Graham Stephan Reveals How Iced Coffee Hour Became One of the Biggest Finance Channels on YouTube

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Friends podcast, where it's our mission to help you build better friendships. On this episode of the show, I have a new friend, Graham Stephan. He's the host of the Iced Coffee Hour. podcast, which is sitting at around one and a half million subs on YouTube, not counting audio channels. And that is after he built his personal YouTube channel, which is all about personal finance, investing, real estate, entrepreneurship, and things like that to over 5 million subscribers over the years. So he's been doing this for a little bit of time. And I've been wanting to do this interview for quite some time. So Graham, what's up, dude? Welcome to the show. That was a great take. Yeah. Did you rehearse it? One, one, one take one and done, you know, we've done. I think over 2,000 episodes now in the past nine years. Cool. So it's been, you know, you get some reps in. All right. For a little while. Good job. So thanks, dude. I appreciate that. So the way that we connected was a little strange. I've known Jack for probably a couple of years, and we've been talking, had some one-off conversations and things. But then a couple months ago, we had this big production that we're working on for a new show that we're calling Dinner Party. We had a lineup of guests. And then two days before the filming, two people dropped out of the lineup. So I was like scrambling. I was just like, oh my gosh, man, I got to find a couple people who are like good people. You know what I mean? We can't just bring in anybody to this production. So I had up Jack and was like, hey, man. Crazy question. Would Graham be down to come, you know, film tomorrow, essentially, at this time? And I knew my odds were better because you were a Vegas guy. And then we're able to make it happen. So the real question, why was I not on the original list, man? It's like, I'm the backup guy. Oh, ----. All our guys dropped out. Would Graham do it? Is Graham free? Yeah, sure. I'll do it. I'm the backup call. Call him up from the bench. It's like that girl who's number six on the list. You call the top ones. They're all busy. It's like, oh, ----. I guess I'll call Sally. Sally's free tonight. And you were. And you were free. I was free. And I was. And I did it. So there we go. Yeah. Really, all it is is we had never had a conversation. So it was like the odds of me reaching out to Graham is going to, like, you know. You can reach out to Jack first. You can reach out to Jack. Then I realized, I was like, who's in Vegas? I could get Graham. So you came in gracefully, gave me some time. For a next day interview. Dude, yeah. You should have gotten one of the Backstreet Boys instead. They would do way better than me. You're talking about Vegas people? Come on. That's true. Part of me is just like, dude, I don't think people really care what I have to say, I'll be honest with you. But if you had a Backstreet Boy on. I think there's about like 9 million people that care what you have to say. I give it max 15,000. But a Backstreet Boy would get like 500,000. That's true. But there probably would be some interest. You got to get one of the Backstreet Boys. That is actually a really good person to add to the list. Because we're already thinking about our next dinner lineup and stuff. But I'm curious from your perspective what that conversation was, because obviously you didn't really know me at all. So Jack just came to you and was like, hey, there's this. Weird random opportunity, but you didn't think it was real, right? Yeah, I was sketched out at first because I'm like, why do they want me? Honestly, like me and Shaq, it's like, why? It's like, it's a weird lineup. And like, there was a few other people who were mentioned on there and I get pitched all the time. And it's like, yo, we're hosting this event. And like, this person's going to be there and this person. And then what I do is I reach out to those people. I say, hey, do you know anything about this? They go, I have no clue, not affiliated with it. And then I know it's a scam. So when this got pitched, I'm like, you know, I reaching out to a few people. I think Steve Aoki was one of the people who was like trying to be on there. And so I reached out. I was like, are you going to do this? And it was like, ah, maybe not. So I was a little sketched out in the beginning. But then Jack was like, dude, just do it. And like, worst case, you get robbed. Yeah. And I was like, all right. Aoki was another last minute one. Um, and he both, he both confirmed and canceled within 24 hours, but it wasn't on him. It was his Yeah, I get it, man. But like if my worst case is I get robbed, that's a story I can, I can monetize it. I can make a podcast about that. The title thumbnail would be crazy. And I don't carry cash on me. So like the worst case is, uh, you know, something that's probably insured. