$600,000 Tumblr Themes, Dropshipping & Beating Cancer | Oliur
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Hello and welcome to Deep Dive, the podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover their journeys towards finding joy and fulfilment at work and in life.

My name is Ali and in each episode I chat to my guests about the philosophies, strategies and tools that have helped them along the path to living a life of happiness and meaning. This week I sit down with web designer, content creator and entrepreneur Oliya, known for his polished minimalist aesthetic online and premium tech blog Ultralinks. Oliya has built a following of over 100,000 to which he shares his tips on tech, lifestyle and financial independence.

In our conversation, we talk about everything from dropping out of school and making $600,000 from selling Tumblr themes. I'm in a very fortunate position where I get to do stuff that I enjoy already for work. I just happen to also make money with it. To the art of dropshipping and the lessons he learned from beating cancer.

All right, Oliya, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. We still don't have a name for the podcast. We were brainstorming podcast names earlier this morning. I liked Unplugged. Unplugged, okay. I liked Unplugged, but it's not my podcast. I mean, Unplugged could work, Afternoon Tea, Deep Dive. Afternoon Tea, please. I'm sure by the time this goes out, we actually will have a name for the podcast. And so when I do my intro about you, I'll say, hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. And people won't know that this is...

Anyway, first thing I wanted to ask you, how the hell have you made over $600,000 from selling Tumblr themes? Like what's going on there? What was the story? - Okay, so this is a good story. So I've done a video on it before, but I'll just go through it. I can't remember exactly what I said, but obviously I was into Tumblr, I was into using Tumblr. I had my own Tumblr blog where I used to post images and stuff. It was literally like having a mood board. That's how I used Tumblr. I used it as a mood board.

I like posting images on there and I thought, "Hey, I want to modify my Tumblr website. I want to make it look more like what I want it to look like. I want it to be more me." So I started messing around with the code and stuff, messing around with the design and stuff. I thought, "Hey, let's see what I can do." And I sort of just fell into messing around and making Tumblr themes. It was literally by chance. And then I could see, "Hey, Tumblr had a Tumblr theme garden. They're selling themes on there." I had no idea how much people were making on there, to be honest.

I thought it was maybe like a thousand dollars, two thousand dollars a month. So then I started just making themes, going into it, not really having high expectations, went into it and then here I was one or two months where I made like thirty thousand dollars a month and I was just like what? I was like 21 at the time. So you can imagine 21 year old having that sort of money, it's just like holy crap, like what am I going to do now? I feel like

That was actually a very big turning point in my life because before that I was earning quite little money. But the Tumblr themes definitely transformed my life. Tumblr probably don't know that. They probably don't know that. They actually literally changed my life in terms of what I could do and the possibilities that came along from that.

So you had a Tumblr blog and you decided you wanted to modify your own page to make it look more like you. And then you thought, let's sell. How much were you selling these themes for? So Tumblr has three different pricing models. Well, three pricing tiers, $9, $19 and $49. I was trying to make themes on the higher end, $49. There were some more simpler themes that were $19, but most of them were $49 each. Okay.

Okay. And so you make the theme once and then you can sell it multiple times for $49. Whoever wants to use that theme to make that Tumblr page look like yours can use it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. How did you know how to make Tumblr themes? Well, Tumblr luckily have a very easy documentation that you can follow and it's not as complicated as some of the other sort of platforms out there like WordPress, you could say. Tumblr is very, very simple. I think anyone who learns HTML and CSS can learn to make a Tumblr theme. It is very, very simple.

Fair play. So how old were you when you stumbled onto this goldmine of Tumblr themes? Well, I knew of Tumblr since I was like 18, 19. But making actual Tumblr things and making money, I was around like 20, 21. Oh, fair play. Okay. So I wonder if we can rewind back to sort of early life. So let's say, you know, what were you like in secondary school, sort of age 11 to 18? How did you spend your time? Were you like a massive nerd back then as well? Like what was the vibe? Oh.

I feel like I was one of those kids that sort of sat in the background at school and I wouldn't say I was a nerd but I also wouldn't say I was like oh really popular kid you know I was just passively going through school mainly because I didn't enjoy school but yeah like my school life I didn't really enjoy school that much if I'm honest I'm not a very academic person okay and then you didn't go to university no so what did what did you do instead so I went to college

because I didn't even do A-levels. I went to college and I did like a level three course, level four course, something like that, on accounting and business because I thought, oh, I was going to become an accountant. I'm really glad that didn't happen. But whilst I was doing that, that's when I started getting into computers and stuff. That's when I started getting into websites and stuff like that because I started my blog, theultralinks.com. I don't really post on it anymore. It's kind of dead now, but I started posting on that 2010, 2010 website.

And what sparked that was an Android phone that I bought at the time. I bought an Android phone, I wanted to customize it, you know, changing your icons and wallpapers was like a really big thing, it was quite a nerdy thing to do. And I would share it on the blog. And I guess that's where I started when it comes to building any sort of online presence. So you would have been around 17-ish at the time? Yeah, yeah. Or thereabouts? 17, 18, yeah. Okay. So...

It's a pretty random thought process to have at the age of 17. You know what? I want to customize my Android phone, therefore I'm going to start a blog. What was the link there? So the first place that I actually started finding people customizing their phones was a forum. It was just a forum online. And people were posting their screens on the forum. They were posting their customizations on the forum.

And I just thought to myself, hey, you know, I can post it on the forum, but I can also post it on a blog, my own sort of little corner of the internet, you could say. So I'd post it there, and then I'd get people to come to my blog as well. And that's how I sort of built it, and that's what sort of sparked me to make the blog. Okay. And this was a Tumblr blog? No, this was actually just a normal, like... Like WordPress or... No, it wasn't even WordPress. It was Google Blogspot. Oh, wow. So really old school. Okay. Really, really old school. But I moved it over to WordPress...

I think in 2012. Okay, so two years later. Yeah. So what sort of stuff were you posting on the blog for that two-year period? Two-year period I was just posting, I was posting anything I found interesting. Okay. I was obviously interested in like design and stuff and product design all these different things. I'd post like, I'd even post like Apple news or like new phone news, smartphone news, all these different things. Literally whatever I found interesting. There wasn't any rigid structure but it was just whatever I liked. And what sort of traffic were you getting to this blog between in that time period? So I think 2012, 2013

I was getting around half a million views a month. Bloody hell. That's a lot. But you say that at the time, I wasn't really making much money from it because I didn't really know how to monetize it. And CPMs weren't that high back then either.

So, yeah, I wasn't really making much money from my blog until around 2013. Okay, hang on. So you started the blog in 2010, posting about these Android things, posting random stuff that you were interested in. How did it get so popular so as to have 500,000 views a month? I honestly don't know. I can't answer that question. I honestly don't know. I think it is just a matter of

People like seeing the customizations. I guess it goes down to another reason why I guess people like following me on Instagram or YouTube. They like my sort of, this sounds so pompous, but they like my sort of style, aesthetic, you could say. You've even said it before, like I had this like sort of certain aesthetic and I think that's why people liked it. Okay. That's what people like to tell me anyway. And how did you develop this aesthetic over time?

I honestly don't know either. I think it is just one of those things where I was like, hey, I like this, hey, I like that. I think I didn't really have anyone where they sort of sparked my interest in that aesthetic. I think it was just a matter of, hey, you know, I grew up in a house where everything was really messy. And now I want everything to be like really sort of clean and minimal. So I think that's what made me spark it. I just wanted the opposite. Yeah.

So let's say we're in 2010, you've posted your first blog post. Presumably no one is reading the blog at this point because it's your first blog post.

And then presumably you had to post fairly consistently to build kind of the authority and the blog over time. How did you bring yourself to continue to post on it in the early days when you weren't getting that feedback of views and comments and stuff? Yeah, of course. I think, obviously, when you're like 17, 18, 19, 20, that sort of age range, I feel like you kind of just...

A lot of the things you do, you do it because you enjoy it, right? You don't go into it making money, into it like thinking that you're going to make a lot of money. And that is literally it. I just enjoyed sharing that stuff online. I enjoyed sharing like you do. You know, you make these videos, everyone makes these videos. YouTubers make these videos because they want to share their opinions, whatever they're making, whatever they're doing. Same sort of thing for me. And I wanted to do it on a blog.

So now we're in 2013, your blog is getting half a million hits a month. What does a day in your life look like? So at the time, I was at college, I was studying and stuff, learning at college. And I'd only go to college, I think, three or four times a week. So the rest of the time, I had a lot of free time. And it's why I would post on the blog. It's why I would do that sort of stuff. Again, my schedule was very open, like it is now. I don't like to have a rigid structure.

