The tech YouTuber who opened a coffee shop
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Welcome to the verge cast, the flagship podcast of robot body says, i'm your friend David pearce, and I am sitting here doing cold blue research. So about a year ago, I started making overnight OS a lot. Really like the idea of being able to, before I go to bed, basically make my breakfast ticket in the fridge and then it's ready for me when I get up in the morning.

Really helpful having a kid around in the house who also needs breakfast and likes to just run in circles starting at five. But IT also just els nice. It's like one less decision I have to make when I first wake up in the morning.

So i've started going to do the same thing with coffee, making cold brew. I drink ice coffee of some kind, basically three hundred and sixty five days year. But I also like the idea of being able to do IT the night before and then wake up and the thing is ready for me, and I just pour IT and start today.

That seems nested than what I do now, which is like a ten minute process of waiting things on a scale and gently pouring in concentrate circles is just too much. But boy, did I not realize how deep the rabble hole of cold brew is. The ratios, the amount of time you are supposed for, the thing you put the cold room in, it's superstar, really simple.

You put in beans, you poured in water, the end time happens of coffee. nope. Turns out like all coffee thinks IT is super complicated.

But luckily for me, this is what were doing on the verge cast today is we're talking about coffee for this episode, which is the second episode in our many series that we've been calling how to make IT in the future. I'm talking to organic name David cogan, who you might know as the unlocker on youtube. He's been a tech creator for a really long time, doing lots of reporting and lots of cool camera test videos recently.

And he's been a crater on youtube since like two thousand nine. He's been around this for a long time. And very recently he opened a coffee shop, just a full left turn pivot in his career.

He still the youtube or he still wants to be a creator, he still trying to make all that work, but he also opened a coffee shop in rock. Lin and I have a lot of questions about that. I think this question of what does that mean to marry those two things? And can you be both a small business owner and a content creator without those things blurred together?

I had a really fun time talking to him, and I think you're going to enjoy this conversation to hear a lot of thoughts about what that means to be create, what that means to be a coffee shop owner, how the grind of youtube changes the way that you think about your career and what you want out of your life. Why making youtube videos in being a creator is so intoxicating? Ating in the first place, I was incredibly fun.

I had a really good time hanging out with him in his coffee shop in rocklin. We're gone to get to all of that. But first, apparently I have to do cold blue twenty four hours ahead of time.

So i'm going to go do that then, not come back. Then I will get IT into IT. This is the verge cast will be at back support .

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Welcome back. Two thursdays ago, I took the train out to the Green point neighborhood in brooklin to meet David cogan at his new coffee shop. I got there about eight thirty in the morning.

I would have actually been a few minutes earlier than that, except that the street the shop is on is otherwise so residential. It's just Brown stones everywhere that I assumed I was on the wrong block or head over shot and turnaround. But I wasn't.

I was in the right place. I found the shop with this White coffee, a mogi light and a Green checkmark mog late on the front, and otherwise no sign whatsoever that this is a coffee shop, which means it's a very like cool hips. Her coffee shop, the time another dione found the place, went inside and found a spot set.

So I word a bacon egg chees personal pie one hundred percent sure what that means, but we're about to find out I got a large coffee, but i'm very excited to try IT looks like the coffee here is called founders blended, which is extremely ly on brand I proof. Now the plan is just to sit here, try to get them worth done, have aggressively judi thoughts about the eye and all the coffee here they are using here, and then wait for David to show up to this. I found out later, by the way, that David himself had made that pie that was very good.

One of those, like hand pie sized things that comes in a little personal tin, delicious. No, not. The wifi in there was also extremely fast.

There were so many outlets in the room that they actually kind of made me laugh, trying to count them all. And the coffee year was also pretty on point. I had annoyingly few complaints in my first couple of hours of coffee check.

At about ten thirty, David himself showed up. He'd been out filming for the morning, but he came in, stopped to the counter, said hyder bris, checked and see how things were going, and then came over and set hide to me. He gave me a quick tower, the place, the shop in the front, the production study on the back.

We walked on the kitchen. He was very excited about the outlet thing that you could press on the counter and IT would pop up. He showed me all the U.

