Building a Youtube Empire in Indiana with Suraj Choudhary

we made someone's day so much that they decided to like give us an authentic replica of Jon Snow's sword it instilled a different kind of motivation don't have to move to these expensive cities to be able to do this kind of thing we were doing something greater than we could fathom by like by helping people out and doing this what's the key to Growing subscribers on YouTube from South bin to Evansville and everywhere in between this is get in the show focused on the hooer state and the incredible stor is happening here today I'm Nate spangle founder of git Indiana and I will be your host for today's conversation before we get into it just a reminder this episode of of get in is brought to you by cluster truck Indy's goto delivery kitchen if you haven't tried cluster truck yet you are missing out they have over a 100 menu items everything from hand stretched Pizza to Tacos salads breakfast burritos and my personal favorite the pad tie ad chicken they've got something for everyone plus delivery is always free now here's the best part if you order right now by the time this podcast is over your cluster truck order will already be at your door it's that fast so whether you're catching the game or just too busy to cook head to clustertruck.

com order now and use code Indie n Dy at checkout for 20% off orders of $25 or more trust me your stomach's going to thank you reminder that code is Indie i n Dy now let's get into the episode today I'm joined by Serge Chow founder of the normies he attended IUPUI where he first found a love for film pop culture and Community with a passion for connecting people through storytelling Serge launched the normies in 2015 15 a channel that is now almost to a million subscribers and gets millions of views a month over the years Serge and his team has grown the normies to cover everything from reaction videos and Vlogs to original sketches and podcasts drawing in fans from across the globe today we're going to be talking about building a YouTube channel in in Indiana and just entertainment in the hooer state in general as well as some behind the scenes and and the fun property they have up on the North side of Indianapolis I got to check out that is I mean it's incredibly fascinating so Serge welcome to get in thank you thank you so much for having me dude I when I first got connected we were at the Dual Premiere yes and like you guys were in front of I was like I heard you guys talking about YouTube and I was like oh you know maybe some out of state La YouTubers came to the premiere that's sick and then as we started to talk it was like no they're they're here on the North Side Up in Hamilton County right yep essentially downtown Fishers yeah up in Fishers you guys have like a whole like Studio house we finally turned we bought an entire house and just turned it to all the rooms we would need for everything we do on the channel now and I think that it's important to know like yes it is YouTube which like any of our uh older audience that might be listening we still love you guys but like this isn't just like one guy in his garage like streaming twitch this is 16 people that have built a a really big brand uh around the normies yes that is always what I have to explain to people right like it's not just me in my parents' bedroom humble beginnings though right it starts somewhere so I have to explain to people like yeah we have a W2 employees on the payroll there's 401K benefits they're like oh okay all that stuff all the normal sounding company yeah okay you're an actual company and it's like I do think that is the one where it's it's fun and you can grow a brand anywhere but it's like if you were in La you know like oh there's tons of channels that are businesses you know and so it's a little bit I I don't know if I know that many of them here in Indiana so that's why I'm really excited to dive into this conversation but before we get into all the fun stuff and the growth and like the success you've seen now we have to start from the beginning sure so you were not originally on the track to be a a YouTuber not at all actually I mean my my passion was always in video production but I went in uh pharmacy school iy dropped out my first semester so you made it one semester I made it about one semester and I was doing pretty good too I you know I was A's and B's type of student but the passion was not there it just I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do and so I just let myself not go to class it was the worst kind of student I'd ever been like throughout High School I was never skipping classes or anything like that here and there senioritis but in college dropped out pharmacy school and then I went back to try it again dropped out that semester as well so wait so two semesters in a row you're like for yeah the second semester was really when I was like all right I I can't I can't do this were you doing anything else like was something else taking your time or your your attention or were you just like no I just don't want to do this I was always basically ingratiating myself in anything video related in any project whether it was something I was doing with my friends like little sketches on the side or um I was I became president of the uh Indian Student Association there at iy and I would do president within the first the first semester but he's like yeah but I also hate going to school yeah but I dropped out too so it was a weird I knew the previous president she was like I think you would do good with this and I'm not the best Indian person I know like I'm I'm quite Americanized but I I knew enough and using that organization I would make videos for the events we would throw and you screen it in front of audiences and stuff so that was a nice way for me to get feedback directly from the stuff I was doing and and just leaning into that more I knew this is where my my passion lies well when did you post your first YouTube video oo not on this channel but first YouTube video I think around when this when the platform first came up in like how old were you 0607 I must have been 14 14 what was video about oh it was you never forget your first it was about how MySpace sucks and I was doing like a selfie I was like Facebook is way cooler than Myspace like Myspace is lame now it was it's the most cringeworthy video it's still up there uh I my nose is huge I got the forehead acne going man it's it's it's embarrassing but that was what it was you know it was the first foray into oh I can create something upload it and here it is it exists and how many people watched it in the beginning when you uploaded it oh that video like 10 people like my cousin like people I know now people go back onto my personal Channel after normies and they're like oh my god look how little you are and so it's it's funny of seeing people going back to find that video now sometimes you hear people like post one and get like lucky and like you know you get some some early traction and that's like what keeps them hooked in is like oh people are seeing this but when you're not getting a ton of views like why did you decide to keep posting on YouTube I was always fascinated with just um sharing my life and like would do these Vlog Style videos with uh like some of the people you met Mickey Pat these are like Chris other people that are now normies we we've been friends for a while so I would do these weird little Vlog videos of us going to parties and stuff nothing that's appropriate to to show now all those videos are privated but it was my first forray into like creating something that people were hyped to see cuz people really wanted to watch it and so my friends and I got really used to letting our guard down on camera and just kind of being ourselves which I think was like the first stepping stones into being able to not have a filter now on camera like what by the time we actually started the legit channel channel 10 years ago everyone was already very much used to me throwing a camera in their face that's that's pretty fun so you got them used to it and so you drop out of school for the second time yeah you had to go get a job or you're like academic probation I I can't enroll back yeah I was working at a lior store at the time just like behind the counter just behind the counter at a liquor store and I would be editing stuff that I was working on like on the laptop there and so a lot of times they say like you have to have a niche or a thing like mine is very much Indiana like everything Indiana is what I want to