The business of filming your daily life (ur mom ashley interview)

so much of my life is online for people to see and to judge and it's definitely a risk in a way Ashley Alexander is in the business of filming her everyday life I was having a wonderful awesome day but everyone just decided they had to roast me my brain is like going on crazy mode and along the way she's proven that it can be highly lucrative I think I made like 25 000 off of Just AdSense and I was like oh my God but also extremely difficult being a Creator sometimes isn't for everyone during our almost hour-long conversation in New York City we hear from Ashley about the complicated inner workings of being a lifestyle vlogger I kind of just thought if I really highball them we'll see what happens we talk about how to price yourself and how she works with some of the biggest brands in the world Capital One Amazon Sony fabletics that's pretty wild and we hear what she learned from the public Fallout of her time living in a Content house I think we all went into it very optimistic but also really not knowing anything about how to run a Content house or like what that even meant foreign before we get into our interview with Ashley we want to thank the sponsor of this episode nordvpn VPN stands for virtual private Network and using a VPN encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address and virtual location without a VPN the connection between your computer and a website is pretty easy to hack and if you're like us and you use a lot of public Wi-Fi whether it's at an airport or at a coffee shop you're really susceptible to being hacked not only does a VPN keep you safe but it also has other perks like if you're traveling let's say you're in Europe and you want to watch shows from America you can actually just change your location on the VPN to the US and log into Netflix or YouTube like you're in the US but also if you're here in the US and you want to watch like a European show you can also just poke around and be like what would it be like if I lived in 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probably in like seventh grade right Amber oh by the way I have my sister Amber behind the camera what was different is that I would see people do hauls online that was a very popular thing at the time was to do like fashion hauls but they were all very kind of stale sometimes where people just go hey this is what I got I tried it on that's it but I really wanted to make it more fun and more exciting so I would have my siblings like be behind the camera or be in the video with me and we would crack jokes and goof around and it really wasn't so much a haul as much as it was a vlog or just like a funny video centered around what we're showing the edge of my Vans are a little bit worn including the front that that's from me doing so many perfect Ollies in a row yeah I think people are just intrinsically curious what other people want to wear or what they buy so I think that's why people like to watch it I remember so there's an era where Colin and I tried vlogging early in our Colin and Samir YouTube era we were like testing out vlogging and we found covering our own life to be one of the most challenging things yeah and this this almost question when you would put something out and it wouldn't perform of like is my life interesting yeah you know like or is it not am I failing at having an interesting life and you would like have this existential question about what you're doing yeah did you ever have that like being young and filming your life my I always um if people ask me for advice about starting YouTube I actually tell them to not start with Vlogs because I think Vlogs I love them and I think a lot of other people really love them so they want to start by vlogging and the only thing is that if you start by vlogging no one is interested like it kind of sucks like you're this but if no one's really interested in you as a person right if you're just like putting out Vlogs I think you almost need to start in some other type of Niche or some other type of video where people will find you and then be like okay I really like this person's personality or whatever else and then from there then once you start making Vlogs and people will kind of go to those but I think it's really hard to start out just as a vlogger that's a really good point you look at your channel and it seems like you've earned the trust that you can put out a video titled I miss my mom unfiltered Vlog and 309 000 people yeah will watch that video but if you look at the videos that are above a million it's like big Vans collection haul or what I eat in a week as a college student vegan right some of those things which is like a lot more niece that if you're searching for those types of things of like how to eat as a vegan or what it's like to be in college like it'll come up and search I think it's a really interesting point around like earning the trust to be able to do that though yeah like you can't just open your first video no and do that people aren't gonna care like I think that's super interesting yeah it's definitely something that was kind of hard for me to grasp at first because you put out a vlog and you're like why does why is no one watching this but honestly no one is gonna care about it if they don't know who you are so I realize the best way to kind of grow YouTube at least in my experience was to do a mix of what I said were called idea based videos so whether that's a challenge or even I guess a haul could be considered something more idea based things that have like bigger reach but also mixed with Vlogs here and there or even occasionally I will have videos that are more Vlog style but with more of an idea based title so like my glow up video for example I would say I'm when I'm filming that I'm just like this is a regular Vlog where I just happen to get my hair done in the Vlog or something like that but by titling it glow up for this specific reason it becomes more idea based and then I think it has a better reach that way