But I did obviously nearly everyday post stuff on the blog because I enjoy doing it. If I had a few hours here and there, I would just do it because I enjoy doing it. - Okay, so at what point did it turn from something you enjoy doing into more of like a business, if ever? - 2013, I think.

When I left college, I thought to myself, okay, I can either go to university or I can carry on with this blog thing. Like I said, I wasn't really making any money. I wasn't making much money. But I thought to myself, let's give myself 12 months. If I can make, say, two grand a month, for example, then I'm rolling. Like two grand a month, that's 24,000 pounds a year for me. And I'm 21. That's great money for me at the time.

And yeah, like 2013, the blog was making that sort of money. And then I remember there were some months where it was making like five grand a month, $5,000 a month. How was it making money in the early days? Through banner ads like Google Adsense. Really? Yeah. You're making up to 5K a month from Google Adsense on the blog. Yeah. And sponsored posts as well. So sometimes like, you know, a brand would be like, hey, can we post our product? Can we post a link or whatever?

And I would charge for that. Damn. Okay. So you've got this blog that was then going. What was your next sort of hustle that you added to the mix? It was my themes. Okay. So...

The themes thing really took over because obviously the themes making $20,000, $30,000 a month, that's much more of a lucrative thing to do than the blog. So that's where I focused a lot of my time and that's where I focused my time for around two years, three years. Okay. So it's like making more and more themes? Yeah, making more and more themes and supporting the themes because obviously there'd be a lot of people who'd buy one and they'd need to customize it or they'd need to change something. And I had quite a few, I say famous people, like

Justin Bieber, for example, was used one of my themes. But I'm sure it wasn't Justin Bieber himself. I'm sure it was his team, for example. I had brands like BMW and some other random brands as well. Some big companies used my Tumblr themes. Which is actually really great to see. It gave me that seal of approval, you could say, showing that, hey, if these brands are using it, then surely I'm doing something right. Yeah, I remember around that time, like 2013 to 2015, I

I was using WordPress quite a lot for my business that I'd set up at the time. And on places like ThemeForest, I was seeing just how much money people were making through WordPress themes. And I tried to dabble with WordPress theme development myself one summer and it went down the rabbit hole and it was just so hard that I thought, you know what? I see why these guys are making the big bucks from selling these themes for $50.

So you're working on this for two years. What did that feel like, that first month where you suddenly make $30,000? That's just completely insane for a 21-year-old. At 21, making that sort of money. In fact, even now. Yeah, it is, of course. That's like a doctor's salary for a whole year that you've made in a month off of selling website themes. No, you're completely right. Making that sort of money even now is just insane. But yeah, at 21, I just thought to myself,

I luckily didn't go off the rails. I didn't go crazy and think, "Hey, I'm making all this money, let's spend it straight away." I saved a lot of it. I saved a lot of it because I realized like just growing up without money anyway, like my parents, you know, they didn't have a lot of money. They didn't have like any high paying jobs or whatever. And I knew that, you know, making this sort of money, this is some of the most money

ever like even my parents have ever seen so I knew that I couldn't waste it I knew that I had to put it away and do something with it so I knew from quite early on maybe since I was like 19 20 that it was important to save up for like a deposit for a house for example I knew that was important and that's what I did I saved a lot of it just so that I could buy my own place and not be dependent on my parents I really like this point that you made about how

in the early days, you're not really doing it for the money. You're doing it because you enjoy it. I wanted to ask, did you enjoy like 100% of it or like 80% of it? Because everything has bids that are like less fun. Like how did you think about those back in the day? Yeah, sure. So the way I see it is sometimes you've got to go through a little bit of struggle here and there to have like that delayed gratification, you could say, where, you know, going through a struggle for a label or just doing something you don't like means that

You can do something that you do like almost in a way. It's like a vice versa sort of exchange almost in a way. That's how I see it.

And I still sort of stand by that. I still sort of think to myself, hey, you know, if I work hard now, if I do this now, if I just get it done now, I don't have to think about it later. Even, for example, you know, I don't know, you probably don't know what this is like, but I hate having my kitchen dirty, for example. I hate having the dishes out and stuff. I just think to myself, it only takes me five minutes to put my dishes away. I just do it now because once it's done, I don't have to think about it later on. It's that sort of thing for me.

Okay, so what were the areas of struggle that were the equivalent to the putting the dishes away in this sort of business? So when I was doing the Tumblr theme, for example, the hardest part was doing the more complex coding. So I wasn't very good with JavaScript, for example. So something like that, I really didn't enjoy doing it. I didn't want to learn it. So

With the themes that I had made, the simpler themes, I used the money that I made from those themes to hire an external developer to make and do the more complex stuff for me. And you can hire someone to do that quite cheaply. If you...

find someone online, you know, doesn't have to be someone in the UK, it can be it can be something you go somewhere in the US. But finding a JavaScript developer just to make a few changes here and there to add some things to a theme that you've already made is quite affordable. Okay, no fair play. And just on this note of like having having fun with stuff. Do you think for you you do you think for you it was more that you found something that you happen to find fun?

Or alternatively that you found ways to make this thing fun for yourself? I think I found something that was just fun. Like I wasn't looking for it. I just, I literally just stumbled across it. Like I was into customizing my phone at the time anyway. Like, you know, when we talk about the blog, starting the blog and stuff, I just enjoy customizing my phone. The side benefit was, hey, I can share this with other people. And then obviously it just sort of spiraled into doing all these different things. And now here I am,

doing this with you, I guess. Which is just so hilarious when you, when I think back, like all these little things have led me here. Yeah. And do you think, would it be fair to say that you were like kind of just chasing the things that you found fun at each junction and it happened to lead you here? Or was there more of a sort of strategic vision behind any of this stuff? There is some strategic sort of strategic sort of vision. Um,

But I don't think it's like very, like I said, I don't really have like a proper structure. I sort of just think to myself, hey, okay, what is it I enjoy doing now? Like as an adult now, as a 28 year old, I think to myself, what is it I enjoy doing now? And, you know, can I make money from it? Is it something I can see myself doing in say two years, five years, 10 years or whatever? Yeah.

that's how I see things now but I wasn't like that when I was like 20 years old 21 years old I kind of just thought hey let's just see what happens let's see how things go because you just don't know you don't have the life experience right so you just don't know okay

So, sounds like 2010 to 2013, it was like your blog days. And then 2013 through 2015 was your Tumblr theme heyday. So now it's 2015. What's all you're doing in 2015? Yeah. So 2015 was a big year, not in terms of money, but in terms of...

what I was going to do next. So 2015 was actually when I got my first office and made my first hire. So 2015, June 2015, I got my own office space. And that's actually where I started making YouTube videos as well. My first YouTube video is a tour of my office space that I made with my iPhone. You don't even see my face on it. It's literally just me going around showing my office space. Why did you get an office space?

Just because I was still at home, living at home with my parents. Working from a room which was like 3x3, it was absolutely tiny. I couldn't even fit a wardrobe in it. I had like a bed and a desk. Okay, so you're making 30k a month and you're thinking, you know what, let's upgrade the life setup. So I ended up getting an office for quite cheap. It was only like £9,000 a year. So very, very cheap for an office space. But it was like the size of my parents' house.

So I just thought, hey, this is good money to invest in. And it means I don't have my parents always sort of like coming in and being like, hey, Oli, you can do this, you can do that. You know, I don't have people walking in randomly, you know, so I have a proper office space where I can actually work from and where I can have employees. Yeah. So who was your first hire? So Charlie was my first hire. I went to college with him. We kept in touch because I left college like 2012. We kept in touch over the years.

And yeah, I was just like, hey, Charlie, do you wanna come work for me? And he's like, yeah, let's do it. And he's been working for me since. - So what was Charlie doing for you in the early days? - So in the early days, Charlie was actually posting on the blog. He took over the blog pretty much. He was managing that website.

And then his role in the business, in the company changed. It keeps changing, to be honest. He doesn't have a specific role. I like to call him operations manager. Oh. Because it makes him, you know, it sounds important. Yeah. I mean, that's similar to Angus's title, which is operations director. You know, I'm just like, hey, Charlie, I need this day, I need that day. Can you do it? Whatever. Yeah. Charlie's a very flexible person. And it's nice having a person like that. And I'm sure, you know, because you have Angus be that person for you.