be involved in but like what what was your early Niche I think I was always into the entertainment industry so whatever movie or show people were talking about if I was watching that particular show The Game of Thrones at the time like I was immersing myself into the online conversation seeing what other people were doing and being a citizen of YouTube for so long even when it's like very early citizen of the internet citizen of YouTube I saw what people were doing with reaction videos and and how that was kind of becoming a trend they all looked pretty crappy back then like fuzzy webcam quarter style horrible sound one person just kind of sitting there and with me my friends and I we already would meet up to like watch things together like the Breaking Bad finale we would have like a big watch party and we were already just doing this we we just weren't recording it and so when I saw that that was a trend going along I had done so many YouTube videos before but then I thought like o this is one that if I just stuck a camera in front of my friends I do think we're way more entertaining than this one person that's just sitting there super silently the whole time there's like six or seven of us sometimes on the couch you're going to find a person it that you sort of glom on to or that you're like oh I like that guy that guy is me or like oh no that girl is me she's sad sitting there quiet the whole time in the corner so it ended up gradually like I just stuck a camera there and kept it in that living room type of atmosphere of like you're just hanging out with us like we're your friend group a lot of people send us mail they're like you remind me of my friend group from college I don't get to see them anymore or like hey I live here and I don't have anyone to talk to about like Game of Thrones or like the boys whatever they're watching and it's cool that I get to watch an episode and now I get to check in with you guys and kind of where the their surrogate group I know it's a lot of strange like they're living viar through you like yeah definitely internet relationships right so Game of Thrones is ripping and you guys are you're just filming reaction videos doing that kind of thing but like you all working different jobs this is just like a fun hobby yeah and when did you decide like hey I think this is the thing that I want to do how many viewers how many subscribers what was like the momentum of the channel that got you the courage to one tell your parents that you weren't going to finish college and two start a YouTube channel fulltime in the middle of Indiana I did end up getting off academic probation I went back to college with the focus in video production so I ended up doing four years of a bachelor's degree and what what they call informatics there CU there's no film school at iy it's just called IU now I ended up finishing up four years there gaining some knowledge in these types of cameras here like these dslrs like I was using a freaking cam quarter back in the day so it it did help me gain some knowledge and get some contacts 2 years out of college I'm working at a marketing firm and I'm the I'm the head video guy in the in their marketing department so I'm doing these what we call AB roll edits for companies you know or they're explaining what we do it's like oh we're the insurance company we uh we sell your insurance and in the cut to video of a nice handshake they're doing Insurance look at them doing all the insurance and yeah stuff like that and it was very simple work for me the on the side I'm editing Norm's content and so it wasn't until about a year after just uploading reactions to Game of Thrones some other things Walking Dead at the time it wasn't until a year or so of that that I decided that I saw the path of like if I want to see this grow further I have to leave my job and I wasn't being paid anything by normes at that point I saved up some money cuz I was filming weddings at the time too I've just always been grinding with with videos and so I had enough saved up that I feel like I could Coast maybe six or so months just going all in on the channel it was at that time where it did actually kind of explode into something that allowed us to leave all of our jobs one by one one at a time it started with me we created a patreon which is basically what year is this this is 2016 2016 year on patreon October 2016 like a little over a year after how many before you left your job how many subscribers did your channel have less than than 20,000 okay but that's still that's fairly good it is it's it's like a start to show like well if that's what I can do while working a 40-hour week job like what can I do when all my resources are are pulled into like in startup terms you have traction yeah you have traction you know product Market fit people are liking the people are liking the content but you're not like you getting paid zero dollars exactly $ Z we weren't in the the Adolescent phase yet of you call the devel and what was like the Milestone you're like I'm going to quit my job I have 6 months and I have to get to X what's the Milestone you're looking for the the patreon had started at that point you go by membership and you go by how much money you're bringing in per month on patreon and at the start it was like we're bringing in $400 a month and once it got to like 400 I was like not much but like that that's enough for me to be like if I can get that number to Triple at least with all my time going into this like that would be satisfying enough for me and for those that might not know what we're talking about can you give like a definition of or like a an overview of patreon and YouTube and how they all interact and work together for sure so YouTube's where you go to watch all your videos and whatever content you'd like patreon is a separate website where we host our YouTube videos on there as well but people can pay us monthly their choice depending on the tiers we have we have like a five 10 25 $100 tiers our most popular tier is a $10 tier this is where the bread and butter comes in was like we're watching shows episodic and so we're posting posting once a week for each show the patreon allows our paid members to watch Early Access so like multiple weeks ahead of time if they want to not wait a month for this episode of this anime that they're really liking to come out like oh I'll just pay $10 and you know get this membership going and then we and like watch it the next day or whatever yeah watch it now or the next day and then they just kind of keep on there because there's a bunch of other offerings we have you know we do like live Q&A sessions we have an exclusive podcast on there so the idea is to like bring them there to pay monthly and then and then keep and what was the original launch on patreon like what did you offer was did you always have the 510 15 it was etchings of that we had the 510 but we only had like we were only offering one week of Early Access cuz it was at that point just me with a Macbook like editing everything we were doing just on this tiny computer and so yeah everyone had their own job so we would just film on Sundays uh just cram everything in like a 12-hour day like watch and film as much as we can we would do skits and sketches also like SNL style stuff it just finally grew I believe it was was a show called Avatar of the last air bender you're with come on yes of course that show we had never watched it as kids and that show was getting a Resurgence and how we partly of how we choose what we watch as we pull our paid members like what do you want us to see they were all clamoring for avatar The Last Airbender we're like what is this show like this is Nickelodeon like we're not you know yeah and so a lot of us we we watched it for the first time and that ended up being the thing that was just it just propelled our patreon I double tripled like that number went like eight times the original within a couple of months of so you go from 400 to $3,200 a month or whatever in a couple months of reviewing or like watching avatar Last essentially heck yeah okay and then then you start to get like what are your parents saying at this time like you just quit your job and they're like Serge what are you doing oh man have no idea what I'm doing I try to explain it to them but they're just like be be very careful like are you still filming your weddings are you still doing that like you know the other stuff I'm like yeah yeah yeah it was slowing down I wasn't really there was a couple times I had to borrow some money from my dad shamefully