there's one of your glow up videos where you change your hair and you have bangs yes and you come home and you kind of have like a tough time with it people are yeah I like show it to my friends and my family and some people are like they're okay and I was just like oh yeah I remember that's like one of the only Vlogs I've ever shown myself crying in the gut level of intimacy with the camera and with the audience when did you get comfortable with that because that's a that's an incredibly intimate moment to be filming right and like my natural reaction if I'm in that type of emotional state is not I'm gonna film yeah you know I would say in most situations I would not film myself crying but in that situation specifically I was just thinking I feel like there are so many other girls that have gone through a similar thing I can't just act like I got my hair done and everyone loves it and I'm happy and go on with my day I was like you know what I feel like I could help someone honestly if I just like show how I'm feeling and how this is my genuine like reaction I guess to having my hair be done that way we are moving on and I'm going to keep doing my stuff and being successful and y'all can go be mad I felt like I almost had I was like closer to my community in a way because I think more people maybe would DM me and like just like show support I guess towards me and it just made me feel like I had a more closer knit Community than I even realized that reminds me of um we had a comedian on the show Hudson Minaj yeah he talked about how like all great art involves risk and confession you talked about how like comedy is the art of confession and like the best artists have risk involved and I think when I watch your stuff and when I was watching that specifically I thought about that around risk and confession yeah the fact that you are confessing something to the audience right and there's a love of risk of putting that on camera and putting it out into the world of course where you're like hey I'm this is not easy for me I'm having you know a hard time with this and now it's out into the world and I think that level of risk is what brings the audience closer and has them lean in to say like she's she's risking something by putting this out there um so like I'm with you you know I'm like I appreciate that you're putting that out there oh yeah I still wonder though how you separate the two or if you do it all like what happens online versus I guess what happens in the physical space in your real world because in that video too there's you read a comment that says your hair makes you look too Asian yeah and you're in the video you're like what the hell I am amazing what's that supposed to do what's that supposed to mean yeah like it looks bad like that why would you change it you I don't know it'll be like you looked too Asian I am Asian with what do you want me to do I'm sure that affects you once you turn the cameras off yeah how do you navigate that of reading a comment like that and then trying to go on and live your day yeah comments are definitely tough and I think that's why being a Creator sometimes isn't for everyone because I have friends that have been pretty successful as a Creator but then they get a few hate comments and they say I really actually don't like this I don't want to create anymore and I think um it's hard but I've come to the realization that these people don't know me and I feel like if you have a strong enough idea of who you are as a person you say hey these people do not know me in real life I feel like I can just look at a comment and be like that is wrong that's not how I view myself I'm not even gonna give it like the time of day so it's I feel like you have to have thick skin definitely to be a Creator sometimes but yeah you had said an interview that at the beginning yeah you knew you were gonna make it that it was gonna work out yeah I don't know if that's a common feeling yeah a lot of creators honestly I think Samir and I when we started our Channel we felt like that we felt like this is going to work we're gonna make it yeah it wasn't the reality for a really long time I like hit us in the face yeah but I'm curious where does that confidence come from yeah at the start I guess this is where my views on like failure as a person are probably pretty interesting I never I feel like really consider failure as something that will happen or I just don't like that word I'm like if I try something doesn't work it's not like a failure or I'm not a failure I just think it's a learning experience and if anything like I got like a little bit further to what I'm trying to do so going into YouTube I actually sometimes I'm like I need to channel this girl again that started YouTube like this but I literally had no doubt at that point when I decided to do YouTube I really treated it like like a job almost or I really like had the self-discipline to post like two or three times a week even because I really wanted to kick start that channel and really wanted to potentially do it as a job and just went like full confidence into it so so I would imagine with the Vans video AdSense probably kicked in at that point a little bit actually so I got like no AdSense from that video because I remember it was a time when YouTube was taking forever to monetize people's videos so I did YouTube for a full year before I ever got monetized and so that video never got monetized did you do a brand deal at any point in that first year um I think I did deals where clothing companies gave me clothes for free and I showed them but they did not pay me I'm sure that was pretty exciting at that time I was so excited I was like this is the best like they gave me like 200 of clothes and now I can show it when did the financial part of it go beyond that when did when did Brands really start coming into the picture probably I would say a year after I started doing YouTube um I signed on to like management so with a talent agency I think around the time I had 100K subscribers actually and from there it was