like the vlogging YouTubers and I'd follow like especially the British ones um oh you won't you won't they're very much like they were targeted at teen school girls um so like Dan and Phil and

like the UK vloggers back in the day yeah yeah um I know like I mean they played like Pokemon and like Sims games but anyway um yeah and then currently what was I gonna say oh K-pop oh yeah it's like a weird different side to me but I'm like super into dance and K-pop yeah so that's like it was here in uh social media right you've got another social media that's Kpop we got K-pop and um so I run the social media for my dance crew which is a K-pop cover dance group it was yeah yeah she's like that's not her that's not her and I was like oh look at this yeah no that's the same name crazy K-pop is crazy I am not

huge knowledgeable on Kpop but so my best mate is Korean um he when he went back to Korea he took it English name he took my name yeah he's like he's like can I can I be Stanley and I I probably cried I was like no he's like I know him as Chang but his name is and um he was like go into all those employers they're like no you need an English name he's like yeah my English name is Chang like everyone in Australia yeah and they're like no your name exchange so he hit the ring he's like he brings me out of the Blues like bro I got a big favor to ask blah blah and then um so I love Korea I've

been there a few times now and I went to his wedding and um but where I'm right now with K-pop yeah is [ __ ] Korean hip-hop so like what's his name from um uh BTS who went off sugar is it trigger yeah no yeah yeah Jay these guys don't even know they know all of j-hope because we I play them so much and I love the song j-hope songs with J Cole yeah that sounds real cool and so I'm like on this like deep dive into like Korean hip-hop I know so much yeah these guys don't even realize they are too because I play I play the playlist like yeah every day Connor hates it oh a lot of top 40 playlists I've got Kpop in

them yeah so like people will just listen to it yeah they just listen to [ __ ] they all think it's and they're always like like the whole time after all this music so black and I'm like yeah it's it's Korean yeah it's very much these people aren't black um cool all right well thanks for coming along and uh thanks for having me it's been I've been a big fan of the podcast so cool to call to be honest yeah awesome all right catch you soon