was like you know times are tough back then but it was just enough to get me over the edge to to be able to do this was that a hard conversation to have that is a very hard conversation to have like what did your parents want you to be they wanted me to just be self-sustaining like whatever I was doing whether that was being a pharmacist or doctor lawyer they viewed all the video stuff as a hobby it's like Serge go to school get yourself some like security you know and then on the weekends after work if you want to do this video stuff you can do that and it just um didn't sit right with me that I would have to be doing something that I literally just hated to do or just felt like was not my passion you know and I think a lot of times this gets watered down of like you know go chase your passion and it's like like a lot of people like want to chase their passion but they don't want to like hustle and you have to have a balance of both right like You' got to be willing to do the 12-h hour Sundays to like get to a point where you're like you know what I can do this and like just cuz you're chasing your passion doesn't mean you get to work 40 hours a week on your passion you got to work 80 hours a week on your passion if you really want to make something that's like a nontraditional pathway work exactly like I got a lot of people a lot of kids that hear I'm a YouTuber and they're like that's what I want to do like this is a viable career option now for the next Generation so I always try to hedge their expectations a little bit it's like I I still went to college I I minored in business like while I was there so there's still there's plenty of stuff you need to learn in the educational space to to be able to do things like this I'm sure you know as well just starting this up and getting this up and running yeah well I mean I think there's a lot of really good creators but I think the difference is of like the the creators that also have the business behind it I was like to like actually make money because I think a lot of times people get to 50,000 subscribers on YouTube say you're at 20 and you're like I'm still not making any money like it's like just because you have the subscribers doesn't mean you get paid exactly you know like now there's monetization stuff but it's like when you're at 20,000 subscribers you probably know YouTube like the the economics behind it if you had 20,000 subscribers and no patreon like what would that be bringing in oh man just from Google AdSense alone which is like the 5-second skippable ads that you get Pennies on the dollar for with 20K subscribers it depends dep on how many views you're getting per video but let's say you're getting 20,000 views 20 or 30 bucks a video like like put that in your perspective right it's like you get and I think 20,000 is a lot of YouTube If you have 20,000 YouTube subscribers like you're doing well you have some traction but it's not like you get to 20,000 you're like okay now I like like I think I'm I'm at like 35,000 is on Tik Tok yeah and I might post and it's like a little over ,000 a month you can't live on that the shorts are even a different Beast altogether like how much you know that's why you rely sponsorships and that sort of thing but a lot of people you know maybe doing this don't have that personability or that you know those communication skills to be able to negotiate sponsorship deals or things like that you still have to be able to present yourself publicly and you can't just shut in and record videos all day so was patreon like you're like this is the way like we're just going to invest in gr top of funnel is the YouTube and then we'll funnel them to patreon and you know you're at $3,200 which is a good living but you can't employ what how many creators how many friends were in your group even at the start we had like eight or nine people that were just coming just donating their time just to help see this thing through fruition very thankful for all of them way right and I mean and now it seems to have paid off right so you're at eight or nine people are helping on the channel you're working on it full-time and what was like the next Milestone that you hit we opened up a PO Box people could send us stuff cuz we were seeing Oh this is what YouTubers do they they have a PO Box people send them like gifts and fan mail and so we decided to do that I think the first unboxing we had like someone sent us like an authentic replica of a a sword from Game of Thrones like Jon Snow's sword or whatever and we were just so cuz we looked it up it's like $1,600 online and we were just show so in awe and shock that someone would care to send us something that valuable yeah it instilled a different kind of motivation in us we were like we made someone's day so much that they decided to like give us this present you know I think that sword like hung it up on the wall like use it as motivation like look at this like let's just keep [ __ ] marching forward there's real people no no no no no you you can cuss it's fine it's fine this is not a PG show all right no I I think it's it's powerful that it shows and I have to like kind of check myself sometimes where it's like just cuz the number is getting bigger and you know you start to get some ad dollars or whatever coming in it's like there are real people behind that and it's like when you can post a video that like pumps somebody up or like makes them feel like oh my town or my favorite show or there's just like it's like a real entertainment value and a real like relationship being built through the internet it's crazy 100% like we were talking ler about the parasocial relationships like that so much of what we do where we get fan mail like we just love the handwritten letters like they're always telling us a a sad story one or the other if they lost somebody or like they're going through a depression or it was Co you know it was pandemic time and they watched our content to help them get through a rough week or it's like oh like lost a spouse and like you guys remind me of her because we used to watch the show together and that kind of stuff where I'm just like man I would never have thought of that when we sat down to start doing this just watching TV together as friends like would never have considered that that is an effect we could have on someone like on real people so we started to see like what we were doing was maybe a little bit greater than the sum of our parts we were doing something greater than we could fathom by like by helping people out and doing this so I'm at the 3200 a month on patreon and able to convince my roommate at the time to like like he's running a yogurt shop like a frozen yogurt shop so he's he's like yeah I'm I'm ready and so we just kind of split it down the middle to get him on board so I have more help because the volume in which things were being requested to us was it was starting to limit how much I could do and so and they're like they want you to watch 10 different shows every and it's like you you actually want to be authentic and like watch this whole thing and be excited about give a good Rea like cuz especially early on I feel like this is a lot of creators dilemma it's like they hit a milestone and they kind of sell out you know it's like oh you get to 20,000 subs and all of a sudden like you're acting like you're Jake Paul or Logan Paul or whatever no it's like no you're not you still are on your grind you're on your rise like stay true make good content and like keep stacking on the the subscribers and the views for sure always innovate you know like never never be satisfied with what's done which can almost be an unhealthy grinding mentality but that is that's the society we live in I mean when you want to build something special right like you don't grow to 16 full-time employees and almost just a hair under a million subscribers by like like one video concept and it's like oh yeah we can just post the same reaction every single week for five years and it's going to work like no you have to innovate for sure innovating and whether that's like behind the scenes like the equipment we use like the tech or the style of editing like how clear are our cameras like slowly bit by bit you know we were doing this actually started in in my bedroom at my parents place when I moved in with Mickey my roommate at the time we were just filming it in our apartment living room and that was a little bit of a mess cuz there was no work home life separation for me but it made things easier to to grind out in that in those early stages man that