much easier to do brand deals because my manager would field my emails and Pitch me and help me with things and it was a very mutually beneficial decision I feel like because he knows what he's doing and he can pitch like me to Brands and negotiate deals that are much higher than I would have been able to so even though he takes that percentage like the industry standard 20 I think everyone like every manager pretty much takes that amount um I still think I get more out of it than if I were to try to associate myself interesting I'm interested in that I mean what you just said the industry standard 20 yeah I would say that I've heard a lot of different I think really I think that I think the the space is evolving oh my God let me negotiate out there with the manager but I think it varies on the amount of service that you're getting from it I agree like if it's if if they're really taking care of a ton if they're helping you maybe hire if they're helping you okay you know go into other businesses yeah maybe but I think like you know the reality is as a Creator like your inbox is the funnel of opportunity true right so it's almost like whoever you hand the keys to your inbox to yeah gets to you know and if they're good at negotiating and you like them then like they can make a whole career out of your email inbox right that's true so it's kind of like you do have more leverage than maybe you think on some of those I think in lifestyle specifically or with Youtubers of like the same amount of Subs cribe I would say 20 is the typical like amount that I've seen uh but I can imagine if you're like a bigger YouTuber maybe like 15 or 10 makes more sense or something like that but my agency like helps me like if I were to like do merch or to do like a company like they would be helping me with that as well how do you navigate the commercial side of the business with the content being about your personal life yeah like I mean I watched the video of your boyfriend Kelly meeting your parents oh yeah and that's sponsored by Gatorade yeah like how do you how do you hate like this is a real actual life moment I'm experiencing but it's also something I'm going to share with my audience and it's also something that I'm going to monetize yeah I actually really love to like have a good time with them and to film them and try to integrate them in an interesting way I actually don't think I would have been as consistent with YouTube If I didn't take brand deals because because I'm thinking oh I just got an offer from Gatorade what video do I post this in and then I'm thinking of all these different ideas of like where could I place this and sometimes it'll actually just help me like form a video in itself they want me to do something active I don't just want to go to the gym and like have it be lame so I was like I should do like a boot camp of some type and then I was thinking my parents are coming soon I should put my boyfriend through a boot camp to like just get him like ready to meet my parents we are going to do the most brutal boot camp workout of all time Kelly needs to impress my parents or else he's gonna die if you can have a good time with them and really try to integrate them very smoothly I think it can be fun and I think you can actually like end up with a Creator being able to make more content or just put out more content in general it's interesting the thought that like brandios give you the structure yeah they really do they give you deadlines which otherwise you don't typically have yeah which is interesting yeah it really helps like light a fire under my ass and be like you got to be consistent in post but yeah so on the the concept of of the business I want to go back to a lot of what we get from Young creators is questions around like how do they know how much to price themselves when it comes to a brand deal like how did you know what you were worth at least At first I had no idea but I kind of just thought if I really highball them we'll see what happens so I would just highball them and like if they would come maybe they would come down a little bit but it would still be better than I thought I could get and I was like that's a win for me okay so maybe that's not the best because I know brands do not like to be highballed but that's kind of how I went initially and then once I did that enough times I kind of got a gauge of like how much at that moment I was kind of worth and then once I had a manager he obviously knows how to do my rates so so when you're at like a hundred thousand Subs what was a hybrid yes like if I was a brand coming to you like what would you highball me probably highball by saying like five or six grand and that would come down to like two maybe three if I'm lucky or something like that interesting and and how has that changed over the course of the past I guess you got a manager so that like the market rate for lifestyle vlogging changes but then it changes you get out of the concept of being like a lifestyle vlogger into being your mom Ashley or being Ashley Alexander right yeah like now you're in a different category where I would assume you're not stacked up against you know a market where it's like oh this is the market rate it's like if you want actually yeah this is how much it costs to get Ashley right yeah um now I'm assuming you don't want to share how much Brands pay you today but what does it look like on YouTube from an AdSense perspective like from the cpms that you see you know the type of Revenue you see on AdSense yeah exclusively Beyond branding yeah so I would say like my average amount I make on AdSense like per video maybe like two thousand dollars is probably the average it definitely really ranges I could have a video that makes like 500 bucks and I'm like why did that happen and then like another video can make like eight thousand dollars if that's like probably like my highest performing video would make like eight thousand dollars I'm like whoa that's crazy but I would say if I averaged it all together probably 2K per video and that's on