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. But hey, you showed up, took the risk, and we made it happen. And I snuck a lot of free food. I hope you don't mind. They had all these protein shakes. The Chipotle bowl, yeah. Oh, yeah, the Chipotle bowl, yeah. It's like three weeks of meals right there. We fed everybody for a week here, and then I also took two protein shakes that were really good and some of the protein bars. Yeah, sweet. But not the cupcakes. Good, because it was us that was working through all the rest of the food, because we definitely overdid it on the food portion. I don't like any food going to waste. Yeah, fair, fair. I appreciate that. Cool. Well, how was your experience coming out and filming with everybody? And how did you feel about the production and the conversation and everything? Yeah, you had too many people working, man. I mean, it was too big of a production. You see how we film it here. Usually when we film a podcast, it's me, Jack, and a guest. So this is how it would be. There's nobody here. It's just Jack and I pressing record. Now, granted, your production quality is way better. But when I look at the cost of that, And then like, if you want to do this on a regular basis, what's sustainable. We found that we just get a setup, we press play, and it's not perfect, but I think people just expect good content. Yeah, that was one of our core takeaways from it, was like, we went, to be fair, it was like, this is the first episode, and we want to make sure everything is completely dialed and we're not missing anything, you know what I mean? So we were just like, well, let's default to more rather than less, just to make sure that we get everything that we want. But in retrospect, it was like, we do not need. There's probably like 14 people there. That's crazy, that's crazy. No, no, no, with Jack and I, it's usually just Jack and I. Like that's it. And then everyone else is like doing a different task, but we don't need it for filming. Right, right. You always opt for something entertaining first, but that should hopefully save money in the process. Just like cut, cut, cut. If I were you, I would see all these 14 people there and say, Fired. I'm tired. Fired. And then you flip a coin, heads or tails. Flip, and then it's the tails. You'd be like, fired. And then just get down to the top three. Make it like Survivor. They maybe have to figure out who's getting fired that night. And then they go home. But then the three people, they're going to do a great job. That's all you need. Three core people. Fair enough. So that's what I would do. I appreciate that. Well, dude, I appreciate you coming on the show and stuff as well. I want to go back in time because... Because, um... We are now at an age where if you ask any random teenager or kid on the street what they want to be when they grow up, a fair percentage of them are going to say YouTuber or creator or something like that. When you and I were coming up, that wasn't something that was even close to being in the realm of something that was acceptable as a career choice. So when you first got started. You were essentially a real estate agent. Is that right? That was like your sort of first job at high school. So tell me what made that, what made you make that decision? Shitty grades in school. Didn't get into college. I, I, I, did you want to? No, no, I didn't. Not really. But I just thought, man, I have it like, you know, everyone else is doing it. My parents are like, you got to go to school. That's what you know, that's what you want to be successful. And I just hated school. Couldn't stand it. Didn't get the point of it. And so real estate, honestly, was like a fallback. Yeah. Like, let me just do real estate. It's like. You know, one of those, I just do sales. All you need is like a basic education. You could pass your courses online. I really didn't have high expectations. I just thought, oh, I do this for a year and then I could reapply to colleges. Oh, really? Cause, uh, yeah. Cause that was like, I didn't know I'd actually make money doing it, but it started, I made money and I loved it. Were you in Vegas? No, no, no. This was Los Angeles. Okay. So you grew up in LA? I grew up in LA, which. I didn't know. That's like the best place ever to sell real estate. Probably like LA, San Francisco, New York. Right. Like, my gosh. It's just, that was a cool, just happened to be there. Where in L.A.? I really worked anywhere from Santa Monica to Glendale. But I focused mostly Beverly Hills, Bel Air, West Hollywood. I mean, yeah, that's a pretty good market to start. Yeah, but I didn't live there. But I would drive down there. At the time, I was living with my dad in Glendale. And I would drive an hour every morning to go to Beverly Hills. Because I thought, if I'm going to sell real estate, I may as well drive the hour and sell really cool houses. Yeah. Well, but on the flip side of that is like, it makes sense logically to start with that type of a market, but also as a, you're 18, as an 18 year old kid, you know, there's these people selling their. $4 million home in Beverly Hills, did you run into trust barriers and trust issues? Everyone thought I was older. I was really insecure about it, but I was helping people with leases at first, and they don't care how old the person is