S, B, C. ports. He are excited about that there are a bunch of e bikes just sitting around.

There is a gigantic samsung TV that he had been sent to review. And I felt very familiar to me as a person who has too many gadgets and loves U. S. B. C.

And then at the end of our tour, we SAT t down in this huge podcast booth that he got from thin land at a huge discount in exchange for letting the company use IT for occasional demos. And sale source is so big, they, like, didn't have a place to put IT. So his studio is now also the sales floor for this podcast booth.

It's wild, but IT seems work if its four people in three cameras in IT all at once, just in this little booth. And so while the coffee shop continued to Operate around us, David, I SAT down and recorded this episode. I asked him to begin with just to tell me his story, and to start with the story of how coffee became part of his whole persona and brands in the first place.

So I started doing these videos occasionally where I would do like a battery test or a camera comparison. And I I was just kind of interested in blogger and that kind of style, but I wasn't doing that on the channel because I was detection. And so I started kind of making these battery tests and these camera tests of bouncing around and like filming them in a very vlog s style, but not familiar, a completely channel through every single meeting, new possible. So you guys are Better, Better, Better actually to go through and then .

just kind of where between like casey ized dat and Marcus brought me was like statically yeah that that .

lets go with that yeah that was like not terribly technical but not but also just kind of like running around and showing you things um and then editing IT to a bit uh so yeah so that happened a bit and then pandemic happened and during that were serving in my party ent, like other other critter was doing IT and I like kind of lost my mind as we all did and as soon as like we were all loud really to kind of go outside again, I was like create i'm filling the outside now because I ve just done how wever party videos literally in on the same coffee table um and so I went outside and just naturally when I got a coffee and for the video and SAT down and got my coffee I went coffee check like I got a coffee coffee check and then I then I would talk with the phone little bit bound around I did and then the I posted that and and I even I think I have talked about like history in the first one I like kind of just one off the rails bit because I was losing my minister but you didn't do that going like I have just invented a catch for this no okay not at all.

I literally just naturally went coffee check like I got that that was and then posted that people were stoked and they were just like, this is so different and fun and whatever he knows like, oh, you like this too oh, great because I enjoy this. And so then I started doing more and more of that, and I did a few and I got comments. They were like, where's the coffee and I was like, oh, h, this is a thing now and I didn't realize. okay. And then in the next, I went coffee check a so people told you I was a bit .

before you realize a bit and I was the audience .

to told me that I had to do a bit. That's so funny. And so do you .

then take that thing and you like, okay, coffee is now part of what I do here. How can I blow this out? right?

Like there's a particularly like ruthless thing you could do in that moment that's like, okay, coffee part of my thing. Now who's give me my coffee? Poor um i'm start selling a coffee.

Luck is merged. Like there there is a very simple, like, how do I monitise this road that you can go down that moment? Did you start going down that road?

I think in my head was like, oh, wouldn't be be really cool if I had a coffee sponsor. But I never was never any anything beyond I was never like oh find one but if are honest, that's also because I don't generally reach oued to sponsors like I am very fortunate in that way that like most sponsors come to me and then I kind of decide whether I can work with them or not um and I just have to be there wasn't the sponsors that would come.

I think I did. I did one which I was very excited about to this point area press came out and did an integration in a video where I made an erotic ss know the twenty four or whatever was a type um and so that was that was really need but I was never like A I wasn't trying to go do that. I just felt like, oh, when it'll would be great fit if someone reached out and did that way.

I've been watching David videos on the unlocker for a long time, and it's onesta sort of shocking to me that he doesn't have more coffee content. So many of his videos start with a quick intro to the video, like what's about to happen and then he just bearings the camera and goes first things first. And then there's a long mountains of him getting coffee at some cool play on new york check.

And then the video starts, that's the thing. It's a good bit, but like lots of people drink coffee, you know, I mean, and i've always wondered whether he was really in the coffee this way or if that does not been just a useful construct to set up. A lot of these video, like i've filmed camera access before.

I know how hard IT is to find interesting stuff to film and photograph on a camera, to show on video. But then again, to be fair, we're sitting recording in his coffee shop. So this fact should not surprise you.