Yeah, just sort of doing anything and everything. If like anything comes up and you don't have the time or maybe you just you literally just can't do it, you need someone else to do it. Yep. Hand it over. Nice. So it's 2015, you've got your office space. What prompted you to turn it into a YouTube video? Because that was also a bit of a weird thing to do in 2015. It's not a thought process a lot of people would have had that, hey, let me film a YouTube video of my office. True, yeah. So when I got my office space,

I was like any person start looking for inspiration for office space setups and stuff like that right? Of course. Both of our channels are like our office workspace setups are some of the most popular videos on our channels right? So I saw all these little setups on YouTube and stuff and I thought to myself hey I can just share my one because I was also posting on Instagram at the time and I would share a picture of my workspace on Instagram

I used to get a lot of comments of people asking me, "Hey, can you post a video of it on YouTube? Have you ever considered posting a video?" And that's where I sort of fell into just doing YouTube. We're going to take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor for this episode and that is Brilliant. I've been using Brilliant for the last two plus years. They're a fantastic platform for learning maths, science and computer science with engaging and interactive

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and taking the courses on Brilliant, like their introduction to algorithms and their introduction to Python, really helped me get more of a grasp of computer science than I've ever had before. It's also great for learning how to code, which is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially if you wanna start a business. And I attribute like 98% of my business success to the fact that I learned how to code when I was in secondary school. So if you wanna check out the courses on math science and computer science, then head over to brilliant.org/deepdive

and the first 200 people to sign up with that link will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. So thank you Brilliant for sponsoring this episode. Okay, so your first video was the office tour.

At what point did you decide, hey, I'm going to become a YouTuber and start actually making YouTube videos? Well, it's funny because I still don't see myself as a YouTuber. Okay. Because I don't do YouTube full time. I still do YouTube probably two days a week. Okay. Oh, you're a part-time YouTuber. Yeah, I'm usually a part-time YouTuber. I don't know when I decided, hey, you know, I can just start doing YouTube videos. I think it is just...

Because I know the thing that you like to always say is you need to be consistent if you want to build a YouTube channel. You need to consistently post. But for me, it wasn't like that. For me, I was posting whenever I just wanted to post. I didn't have a schedule. I maybe post two videos a week, some, and then I might not post for like a month because I was still running other parts of my business. But as YouTube started growing and as the income started growing from YouTube, I realized, hey, I'm onto something here.

and I started dedicating more time to it and that's why now I dedicate two days a week to it. But I don't ever see YouTube becoming a full-time thing for me. Ideally, I don't actually want it to be. Okay. Mainly because I like doing other stuff. I like starting other businesses. I like running other businesses. I just can't see myself doing YouTube full-time. How did you get your first, let's say, 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers? Through Instagram.

Okay. So on Instagram, if we go back a bit, on Instagram I was posting pictures of setups and products and things like that. And I was growing very quickly on Instagram. Instagram algorithm at the time was very favorable to me. I was gaining around 10,000 followers a month at one point. Wow. Which is just crazy. I don't think I've ever had a month on YouTube where I've gotten 10,000 subscribers. But yeah, from there it just...

I started directing people and being like, "Hey, come to my YouTube channel. I've uploaded a video there." And I realized from doing that, that

I enjoyed making videos. I enjoyed doing all the stuff that goes into videos and also realized that, hey, I can make quite a bit more money on YouTube compared to Instagram. And I also realized that Instagram was sort of they changed the algorithm. They changed the way things work. Instagram is not the same as it was 2015. 2015, all you could do on Instagram was post photos. I think you couldn't post videos. You couldn't post. I don't think you could even post portrait photos. I think it was still square.

Yeah, so I focus a lot more on YouTube now compared to any of my other social channels. Yeah, so it sounds like the trajectory of things from like 2010 to 2015-ish was

You find this thing that you enjoy, i.e. product design and this sort of aesthetic. You post about it alongside like phone customizations and stuff on the blog. You start posting on the blog consistently. The Tumblr theme thing sort of is a bit of a side gig that's not fully related to that. But I suppose your aesthetic kind of comes into that as well. I think one thing we didn't talk about was in that time, I'd say between 2013 and 2017, 2017.

I was doing a lot of client work as well. Client work? What were you doing for clients? For example, designing websites, designing apps, things like that. Okay. And that also came about because I was obviously customising my Android phone. To customise your Android phone, you have to go into Photoshop and you have to mess around with graphics and UI elements and stuff like that.

And again, it's just another thing I enjoy doing. And over time, I've got the confidence of like, hmm, maybe I can charge money for this. Maybe I can post my designs online and see if anyone hires me.

and I used to post on a website called dribble.com. - Oh yeah. - So dribble was very popular from like 2012 to 2015, 2016 at the time. And I got a lot of clients through dribble. - Okay. - So, and they were all very, I say all, most of them were quite high paying clients. So I had the Tumblr themes going, I had the blog going and I was doing design work. So I had a good sort of three, four income streams there, doing all sorts of stuff. And I enjoyed doing all of it. - Yeah. - I just enjoyed doing all of it.

I wasn't always busy because I didn't have client work all the time, but the client work, it was great. I enjoyed doing stuff for other companies and just having that experience. Okay. And it sounded like it all sort of stemmed from this decision in 2010 to post on a blog. Yeah. Because one thing I often say to people is that starting a blog can literally change your life. And it seems like that's been the case for you. I'm probably one of the best cases of that, right? Nice. Okay. So...

Going back to the story, so we're at 2015 at this point, you've got your blog, you've got your Tumblr themes that are selling, you've got your client work that's on the side, you've got your Instagram and you've just started YouTube. What does kind of Oliura's empire look like for the next few years? So from 2015 to 2019, I was going to the office every day.

Is it 2019? Yeah, I was pretty much going to the office every day. But in 2017, I bought my own house, purchased my own house. And ever since I bought my own house, I was sort of splitting the time between the office and home, mainly because, this is going to sound so ridiculous, but it was a half an hour commute. And I just thought, hey, I could do a lot of my work at home. I don't need to go to the office because at home, it's just me. There's no one to disturb me. I don't have any sort of distractions from family or anything. So, yeah.

Yes, it's sort of those sort of years I was doing the same sort of stuff. I was doing themes, I was doing design work, I was doing YouTube and Instagram and stuff. But I also started a Shopify store. I started ulx.com, ulxstore.com in 2017, 2016, 2017. Okay. I was experimenting with Shopify at the time. I actually started a few Shopify stores. Yeah.

Because dropshipping was a big thing at the time. Okay. And I started doing dropshipping just to see what it's like. And I realised dropshipping, at the time, it was a bit of a...

Yeah, I feel like I got a bad rep. Okay. So for people who might be listening who don't know what Shopify or dropshipping are, how would you describe those things? So Shopify is just the platform. So you use Shopify to sell products online, physical products online. And then dropshipping is when you have products on your store,

But then you don't actually have the products in stock with you. You have someone else send the products, maybe a factory in China or a factory in the UK or a manufacturer. Or it could just be old Jim who lives down the road and makes leather wallets in his little shed or whatever. You would just send the order to that person, to the dropshipper, and they would send the order directly to the customer. So there's no...

You don't have to get involved with the actual product management and shipping the product. You're sort of just making the sale, getting the customer. Okay. So customer buys from your site, but what the customer probably doesn't realize is that behind the scenes, Jim has got his collection of leather goods and Jim is the one sending him the thing. Yes. But it's as if you're the one sending him the thing. Exactly. Okay. How does that work? Like, why does that work? So it's funny because I feel like dropshipping gets a bad rep because...

of long shipping times and things like that. But what I think a lot of people don't realize is that every single major company in the world, apart from Amazon, does drop shipping. Even Apple does drop shipping. Wait, how so? Because Apple obviously have a fulfillment center in Ireland, for example, for the UK. And that's where all the products are shipped from.

And that fulfillment center might not actually be run by Apple. It might be run by a completely third party. Yeah, when I get Apple products, they're from like Synctron or some company like that. I'm like, what the hell is Synctron? Exactly. It's just a third party handling all the logistics and the shipping and everything for Apple. And that's a very common thing. Okay.

which people don't seem to realize. Dropshipping isn't a new thing. It's been around for decades. It's been around for a long time. Because I guess when you hear dropshipping, you think scam. Yeah, exactly. That's the problem. Which is such a shame. It's like the word entrepreneur now. Yeah, it's a bit cringe, yeah. Same with dropshipping. I think that's exactly what's happening. Okay. So you were one of the OG, well, I guess...