a new video yeah and then you have the library of videos that's also Mega Money yeah yeah slowly like yeah like 30 a month right right but it all kind of comes together yeah like a monthly so could you right now like if you didn't do any brand deals would just the business of just what the platform pays you be enough for you to sustain I think it would definitely be enough um to just like pay my rent and like have food but like maybe traveling and things probably wouldn't be as accessible I think definitely by doing brand deals I'm able to do more things that I think are exciting for viewers um whether that's going to new country and kind of exploring or maybe doing something like for my family or with my family so I think that by doing brand deals it definitely opens up like new avenues for new opportunities but I think AdSense it is enough for me to just like get by and pay my rent and like do all of these or I guess it is um it's good security to know that it does pay off like the essentials what have you ever shared or do you share like what what was your biggest ever monthly AdSense check you received um brand connect s brand connect yeah I think like last year in December I was like Amazed by like the RPM and CPM that I had I think I made like 25 000 off of Just AdSense and I was like oh my God I mean that's really significant yeah yeah and then and that's absent of brand deals yes which obviously trade higher yeah yeah but yeah like I said um I I really view my family as a collective and anything that I can do to help them I feel like just helps us and if we have interest for example on our house or student loans like any of those big payments that I can help pay off like that that uh AdSense month I definitely was just like okay Amber spring College tuition like let's get that done with so like we don't accrue interest as a family yeah that's amazing wow yeah that's dope is that where you feel like you get a lot of your personal validation in this career like does it for my family yeah from your ability to impact your family yeah I think definitely um like when I'm most proud of with my career is just having been able to like help my family out and bring up everyone as a group and just kind of make life easier so that maybe now like my dad for example had worked six days a week for probably like 25 years of his life and now he's like I'll take Saturdays off now because we're more comfortable so just like little things like that have like really been super helpful and I feel like my parents are much more at ease I do remember like going to college thinking like literally like how are my parents gonna pay for my tuition my siblings tuition I'm like calculating I'm like there's literally no way like we'll just have student loans like forever and ever but like with YouTube I got to pay my own um tuition and ended up graduating like debt free and it was just like a very very proud moment yeah that's crazy that's so cool yeah yeah do you have any advice for creators that want to work with some of the brands that you work with because it is different when you look at your channel and you see Gatorade Sony Capital One these are blue chip brands that you do see on TV like commercials yeah on billboards yeah I mean so those Brands you mentioned specifically I really have worked with through YouTube brand connect yeah um and I think that's where a lot of like the really like bigger Brands where I'm like very surprised to get a deal with them sometimes come from can you explain what brand connect is yeah so brand connect is basically uh it's like kind of like the agency for ads almost but for YouTube so a brand will come to YouTube and say hey we want creators um to do an integration for us and then YouTube will pitch it then to my agency or my my manager and it kind of goes down the line of getting pitched until they get like a list of creators that will do videos with them you definitely as a Creator I think have to get to a certain you have to be trusted by YouTube enough for them to come to you through brand connect but without question the highest rates we've seen have been through brain I agree yeah but I didn't start getting brand connect deals probably on to like Midway through this year got it so or earlier like maybe like spring of this year yeah there's definitely more restrictions in what you can show oh yeah when you work through their agency yeah we talked about that on a recent podcast like I noticed also in your video with Kelly like everything's blurred out and that's why I turned to Colin I was like oh this is brand connect it's a Creator you can yeah you can tell when it's brand connective it is yeah it's not super interesting in the video but if you watch that video closely every single logo like is blurred like you probably can't tell but like my dad had like a little logo on his hat a little logo on his shirt yeah and they're gone we're familiar yeah I watched I was like once I saw that I was like it's extra work I think it's good for creators to know though that generally those rates will be higher but it may be more difficult to make yeah I think you kind of those deals are ones that you get once you're pretty established as a YouTuber but I think just to get connected with those Brands I mean if they have events even if it's non-paid I think it really is helpful to just go to events and to talk to other people and even like DM brands that you want to work with I think a lot of people are afraid to reach out themselves or just assume if I want to do a deal they'll come into my inbox but sometimes Brands like you can pitch them an idea or say hey I really love you guys would you want to do a video together and like maybe they don't respond but maybe they do is there an example where that's worked for you um there's definitely been like Brands where I'm like would love to collab with them like there's a bikini line that I like love to wear and I was like what if we do a bikini line together next year so I like DM them about in like that might be something I try to work on