I was a coffee stop that i'd like to admit that here, that was the word I was trying to I, but i'm glad I I was still find i've accepted anyway.

all that coffee love went from in rosen aro press into something very different last year. That was when David least was up. He had this space that he had shared with a couple of other creators, just a few blocks away in burkina. And when the least presenting, he started looking for a new space and a new project.

Initially, my idea was to try to make something for creators I wanted to make, like I wanted a larger space that could then have some sort, sort of community was just kind of craving that I think like a bigger community of creators to like inspire each other to do other things. Um and then I was like, okay, cool. Like I I went looking for space.

I found the space that we are currently in and I loved IT. And then I did the math on you how viable was this business like creators coming in and like, cool, we all you know can use the space and film in and scribing. Like we work for creators. essentially. I literally we've said at some point to someone i'm so we were for creators.

And the problem is I realized quickly after finding the space in doing the math, was that you have to limit the number of creators that join because, you know, people have to be a of the film in here, and you can all be here the same time once someone filming. sure. And so inherently, IT limits the number of members you can have, which means you have to charge a lot more.

New york grant is not cheap. IT just made zero sense. I like, cool, great. Then glad I feel that. Um and then I was literally in this space, and I like, what else can I do with this? Because I just really liked IT.

And I read somewhere I went to know I I meanly thought, kay, a rosty I would love to have a rosty one I would love do something on my hands. I'm just been a created for so long. I like, I feel like we all crave that to some decorate some point.

Um and I love coffee. I was all report of the brand. I was OK.

Well, now this also makes a little bit more sense. So maybe I could start a rosty, I could roast my own coffee and. And that could be my march.

I could then sell that to the onions. I can sell that to wherever, maybe at the store your coffee. But I become my own coffee sponsor in every video. Definite part of the a you thought was like.

maybe i'll just do this myself like this will be A A something IT seems like a side project.

Is the side project or is youtube know .

so I can get that?

Um I would say, yeah, I was I was kind of just like a hey, this felt like a good, I don't know, like a cy project cypros that's what I was. I feel like a good cypros CT that also had a lot of time in with what I was already doing, which is another reason why I did IT for because if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have made as much sense that was just like cool on me. You know, I already have no time like I was busy as I was with youtube.

Ask anyone that knows me, know that. So like there was a cool. We started another business was probably not the best idea, but it's okay.

Um so we put on that front actually like in those first moments lake if if the spectrum movie ambition is lake guy brewing beer in his basement all the way too like I want to start starbucks, where where would you say .

your ambition was way close to the guy in the base? O no, I was like, I don't it's funny even people have said stuff to me about like, oh when you know open your next one and doing you know like so much work for just one um and I and I kind of like the idea of IT being a smaller thing. The point wasn't to make an empire out of this thing.

He was just to do something good, like something that I felt good for me. Generates revenue, sure, but I mean, you know more so. I right now clear that he is on bills. That's all I really hope for um and and I just was something that like, yeah I was something I something felt good about the idea and IT wasn't necessary like building empire.

Okay, we have to take a break, but when we get back, we're going to talk about how you actually do all of this because it's one thing to say, oh, i'd love to open a coffee shop. Honestly, I feel like lots of people have at one point had that specific dream. Mine personally is not a coffee shop, is to like, throw all this away and go open a divy sports bar somewhere.

It's even another thing to actually find at least a space and say, okay, i'll figure this out later and then to decide i'm gonna do a rosy and then i'm gona do a coffee shop because there's a door. You start to go down this road, but actually pulling all of that off and doing IT well and do IT without turning that into the exact thing and grind and lifestyle that you're trying to get away from in the first place. That's all way harder. We're going to talk about how all of that went for David will be right back.

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right? We're back. So just to reset here, we have data cogan, long time youtube creator, tech reporter, apparently, according to his website, some people call him a giga later, which I don't even know what that means and I don't really want to ask, seem surfed.

He's been doing this for a very long time and he's just kind of not exactly on a wim, but also not exactly not on a wm. Decided to get weirdly into the coffee business. So then the question is, I suppose what does that take to get weirdly into the coffee business? Where do you even start? So you have been a crazy for a long time that you like know how to do that. I would not assume there are a ton of transferable skills between being a youtube creator and becoming a coffee roaster.