2017 wasn't really OG, but like you were- - I was dabbling in it. - Dabbling in dropshipping. - And I was making maybe a couple of thousand dollars a month, but it wasn't very profitable and it wasn't a good business. - Okay, how- - Mainly because-

So how are you making a couple of thousand dollars a month from prop shipping? What does that look like? So a couple of thousand dollars a month. Because that seems pretty good. Yeah, it is pretty good. But it wasn't very profitable. Oh, as in revenue wise as opposed to profit wise? Yeah, exactly. So what sort of stuff were you selling? So it would have been like MacBook sleeves and felt desk mats and things like that. Okay. You know, I had to buy them from China or whatever. But I realized that

Doing dropshipping like that, the shipping times are just way too long for customers. So I took it a step further and I thought to myself, hey, why don't I, I have the space, I have this office space, I can store the products here. So I would bulk buy products, like any normal retailer, like any normal business, I'd bulk buy the products, I'd store them in my office space

And we would send them out from here. We would send them to customers in the UK, in the EU and the US because it's much quicker than having a supplier in China do it for us. Okay. So you would buy like a thousand units in bulk of like a MacBook sleeve from China. Exactly. Store them in your house slash office and physically like ship them to people around the world. Exactly. Because you have a lot more control over the customer service and the sort of the way the business works.

It's also quite a bit more profitable because obviously you're buying products in bulk rather than buying each time a customer buys. Okay.

So you're selling this stuff on a Shopify store and how did things grow from that kind of 2017 onwards? So I realized that, hey, you know, I'm making money. And if we go back to your question about how was I making the money, I was marketing it mainly through my Instagram profile. I'd post the products on my Instagram profile and I'd have followers and stuff who were interested by it. You know, that's how it started. With dropshipping and stuff, I realized, hey, you know, if I want to make more money, if I want to do this properly,

i need to start designing my own products so i started designing my own products in photoshop in sketch just literally writing down on paper if i have to and i would come up with other products that i like the look of put it all together in like a pdf document send it off to a manufacturer in china

And I'd be like, "Hey, can you make this? Can you make this for me?" With my logo on it. It's funny because it sounds very like half-ass in a way, but it's a very common thing that most people do. So you can just do that. You can just design something on a napkin and send it to someone in China and they will be like, "Yes, our factory can make this for you." Exactly. That's pretty cool. Yeah, exactly.

I think the toughest part of it is you do need capital, obviously, because to buy a thousand units and to buy sample products, it does cost a lot of money. Like a sample can cost anything, a hundred to like a thousand dollars, for example, because they're only making one unit. And sometimes they have to adjust the tooling, adjust the manufacturing, all that sort of stuff to just make a sample. But then once you've made a sample and you're happy with it, you make a bulk order. Sometimes they actually take off the sample fee, which is pretty nice.

Can anyone just do this? Like, is there a website that you go on where you can just like find a factory in China to make a thing for you? Like, how does it work? There's a website I feel like most people know of who are in that sort of world called alibaba.com where you can go to and you can find manufacturers and stuff and you can work with them and making your own custom products. Do you like ring them up or have a Zoom call? How does that actually work? Like, if I...

Let's say I wanted to design the perfect backpack for my everyday carry, which is the thing I want to do at some point. Perfectly sized for a 13-inch MacBook, 11-inch iPad. That would be really cool. What would that process look like? I have a vision for the perfect backpack. So, like I said, the first thing you need to do is come up with a sketch, come up with any features that you like, come up with anything that you'd want in the backpack, any sort of key requirements that you want.

Look at other backpacks you like the look of, take the best bits of them and then mix and mash them together almost. Send that off to a manufacturer. You go on Alibaba, you can put in an RFQ, which is request for quote. And you upload your design file or designs or whatever. You tell them the measurements, the materials that you like. And then you usually have like a bunch of supplies get back in touch with you.

And then from there, you do have to spend quite a bit of time researching each supplier, seeing what other products they've made in the past, seeing if they have any products that are similar to what you've already made. Because obviously if they have made similar products, it's going to be much easier working with them and making the product that you want. Okay. And what does working with them look like on a day-to-day basis? Do you go to China and talk to them?

How does that, how does that, like I literally know nothing about what it's like to, so I'm a complete noob about this. So I've never been to China in my life. Okay. It's all done online and it's all done on Alibaba.com. You can even have the orders done through there. Alibaba provide like protection almost. So say you order $10,000 worth of stock and it doesn't meet the spec that you sent to them. Say there's something off,

You can sometimes get your money back. It really depends. It can depend. And yeah, it's all just done through Alibaba. Just through DMs? Pretty much, yeah. You can send them... If you have Slack or WhatsApp, you can send them your contact details and you can talk to them through there as if they're a friend. But obviously...

The biggest issue with that is that there is a language barrier of course, they do speak Chinese, most of them, and they sometimes have a rep who can speak English. But even then it's quite broken English. Sometimes you get some people who are great who can speak English very well, but some people are quite broken English. And again, it's just something you have to work through and figure out. Okay. So how long does it take from like kind of idea for designing a product to getting a sample in your hand from a factory in China for you? Good question. Good question.

Designing a product, coming up with the design and stuff can maybe take me a couple of days because usually these product designs just come along randomly. I'm like, "Hey, I want to make this product." Designing it, whatever, two or three days. Sending it off on Alibaba, looking for a manufacturer. That can take maybe a week or two, figuring out who to make a sample with, who should make your sample. And then getting a sample made can sometimes take up to 60 days. It can take a long time, two months.

And then once you're happy with the sample, because maybe you're not happy with the first sample, you might have to get another one made. So it means another two months. But once you're happy with the sample, again, it can be in over 60 to 120 days until you actually get the products in your hands. Okay. And do you ever have to worry about quality control for the samples for the bulk order? Yeah, of course, of course. So there are different ways you can do this. You can hire a third party in China to check the products for you.

or you can just have the manufacturer send you pictures and stuff, see what the products are like. There's always risk involved as anything like this, there's always risk but it's just one of the things of making products online, making physical products. What's been the biggest kind of mistake/downside/bad thing that has happened to you as a result of trying to sell physical stuff online? Yeah I've actually shared this in a video before. I can't remember the exact amount that I lost but I think it was

I can't remember. I can't remember if it was 10. I know I've lost more than $10,000. I think it was maybe $30,000, something like that, where I bought some stock and it wasn't up to scratch and I just couldn't get a refund. I went through the bank. I went through Alibaba and I couldn't sell these products. Like they worked and everything, but the logo just wasn't right. It just didn't look good enough. So I

You just have to write it off. Yeah, I just had to write it off. I literally had to throw it in the bin, which is such a shame because it's a waste of resources, it's a waste of money, it's a waste of materials. It's just not very good for the planet either. So that's probably one of the biggest things and

Thankfully, that's never happened since because I've learned my lesson. Okay. What lesson was that? I think it was just a matter of being a lot more, giving a lot more attention to the samples, giving a lot more attention to the bulk order, making sure they send me high resolution pictures of the bulk order. Yep. Of like maybe I'll get them to send me pictures of like five or six items in the bulk order just to see what they look like and making sure that...

At the spec I've written is as detailed as it can possibly be. Because then I can go to Alibaba and be like, hey, you know, look, they haven't followed the spec. So they haven't made the product. To my requirements, I want my money back.

And you can just like say to the factory, hey, I want photos and they'll be like, all right, here you go. Yes, most factories, most good factories anyway, would be happy to send you photos. And they'll even send you photos, if you like, of the inside of the factory. So you can see working conditions and things like that. Make sure, you know, things are up to scratch and that there's no children working in there, for example. Because I know obviously that can be a big thing when working with manufacturers. And you've just got to hope, you know, unless you can visit the factory yourself,

you just got to hope that there are children working there and Alibaba usually does vet all the manufacturers that they have on their website to make sure obviously that they meet the rules and the laws that are in place. Okay, so how if you're open to sharing, how profitable is it to run a sort of physical products business? That where you design stuff, manufacture it in China, bring it back to the UK and ship it from the UK. What does that look like? It can really, really vary. It can really, really vary. So

You know, it can be in everything like maybe 5% profit margins to like 60, 70%. I've seen some businesses that make 60, 70% profit margins because maybe they already, for example, like you, already have an audience. So they don't need to spend money on like marketing, for example, because marketing, I think, is the biggest expense for any business which is selling products, physical products. So, yeah, it can vary a lot.