next year but yeah got it cool yeah I do think that's really good advice a lot of times it's just about finding someone at the company and creating a connection with them for us I mean we went to three or four Samsung events we just got to know the people that's right before we actually had a deal oh really okay cool because like you guys are like the Samsung guys that's right yeah we are the Samsung guys yeah so I'm curious like right now in the industry that we're in it is predominantly male how does it like how do you navigate being a female in in the industry does that play into anything like what what is that experience like yeah from like a YouTube you kind of feel like kind of like a more even playing field in a way because I do feel like it's really based on personality just as a person um but I think outside of YouTube when I talk to people in a business setting I have a lot of like YouTube girly friends that make aesthetic Vlogs and you would not know that behind the scenes they're investing in property they're buying houses renting it out to people things like that and I think um it's just like less known or some I feel like I see some girls get a little like less respect about their business ventures um or even it's very interesting I feel like how it's taken online for girls to talk about business I think a lot of times once you start talking about business it becomes unrelatable but I think when I see a lot of guys talk about business it becomes kind of more inspirational or oh that's so cool um so I think it just gets taken a little bit of a different way and that's something that we kind of have to maneuver does that limit you at all from talking about business or I think sometimes I'm a little more like hesitant even now this is probably like the most I've talked about business online but I think it can be really helpful for people that want to get into the creative space and I don't want to like gatekeep how like we all grew yeah YouTubers um so I think it is really cool I mean I love what you guys do and to have a podcast where you can really learn from other creators it's something that I didn't have when I started YouTube so something that we didn't know yeah are you something that none of us had when we started so that's why we made the show yeah yeah that's interesting though that you know because I feel like I'm fascinated by your business because it is so different from ours and from a lot of workers because it is is like the most true to I think what YouTube has been forever yeah this notion of like broadcast yourself it's like here you are you're doing your thing yeah and now that is a business you know that's like to me one of the most interesting when you think about like the the pie chart of the Ashley Alexander business what does it look like today and what do you want it to look like in the future a fifth is from AdSense and then four-fifths is from Brand deals actually oh wow and then I don't have merch or anything right now so it's just only brand deal so the whole business it's like it's a full media and advertising business right now yeah and you want it to evolve into products like directed consumer products I would love to do products actually more because I think it's so great to have tangible items yeah for your community and really feel like hey if they buy this like it's it's directly supporting someone that you watch and you kind of like can see it and be like whoa like this is something from online that I have in real life I just think that as a concept is so cool and I would love to have something like that to share with my community and so I was telling you guys that I I love matcha I have a matcha literally every single day it's something that I show all the time in my videos I really like to show my food and videos even if it makes no sense I'm just like by the way here's my avocado toaster here's my matcha that I'm making throughout the day as well um so I feel like that would be something that's really on brand and something that I'm pretty passionate about like I really love matcha and I show it all the time and I think having that as a product would be super cool especially since it's not something that you need to keep in stock with sizes or like constantly have like new seasons of it's just a one-off product that's just pretty easy to me yeah it's a repeat purchase like we we talk about products that are like part of rituals yeah it's like every morning you wake up and make this matcha so it's like a repeat you're constantly buying it because it just becomes a part of your routine right it's definitely something that I want to do down the line um and I think going back to if YouTube lasts or not I think it's smart to diverse justify so that's something I'm kind of trying to work on over time as well do you see that as a problem that your business is entirely Advertising based yeah I mean at the moment I don't see it as a big problem just because I'm doing okay but I think if I wasn't doing okay or if YouTube just disappeared I would go oh no my entire life because everything I do in pretty much all the money that I make does come from YouTube I do actually do some on Instagram um and then like a tiny bit on Tick Tock but the big chunk probably like 95 of what I do is on YouTube so I do want to diversify onto other platforms um or even into other products just to make sure I kind of got it and more stable in that how does the how do the rates vary from Instagram to YouTube so surprisingly pretty similar I would say I think Instagram stories are always yeah are what are going to be like the smallest rates yeah um but any type of like long-term deal I've done on Instagram is pretty similar to YouTube like integration but the margin is probably higher because you don't have to go make a video right yeah I love if I get a deal on Instagram let's go I love doing that yeah I mean like we do not spend any time on our Instagram really but if we got Instagram deals I would be so excited because like I mean we just posted yeah we just posted but