leasing them. It's a lease. And so a lot of people weren't buying, they were leasing, and I'd hold open houses. The first one was just someone wanting to give me a chance. It was a wealthy doctor. Who said that I reminded him of himself when he was younger. He liked the hustle. And this guy was like an experienced, like shrewd guy. So it's not like I could really **** this up. But he was saying, if I find him the house that he likes, he would use me. And I just busted my ass, found the house. He ended up buying it. That guy was a shrewd negotiator, though. He was always like. I remember he was buying, like, a $3.5 million house, but would negotiate with the home inspector over, like, $100. So, like, I remember he was, like, always, like, every little thing, he would, like, negotiate this and negotiate this. He was getting bids, and you'd get, like, all the contractors coming at the same time to, like, bid, you know, against you. Like, really smart guy. So, it wasn't like I could screw that up. And I think he even came, like, we low-balled the property. He was the one who really ran the show. He was like, all right, I want to make an offer on. You know, with these terms, this closing dates, this price, this, that I just wrote it up. I did all the work, but that was like, gave me a huge boost of confidence. Were you working with like on a team or with a mentor in the real estate space? Oh yeah. Your first, your first three deals have to be under someone else for that. So yeah, absolutely. I think that was like a mandate of Coldwell Banker. You can just like start on your own. Okay. Got it. So first year Here in real estate, how much did you make? 50 to 65 grand, it might be 70, but most of that I believe was like at the end of that first year. So for like the first six months I might have been making. One to 2,000 a month, like maybe, maybe three. There might've been a month of like three. Yeah, gas money basically. Yeah, and then the home sale was really at like month nine or 10. Okay. So that boosted, so it's like, and then bleh. Yep, and so year two, year three, what about that year? Year two was better. Every year was more than the prior year. Yeah. Year two, I don't remember. It might've been like 100. So it's maybe, maybe at that, I really don't, it's been, I would have remembered this eight years ago. I just, I don't, I don't remember now. I don't know, man. I don't know. Every year was better than the last. It's only like, I would look at my commissions and it's just, it's as long as I could do last year, but a little better. And that's, that was my only goal. Were you doing like cold calling? How are you generating business? Craigslist. Really? All Craigslist. Yeah. Back Back when Craigslist was good. Yeah. I would post on the housing section and I would have these leases that I would get from people on the office and they had shitty photography. So I would go in to them and say, hey, I'll take good photographs of your listing, but let me promote it on Craigslist. You could use my photos and if you rent it out, I get nothing. But if I bring you a tenant, just give me the tenant side of the commission. Like practically everyone would say yes. And so I just hyper-optimized for Craigslist ads. I'd get an influx of calls. And then all those people I say, What is it that you're looking for? Have you considered buying? Why don't you buy a house? What are you looking at? So, you know, some of them would say, oh, you know, I'm looking to buy. I just haven't seen anything yet. And then I get their info and now I help them. A lot of them would just say, oh, I'm looking to rent for the next few years and then I'll buy. And then, you know, hopefully rent them a place. You know, keep tabs on them. And then years later, they might come back to me and say, hey, I'm ready to buy. Right. You just take care of them. Ends up being a lifelong client. What year was this? 2008 is when I started. Okay, so a pretty good time to start. Bad, no, it was a bad time. I just mean in terms of, in retrospect. Like at that point, probably. Yeah, but everything's in hindsight. If you had told anybody in 2008, is that a good time to start real estate? Every single person said no. Correct. The worst time, the best time would have been 2004, 2005. Maybe 2006. My dad was a Coldwell Banker agent in California during all that time. So I very much remember the good times and the downturn. Although he got lucky I mean, got lucky. He was a top performer in the area. So he got a couple of banks that he worked with and they were just selling a bunch of foreclosures at the time. In terms of skill sets here, what skill sets did you work really hard on in real estate to have success in that field that you still use today? I just liked it. I liked doing it. There's no other skills on that. I just enjoyed it. Really? Yeah. Enjoyed what part of it? Every day, I just felt like I'm doing my own thing. I could work when I wanted. I could take on as much work. I was my own boss. I don't have to answer to somebody. I don't have to be like, oh, I got to take my lunch break today. I got to do this. It's infinite possibilities. Every day is like, I could make $100,000 today, or I could not. Uh, you know, I could sleep in today. I could do it. Like your day is free to do whatever you want. You could work when you want. At what point did you start getting into the investing side of things? Pretty much immediately. I guess, you know, I really just like stashed cash. Like I really wasn't investing at all 2011, but I, but I'd save everything. 