Okay. So if I wanted to make the sort of work with you to design this like perfect backpack, that would fit my everyday carrier. I could take the office every day, maybe in three different colors and then spin up a Shopify store, pitch it to the audience. Sure. What do you think will...

what would be your estimate of like ballpark costs and how much can we sell this for? Like, what would that look like if we were constructing a business out of this? Again, it just varies so much. It depends on backpack materials, the spec of the backpack, pockets and whatever. Okay. But let's just say, let's just say you wanted quite a high cost. Yeah. I want something sort of peak design style slash like, you know, high end. I think it would cost you anywhere between $20 to $50 per unit. Oh, okay. So per unit. Yep. And then...

Sell it for like $200 per unit. Exactly. I think that's a big surprise a lot of people seem to have. They think, oh, you know, iPhones cost $200, $300 to make, but then they sell them for $1,000. I think a lot of people don't realize that's just the material cost. There's so much cost involved. For example, your time of making the backpack, logistics, shipping, most likely you're going to offer free shipping. Shipping is expensive, man. Very, very expensive. I feel like we've all gotten used to free shipping from Amazon. Yeah.

But Amazon, it costs them a lot of money. They've got a lot of efficient things in place. That's why they can do it. But yeah, it's actually quite standard to see a $250 backpack that only costs $50 to make. That's quite a standard thing. And so $50 for the cost of the backpack, what would be the ballpark costs for the other stuff associated with selling a backpack on the internet? Uh-huh.

I don't know really with ballpark cost to be honest because like shipping how much does shipping cost like when you're selling when you're sending your stuff out so for example shipping a backpack for example to someone in the US can cost us like

$30, $40. Bloody hell, okay. Exactly. More than the actual product itself. Yeah. Which is very common. Okay. Very, very common thing. And then I guess if you're running ads and things, then it all adds up. But the nice thing about ads is you can really track the ROI, return on investment of the ads. Yeah. So you would hope that you can spend, let's say...

10,000 a month, put it on your American Express, get the points and you will literally see a return of maybe 30,000 a month from those ads? 30,000 is on the high end. Okay. So a good ballpark is like around two. So for every dollar you spend, you make $2. But again, it very much depends on the product. So for example, say you're selling an electric scooter, that's $1,000. You know, the...

ROI on that could be around one or two or three but because the product is a lot more expensive spending $500 on an ad to make $1,000 you've made a $500 profit there or $500 margin which is obviously like say 10, 20 iPhone cases or even more like you know 50 iPhone cases so yeah like it just varies so much from product to product. Okay so

You started this thing in 2017. What are things looking like now with the physical products that you're selling? What does the store look like? - So in the last year,

you know, with ulexstore.com, we generated a million dollars, over a million dollars. Which is obviously like for me, that's amazing. Like that's a crazy amount of money to make in a business. I've never had a business which has made that much money in 12 months. So yeah, like it's doing pretty well. But again, I don't focus my full time on it. Luckily, I have three other people working on that business. So they manage it for me. I have

Charlie, obviously doing the operations, doing the shipments, customer service, stuff like that. I have Ivan who's doing product sourcing, product management, because obviously talking to manufacturers, talking to people on WhatsApp and Skype takes up a lot of time. And it's something that I outsource to him. He works full time. And then I have a guy in New Zealand who's doing my advertising for me, marketing, Facebook, Instagram, advertising, stuff like that. Okay.

That's pretty cool. And so what is your, like right now we're in 2021, what does your sort of your empire look like? You've got the store, what else do you have in your... I've got the YouTube channel. I've got, I guess, digital products on my website. Things like Lightroom presets and wallpapers and icons and stuff. You know, they don't make an absolute ton of money. Well, I say they don't make a ton of money. They still make quite good money around...

you know it can be well it can vary so when i was doing the icons for example remember when ios 14 i was really blew up um you know i was making tens of thousands a month um so yeah it can vary so much but icons and digital products i sometimes take on client work so consulting you know someone might hire me for even just half an hour and because they want feedback on a product so they want feedback on their business um and i can hopefully provide some value to them um

And that's it right now, I think. Yeah. Okay. What's next for you? Like, how do you think about what you want to do next? Because you've got like a pretty comfortable sort of suite of products. You could sit back and essentially live off this for the foreseeable future. How do you think about what to do next? So I think at some point I would like to sell ulxtool.com. I'd like to sell it. Mainly because I think my interest in doing physical products has sort of shifted quite a bit.

I realize that I want to do

I feel like I want to start a software as a service business. I don't know what yet. Trying to dabble in some ideas. I think that's my next step, doing software as a service and of course going to YouTube, posting on YouTube and stuff. Because I think it's always nice to have an audience that you can speak to, that you can share things with. Yeah, awesome. So we've talked a lot about kind of the business side of life. I wonder if we can talk about some personal stuff. Sure. And so...

Was it a year ago that or longer than that, that you got first diagnosed with cancer? Oh, yeah. What was the story there? It's August 3rd now. Yeah. So I was diagnosed July 7th last year, 2020. Yeah. So sort of peak lockdown. Yeah.

And so it's funny because I had, I think I've spoken to you about this before. I had symptoms since like April and it was since I came back from LA and I came back from being in LA. Um,

And I think the first symptom was just lower back pain. I had a lot of lower back pain. I thought at first it was sitting at a computer all day. You know, we both sit at computers all day, just having a bad back, not sitting properly. That's what I thought it was at first. Adjusted positions, yeah. Adjusted our position, not slouching. But it just didn't get better. And it was a very weird sort of aching pain.

Went to my doctors and stuff, went to A&E and stuff. And they thought it was like kidney stones or whatever. They didn't find anything. And then it went. It went for a little while.

And then July, I woke up one morning and I just found it very difficult to breathe. And I was like, what's going on here? I thought, hey, you know, why am I out of breath? It's like, you know when you go for a very intense sprint, not a run, a sprint. And then you suddenly stop and you have to bend over and take your breath. That's what it was like on a Monday morning. Bloody hell, that must have been scary. Yeah, it was. It was very scary because I was just like, what the hell, I can't speak. Yeah.

So an ambulance came, a lot of drama, an ambulance came, picked me up, took me to the hospital. They did a bunch of tests and stuff. And the first thing they found was that I had two blood clots, two pulmonary embolisms, one in each lung. I was just like, what? And they asked me had I traveled recently? And I go, yes, I had been to LA. So they think, well, part of the reason why I had the blood clots was because I was on a 12-hour flight and I didn't get up once in that flight. I didn't even go to the toilet. So...

blood pools in your feet, it doesn't go up through your body but over time those blood clots have obviously come up and been introduced into my lungs. But what was also another factor in having those blood clots was the lumps in my lungs that I had from the cancer. So I had 12 lumps in my lungs. 12? 12 lumps in my lungs. The biggest was around 18 millimetres.

in my lungs yeah they were sort of just all spread around my lungs and stuff um and obviously that was making it difficult for the blood to go through my lungs yeah so i asked my doctor well my oncologist how long do you think i've had the cancer for and he goes we think you might have had it for around 12 months and i was like what whoa i was like because i had no other symptoms yeah um

Because usually I think with testicular cancer, everyone expects like you're down there to become enlarged. It wasn't like that for me. I had a different type. And yeah, so like July 7th, I was diagnosed. I was in the hospital for like two days, three days. And then I started chemo on the last week of July. Yeah, last week of July. So within three weeks, I was on chemo. I was doing chemotherapy. What did that feel like when...

Because you're like young, you're like, you would have been like 27 at the time. And I'm imagining like if we had a 27 year old on the ward who's come in with shortness of breath and we're like, oh, they've got two pulmonary embolisms. Oh, and also they've got 18 sort of 18 metastases from a testicular cancer primary. 12, sorry, 12.

like in their lungs, it's just absolutely mind blowing as the doctor on the other end. Like what was it like for you as the patient? - I think that was the shock the other doctors had, like just like you said, you know, doctors seeing all that were like, what the hell, how did this happen? Honestly, at the time I was just like, what? At the time I was just like, is this really happening to me? Because,

I was fit and healthy. Before I got my cancer, I was actually probably in the best shape I had ever been. Better shape than when I was a teenager. Mm-hmm.

going to the gym four or five times a week i was eating properly you know i was quite slim um i wasn't absolutely shredded or ripped but i was just in very good shape and that's what shocked me even more because i was like you know how how do you even get this yeah so like the first thing i did was i researched an absolute ton i spoke to doctors i looked online i looked at all the different things

And getting testicular cancer is literally just almost like a random generator. Like it is completely random. There's no, there's no things that cause it. The only thing I think people say that cause it is maybe if you've had it previously in family, but none of my family have ever had it. Nobody in my family has ever had that type of cancer. So yeah, like for me, I was just like, okay, I don't even know what to do. I don't even know what's next. I did very much sort of take,

I took the week sort of just week by week because I knew, okay, I've got to do this week of chemo. I've got to do this, this, I've got to do that. And I kind of just thought to myself, especially looking at all the studies of testicular cancer, seeing that,

it's crazy to say it's the best cancer to have. - Yeah, that's often how you describe particular cancer. - Yeah, because it's the most curable. I think it's the only cancer that's curable as well. There are other types of cancer that are. So I was obviously quite positive about it in that way too. At the same time I was like hysterical, crying and whatever, because who wouldn't? If you get told you have cancer, you're like what? How can this happen to me? So yeah, I was just taking it week by week pretty much.