is okay so you have two guys working on it full-time for 1,600 bucks a month roughly and then what was the like you just keep on growing like what when you two F went on it what patreon was at 32 M and how many subscribers are you guys at we're nearly I think we we had passed 100 at that point that's that's impressive that was nice yeah what do you think the strategy like what's the key to Growing subscribers on YouTube If you cultivate some kind of community I think that's one of the ways there's obviously so many different ways consistency is key with the algorithm going on another side tangent real quick YouTube itself has changed so much since it's come out on on what works for it like how the algorithms work for you it that's why it's such a hard space to get into cuz by the year it is just completely changing what works for you or like what what it needs it's sometimes it's focusing on watch time sometimes it's focusing on views or retention but now it's like a little bit of an amalgam of all those things so we started cultivating this community like you like I said in the unboxing and where did the name normies come from oh yeah that's a good one I don't know if you're familiar with The Walking Dead there was Walking Dead and then there was an after show called Talking Dead hosted by Chris Hardwick yes and so when I originally made the channel we were doing gam of Thrones so I called it talking Thrones I was like oh I'll just rip off of the the Chris Hardwick idea it's my friends and I were just talking about Game of Thrones so nearing the end of that season we were watching and people kept like you know this was all organically done you know with all the comments just telling us like keep doing this keep doing this we wanted to keep doing it but the comments telling us to keep doing it helped and they said like do other shows and obviously you have your haters there that were like oh whatever you guys don't know what the f you're talking about it's like cool content too bad you're a bunch of [ __ ] normies and I was like I my first time hearing that word and I was like what does that mean what's a normie I looked it up and it's like derogatory it's supposed to be a slur for someone who just consumes content at the most uh surface level of intention like if you watch a Marvel movie but you haven't seen all the other Marvel movies oh yeah you're a normie you're you're a normie fan and we're like oh well what's so bad about that that's like saying like we're just the average person and like the average person should be marketable for any movie and show like you shouldn't have to be Allin on a fandom or you shouldn't have to have encyclopedic knowledge about Star Wars to watch Star Wars as an Nory so we just embrac the the term CU it's like yeah we we watch [ __ ] for a surface level sometimes who cares like that's what entertainment's for and that's how we kind of wore an insult as uh our armor essentially that's sick like I like I love seeing the haters in the comments and you're just like oh I'm going to use that one like oh that that's cool yeah wonder that guy looks back and it's like man look what I look what I look what they become I gave him that name oh I love it okay so things are rolling who is the next person that joined the team fulltime uh it was Mickey my roommate we were splitting and then um and then Chris who I don't know if you met Chris he was in the last P um the talking normies podcast he jumped on okay um I went to college with him and so it was the three of us that because we had the most editing prowess amongst the team everyone else that's not what they did no he's into Financial Arena was like selling cars so everyone was doing vastly different things the three of us actually had media background so we were just churning out these edits as as quickly as we could as time goes on you know that patreon number just kept snowballing like we were adding shows being smart about what we were adding and trying to pull people on like what's hot right now not pigeon hoing ourselves cuz at first we were like we're not we're not going to watch anime none of us watch anime we're like oh well we're normies like they'll probably want to see normies watch anime you know people that I don't know [ __ ] about it that turned out to be a good investment cuz people are like oh it's fun to see people like you watch anime and so we had like healthy amount of liveaction shows and a healthy amount of of anime shows that just would snowball that number we hit the point of where we're like okay this is as much this is as much as we can watch at a time as much as we can do with sketches and podcasts and such what kind of sketches so sketches we would do before big uh episodes of shows we would kind of film a parody of the previous week's episode so like we had like all those Game of Throne swords like we would just do like a funny like Jon Snow and jera Targaryen skit where like we were dressed up and doing like goofy cave drawing so like people liked us doing silly accents and stuff like as close as I can call like SNL Style Just parodies of what we were watching so that helped too because it differentiated us from just the normal reaction Channel people click on it just expecting to see what they always see from the you know the overexposure of these types of channels on the internet when they click on us they see like a little sketch or something that makes them laugh and they're like oh that's different let me subscribe to this and so we would use that to gain momentum and to do it you got to push these videos out as soon as these shows come out like if something aired yesterday back in the day we would have put it out yesterday but nowadays we put it out today the next day like it's really important to stay as up to- dat as possible so we just got better and better at doing that that meeting up a little bit more not on Sundays you know doing some weekday evenings we could pay ourselves to stay during the day more we just gave ourselves more time to film and each month you know there'd be a drop of people being like I'm not supporting this anymore like oh I got what I wanted I'm not going to spend any more money but also at the start of each month it would be an incline that would be greater than the drop so it was a lot of like staggering each month a drop but then then a rise and then it just kept doing that until we got into this foreseeable future here we have today yeah and like so give us a scope for how big things are today today we have 15 employees of five full-time editors three of them are remote one of them lives in Australia actually does that help where you like send everything over there and it's like okay in the morning we wake up and it's ready to rock exactly that's the exact reason like you said like if something premieres a 9:00 p.

m. yesterday and we decide all right this is big enough like Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight happening this Friday if we decide we're going to react to it it's add I think 8 or n p. m. we would send it to ATI in Australia and with his time zone he would be able to edit it like afternoon his time by the time he's done it'll be morning Saturday our time so hard to think of stuff like that Logistics with a like a small company running it but yeah that that helps tremendously for sure having people be remote like that oh yeah so so five fulltime editors five fulltime Ed on screen personality seven on screen now with a a few part-time cuz we still have some people that are a part of it but not every every day like they just come for some shows so seven onscreen personalities and we have uh one manager behind the scenes that basically Shelby she will post everything we do because we post two three videos a day on YouTube and then we have it on patreon as well so she's just there to make sure everything's going out to the right platforms and communicating which is so it doesn't seem like a big job and as I've like Facebook and Instagram and Tik Tok and Twitter and it's a lot it sus it cuz we were wearing these hats like we were all sharing these hats until we could finally say like no this is a person this is a person's job like let's just get someone and like make our lives a little bit easier sounds stupid like oh we're hiring someone just to post videos she does more than that but it is such a huge weight off of our backs and it's kind of like what we've been working towards right we don't want to keep doing everything ourselves sometimes it's like taxing like I think like I'll like film a video and like edit