Uh, sure.

How would like where do you start? How do you go? How do you go about that process?

So I will say there are some things that are a love of data. And I think to look at data, I feel like I bring that to the coffee shop in a way that I think is healthy. We have a lot of questions about the um but yeah um like how do I go about starting in so well first of so when I did that, the rosy y idea, I realized that there was frontage which so I might as I might as well because if we're gonna roast beans and here there might as well be something in the front where people can just buy them and hang out and said, and so that's where the coffee shop then came from that and then this back production space which is over now. Um just kind of made sense for what I think you .

think about past you now thinking about IT like that like oh their space, I might as well do a up like that more on no.

no, I know what he was going up for. No no convention that every day OK yes, I will say actually like most .

like I actually i've ever heard someone decided to open the coffee.

Yeah so I it's funny because I went from like thinking about this to signing at least in about three oh well and so like I looked back at that now when I was done but but also there was a blessing because I didn't have time to sit there in question all of the things for sure and like that now it's I go too late cool i'll just figured out um first thing I did was I started to learn as much as I possibly good. I went to coffee events.

I at a coffee conventions, I started seeing coffee classes, rosing classes, berries, a classes i'm like certified and certain things like because I just like I just I think a lot of us do this, especially like most people I know that are in text stuff. Like if you're gona do something, we obsess about IT until we're good at IT. And so I started that process first o will sign the least, and then went cool.

Now we've got to start this product um and then the least wasn't IT take a few months for that actually start. So this is like every time I december is yeah and so like december, january if like and then started starting construction in year. Um but so while all of that process was happening, I would fly off to, I think, chicago.

I went to the S A coffee exposure is like with the biggest ones, took us all of the free classes. They offered as many as I could as that would fit my schedule. Went to chavett center, had one recently. I didn't when and did that, started taking uh coffee classes at another coffee road street nearby like just obsessed as you do yeah right um and so that is step one. Like I felt like I needed to know enough that I could obviously do this thing um once and then throughout the process he was getting built so then I just took a long time to about eight months before I finally you became looking like a coffee house and not just a way house you know fascinating .

about that by the way and i've been thinking about this ever since we talked in youtube time. Eight months is like an eternity. If you work for eight months on a single project, youtube algorithm will almost certainly have forgotten you exist by the time you reappear. You just cannot work on that kind of time eline put in building terms like physical, putting up buildings eight months doesn't bad.

And I think one of the reasons I felt so long to David was that he was actually trying to live in both of those timely ines simultaneously to both be a creator at the past, the internet demands, but also do this deliberately slower and more personal and more thoughtful thing at the same time. IT seems like IT might be a healthy baLance, but IT also seems like IT might just, Terry your brain completely to threads, trying to do both at the same time for day, that I think I was a little bit of both. But mostly the second one.

I knew that I knew what I was doing, and I did IT anyway. Maybe that was the mistake, but I was having running two businesses at once, like the to youtube, is a full time business, knows it's a lot yeah um and it's a constant grind and it's very draining. Everybody burns out right it's a very Normal thing um where you burned out on IT yeah I think i'd ve burned down every three month and just .

like comes and go a cle I yes but there's everything there's a different like armchairs psychology thing I could do to you that IT is like what a lot of people who burn out on youtube deal is like make the why I hate youtube video yes, they like go make a product or something just as of a reset to use a different part of your brain. sure. And try to like to first fy maybe this I think is if I wanted to really try and like cycle analyze you maybe maybe that's a reaction to you're like the the ground gets everybody like you does your absolutely and see why I would feel like romantic and exciting to do something so sort of diametrically opposite .

total of grind on youtube and that you know people wanting to do stuff with their hands when they work on the internet. Is that just went away hard? Yeah this is my sour do yeah please come in and try my side to um no it's it's a yeah I told that I think that's that's definitely a part of IT even if that was a little more so conscious ant like a conscious effort IT was defensive part of IT.

okay. Um but you also kept the youtube of the space like there's I would say why sixty percent of the square footage in here, maybe half fifty percent designed to be like a production space a was that part of the plan from the begin?