we don't like we don't really think about Instagram I don't know we can't get a deal I know I feel like a lot of creators don't think about Instagram but the biggest deal I've actually ever signed in my life was for Instagram really I think you know my follow-up question yes are you comfortable sharing how much that deal was the biggest deal you ever signed I don't know if I should say it but um it was for a hundred thousand dollars wow and I was like holy crap I remember it was at 90k and my manager pitches to me and I was like oh my God that's crazy and then I was like can you ask them to do 100K just so I can say I got a six-figure deal and they actually like went up in rate and I was so surprised for a number of posts or it was for like a six-month deal where I post like a few things every month wow but don't sleep on Instagram don't sleep on it still sleep on Instagram yeah it's good advice yeah yeah don't sleep on Instagram yeah also another note for tick tock which I've only probably done like two or three Deals on Tick Tock but their rates are very similar to YouTube as well to the point where I'm like sometimes I'm like this is so much easier than YouTube right I'm like God damn it maybe I should do Tick Tock more because the video takes me like such a fraction of time compared to a YouTube video and the rates are very similar tote I mean YouTube is the hardest platform Yeah by far right it's like the most intensive amount of work for sure um yeah that's so interesting like I I don't know if creators really think that much about um margin when it comes to like if someone offered me ten thousand dollars for an Instagram post yeah and twenty thousand dollars for a YouTube video I would say that's that's nearly the same rate yeah and I would rather do this you'd rather do the Instagram post yeah 10 grand right yeah I would probably even rather do it for five grand uh because the the YouTube video is so hard to make right yeah if you don't have like a great process or a ton of ideas or like you know like it's it's hard to make YouTube videos yeah and there's a lot of weight on YouTube videos compared to uh an Instagram post or a tick tock yeah it's so interesting what was sort of the origins of your mom house like why did you move in in with the people that you moved in with kind of what was the idea there yeah so basically I had gone on a trip with two of my friends Elliot and Kelly and we all just got along as friends and they were mentioning to me like Hey we're both considering moving to New York and at that point I was living alone Upstate and I was like it would be so fun to live with friends I was like hey if you guys want to do the house I'm absolutely down like let's do it um and then we just kind of went from there and I think I had also been really craving kind of talking with other creators or being around other creators because living in Upstate New York I feel like I was the only YouTuber in like 100 mile radius almost when we did a video about you guys we referred to it as like a deconstructed sitcom yeah where everyone is sharing perspectives of yeah the same day and you get to latch on to different story lines and if you take a break you're in someone else's content yeah like that was a really interesting Dynamic that we got to see out of a out of a Creator house um now when we came and sat down with you guys we also were exploring the concept of trying to navigate like how you guys were going to solve this because yeah content houses are notoriously extremely challenging yeah to Keep Together and it is what happened yes yeah yeah that's what happened it didn't it didn't really work out right like how do you describe I guess what happened after a year with your mom's house yeah I think we all went into it very optimistic but also really not knowing anything about how to run a Content house or like what that even meant it's at the end of the day I think communication is a very very important thing and I think there was just trouble communicating and that's what kind of like led to its demise I guess I don't want to say demise I still feel like it was such like a great house and we all had so much fun and um at the end of the day I don't think anyone regrets joining it was such a learning experience and just being around other creators like just so helpful to learn how to um just grow your Channel or to connect with viewers in a different way I remember you guys saying or someone I guess that you had on saying that when you live with creators if someone makes a mistake then everyone else in the house learns from that mistake so it just kind of everyone just learns faster because if one person makes a mistake everybody learns from it right yeah so when we were chatting with you guys and I don't I think this was now almost a year ago yeah probably exactly a year exactly a year ago when we did that you know you guys were just starting to make content together yes and prior to that the concept was you guys are all living in a house you all run your own businesses you get to make content together but there's no like shared group yeah brand and around that time you had just started to make a podcast you had just started to kind of formulate what the house was and a lot of what we were talking about when it came to communication was going into it recognizing like figuring out what that business looked like yeah who owned what what was the split because you know we've been in the experience of being in business with friends yeah initially like you go in and you're like this is going to be cool we're friends we'll figure it out yeah it's all good you know and it's it's just a classic tale but everyone has to go through it themselves yeah where that doesn't pan out like that yeah everyone has their own expectation of what they're adding to the group everyone has their own expectation of what they should receive from adding that yeah you know you talked about this in your video with Kelly that there was conversation and disagreement around how equity in the house should be shared