it and I go through all that stuff and like I feel like this is really great and then I get to like the captioning piece of it or like the like the final details of like what to tag and like I'm so drained at that point where I'm like I'll just post it tomorrow whatever like and it's like damn if I just had the same energy that I came into the beginning of the video with then it would be like fun when you're like actually clicking send you know yeah like it took these little things that seems like such a first world problem right like oh my gosh I have to post my video to my followers oh my God what SEO what keywords do I use but like it that's all part of it though I mean you give it to another set of eyes too to see like oh yeah I didn't think about that we should definitely include this thing like you can't do it all yourself in the beginning I was all about doing it all myself and like seeing it through till uploading and everything but got to gradually give up control some things will get lost through the cracks inevitably but you just work to fill those in as best as you can so five editors seven on screens manager some behind the scenes what's reach you have currently and uh what are the Milestones on the horizon we're looking to hit 1 million by next year like sometime next year we want to have our 10-year anniversary party and our 1 million subscriber party around the same time we've taken the Midwest kind of because there's a couple other channels out here that do what we do and we've collaborated with them and been able to capitalize on this Market whenever we go to California or New York just for visiting conventions or whatnot we are we are always recognized just multiple times bigger cities denser population so we we want to do more collaborations with channels out in La New York as well right now we're at the point where we're reaching different audiences through collaborations with uh bigger to similarly sized channels have there been points along the 10year journey where it stagnated and it's been like what do we do to like you know we're losing Subs what do we do yeah that I mean that can be scary I mean Co initially was scary because we were like [ __ ] we're not going to be able to film indoors we had to find a way to like film on our couches separately and then our editors stitch together the shots it was insane but weirdly Co ended up doing really well for us because people were looking for Content but there were times when there's just no good TV like L even lately it hasn't been as Stellar of like the Golden Age of Television that people have been talking about yeah like I think the biggest one right now is Yellowstone probably came back out uh Sunday uh so like that and like people are pissed off spoilers the main character gets the Axe 10 5 seconds into the new series like or the new season that would upset a lot of people um so I see that and like when when things are starting to stagnate or like you're like a little like what do you do as a team like how do you find a way to to bust out of that try to go back to basics and just get really good at what we are doing and the things we are watching and just focus in on like our friendship aspect more cuz they're they're coming to us for the show or movie or music video but they're staying for the friendship like we try to have fun like that's the main thing like it becomes monotonous and becomes a job but if we stop having fun that's when it all kind of comes apart so we try to highlight that all the other things besides reactions we do the sketches the podcasts and little games and stuff we like do that for the purpose of having this other type of content that can exist you know Evergreen without something accompanying it so we'll we'll put some more focus in on that as well I think yeah it's mostly just kind of if we see it stagnating almost like scaling back and bolstering what we do have and making what's good or great excellent rather than like trying to flood out more content I think when a lot of people see like YouTuber as a job they're like oh my gosh this person gets paid to have fun like so lucky and like is there ever a time where it doesn't feel fun and it does feel like a job oh yeah I mean watching TV with your friends is definitely I wouldn't trade it for anything like this is a fun job 100% but it's also hard to complain to people like um to you probably you have similar conern SAR issues like don't want to hit these hashtags at the very end of the publishing but like for your average Joe I can't really complain to my neighbors about it your buddy's like swinging a sledgehammer and like a concrete whatever you know like construction job and you're like oh man I can't believe I have to put these hashtags in they're like dude go get out of here I got this arthritis you know like my fingers all day yeah it's a little cumbersome where it feels monotonous and like we said like we're going into business with with friends and so we want to make sure we're having fun I want to give a huge shout out to our newest partner hope Plumbing now hope Plumbing serves Indianapolis in the surrounding areas when it comes to All Things Plumbing obviously that includes sewer and drain water 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com to check them out one of the bigger things we did was I don't know if they talked you about this we started doing group therapy with the seven of us that are on screen I mean we're friends and we're co-workers we see each other a lot not often but sometimes things will build up like some resentment or some passive aggression here and there if like someone didn't do something it's like oh you're constantly coming in late whether or not it gets squashed there sometimes it builds up and when we have therapy once a month all seven of us are there with our our group therapist essentially his name is Patrick he's great and it just allows us a floor to get all that stuff out so we have no awkward uh instances you know in the workplace and it's it's helped a lot actually I will say it's been tremendous to be able to just like vent in a uh what we feel is like a nice setting where nothing's going to come back to to bite us or whatever and then you know the Slate is wipe clean and then we can go to work and just ball like cuz I mean your guys's uh relationships are so important it's like if people start falling I mean you see like when great television shows fall apart it's like Kevin CER doesn't want to come back and do the final season of Yellowstone it's like what the hell man where you hear like the The Sex In The City girls like don't like each other or like Carrie was taking oh what's her name this is your wheelhouse Desperate House there are some like shows where the cast didn't get along or something and then you have to show up and be with that person every day but since our content is so reliant on us being good friends like we have to make sure that that stays strong like we're hanging out outside of work not just just seeing each other for work and then leaving you know talk to me about the pros and cons of having a YouTube channel or just being an entertainment in Indiana versus an LA I guess cost of living I don't know if I want to show your studio but like I mean like we can show some pictures that you guys have out there in public but like it's not small like what's the square footage on your guys' studio it's probably like 2,800 sareet it's a it's a massive Housey it's even more than that I think that's just like how many bedrooms how many bathrooms is it's like a I mean it's a house it's like a 4 and a half bed like it's insane four and a half bath four bed yeah yeah like it's it's definitely big um and so like if you're in La that's like millions of dollars yeah you I mean I don't even know if it's affordable we even contemplated the move like right right before Co hit we were going to be moving out to LA for the same goal wanting to collab with people out there and then when we did all the the price differentials and everything it was it was going to multiply everything by four to five just from living expenses driving gas like rentals yeah it was going to be a bit and so being able to operate in the midwest I think it's nice cuz first off it inspires more people to be creative out here that think that that otherwise might not be an option to do something like what you do the get in podcasts or like normies or I mean we have the the True Crime podcast over here Ash flowers and crime junkies yeah for sure we got Hank Green and so it's good to be able to show people