So I always wanted to have that for a number of reasons just as a business person was like, I need to different change as much as I can in the space because I just got a and I don't know how long the coffees can take. I don't know how the roof es can take that or so what something else that I have some experience and obviously and was like that could maybe also help just pay the bills from of IT.

When I did research uh, on peer space and started to look at all the other like rental studios, places around here realized none of them had a kitchen. And so that was my choice for building the kitchen was like cool differences of kitchen. You know that they don't have a podcast which we know um so I got that as well.

So I just trying to like create a separate business, obviously but another part of this business that I could help pay the rent because that's all I cared about h and still do um and so yeah so that but but the truth is like because this isn't as as we put time about to somebody, I don't I don't need the backspace like I feel most my videos outside now as we discussed. And so I don't really need to have a space that i'm gonna film in. Um I I the bigger intent was for this to get rented out, help parent, but I do use IT and I I also kind of design some things with in here.

For example, the kitchen has a very standard with of the oven. That way I can be swamped out so that maybe I can start doing appliance videos and not just phones and laptops and bike somewhere where else I do that outside. Fiction that are not as large um can do any of that in my apartment because it's I rented, they will let me yeah um and then I did something for the fridge, the fridge position of the way, words on the sign where I could get a double sized fridge and I would still fit um and I tried to do those many of things as possible.

Same thing with the um i'm never gonna ounce A T V in here because I want to be able to swap them out to do more TV reviews is something else like so I tried to add some elements of the space to benefit my youtube channel in some way. But I was, as a small percentage, what the space should be used for, right? Really need to just IT out OK that make sense.

So until point actually more broadly, like how did you think about sort of connecting the coffee shop to the youtube channel? Um there are a bunch of season which they are very connected, including the name like it's you you said coffee check and a lot of video coffee shop called coffee check.

Yes, which is dumb to anyone who doesn't know that you that there's an easy thing you could have done right back to the like， how I monotoned this thing on my channel question, uh, where you make this whole thing kind of about your youtube channel, right? You have A T, V that's always playing your videos, and that's, and you, and it's the background of all of our videos. And you try to make these things sort of synthetic tic. My senses you have, like deliberately run the other direction. Yes, that, uh, except for the little touches of the name, like why why not push these two things close?

So to me, I think I wanted to make sure that I could do a good coffee shop and then stood on its own for I didn't want to have anything to do with the youtube channel. Far as like you you know, I read those headlines that are influence or opens coffee shop, right?

And then vital. Sometimes a lot of people go to those coffee shops that yeah which is.

which is great, but like there's there's an implied like a lot of people don't like that word, a lot of people don't don't know what an influence myself. You know but it's like there's a connotations there that I think that is negative and a lot of people's minds, and I didn't want that. Firstly, I also just again, I wanted this to be to live on the one I want you to kind of be easter's for people that know like the coffee exempt, like the name, right? But everything else is just oh, it's just the local coffee shop that we enjoy and we like and it's just you know whenever that's IT um I didn't want IT.

I I think on the youtube channel, I don't mind doing the other way around, right? Because for me on youtube to be like, hey, here's the coffee shop that I made and like come check IT out and like here IT is and filming in IT, I feel like there's less of a like it's it's less weird to me that people on youtube now I have a coffee shop. It's more weird to me that the people in the cop shop now I have a youtube now. interesting. yes. Does that make sense?

yes. And yet I feel like every time you bring that up on your channel, you apologize for bring IT up. absolutely.

why? Because i'm annoying. I'm because A A big part of IT is that I keep bringing IT up and I am doing that partially because I need to I get word out about the coffee shop to some degree and like and so it's almost like feels like a bit of an add to myself, right? So I don't want you know some apologizing for that.

Everyone has been very weak, appreciate, very amazing. And um I think I feel like i'm going to apologize. I but this .

is that we are think about being A A creator in this moment. I think, right. Really you could your point about influence or opens coffee shop is like I attend to the ground that IT feels sort of growth yeah but like a lot of people will go to that coffee shop because for whatever reason they feel attached to that person.