can you explain that a little bit and how that I guess felt for you yeah so initially going to the house I think everyone was like just super hyped about it we're all kind of going into a thing it's all going to be split completely equally um it'll be great we'll figure out all the business stuff down the line but at the end of the day none of us are like really business people none of us really know how to handle the house and I think there were also different expectations of where the house would go as a group as well um and then I guess just over time like you said we had the discussion about Equity what I said in the video with um Kelly is that there was like a disagreement about like how the equities should be split so um Elliott had said to Kelly that he wanted to be 50 50 him and Kelly which could make sense because it was his and Kelly's idea initially but I felt very left out of that because I kind of felt like hey I went into the house with you um and the house wouldn't have existed did if it weren't for me and all the other members and also just being the only girl in that situation I was kind of like it feels like when you're in like a stem class and like the mirror Professor oh yes like if you're in like a comp side class or like something like that and you're the only girl and then they're like just like very dismissive of you so that was kind of upsetting and then that just led to um some like head sputting and then from there just like not good and I think it's easy for things like that to happen when you're friends with people you agree to go into business people have different expectations and then it just kind of blows up from there so it's a really good learning experience that I think going into any other business ventures we really need to be very clear and very honest about how we feel like things should be split like in the beginning yeah before you enter into it yeah before you enter and like written down sign and breathe so that it's not like oh I've changed my mind yeah or something all the time it's an uncomfortable thing to do it is because like the energy and the momentum of being like hey let's do this is completely cut by being like hey I'd like to have this percentage of anything we make in the future you know that's like a really uncomfortable thing to do and we're creatives like CR being creative is all about the energy of a moment and like building on momentum and excitement and just like I think that is a huge value to representation in our industry meaning like having management or an agent or a business manager like someone who's involved so that you can keep your you know energy your Creative Energy but have someone else exactly come in and be like hey I think we should own this because although you are you you are Ashley there is a business of your mom Ashley right that exists that actually now like you have to also be a little bit removed from and protect the business of that yeah you are moving into a house with a bunch of YouTube creators yes so what what are you bringing into this house from the lessons from the last house like how do you navigate moving in with a bunch of YouTube creators yeah so it's not a Content house this time it's more of just friends living together that all happen to do YouTube and we decided that we think that that's the best way to go about it if it does become a group thing down the line we'll see but I think it's much better to see how our friendships just last by just coexisting and living together first before we get into any other business ventures but I think what I said on our last episode about you guys was I think you either need to decide to live together or work together like I saw it as kind of binary and it from what it seems like right now you guys are just living together yeah and I think it's clear that if you were to go into business with anyone in the house yeah you would write something up yeah right you just went through it doesn't sound very similar it sounds similar to when you moved into your mom's house like how you just pitched it does say almost exactly how you guys pitched your mom's house but there's no name to this house no yeah I think the difference is really the expectation that viewers have I think um in our move out videos we outright said hey there's no expectation for us to all film together in a group setting we're just friends living together and there's no name of the house or we're not really a collective at the moment we just all are roommates so I don't think it's gonna have that same pressure for us to all film together I don't think um and I really like I think I'm still gonna really focus on content as a solo YouTuber and so will everyone else in the house so there might be less group content which I get to stab for some people but I think that's the best way to go about it for us the model even from a viewer's perspective does it feel similar to me because like your guys's move-in videos Everyone made one they were released on the same day it's the same deconstructed sitcom model yeah it's like we're all moving into a house I get to see everyone's perspective of it so it is no matter what from the audience perspective it's a group yeah right and like it's it it I'm interested to see a year from now you know you guys are at the end of that lease how did that pan out because yeah we are in as creators we're in the business of just ideas right and coexisting in a space with people you're coming up with ideas together you're creating things together that is a natural thing to happen yeah but it's also the business of ideas there is that business element where it's like someone comes up with an idea someone else does it and they're like hey wait wasn't that wasn't that something we came up with together yeah at The Breakfast Table you know yeah I think that's the that's the challenge of of being in the business of creativity it's like these are intangible things that are coming out of your head that the concept of ownership is is is loose yeah you know and it's it's kind of