Austin Evans says the biggest creator mindset shift is learning to think beyond the next video

Austin, welcome to Mashable's VidCon booth

Thank you for having me. This is such a nice little quiet spot and how crazy it is outside

I know. Originally I was going to be like, should I introduce you as Duncan

Like really throw it back? You did your research. You did your research. I'm scared now

You have been making content for like 17 years. Yes. 17 years when you opened your YouTube channel. Yeah

The internet has changed a lot in that time. Yes. VidCon didn't exist

Making money on the internet videos hardly existed back then. The idea of being a creator was not even fully fleshed out as a thing

And so to see the fact that we all have legitimacy now is so nice

So you've kind of made your transition from YouTuber, then we went to creator, and now you're CEO

Do you remember the exact moment when you were like, I'm not just a YouTuber anymore

Oh, that's a good question. I think for me, it was probably when we started building an actual physical team, like in person

That was the big thing. Because, you know, that transition from almost like total freedom on like the things you're doing to wait a minute

I actually have to like manage people. I have like HR to deal with now

Like I have to like deal with 401k. That was one of the biggest and hardest changes for me

It's good though, because I think learning how to like manage a team and everything really kind of like gave me a much broader sort of view on like

I used to be, I remember, I guess 10 years ago at this point, I remember I used to be so obsessed

with the performance of every video. Like I remember there's one video that I posted, I

pushed it live. I was going to the airport. So I walked through security on the other end

I picked up my phone looked at it and it was bombing And I was just like I literally had to sit down and just like feel sad for a little bit And after like like five 10 minutes it like what am I doing I should put all this stuff Wait a minute This is one video out of a hundred we have posts this year

I can't let this like define my personality and everything I think that was like a really big turning point to kind of understand like taking the broader view is so important because like

You can't like everything wants you to just think video video video video

But when you zoom out you realize it's okay everyone has a flop sometimes some things don't work

But that transition from being just like a creator to like trying to think big, bigger

picture was so, so helpful. You had said that your tech reviews on your channel evolved into entertainment tech

Yes. So I would love to know what that means. Oh, absolutely

So if you make a video on a product, right? So take like a laptop or whatever the case is

You are not the main character of that story. You're talking about a thing that someone else made

You're critiquing it. And the performance of your video completely lives and dies on things that have nothing

to do with you, right? Like if this year's iPhone is lame and boring, no one's going to care, right

Or if someone's seen 35 videos all dropped on launch date, why are they going to click

on yours? So that was sort of the thinking behind not just being another sort of cog in the wheel

but actually like, what can we do that's different? That's still in the right kind of sort of interesting zone, but importantly, something

that fulfills me and is actually something that's different. So that's why we kind of transitioned into much more of, you know, what's the best computer you can build for under $1,000

Or gaming gear has gotten insanely expensive. Here are the actual cheaper alternatives

Or, you know, doing like bigger series. Those are all the kind of things that we try to switch into the more entertainment side versus just the pure reviews

You are a trusted voice in this space, in the tech space. There's been so much change, so much advancement in tech over the last 20 years

The biggest being AI I sat in three panels today every single panel mentioned AI and how creators can use it what the line is between is it slop Is it creativity I would love to know

your opinion. I think I'd bucket in a couple of different places. Yeah. I think the idea of

generative AI has its place. I think that there are a lot of channels already very successful right

now, which are almost entirely generative, right? And maybe not my thing, but I don't judge

you know like it's fine like you know do do your thing i think part of that is that i think audiences

are leaning more into at least the hope is that audiences are leaning more into that authenticity

yeah but on the other side there's a lot of tools that i think uh you know using ai is incredibly

helpful right so a lot of the work we do as far as like ytics and a lot of the back-end stuff

is all sort of delegated to clod at this point right like that is one of the tools that has been incredibly helpful um and also just sort of especially i think for creators who are a little

bit smaller who don't necessarily have a team there are a lot of things i think the ai could

be helpful for on the back end to kind of help say like, Hey, help me brainstorm this idea. Hey

is this a good topic or whatever the case is? I think there's a lot of tools that people can use

but also I understand that it's a divisive topic and it's a very personal one. I think everyone's

going to come on a slightly different kind of side of things, but I think there needs to be

some open-mindedness and some barriers too. I think it's complicated, right? For sure. Definitely

the barriers. Yeah. What are some metrics you've stopped obsessing over? Oh, that's such a good

question um like subscribers is a big one yeah right i mean i think it it's a little different

because uh my channel is very old so there are like tens of thousands of subscribers that just

are closed accounts every month so there's a constant kind of churn so like for a while it's

like oh number goes up number goes up number is not going up as much yeah going up but like slow

that was one of the things but i think the thing that matters way more are the actual people who are engaging on a regular basis right And I think that there a lot of great vanity metrics and brands like it and all this stuff And look I mean if my subscriber number went down I be sad

But it would also be five. Right. So I think that the subscriber number is one of them. It's funny

Actually, one of the metrics that I care a lot more about these days is actually comments. For a while, comments kind of felt like they were actually not that invaluable

It's just a lot of like memes and junk. it feels like especially these days

the comments have actually become such a like fertile ground for people to actually have like community building and just like good conversation

Like there are a lot of video ideas that I have or I have, they get from the comments, right

What people suggest are like, Oh my God, of course we should be doing that. Of course. And that for a while felt like it was not the case

So I think like sort of leaning less into the vanity metrics and more into the

actual real engagement. That's one of the things I've really tried to focus on. Yeah. And of course I have to ask you what excites you in tech right now

I think the gaming side of things is really exciting and complicated

If I give a little bit of a circular answer. There's so much creativity in the gaming space

There are so many games that come out every day, it almost feels like

It's great. But there's also the looming, almost really because of AI, things have gotten so unaffordable

And I think that's been the biggest thing, right? I mean, just today, Xbox announced that they're raising their prices

Apple announced they're raising their prices. and the RAM crisis has gotten so acute that Steam Deck

Steam Machine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, Steam Deck also got the price hike, right? And it's just like, that's the kind of downside of

if you want to go out and buy something new right now, good luck. And especially when I do it next year by the time

there'll be another round of price hikes and whatnot. These things take so long to clear

Yeah. But on the flip side, what a great time to go and work through your Steam

you know, library or, you know, maybe do an upgrade to your existing system

So I think that's been one of the biggest topics of the year for sure