The unconventional advice creator Michael Tchao swears by

Michael, welcome to our Mashable Studio VidCon

Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. Yay! Is this your first VidCon

This is my first VidCon. Wow, okay. So what has been your experience so far

It's been really cool to just be around a lot of other creators because I'm from Vancouver, Canada, and there's just not a huge community

And just to be around other people who are doing a very similar thing

although we're in our own little world, it's just cool because everywhere I go I know someone's like in deep in the video world yeah whatever it is

it's just there's a shared mutual interest so it's nice to surround yourself with that yeah what kind

of conversations have you been having with other creators so you find like you're all talking about

like a similar industry trend or something like that um you know what there's been a lot of non

video talk really there's there's been a lot of like hey like I've met some friends I've had from

the internet for like a really long time but it's been like the first time

meeting them in person so that's been cool and so chatting like non shop talk

it's nice in a different way yeah but you know when that something comes up

it's nice feel like yes we can dive right into life so let's talk a little

bit about your content creation path like where did it start at what point

we were like yes I'm gonna I'm gonna become a creator okay well it didn't

really happen like an aha moment it was like I actually wrote a business plan before I started

wow okay and that was really helpful for me because I think having a clear goal and having

some clarity is at least in my experience it was like extremely important yeah it was if I didn't

have that I might have like veered off in different directions but like having a narrow focus set me

on this path and like I didn't, I cut it helped me filter out a lot of the noise

So like having that goal, I stuck to it and it happened pretty quickly to be quite honest

What was on this business plan? Can you reveal some of the details

There was just like um I think one of them was like I want to make a full time living on social media Okay And so that was like kind of like my phase phase one goal And from that there was like okay how am I going to achieve this goal right And so like

creating content like creating the buckets of content that I want to create

and like some of the dream brands that I wanted to work for right? Because at the end of the day

like this business at least for me a lot of my revenue comes from brand partnerships. Yeah. And

And so having a list of dream brands just fully laid out, just like ones I really want to work with

ultimately those are the ones that paid me and supported me. Otherwise, without them, I wouldn't be able to pursue this

Yeah, I actually moderated a panel about brand partnerships today. And I'm curious about how you kind of even began navigating that because it can be kind of challenging, I feel like, if you've never done it before

Yeah, definitely. right i think um because it is a big part of the whole business i started early i had less than

2 000 followers and i started pitching and that's like the number one advice every panelist was

saying just pitch yourself just pitch i i'm i'm 100 against the idea of like put your email out

there and let them fall to you like there's this idea my uncle told me this he's like you can if

there's an apple tree you can either sit under the tree and wait for an apple to fall or you find a

way to climb the tree and pick that apple and that's kind of been my mantra with like business

and content and anything i really do is like if you see an opportunity you have to go out and get

it you can't just wait because you could be waiting all day years like it might not ever come

but if you have some intention um because like you can even find a specific apple that you might

one like that red apple might look better than this one right so you can pick and choose where

you want to go and if you have that intention I think it's a lot easier to make the moves and

the right strategies to get into where you want to go yeah how did you know what to price yourself

when you were starting that's a good like that's a great question um honestly I didn't really know

yeah I had no idea you were like on reddit like I was on reddit there was this site called fypm I looked up I just did a lot of Googling Yeah But one thing I did do was like whatever I was happy with like what I wanted to go home with I would go into the negotiation double that because you can always work down

Yeah. You can't work. You can't work. So whatever is happy with, it was like two X that

Yeah. And I would just make up numbers, to be honest. And sometimes they like I'd make up a number and then they say yes

And you're like, yeah, I had no idea. Yeah. And so that's kind of how it was

It's kind of picking like, you know, trial and error. Yeah. And you never know what's going to hit

Yeah. Because it's still a wild west. Oh, totally. Totally. FYPM is you, pay me, right

Yeah. Okay. Just had to say the full government name. Yeah. Yes. Just for fun. That's the one. I just need to say it

Okay. So you've got you kind of navigated the brand deal side of it

And how'd you land on food science? okay well yeah so yeah food science is my like what I'm leaning into right and I originally

created I create food content like I've always created food content yeah but there is conventional

wisdom to like niche niche niche niche niche yes niche is like the future no I 100% disagree

oh really yeah I disagree with niching I think niching is a terrible strategy yeah I accept all

opinions yeah no it's okay I think niching is a terrible long-term strategy okay I think if you

want to have short-term growth I think niching is super smart okay but I a lot of times what I see

with a lot of creators they niche niche niche niche niche and they get pigeonholed and they get stuck down this vertical and they can't get out and if you can't get out or you have other

interests like we all do I think that's a recipe for burnout and I don't think it's a good long-term

strategy whatsoever so I am very much against that conventional wisdom to niche niche niche

and um for me personally like for me I do food content but my food content is very wide

and um I cover lots of different things like I know some of my friends in the food space they

create a ton of recipes and like I take me for an example like I eat a lot of the same stuff every day yeah I don want to keep creating new recipes because that not really true to who I am so that something I avoided right when I when I started or there a certain

point in time where I started to do that I tried to explore lots of different types of recipes and

I was like wait a second like yeah I like trying I want to learn improve my techniques but it's not

really something I want to do so cool can content creation sometimes feel a little isolating because

you are just making content and you know having a community of other creators around you is kind of

probably nice for you it's super nice it's it's one of those things where i think from the outside

looking in you know we're like as a creator i'm putting myself out there in the world right there's

a lot of people watching and interacting with people online but realistically in the real world

i'm filming myself yeah and then i watch myself on the computer while i'm editing talking to myself

and and then that's it and then that's the cycle then I hit send upload ship it and then

go from there but there's not a lot of in-person community and that's something I do crave

I have found over the years I've been doing this for about four years now and yeah there is a

there's an element of loneliness for sure but I think finding people and finding opportunities

like coming to VidCon and seeking those out they've been really important to me as a creator

just to like get out there and see and explore and see what other people are doing

I definitely feel like there's a good lesson in that too. Like for a creator who's maybe just starting or maybe they've had a channel for a few years

and they don't really know where to take it next, like going to opportunities like this or talking to other creators is like a really good step to take

Yeah. Yeah, I know. Totally. Like anytime there is an opportunity to do so, I will try to make it

At least I'll try to like make it out there. I always find like my barometer is like okay if I go somewhere to an event sure it takes time energy

money all that stuff to like go to these events but if I can leave with one takeaway that can help me

advance along in my own career path and my content creator path that's a huge win for me

and a lot of times there is and it'll be just one could be one tiny little thing and that might make

the whole difference