Yeah, that's just like... Yeah, I can't even begin to imagine what that was like for you. I messaged you. You did, yeah. I messaged you because I can't remember why I messaged you or what... Yeah, I can't remember why I messaged you or what I messaged you about because obviously I was very emotional at the time. I remember, I think I was telling you, I was just really angry. Yeah, we talked about this at the time. Because I was just like, how did it not get caught earlier? I think that was my biggest issue because I went to...

A&E or I went to hospital in April with a lot of back pain. How did they not catch it then? But yeah, it's just crazy to think about it now. So what was the experience of starting chemo like? Oh, chemo is the worst thing I can... It's the worst thing to describe. I feel like... I don't really know how to explain it. It's like being a zombie. Okay. It is like being a zombie. It's like you have this body and you have this brain that you can't control. But you can still understand what's going on.

but you can't control anything. Like I couldn't even look at a TV. I couldn't look at my phone. I couldn't look, I couldn't focus. I couldn't drive. I couldn't do anything when I was on chemo. It was just nuts. It is literally just walking like you're half dead. That's the only way I can explain it. People obviously say chemo is hell, but honestly, like it's worse than like you can even think it is. It's awful. So it's fair to say you won't want to do it again. No, no, no, 100%.

- Not unless obviously I have to. - Yeah. So how long were you in zombie mode for? - So I had 10 weeks of chemo and it was in three cycles.

Yeah, three and a half cycles sort of. So I'd go in for the first week and I'd go in for three days, eight hours a day. So I would be sitting there with a drip in me, IV or whatever you call it. I don't know what their technical term is. All of my arms are just ruined from all of it. But I'd have the machine just pumping the fluids through me eight hours of the day. The second and the third week, I would just go in once a week for around...

two or three hours and then I'd repeat the cycle again, you know, eight hours a day for three days for the next cycle and then two weeks. What were the conversations with the other patients like? So I was by far the youngest patient there. Yeah. I was by far, everyone there was much older than I was but honestly, the people who took care of me, they were amazing because

I don't know how they do it day in day out, but they're the happiest people ever. They literally keep you happy. They literally keep you positive. And all the people there as well, like the, cause obviously everyone's a lot older than me, 60s, 70s, 80s sort of people. And everyone, it's almost like a big family. Cause everyone's going through the same thing. Everyone, obviously everyone's got different types of cancer, but everyone's going through the same thing of just sitting in the chair, having chemo. And it's interesting hearing their stories and,

because obviously they have a lot more life experience than I do. So there's so many interesting stories. I feel like old people always have the best stories, right? Yeah, I guess it's unusual to spend eight hours sitting next to a random old person and talking about their lives. This is the other thing. Because my cancer was spread so far and was so bad,

I was one of the only people there that would actually stay eight hours. Some of the other people would come and go. So most of the time I actually wouldn't have the same person sat next to me. So maybe halfway through the day, there'd be someone else who comes and sits next to me who's coming in for their treatment. So I met so many different people. It was great. I say it was great, obviously it's not great. But it was great speaking to all these people and just socializing with them. So what is the social etiquette around someone sits next to you in the chemo chair and

Is it like a bus where you're a bit on the underground where you're not going to make eye contact? Is it like an aeroplane? What does it look like? Everyone says hello. Everyone's like, hey, how's it going? And everyone, the first question they ask each other is, what are you here for? What's your cancer? What's your chemo like? What's your treatment like? And obviously the most common question I got was, how old are you? Because I just looked like a young person to be there. So you would say 27? I was 27. How would people respond to that?

people just feel sorry yeah i just feel sorry for me they're like oh you poor thing yeah oh you don't deserve this or something like that obviously it's like it's really nice because all these other people like they treat you as if like they're your son you're their son even um you know they treat you as if you know that they need to take care of you in a way yeah which is nice because like you know it's nice having all this support from all these just strangers yeah people who just we just want to see you get through it yeah which is great

Because you don't... You sort of strike me as similar to me in that I feel like you're not big on sharing your emotions and getting emotional support from other people generally. Correct me? Oh, you are? Okay. You just don't see it online. Yeah, I guess that's not really the persona that you... No, I can understand that, especially on my YouTube channel. Yeah. I think I feel like... You put across a very like put together like...

I think it'd be quite interesting to see when people watch this. Yeah. Because I feel like this is a lot more casual. Yeah. You're more smiley here than I've ever seen you on your YouTube channel. Yeah, I know. And we're talking, and we're talking about you having cancer. So true. Yeah. I think, I think I definitely am an, I am an emotional person for sure. Um,

But I was really lucky to have people, friends around me at the time for emotional support and like supporting me and stuff, making sure I was okay. I had friends like trying to visit me. Obviously at the time I had to be very careful because COVID was going around. And when you have chemo, your white blood cells just disappear, right?

So I couldn't see anyone really, but people would call me, people would FacePack time me, message me. They would always ask how I was. And I remember before I actually started the chemo, I literally had all of my friends and family all come and visit me in like three weeks. People I hadn't seen for years had come and seen me. And it was just nice. It was nice having that support. And it was nice like just knowing that I can call any of these people and be like, I need this and they would be there for me. It was great. Sick.

What sort of life lessons did you learn from the old people that you were chatting to in that time, if any? I feel like old people love imparting wisdom on younger people. So I imagine you would have got a lot of that. Well, I think I was lucky in a way where most of the people that I spoke to, they were just very much just like happy-go-lucky. They were just like,

do whatever the hell you want because then literally like everyone says life is just too short like you know if everything is too serious everything is too too like if you take everything too seriously nothing is fun like you know just enjoy as much as you can and i think i i was like that anyway luckily i think i i'm already in that sort of mindset of hey you know

I'm in a very fortunate position where I get to do stuff that I enjoy already for work. I just happen to also make money with it. That's the great thing. And you know, I live comfortably and stuff and I enjoy myself. I see friends and family. I socialize like, look, I'm here with you socializing. You know, I enjoy this sort of stuff. I enjoy socializing with people and hanging out with other people. And I feel like that's what a lot of these older people taught me. Having experiences with other people and just

Taking things as they go pretty much. Okay, and I think that's also why with the cancer I'm just like hey, I've done it now. It's done like I've completed It was just another another section of my life. Yep. I never saw it as like, oh my god Like, you know, I do sometimes think to myself. Oh my god. I can't believe I did that But I think hmm, that was a good experience Don't want to do it again How do you think about the balance between

live every day as if it's your last versus kind of the more think about the long term i think i think it's good to have a mix of both i think a lot of people think oh you need to have one or the other no no no i think it's important to have a mix of both because you don't want to for example i know people say oh you know when you're young you should you should enjoy yourself spend all your money you know get drunk eat whatever you want but you know what if when you're 50 60 years old and you start having health issues

but if you don't have enough money for retirement you've got to think about both you've got to have a good balance of of the two i think and i found from you know things like being in just going to the gym i wouldn't say you know i'm like properly in shape but i i try to i try to be and i try to eat healthy and like we were talking this morning i don't drink coffee really um

Because I want to just be able to be 50, 60 years old and be like, oh, you know, I'm still fine. I'm still going through life completely fine. I'm still fit as a fiddle. I'm still doing whatever I want to do. I don't have any other sort of health issues. So you don't drink either? No, I don't drink alcohol. Yeah. And I guess like,

when a lot of young people hear that someone is teetotal, they think, oh, well, aren't you sacrificing enjoyment of life? Oh my God, don't. Yeah. The amount of times where I've been to a restaurant or a bar and I've said, oh, I don't drink. And the looks I've gotten, people are like, oh, you must be well boring or you must not have had fun. I'm thinking like, that actually says a lot about you because it means you have to get a bit drunk or a bit tipsy to have fun. Why can't you have fun as you are? Like, that's how I see it. Because I think,

I think if you can't find a happiness in just like not having any sort of drugs in you, then, you know, there's another underlying issue there. Nice. So other than, I mean, obviously going through the experience and it sounds like the cancer has taught you to double down on this thing of,