that you don't have to move to these expensive cities to be able to do this kind of thing so I do like the inspirational aspect of that if you had to say if there were some limitations or like like what do you feel like it where does it hurt you I think it hurts when more unorthodox when we're out and about filming things on camera or going on location whereas in La you see people with cameras out all the time like oh yeah that's just like guess par for the course down here we have to kind of explain to people what we're doing it's like it's okay if we film right outside here we're not going to get your face or having to explain people what you do that sort of thing like yeah oh and I always feel like such a loser when I like set up a camera on a tripod because I don't have a camera team right now so it's just like me and I'm like out in front of like this is a hit Jam in Indiana so you doing a Tik Tok huh you doing a freaking Tik Tok you're one of those Tik Tok Bros dud like your hair is not even puffy what do you mean and I'm just like I'll give the story it's like when I met my uh my girlfriend's family for the first time and I had just quit my job and they're like I just like this feeling of like uh I like post on social media but like people actually watch like it's a real thing like I make money I promise they're like sure sure and then uh they had their big Festival down in oldenberg it's called fren Fest it's German festival and I like made a video and it got like 100,000 views and like everyone in their Community was sharing it on Facebook and it was like they're like oh this is what you do I was like yes but usually people pay me to do that yeah right so it just was like this like right up passage where I like proved myself right like oh it's not just a hobby it's like a real job I promise you recognize from someone in front of them where oh like such oh yeah yeah they they just recognize me from my my job that I do no yeah exactly my job I make money and I get paid like yes by the way if there are any advertisers out there like we'd love to continue to grow this so there's more than just Nate so let me know um there are some pros and some cons I do think cost of living is like you can build this awesome studio and not lose an arm and a leg uh but then it is it it is so unique but you can also use that as a benefit right where it's like because you are a huge YouTube channel built in the midwest like I think it does give you if you if you harness it a little bit of an edge right where there's not that many competitors where it's like you know if you're down filming on the circle people are like oh my gosh they're famous like they're actually here these people like they have fancy equipment where in La it's going to be like ah this is just another Tuesday yeah I mean the downside being like we don't have as many people we can collaborate together here like there's you and I were very different uh legs of of this forever evolving industry yeah like it's from the service level it's like oh yeah these guys are both creators they work the same but it's like it's like if you sell health insurance and I sell car insurance like oh we both sell things we both sell yeah like we there's Insurance in the name of it but it's not like it's you are watching TV and reacting to it and I talk about things going on in Indiana it's like but like to the average you know 65-year-old hoer it's like they just are internet boys yeah classic it's the same Multiverse I guess cuz there's several universes here so a big thing is like this is a career path of the future right like I think there's more kids than ever that want to grow up and be creators what advice do you have for them have a plan B you know don't don't put all your chips and marbles like we're not saying don't do it but like uh just have an exit strategy yeah it you can like it's it's oversaturated as hell right so you have to have some unique value proposition that you're adding to this like what do you think your unique value prop is for the normies I think just the fact that we've we've all known each other since like before high school damn near or High School level and so we carry that kind of camaraderie of watching something and being able to relate to the characters be like oh Chris that's you that's totally you you always act like that guy you're big stick up your ass or whatever it's HR and then so it's we carry that authenticity of an actual friend group like we're not like a cast we didn't get cast for this role like oh you would fit well on this couch like no no no we're just like a group of friends yeah and and I would say another would be yes the relationship between you all and like an early mover like 10 years ago was still like pretty early on and so it's like you got to build that momentum and you're like a market leader like oh they do reactions and all this stuff um it's like oh you're adding some some sketches and skits on top of it like you're differentiating yourself from the sea of normaly that's out there and now it's like as more people come into Market I'm sure it's like it becomes harder and harder to be like cuz attention is what what you're fighting for right you're fighting for people's time and I always say that like podcasts grow really slow like it takes but once you start to like stack up your dominoes it starts to grow faster and faster and it's fun but it's like you're giving someone like today we're giving them an hour of their like they're giving us an hour of their time yeah that's precious that is like an hour they could be talking to their grandma please don't turn off the podcast to talk to Grandma yet do it right after the show but like I I think that like in the game of attention it's like never been a harder battle to fight there so I would say yeah kids you know go for it all out but like do have a plan where if if it doesn't work out what you're going to do and yeah definitely try to have some sort of plan like throwing stuff up there at the wall can be fine if you're still figuring out what you want to do and you're and you're kind of susing it out but if if you're going with it you have a plan and you're going with it make sure that it makes sense like you're using some facts to back up what you're doing it's like oh if I don't get to 100 subscribers by the end of this next few months maybe I should move it different direction or like maybe I should stop what I'm doing and try to do something else cuz I think a lot of people just try to just like they're streaming for no viewers or they're putting stuff up that no one's watching and it sucks because you have to start from somewhere but I would always be adaptable with what you're doing and I don't think and we're not say saying like don't do it but it's like okay if you stream five times and no one watches then like do something different on your stream that's going to get views like if like there would be times where I like know the concept is good like some of my my small town videos like when I first posted them they didn't get a ton of traction because you have to think like I only have 5 or 10,000 followers and if I don't say they're Hometown in the first 10 seconds like they might not watch the whole video but now I'm at like almost closing in on 50 and it's like if I post about a small town like people are actually interested so the concept was like not necessarily a bad concept it was just the wrong time for sure and so a lot of people act like you're putting up polls on your story for your 100 followers and it's like hey you don't have enough yet but it's like the the polls good like you're doing good stuff but you just have to like do the other stuff to get to the point where like that actually works you got to actually acquire the the masses before you can pull like on what direction you're going yeah if you were restarting your Channel or maybe not even your channel if you were restarting as a Creator today what would you do what were your first three steps be first off create a separate personal social media for myself cuz I just you know didn't know what I was doing I my own social media is me my brand I would have done like a surge at Normie or likeor normies Instagram just because because I get so much spam in there like DMS random people sending me stuff that I it's hard for me to sort through my friends actually messaging me and people I don't know definitely work life Balan more when it started out drove me a little nuts for a while but that was just the name of the game as long as you're having fun with it still like