2011, I had this big chunk of money. I could basically save all my commissions. And I noticed that. Some of the houses were really cheap and some of my really wealthy clients were buying houses and they're buying short sales. And so I thought that's a good opportunity. I have this stack of cash. I want to go and buy these. So that's when I started buying short sales, foreclosures, put in offers. And because I had access to the MLS, I just figure out these little areas that I would know really well. And I could tell you back then, based on when the home was built, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage. Like a few basic pictures of the house. I knew what it was worth. And so I just write an offer immediately and just see what happens. Was it your intention to flip them or to hold them? Buy and rent. Okay. That's it. Okay. Yeah. Buy, fix, rent. I only recently sold. A few of them. Really? Yeah. What insight gave you that type of, you know, because at the time, flipping was going crazy, right? This is like when a lot of the HGTV shows were coming up. Taxes, taxes, taxes. Because let's just say, I buy a house for $100,000, which was back then easy. You can do, yeah. Buy a house for $100,000. I'm going to spend $20,000 fixing it up. I'm in at $120,000. I could flip it for $150,000. And then I got to pay commissions on that. Yeah. And then I got to pay California taxes, ordinary income taxes. I'm doing all this work. Yeah. All this risk, all this stuff. To what? Make $10,000? No. Yeah. Otherwise, I could rent the house, and in a year, I make the same $10,000 in rent. Yeah. But I could do that every single year without any work. What's your advice now to people in that space? Do you think that the opportunity is as good as it was when you started? No. If you were starting over today, would you consider real estate as a- No, no, no. It's a zero. No, no, no. Really? I don't see any opportunity right now in real estate. I think it's a terrible time. And listen, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know everything. I'm just a dude on YouTube. I don't know what I'm talking about, which is the truth. I think it's a terrible time to buy. For me back then, it was obvious. I'm looking at it and saying, the numbers make sense. Right. Like, anyone, like, a lot of people told me, too, like, oh, it's a bad time, it's gonna be shadow inventory, I didn't give a ----, because I look at the numbers, and the numbers are like, this is a slam dunk, I don't know what they're smoking, but this is, like, a really good deal. Now, I say, oh, it's not a good time, and everyone's like, but, home price, you're gonna keep going up forever, and this is, but, like, I look, again, I look at the number, I'm like, this doesn't make sense to me. Now, it's not, like, I'm sure, there are some. There's some markets out there that will be good investments. There are some deals out there at the right price. They make sense. I don't care. As a whole, back then, I thought, buy a house. Today, I do not think buy a house. For an investment, if you buy it personal, fine. I don't care what you do personally with your money. But for an investment, I just don't see it. What about as an agent? What do you mean as an agent? Would you recommend somebody who's like, maybe they're at the same position that you were back then. They're 17, 18, trying to figure out what they want to do is being a broker or an agent. If you are a listing agent, absolutely, depending on the market. Like Vegas, believe it or not, is like surprisingly competitive. And if you're a listing agent, most likely you're going to sell the listing. That's like a guaranteed commission. A buyer's agent right now is going to be a lot tougher because you got a lot of people who just don't need to move. There's a lot of competition out there. A lot of people are desperate for business. So it's tougher for a buyer's agent, but I'm not going to say it's impossible because certain markets are doing great, but it's a lot harder, I believe. So when did you get the desire to jump onto YouTube? 