And that's the thing you can use to for evil or for good. And if you use IT and use both and but I think if you use IT for good, there's not there's nothing inherently wrong with IT, right? Anything like even what you're original story about how coffee jack became a thing like that, that people being connected to you as a person and like they wanna know what you're up to and they wanted know where and you get to a point okay. Actually what i'm doing is i'm bringing you right with me uh, and that that would have just required a very different approach. Like to some extent, it's surprising to me that you didn't make eight months of videos out of building the coffee of serious ly like a lot of readers would done.

Prime is just like, I want this to stand on its own. I want to do a good job at this. You wanted to work because it's good, not because the I don't want to have.

I don't want that to influences in anyway. I wanted to just do well. I want to have this config shop do well. The rotary do well because they merit such things, not because of some of the outside influencer marketing.

And so I mean, seen enough craters hawk the things that they're doing and kind of like i'm doing this thing, I wanted to actually do something in my hands, like being in space, like not just like White label something like actually make IT and do the things and that like I don't know, I think there's I think I started to also A A good way for a little light. I think I start to skew my own data when I introduce those other things. If I want to make sure that this does well on its own, I need to not kind of push all of those other things into IT because then I won't know what helped do.

Well, I have a very long least, right? I didn't on purpose. I want this to be a thing that doesn't just like get a bump of traffic because of influencer word and then dies, right? So IT needs to be something that literally just can like, be a part of neighbor d, be a good thing and grow with neighboring d.

And at last, my youtube channel, right? This is the retirement plan. Man, okay.

right? We got to take one more break. And then we will be back with the rest of my conversation with data cogan.

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OK, we're back now. We're kind of back to the present in our story. David just spent eight months creating a coffee shop from scratch while still kindly sort of maintaining his youtube channel.

The thing is open. People are here. I A pie.

It's all real. Now the thing opened in late August. People are coming. It's it's doing the thing. You can find IT on google maps, which I think is how you know you really legit, which means David has to decide not just what he wants coffee check to be, but now what will become of the unlocker youtube channel, and most importantly, and maybe most complicated, what he, David cogan youtube r and now coffee shop or really wants to do all day. And because of the way the tech industry works, he has had to make that decision really fast and really intensely because IT is gadgets season. Uh I think .

there two days for the first time uh, because I had events to go to because i'm now trying to go back to start to travel again, start the north tube um there were two days that I was not here at all and that's IT for the last six weeks. And um but now because of that, i'm starting to try to get back to doing videos. I have such a backlog. I right um there's like all of these you like all of the pixel devices i'm still going to do if you want, is having a time I finally did the flip like six two weeks ago. I think I came on july.

Um so like i'm just i'm trying to get through the back log um and the way i'm doing, he is i'm literally coming into the coffee shop and i'm writing somewhere in here as you do in the coffee shop anyway uh and true you know being pulled away to like fix this or do this and do that and just it's just kind of doing both things at the same time and then i'm now filming all of the videos. I still do them outside but they're all within a very short distance of this coffee shop for now because I just don't look a time I can only further um so I like coming here you know right the script for you know day whatever. Then run out film that video and like check backing on the coffee shop in between scenes and then you wait for sunsets as I need that till I get the night shots of favor a phone for example and I go back after that, come back into the cove shop, clean a little bit, order stuff. It's literally just like a mix of the two worlds every day.

Is the context searching of that brutal? yes. Are you are you going to survive that?

No good to be determined. okay. Um no, it's i've been feeling pretty burned out to be honestly, but there's something it's a different burnout, ture, right? There's there's because and i'm sure some of just it's novel, right? The coffee shop is new. IT is a different thing that is a very hard but is very different in the youtube channel.

And so I enjoy IT a lot even if it's stressful and there's things going wrong and everything else, there's there's something about IT that is just so enjoyable that is kind of tempers the burn out um for all the things that are happening. And I and I can see a lot of thing of the tunnel. I think you know, I feel there's there is a world where this where I am here less and less, I know not have to worry about doing certain things.