confusing to figure out yeah I think the main difference actually is going into the last house we had this idea that we would have an LLC and that's where there was a whole talk about Equity but this time we're not making anything that would need to be split so there's no LLC in talks right now we're just all still doing our separate channels and I think just by not having the LLC and not having to split Equity a certain way I just think we'll all stay friends better so that's kind of how we're going about it for now it's good um so in in the past year like not only were you part of a a Content Collective with your mom's house but you're also in a relationship with Kelly another YouTube Creator and you guys are also making content together you also have a joint Instagram account yeah we did actually yeah it is that's our ship name and we made a little spam account where we can just post pictures together it's funny um Okay so what lessons have you learned from you know being a part of your mom's house and do you apply that same logic to making content with Kelly like as a collective yeah with Kelly I think for sure I think what I realized from the house is that hanging out off camera is more important than on camera actually so sometimes Kelly and I will get in such like a I guess kind of like a groove of filming together that we realize we haven't gone on a date or haven't like not filmed in quite a while so I've realized we really need to um schedule things to do together that are not filmed and like really make sure that our relationship off camera is very very strong and that's the most important thing and if I could never film with him ever again like that's totally fine as long as like our relationship together is like solid and I realize that just the relationships themselves are what matter to me more than anything else but yeah do Brands want to book you guys together ever we haven't that's like one of our goals actually is like we think it would be so fun to do like a joint brand thing one day um we'll see we have our Instagram we put the business email in the Instagram if anybody wants to it but yeah you guys talked about the revenue share of the business Kelly and I actually have an LLC yeah you guys have an LLC yeah you and Kelly yeah we do oh wow yeah so so you really got so that that's now for me like your relationship perspective yes you guys break up but you still have a business yeah I'm not foreshadowing anything yeah that's so interesting we just thought that there hopefully would be opportunities down the line and we haven't had any but we just thought we should make an LLC while we're thinking about it in case something ever comes up so did you and Kelly sign like an LLC contract yeah wow yeah so it's like a prenup sign a prenup and I'm like we should probably thinking yeah so when you look at your career now from a solo perspective yeah you mentioned that Bethany Mota was like initial inspiration then it was Emma Chamberlain now you're in an Emma Chamberlain kind of spot right with the connection that you have to your audience with like the audience that you're building so is there someone you're looking at now or what is sort of The Guiding Light to where you're going next so as I I've grown on YouTube I've actually realized sometimes it's better for me to not watch YouTube as much because I think it's really easy to compare myself to other creators and say hey why am I not growing at the same rate as they are um so I feel like now I actually am kind of just more doing it just for my own pleasure I guess and saying hey I really like to make these certain videos and post it this way or sometimes I'll even watch my own videos and really use those as inspiration for my videos now but I wouldn't say there's like a specific person at the moment that I really watch it's a really good point and I feel like not too many creators bring that up that many times your own videos can be the best inspiration yeah I've been saying this a lot lately but I feel like most times we talk about learning from failure but on YouTube you actually really need to learn from success yeah right like you've put out so many videos and if you want to continue to like reach the same amount of people and have the same type of impact you want to look at like what's worked in the past yeah not what necessarily didn't work right like that is such a huge part of it I think it's so interesting that you watch your videos at least that you talk about it because not that many creators I feel like talk about yeah no sometimes I will go back and like watch old Vlogs um even if they're like not ones that did better sometimes I'll just be like wow like this was I really filmed this in a way that like I liked or I forgot that I used to do this and let me put this into another Vlog again or just kind of like remind myself of like this is where I started and like how I grew and it's I think it's good to go back and kind of like just see how you've progressed and take from your old videos even yeah cool thanks Ashley yeah of course I appreciate you sitting down yeah this is cool literally so honored like I really really am I love your guys's videos even just hearing you say that it's so like I'm honored that you would say that's very cool I do think it's cool though because I think a lot of people want to be what you are you know like the most desired job is to be a YouTube Creator so I think you represent for like the next crop of creators something that they're aspiring to be like and I do think it's important to talk about you know like that it is a business how it works you know the fact that you're gonna go through like public opinion yeah of course like people are going to people are gonna like judge you online people are gonna be all up in your stuff and yeah that's just the reality of it part of the job yeah [Music]

Channel: Colin and Samir

Views: 571,352

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Id: xp2VGAjHZWY

Length: 48min 3sec (2883 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 07 2022