I would never push yourself to the brink of complete mental exhaustion when you're doing stuff like this cuz when you stop having fun on there like people people can tell and like you're like what are you doing it's detrimental yeah it's bad and like if there were like platforms or opportunities that you see for creators where it's like you know YouTube 10 years ago was like the way like maybe one of the only ways cuz like discovery on Instagram and Tik Tok like wasn't a thing you know like you knew who you knew because you would meet them in person or something and follow on Instagram like or like the word got around that like you know they posted interesting pictures right like you know how people got followers back in the day um but like what would you say today where do you see the opportunity is it's gotten more doggy dog for sure like jumping on things like if you have an opinion on something that's happening like a world event really jumping on that and getting getting on top of it as fast as you can like you can get circulated in that algorithm of like-minded things being discussed obviously that depends on what you're going in for like we do movies and TV shows so it's easier for us to jump on news like that but it's also harder in the midwest to you know collaborate with people that are doing things like that everything industry related is in La we had that Dylan sprous movie uh The Duel Premiere here and I was like you know what we have to go to that Indianapolis never gets film premieres mhm so there's stuff like that I would always uh Network more I think early on if I networked more I think it would have helped us out a lot but having those personable skills and being able to know who around you even just knowing that like if you're an Indianapolis knowing that the normies exist knowing that the get in podcast exists helps so much like yeah and eventually talk to us eventually get out there and you know maybe we'll do a Meetup you know we would want wanting to do like a little tappers get together for any influencers around like in Indianapolis just to kind of share and give their info cuz there's so there's more than you know there's like and there's some people that don't like I wear it as a badge of honor like I'm Indiana but like not everyone is like so jazzed up to be like oh yeah I'm a Creator in Indiana from a business perspective of like if you were restarting and you're like hey I want to make a living being a creating I want to say necessarily being a Creator but just like in the industry what would you do financially prepping myself like here's how much I'm putting in like time and money and he said here's how much I expect to get out it worked out for me this time I was doing something that I knew was working and I just had to get to a point where it would work for us where we didn't have to like break ourselves to get it done giving yourself a plan so that you don't reach that point of complete exhaustion I think is the best way to go what happens when you're 50 yeah that's the that's that's the golden question we're asking ourselves like are we going to be reacting and watching TV in our 50s like we're already pushing 34 a lot of us and getting to not be as cool as the Gen Z kids or like gen Alphas now that are coming out and so we find ourselves using lingo like saying something's cap or say like saying something's like AF or whatever I don't know aesthetic I don't know a lot of these things I'm making myself cringe just saying it but the point is we're outgrowing the main audience demographic which is like 18 to 24 and and then our next is like 25 to 40 so we're still within that range we think the audience will grow up with us but eventually would love to be able to create more original content and getting into that like doing more of the sketches or maybe some short films maybe we're working on this radio play also it's like a six episode uh narrative story told through audio essentially entirely so like we're working on a lot of like fun experimental stuff like that because a lot of us are storytellers film makers deep down given me like I'm doing Theater now CU I'm trying to get into voice acting as well really so for all of our paths they diverge a little bit but the idea is to get us all to be successful as individual Brands like ourselves and keep doing the normies as like the big Avengers Meetup you know it's like you can see all of us together now like we're doing our own thing and being excellent ourselves but here's all this together what advice would you give give me on uh growing as a creator keep this energy up I love this energy you have here you you're you're eager to meet people in the space to learn their stories and everything like that I think you're on Fast Track here like this is great like you said 5% every month like if you can do like 5% better every month like you're good and whether that's how you are personally like getting some sound foam or whatever I'm sure you like how many times you repeat doing a take or something you know you're out there you're like hey guys it's Nate you're like no no no that was that wasn't good yeah right and it's like no you can do better better like you know make it cuz it's like this is the career it's like you want to make sure that you're giving like you talk about differentiators it's like I do think the one thing that like helps set me apart where like in Indiana it's like energy like I will just like fullon scream at the camera because I'm so pumped and I actually am it's not like an act like I'm pumped up to like wake up in the morning and live life and do this thing and help promote the state and like uncover these amazing stories of people that doing really interesting things around the state I love it like I was just looking at uh that one apartment complex you showed on massav it was one that looks like a cruise ship on the corner yes and I'm like I finally got to see what the inside of that place looks like and I was like you were just as curious as I was D and that's like half the battle sometimes like drive down and like what helps is that I am like naturally curious and like I'll just like ask and like find my way to network into like whatever the thing is and i' I've always wondered what it looked like like I had heard like Pacers players and stuff live there and I was like well I wonder what it looked how much it cost and all this stuff so it it's working out so far as long as we just keep finding so if you have questions around Indiana things you've always wondered about let me know for sure I got a bunch of questions too like about how you you got started here too like how how many years has it been since you've been doing this now uh we posted our first podcast episode like 18 months ago that's very if you just put out the podcast Clips like nobody really cares that much like it takes a lot so I would like counterbalance that with hey here are my the first one that ever like popped was my top three coffee shops and it was people calling me a [ __ ] they like oh my gosh you like Java House someone literally so so two fun ones someone said move period to me and I'm just like talking about my favorite three coffee shops in Minneapolis someone else said it's people like you that's ruining the city of Indianapolis sure and it got 100,000 views and I was like okay I'm hooked like I love this it's so much fun and I had been like uh the social media guy for my for the depal football team where I went to college uh it was like on the student TV station and stuff and had a show then so like I've always like loved it but I like went and spent 5 years in startups and Tech to like figure out how to make a business out of it and here we are and so far so good so are going well what's something you feel like you could have like you would do differently now if you were starting it that's a great question I'm always intrigued by like the patreon or the like paid piece of it so like people that consume my content don't really pay anything like and I don't want to like throw up a chiny like merch shop I don't want to like sell them stuff they don't need because I'm building trust with them and I want to like grow a brand and I really like making the videos and it's nice that I have the business contacts to like hey I have the audence and you know people want to advertise with it because like you know they have marketing budget to spend I would say it's like the idea of like oh maybe my like most loyal 500 followers or 200 followers or whatever would pay five bucks a month like doing something