I'm trying to figure out inventory, for example, right? Like how do I make sure that the inventory I can project in a certain way that I don't have to order every time things get no obviously right of you have to get to getting there. So like that's helpful.

Um is that the goal that is the is the goal to spend less time on this so you can go back to making videos?

Yeah I I I want to do both. I enjoy both to some degree. I think I enjoy the more than youtube point again. I novel been doing the thing for thirteen years.

Um but I you know youtube still the thing i've been doing for however long, right I assume the business is paying for yeah this is just losing money. This is just a very expensive hobby. So yes, youtube is paying models and IT IT is kind of the thing that have i've built over all this time.

I can't throw the baby out with the bath on or um now that I would I still enjoy youtube like so I i've now just i'm trying to just get back to A A Better killings of making the youtube videos while still being involved in the confusion. I think that's the goal. It's necessary step completely away from the coffee shop and then just run youtube like I was.

I think there there's an element of like if I could figure out more things to to hand off in youtube and make that a little more efficient, make the coffee shop t more efficient. There's so there some and maybe this isn't real, but there are some ideal world where I can kind of do both in a healthy mounts and still have a social life. Some will figure that out again. details.

Uh, I think one of the things people burn out on youtube and really kind of create your life in general is just, did they ask so much of you in so many different directions all the time? I even creators all the time who like I started making videos because I like making video. They were fun, either the thing and the video is fun or the process of making the video fun or something ah and then all of the really like, my god, i'm spending on my day essentially doing data analysis like that's actually not a good time, right? H and then in interactions, either giant until IT burns you out, you uh, not worry about IT so much and kind of limit your cap of success on the platform, 就 basically try to systematize， right, like hire people, outsourced some of that stuff, make IT no longer your problem and you just get to do the parts of that that you like and sort of solve the rest around you. And that sounds like that's the thing you're aiming for after a long time.

Just crying. Yeah I look I so I think I think there's a couple things like the I think that is the goal I would like is but but not quite right like I don't I don't want to be my cat like just never ago from I don't want to have like a serb ever else um which are essentially dia antes. T I like IT also like I don't need to be that big, right? I'm happy to like, you know, I I I just wanted I think I need to let go of more things in the coffee.

I was proved as I kind of forced me to do that not to the point where it's like I come in and I talk on camera for more four seconds and I walk away and at the end um I don't and I just the nature of my videos s is very difficult as well, right because I I enjoy having this like you're coming along with me very logical style as soon as there's a camera man holding that camera, IT gets a very different vibe, which I just don't want as a creative choice. I just don't like that. Um maybe I have one day because I want have a choice but like that you I kind like bouncing around with with the audience and like kind of and I am enjoy making these videos where like it's literally me like expLoring places with you.

I'm lot of these places are new to me too um so I don't think I can let that go so there's somewhere else that that I think I can hand things off but still be is involved as I can be without you know come my self and going um but I but I do think like craters in general we have this issue to which is the fact that like in order to do what we do, especially youtube, are in around whatever social media you you have to make everything formula c right so in other words, like in order to turn out as many videos as I do, I have to make everything so like fit into a box like i'm gonna ite this script. It's gonna be like going to get the shot like this. I'm going to do there's no area for creativity at some point because the only way it'll get done is if you make IT as efficient as possible.

yes. And that is what I think we all start to burn out because then you're just like i'm just a hamster on a wheel. Nothing feels gratifying at that point. It's just cool making a video putting you on around this .

years in worse but that's what the audience demands of right things over and over and over and over again. The algorithms like that's the audience expects and at some point IT just becomes easier and way less fulfill to just delivered the thing, correct?

Yeah and like yeah you to the optimization in order to be able to do IT. And the only way you keep up with that cat is to make things as smooth as possible, not as creative as possible.

Has like that's not transfer to the coffee shop, does IT feel the same way? No, no, no, which I think maybe that's another reason why I enjoy IT so much like there's there is a lot of because we're just open, there's a lot of creating all these processes and optimizing. And I do enjoy a lot of that, which is interesting.