Enjoy every day on its own merit, but also think about kind of long-term stuff Have you had any other kind of lessons that you've that you've learned from it that you would kind of share with other people? I think the biggest the biggest thing I've definitely learned from cancer is not giving Well giving less of a shit then caring a lot less about what other people think and what other people say That's why I shared the video of me sharing that I have cancer was I thought to myself. I

There are going to be some people who comment this that and the other saying that hey, you know You deserve to have it or some trolling or whatever Yeah, but I know there's always going to be some people who are going to benefit from it And you know there have been people other people who have reached out to me where they're like, hey I'm so glad you shared your cancer story because if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have discovered that I also have cancer that I've I wouldn't have known the symptoms. I wouldn't have known What what it's like so I've realized I just need to yeah, like I realize I need to stop

Caring a lot less about what other people think and just do whatever I think is best But I feel like you need to have a good balance there because obviously you don't want to come across as an asshole either of course You know, you don't want to be going around thinking you're all that basically you want to be able to have a good balance Okay, just in terms of like a public health announcement What are the things that you would encourage people to be looking for with regards to testicular cancer/any others? I'm not sure I'm the right person because... You've been through it like

I've got a bullet point list from med school that I barely remember, but yeah. But the thing with cancer and with cancer in general, obviously it affects everyone differently. So the symptoms you might have are different. I feel like I don't really want to say the symptoms on camera because mainly because...

someone could have that symptom but they actually might not have cancer. So I would just recommend for example going on an actual cancer research website or the NHS website and seeing the actual information on there because that's where I found the information that I needed and that's how I realised. Because I remember the day when I went to hospital and I remember sitting on a bed and them telling me I had cancer

I feel like I knew before then that I had it. All of the symptoms, all the things I had already read about and I had met basically the criteria. It was just a matter of having an actual doctor telling me that, hey, you've got it. I think it is literally just a matter of taking care of yourself and just looking at proper official medical websites for symptoms rather than some random Joe blog. Yeah.

How often do you do self-examination and stuff these days? Self-examination? Yeah, that's what we... How often do you do self-examination? Well, clearly not often enough. I do it maybe once every few months when I'm in the shower and I remember... It's often when I just think of you and then I think I should do some self-examination. Guys, Ali's just mentioned to me that he thinks of me when he's in the shower. Some of the time. Maybe once every few months. I don't know whether I should be impressed or disgusted.

I mean, it's weird because like... Actually, I should, I guess I should be proud of that because it means that I've had that impact on you, right? Yeah. I've had the impact on you where you're like, hey, my, you know, Ollie, my friend has had cancer. Maybe I should just check. Yeah. You know, which I think, yeah, maybe whoever's watching this, check yourself, make sure you think of me as weird as that sounds. Yeah.

So I've got a few things I wanted to ask you specifically about. So you say quite a lot in your YouTube videos, words to the effect of, damn, I'm a lucky dude. I'm so grateful for the life I'm living. I am honestly very, very grateful to be in the position I'm in. How much do you feel luck has played a role in your success? So...

this is a weird thing, luck, because it's not a thing that you can measure. No. But I like the idea and the phrase that a lot of people say where you make your own luck. You put yourself in positions. You sort of try to make all these different things align to work together. And I think...

I think that's where maybe I've gotten a bit lucky. For example, I feel like I'm lucky here to be on the podcast with you, to be on this video with you, because inevitably, obviously, you have a lot more subscribers than I do. You have two million subscribers. I have like 200,000. I have the tenth that you do. But, you know, here I am because we get along, because we're good friends. Here I am. And hopefully some of the people who are going to be watching this are going to also come over to my channel. Yeah, everyone subscribe to Oli and link below. Definitely subscribe. Otherwise...

I think those sorts of things are a mix of luck and a mix of just being in the right position, right place. But that's also not really luck though. That's like sort of... You see, everyone has their own interpretation, right? Yeah. I guess the way that I think of it, it's that luck is sort of two things. Number one is like...

how often do lucky events happen to you? And then secondly, what is your ability to capitalize on those lucky events? And so I think for the first one, how often do lucky events happen to you? By sticking yourself on the internet, you just 5,000X the amount of lucky things that can happen to you just because more people know of you and more people are exposed to you. And I've been following your videos for a long time. And

And so when we first... I don't know. I think it was sort of like Instagram DM or something. Well, no, no. This is the funny thing. I think you followed me before I even knew who you were. Yeah, I've been following you for ages. Which is just hilarious. Just because of the vibe and the apartment setups and stuff. I think... My friends watch more of your videos than they do of mine because they're like, oh my God, I love... Oh, you know, have you got that TV? You know, that LG sponsorship that Oli got? You should definitely get one of those. That's hilarious. Yeah. So...

The first time I came across you was you actually left a comment on one of my videos. Oh. You left a comment on one of my videos. And then I went to your channel. Yeah. And I just thought, hey, who's this Ali guy? I didn't really know who you were. And then I think you left another comment on one of my videos. And I was like, oh, this guy seems like a nice guy. Like he's a YouTuber from the UK. Yeah.

I can't remember how we actually got in touch. I don't know how we first connected. It must have been an Instagram DM. No, no, it wasn't because I... No, because you don't follow me on Instagram, do you? Yeah. I think it was Twitter. Oh, Twitter DM. Yeah, it must have been that. I think it was. Yeah.

But I can't remember our first conversation, I'll be honest. I feel like it might have been around the cancer time. Really? Possibly. I don't know. No, no, because I had a call. We had a call. Yeah, we did have a call. And that was before. Was that before the cancer stuff? That was before because obviously I would have been like, hey, you know. Oh, I can't remember. Let's have a look. I think it was very, very close to the cancer stuff. Going through old messages. Yeah. We have quite a lot of Twitter DMs. Oh, it was when you got the Tesla.

And I messaged you saying in November 2019 saying, did you get this as a business expense? I've been trying to research that side of things, but couldn't find much in the way of information. And then we kind of got talking about your Tesla.

And then six months later in May, you messaged me being like, "Enjoyed your video, surprised how much you earned. Surprised you haven't got yourself a Tesla yet." And then we talked about Skillshare and about our sponsorships and stuff. - Nice. It's so funny how things like that happen, isn't it? It's just so funny. - Yeah, but so I think, so kind of going back to this luck thing, it was like, you just expose yourself in an odd weird way to luck by putting yourself on the internet. And then you capitalize on lucky breaks by just being a generally nice person and being kind of taking initiative and stuff.

At least that's kind of how I think about it. The thing with luck as well is I hate it when people say, for example, like you or me,

We've built our YouTube channels, we've built our online businesses from nothing. We've not had anyone help us do those. You haven't had any money injection, have you? No, but I had a huge unfair advantage of the whole Cambridge thing, medicine thing. I was really leaning heavily on those at the start. I still don't think that's funny though because how many doctors still just do our own medicine? How many doctors are still doing whatever they do? You still took that step.

of putting yourself online of start of teaching other people of starting your med um maybe i can't remember exactly what it's called but you had like a you teach medical students and stuff that stuff yeah you do do all that sort of stuff a lot of people aren't going to bother to do that sort of stuff and i feel like a lot some people will say oh you you're lucky to have this you're lucky to have that no no no no like all of that sort of stuff came because you took that first step

Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Because I'm sure you get a lot of messages because I get these sort of messages. Hey, how do I start my YouTube channel? Hey, how do I start my business? Hey, you know, and instead of, you didn't ask anyone when you started. I didn't ask anyone. Oh, hey, what do you think? Should I start a YouTube channel? I did it because I just wanted to. Yeah, I think that's,

That's one of the keys that I hear from almost anyone whereby there are so few people who kind of do something and it becomes successful with a kind of logical strategic, I want to make money, I want to achieve this thing in the future, therefore I will do it steps A, B, C. Most people that I've spoken to who are kind of traditionally successful, it's been much more about, let me do this thing because it seems cool and fun and interesting right now. And

At the same time, it also seems a little bit sensible because like doing heroin is like fun, but you know, from what I've heard, but it's also kind of like, you know, we will keep that, keep that one on the DL. But, you know, stuff like starting a YouTube channel or starting a business, there is an element of, you know, this, this would be a sensible thing to at least try. There's also a big element of this seems kind of cool. It seems kind of fun.