like that would be interesting I kind of feel like I'm far enough down the free version that it's be like oh wow like I'm like and I don't want to like totally tank my growth no for sure like we we waited a while before we introduced the patreon too cuz like we want to just like create good content like create stuff that people want to see first and then and then kind of go down that road and I think you're you're in a phenomenal place after 18 months yeah it's it's been really fun I've been doing it full-time since June so like the past five months or whatever have been like a roller coaster and I'm super pumped for what the future holds and I'm like excited like I'm diving more into YouTube so if you have any advice on how to grow subscribers on YouTube I'd love to hear it for any like one big tip I would say like anything big that's going on in Indiana that would get any Nationwide news like I would throw that up as soon as it happens like stuff going on with IU uh football right now the the Taylor Swift stuff you you capitalized on that pretty well like I was getting recommended your stuff like just with the concert season coming in it it was so fun uh it was wild down there like honestly they talk about allar weekend like that the eclipse like all that stuff was huge when it came to so I have some ideas future stuff coming Pat mcafe try to try to collab with Pat mcafe I'm working on that be great yeah uh so Pat when you see this video hit me up let's do a little collab we'll talk all Indiana things um we are down to the end of the show I have a couple fun questions that I always uh like to ask all of our guest everyone that sits in the chair um first one is our younger year segment so this question is brought to you by our friends at or Fellowship they're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young Business Leaders across the state Serge what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self start that Roth IRA right now just max it out just max it out right now $6,500 a year whatever it is just freaking do it yeah yeah so that way you have you know retirement to lean back on okay I love that what movie has the most epic soundtrack I would say Mad Max just gets me in a frenetic Pace if I'm working out and I need a quick thing to put on that I don't feel like looking for I'll just pop on the Mad Max soundtrack that's how I when I'm working in Game of Thrones and I like Crescendo during the battle songs and I'm like yes send that email um what's your guilty pleasure movie Pineapple Express oh that's a great one like so quotable seen it so many it is very quotable isn't it I realize I quote that movie Far often and like sometimes people don't even pick it up there was like oh that's like a weird and I'm like it's my cat's birthday come on he was kind of an [ __ ] yes um who's your favorite content creator outside of the normies just cuz they're right up our alley I would say red letter media what are they they've been in it for a while they also review movies and content and everything but they're they just have a very jaded worldview a little pessimist so can sometimes be a bummer watching them but I I laugh at their demeanor like here we are reviewing another movie like talking about this is Star Wars 879 basically talking about the monotony of the industry so it's kind of like the opposite of what I do which is talk about how exciting it is but it's fun to see that side of the spectrum yeah uh if you had a dream collaboration with any Creator who would it be any Creator that's or anyone any any person oh man Damon Lindelof he's the showrunner he was the showrunner for lost uh he did uh The Leftovers as well think he worked on like a recent Star Trek movie but he's a filmmaker I would love to pick his ear just to really do something with him any project with him wow all right we're going to clip that and put it out and see if we can get his attention please Damon I loved the ending don't worry I love the ending of Boss okay and these are the same questions that we ask everyone what's something that the world needs to know about Indiana oh man we are getting two times better every year I I just feel like Indianapolis has been on the come up for a long time and we are succeeding in that come up when the next year we have like critical role is coming here which like they're they're huge in the influencer space like they're doing their 10y year anniversary tour they're going to be in fisers in August we got um WWE Royal Rumble here coming like Pat mcafe did that for us and so I just I love seeing it we host the the biggest sporting event every year like in the world so I just think that more people need to understand that Indiana isn't just that default state that you say in your story when you want someone who's from the middle of nowhere like I'm from a small town in Indiana it's like oh no yeah thanks stranger things yeah thanks a lot stranger things Indianapolis is out here and it's it's constantly growth rate I will say the growth rate is high in Indianapolis like it's growing so so fast like cool stuff is coming new restaurants new development new apartments new everything like it's a fun time to be in my seat because like there's no shortage I mean Caitlyn Clark there's no shortage of cool stuff to uncover and who and the downtown is all every time I have friends visiting they say the downtown's amazing like you just walk up and down in 30 minutes one side or the other and and there's it's a lot to do it's almost like a big city downtown but a small City walkable Vibe you know okay what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana there is a graveyard in Greenwood that when it snows it is the best sledding hill the only thing is you have to be okay with sliding kind of close to people's Graves but but not on not on them no no you you stop a little bit before you it gets a little bit creepy but that is the best spot and I don't want to reveal it right now but there is little hidden gems like that all over India oh well so we have the Greenwood graveyard sledding hill yeah I'm sure our Southsiders will uh let us know sure they oh yeah we're going to get someone's going to pin the address in the comments final question for you Serge who's a hooer that we need to keep on our radar someone who's doing big things the entirety of popcon it happens every year it's basically we have ComicCon also but popcon I know the guys Chris and Carl that put it on and they do a phenomenal job every year like they're making that the standout nerd Convention of the year for Indie and so we help collaborate with them a lot on what guests to bring and everything like that so if you're looking for a convention to do in Indie like I know Comic Con has the name brand but popcon is is the thing to look out for when uh what time of year is it it is April this coming year heck yeah popcon April for sure here in India are those guys local Chris and Carl Chris and Carl they're local they do a Louisville popcon also but they're mostly trying to get indie or on the map with the nerd conventions heck yeah the nerd conventions I love it Serge thank you so much for coming on sharing your story so much for having me uh it was super fun and I mean the next Milestone right coming up on 10 years going to cross that million subscriber Mark uh I'm pumped to see the growth of the normies if we ever I mean I think there's some room do some collaboration and do some fun stuff in the future oh for sure yeah we we'll both get on that Pat mcaf show yes Pat when you see this hit us up come on Pat we watch wrestling too at the normies so yes oh I think there's something around WWE for sure yeah for sure all right well appreciate you and uh thanks for coming in for sure appreciate it Nate hey everyone quick pause in the action to introduce you to futterman Von re a true Hidden Gem Indiana especially for all you watch afficianados out there founded by an Indiana State graduate from Batesville this family-owned brand has Deep hoer Roots dating back to the 1830s they are even proud members of the Society of Indiana Pioneers which I didn't know existed but is a sweet organization they are based in Indie and are redefining luxury watches meticulously crafted in Cookoo by a certified watchmaker and his Apprentice the designs blend classic Elegance 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com if you want to behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tac at Nate spangle thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the hoer steak great we'll see you next time here on get in