I enjoy IT in this respect more so than like I think I enjoyed trying to figure those things out with you too but now that I figured them out um but yeah so like i'm building those systems for the coffee shop and every day like I get feedback from the breasts as or i'm behind the counter with them sometimes I like I see okay, there's a bottle like to figure out, hey guys, what do you think you know what is a Better set for this? Like is what slowing udy is down and like, that's fun. There's something I think, as we like to solve things such when their small problems, like where the cups should go, you know, like bigger problems, terrible.

But like, you know, these kinds of things are like, therefore filing. They give you like A A nice, I did that. I chek the box, right? And so there's a lot of those right now on the coffee shop that are fun to do.

So back to this, like content coffee shop mix. I I can now imagine a world in which you become a coffee content person, like the the rosy is gna happen. You already do a lot of filming of cups of coffee. As someone who is watch your changer for a long time, I can, I can vote for. There are hours of videos of coffee, coffee cups on your channel.

I like to the bone exactly real to reverse all the .

questions I ask you to beginning, right? You're like, oh, now I have a room full of coffee equipment. Maybe I should just point a camera at.

yes, yeah. IT occurs to me in in the way a bad habit occurs. Like I good yes, I think I always I have a .

solution um and so I have thought about IT um and .

I think I I I I think there is a world where maybe more coffee stuff ends up on the channel. The audience know if if they want that may be will try IT unless to see how they feel about that would be the way to do IT. Um I mean, I did of course grab all of the social things for the coffee shop just prompted vely because I was a well, not to start doing content here as well. I mean.

I think so that's different. So like I think I think in the world in which we exist, you are going to have to take pretty videos of your expressed machine and put the money and I think to some recent, again, those things are in biotic IT day that brings people into the shop, people watch the thing. People I think like that all good. But I also think that changes the way you think about thing when IT becomes most lucrative as a content opportunity. Uh and I then become the thing I hate exactly and so I think for you as someone who is like who is in part this all appealed to as a thing that is not content to then have that poll of what if I make content about this yeah and what if the content could help the coffee shop but then eventually you get to point with the coffee shop is is just helping the content yeah. Like how to pick all those things supporting in your brain districts is very complicated.

So so I think i've simplified IT because I just so I so don't want that last part right. I don't want that coffee shop to ever be making more money from the content then from the coffee and because he becomes like a studio that that happens to serve real coffee, which I don't want cause to the point, I would then just be doing the thing again, i'm sure.

So I don't I won't ever let that happen so that like, in the same way that like, I don't want the influence are part of this like, and I just want to have one coffee shop. I do not have more like, I think these are ways to limit that chaos that would Normally happen in my head. I've given myself this hard no.

And and so like, I think we need to my content and we will like right now we're posting photos and stuff and like whatever, like terrible right captions, I would have too much, too much to do. That was the other problem. sure. right? So if I was going to try to make content in here and like try to get back to my own channel, like that is just burned out as IT is not just from over the yes, so but I do I do like that of doing some sort of coffee content. Maybe when things start to settle and they start to get like at least like I caught up on all the teco ver stuff that I need to get cut up up um I just don't know actually my head if that something that maybe lives on its own channel and is kind of just the coffee check channel and I host that maybe to some degree maybe someone else can maybe I can set that up way where it's not just me because then that would be more scalable, easier for me to not have to be a part of all the time. Where is like you to take the mocker not I can do if some other showed I just a um I just again I wants to be a good coffee shop row like known for the things that that are those things and not tie doing other of them and other things like that.

All right, that is there for the verge cast today. Thank you to David for being on the show and for lending me his podcast booth to do IT. And thank you is always for listening.

As ever, there's lots more on all of our coverage of the creator universe and youtube and links to David channel at the virtual com. I put some links in the show notes, but as always, read the website, lot of stuff going on right now. And if you have thoughts, feelings, questions or other places, I can record a podcast in the back of cool coffee shops.

You can always em us at verge, cast at the verge up com, or called the hot line eight six six verge one one we love hearing from you. Please keep all your questions coming. It's the best this show is produced.

Liam James whale, poor and erit got this verge cases, a verge production and partially box media podcast. We will be back on tuesday and friday to talk about smart rings, kindles and all the other news happening right now because again, I know I said this every week, but there just continues to be a lot of IT. We'll see them.

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