And the people who can enjoy the journey are the ones who end up kind of reaching the destination. But I find that often you realize that actually it's not really about the destination. It was actually more about the journey all along. And yeah, I agree because I've always seen you say that online. It's not about getting to a destination because once you're there, you're always like, oh, what do I do now? You know, it very much is about the journey. And I agree. I agree with that statement because

I think to myself, hey, you know, I'm doing all this sort of stuff, but what's the actual end goal here? I don't actually know. I don't know what the end goal is. I feel like what ends up happening is, like, you get a nice thing. You get accustomed to that nice thing. You're like, okay, I want the next nicer thing. Yep. Which is a very bad trap to fall into. Yeah. And I think a lot of people do that. And you have to sometimes pull yourself back and think to yourself, damn, man, I'm so lucky to have the house that I have or have the car that I have. And that's why I like, you know...

I say, I always like to say in my videos, I'm lucky. Well, I'm in a fortunate position to be able to have all these different things because there are so many people who don't. There are so many people who are still, you know, doing, who are still living paycheck to paycheck and stuff. But I know for me, for example, if I lost all of my work, if I lost all of my income and stuff, I have enough money. I have enough like savings and stuff where I could be jobless for like two or three years and I'd be completely fine. And unfortunately not everyone is in that same position. Yeah.

Do you have any kind of gratitude meditation journaling type practice for this sort of stuff? I don't have any sort of... Like I don't write anything down. Journaling I feel like is something I should really do because journaling is such a good way to see what you did on a specific day instead of all the days becoming a blur. But there are moments like where I'll just sit at my computer, I'll sit in bed. It can be anywhere. I'm just like, man...

I'll just reflect, I'll just be like, I'm just so lucky. I'm just so lucky to do the things I do, to really not have many complaints.

Especially when I see like other people, other friends, when I see, you know, when you see news stories, I feel like reading news online is probably not a good way, good mental health thing. But, you know, even like, for example, with the Black Lives Matter thing, all that sort of stuff, I think to myself, man, like there are some people going through some really hard stuff. And here I am, like, you know, pretty easy. Yeah. I'm just living quite comfortably. I'm having a good time making YouTube videos.

And like, I wish everyone could experience the same thing. I really wish everyone could. If someone was in your position as a teenager who didn't want to go to university and they're struggling to find what to do, what would be your advice to them for whatever that's worth? I get this question. And it's a really, really difficult question to answer because it varies from person to person. If I could actually go back and do computer science at university, I would. Because it's what I enjoy doing. So...

Finding that thing you enjoy, I think is the tough part because a lot of people, I think they really know what they enjoy. In our sort of day and age, you could say, I sound like an old man saying that, but you can literally find a career in playing computer games, which is just absurd. I'm sure when you were a kid, when I was a kid, playing computer games and making money, that's the most craziest thing ever. Like what? So it's hard. I think it is a really hard question to answer.

I don't have an answer, if I'm honest. But I think it really is just a matter of finding what you love to do and seeing how you can monetize that thing. Yeah, the way I kind of think of this is that if you can do that, then that's fantastic. Like if you genuinely find something that you love to do and can also monetize it, then you're kind of winning already. The thing I often think about is what if, like for the people who A, don't really know what they love to do,

slash the thing they love to do, i.e., I don't know, baking or playing guitar, is a probabilistically unlikely thing to actually be able to make money from. Like, people are unlikely to become the next John Mayer or to become the next, insert Baker name here. And so in that context...

often, like yeah, do you, how would you think about like if you knew someone who's in that position? - Someone in that position, I think I would tell them to try everything. - Yeah, like dabble with a lot of stuff. - Yeah, dabble with all sorts of like types of jobs because especially when you're young, you're in a very good position I think. When you're 16, 17, 18, 19, even I feel up to 25, even up to 30, you can do so much, you can do so many different things

And I feel like you're most likely going to come across something that you're like, hmm, I could see myself doing this in 10, 20 years. Because I think that's an important thing for me as well. Whenever I do anything, whenever I start anything, I think to myself, you know, even if this didn't make a lot of money now, could I still do it in five or 10 years?

And if I can, then I think, okay, I'm going to do this. Because even if it doesn't make me money for the first year or two, or even if it's not monetizable for however long, as long as I can keep doing it, as long as I can enjoy doing it, then...

let's just see how it goes. Yeah. That was a really good quote from when Marques Branley was interviewed on the Y Combinator podcast where he said that, to be honest, the secret to success is pick something and work on it for 10 years. Yeah. I agree. And like, if you genuinely, if you enjoy working on something for 10 years, it is almost, it's unfathomable that it wouldn't be successful in some way. Basically. And the,

I can't remember, is it like 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours? When you put 10,000 hours into something, you're most likely like 1%. Yeah, pretty good at it. You're probably going to be one of the best in it, which makes a lot of sense because this is like going... So like I was saying earlier, I'm a big gamer. I like playing computer games a lot. Apex Legends is one of my favorite games right now. I've invested 1,500 hours into playing that game.

I'm pretty good, you know, for the nerds out there, my KB is like five, my win percentage is like 28%, something ridiculous like that. But like, I think to myself, you know, if I kept playing, if I kept putting more hours into that, I could probably be one of the best in the world. And with that, I could naturally maybe make a YouTube channel, maybe get into esports and stuff. And that's, again, another great way to make money. But you've just got to make that commitment, like Marques was saying, like you're saying.

If you can see yourself doing it for 10 years, and you do it for 10 years, you're most likely going to be one of the best in it. If you had 20 million in the bank, and you never had to worry about money ever again, what would you do? If I had 20 million in the bank, I'd still play games. I'd still play computer games. Do you mean work-wise? I mean, okay, let me be more specific. What would your day, an ordinary day in your life look like that is different to what it is? And to what extent is that different from what it is now? It's a good question because I think

When you hear a lot of people who have made that sort of money, their lives don't really change that much in terms of what they do because they still keep doing what they were doing before.

But if I think of it from my position, I am right now, I think to myself, I would probably still do still be doing YouTube. Okay. I'd probably do more photography. Yep. I would probably travel a bit more because I could afford to go first class everywhere. And I would spend a lot more time with friends and family because I

For example, David Dobrik, great example. He just goes out and buys cars for friends. I would absolutely love to just ask a friend, be like, "Hey, what do you need? Here's the money." And instantly make their life better just because I could. Like something like that would be so gratifying for me. And I feel like that is literally what I try to do. - Okay. So, I mean, apart from that last bit around kind of buying fancy ass cars for your friends and the bit about flying first class everywhere, what's stopping you from doing the rest of it?

right now I think I do do quite quite a bit of it already like gaming for example investing investing is not investing just like playing 1500 hours of Apex yeah

over the last two years and i do it because i can like i'm in a position where i can i can spend a few hours every day it's my way of focusing on something else because obviously when i'm playing this game i'm not thinking about anything else i'm thinking about the tactics of how to play i'm thinking about what i need to do i like to become tunnel vision when i do something i like to become very sort of focused on that thing um so i think i am doing a mix of those um

the traveling like you said yeah i think it's just a matter of like i i don't enjoy traveling so if i can make it as comfortable as possible then i'd love to but yeah yeah

Yeah, I think like sort of the first class is like a different level of wealth. And then apparently the next one is private jet, which is like an even more like obscene. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you've seen like the craziest thing about a private jet is you don't have to go through an airport. You just turn up on the strip and you go onto the jet and you just go like, what? Wow. And you can just be like to the pilot, let's go here and they'll just go. Yeah.

Like what? That's just absurd to me, but what a position to be in if you ever do get into that sort of position. - Amazing, I think that's a pretty solid place to end this. I guess final question is any final parting words that you would like to share with anyone listening? - Yeah, subscribe to my channel. No, honestly, I think if we go back to the cancer thing, I think it is just a matter of, I think the biggest thing I've learned is not caring about what other people think and just doing whatever you want. Doing whatever is healthy,

But doing whatever you want, really just not caring about what other people think. Good place to leave things. Yeah, I feel like I often have this with regards to the medicine stuff where my mum has a very strong preference that I do medicine. Typical Asian mum. Typical Asian mum. And I have a strong preference of like, medicine is fun, but it's just not as fun as the stuff I'm doing right now. And given that I feel like I'm in this very, very privileged position where I can do what I want, you know,

Full-time medicine certainly wouldn't be on that list of things. But yeah.

Anyway, good chat. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Everyone subscribe to Oliu and we'll see you on the next episode of whatever we end up calling this podcast. That's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, please do leave a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes. And don't forget to subscribe to our Deep Dive YouTube channel where you can watch the in-person interview. Links to all of Oliu's stuff will be in the video description. So thanks again for watching and always remember, journey before destination. See you later.