2016. Well, the desire really came in like 2011, but I put it off for a while. Yeah, well, you were working on the main thing at the time, right? No, no, I just didn't have the courage to upload on YouTube. Oh, really? Yeah, I just didn't. have what it takes. Yeah. What eventually happened that made you have the first upload? I thought if I didn't do it, I would never do it. And I just, I had like that, the feeling where it's like, like when the numbers made sense, I just thought to myself, man, if I don't do this now, never going to do it. The opportunity is going to pass. I'm going to be 36 years old and look back and just wish, oh, I should have posted 10 years ago. And so I just did it. Yeah. Which is, I mean, came true. Yeah. What was your first video on YouTube? It was, it sounds so cringy now, but it worked. It was how he became a millionaire in real estate by 26. Oh, really? That was the first time? That was my title. That was my title. I think it was a Photo of a house that I had bought and renovated. And you said it worked. To what degree did it work? Oh, it got like 500,000 views. Really? Your first video? First video. Wow. How was that? What were you thinking when you were refreshing the views and seeing those views coming in? I expected it to do well, but not that well. Because I was spending so much time on YouTube, and I was really big into analytics. And so I'd see what videos are doing well and what would hit. What thumbnails are good and what people would click on. So I knew going into it, like, here's what I should be doing. And I got really into SEO and I figured out like how to place videos on the first page of the YouTube search results back then when that, when that was a thing. So I knew it would do well. And I, I kind of expected it to be like 5,000 views. Um, but it just kept rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling. I was like, oh man, that, that did way better than I expected. So how much. What time or energy did you start thinking about budgeting toward YouTube versus real estate? Oh, I just did it for fun. It was never a, it was just when I was done with real estate, I just do YouTube. So there wasn't like a, what, how much time is just, I just wanted to do YouTube. So you were already done being an agent at that time? No, I would, no, I would work as an agent from let's call it like 9am to six. Okay. And then anything after that, it was like, that's my YouTube time. That's my fun time. Yeah. But you were an epic YouTube consumer at that point. Oh yeah. Watching finance stuff? Nah, finance didn't exist back then. It was prank videos. I'd watch Vitaly and Nelk and Danny Duncan. Yeah, yeah. Overboard humor. All those prank channels. I'd watch those. Hilarious. And that was what the bug was. Do you think that you have to be a big YouTuber, like YouTube consumer in order to do well on YouTube? I do. Yeah. Because you got to know what's going on. Yeah. You got to like, you know, if you're a business owner, but you're never at the business, it's like, what are you doing? You're just relying on other people. Yeah. Like I'm on YouTube just as much as I spend on YouTube in terms of like the amount of time I'm on YouTube myself. Yeah. What do you watch now? I just, now I really go off the YouTube recommendations. Okay. Because like a lot of the creators that I watched, like it's either I kind of like got bored of their content, I hate to say it, or they just stopped posting. Yeah. So I like, I like the YouTube, like I keep refreshing and it's like, oh, that video looks cool. So if you're like chilling at your house by yourself and there's nothing to do and you're going to watch something, you're not going to like Netflix or HBO or something. No, recently I have. No, recently, because Netflix uploaded the whole season of Pokemon. And so I've been like starting from episode one just to go through again. So that's fun. But. No, sometimes it's like, okay, besides that, I'll, uh, yeah, just put on a video and like eat as my favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah. What, uh, what, what shows are you really liking these days? You mentioned Pokemon. Like, are you into any of the other like bigger shows? No, no, no, no, not really. No, no. And movies the same way? I'm a recommend like, it just serves me something. I'm like, oh, that looks good. But it's never something where I'm like specifically looking for the thing. It just serves it to me. I'm like, that looks good. It's like a menu. It's like, you got to look through the menu. I'm not looking for like, you know, the teriyaki chicken, but like I'm looking through the miso salmon. Let me get that. That's all it is. So when you started creating, this is 2016, how long did before you started like making enough money where you looked at it? Like I might be able just to do this. It sounds crazy, like two months. Oh, really? Wow. Immediate. There was one day two months in where I made, I think it was like $170 in a day. And I was like, oh man, if I could do that every day. Yeah. That's like, that pays for all of my overhead. Yeah. And so I thought if I did this one day, I could do it every day. So you were immediately into the real estate side of YouTube, but since then you've broadened out quite a bit, even on your main channel into sort of more like personal finance and budgeting and things like that. Uh, did that. Did that have any impact on your personal investment portfolio, like research you were doing for YouTube videos and things like that? Because at the time you were 100% in real estate, I assume. Yeah, no, it made no difference because it's all personal finance. But it started as real estate and then I realized the market for real estate at that time was like 500, sorry, 50,000 subscribers back then. And then I saw the stock channels get to 100,000. I'm like, I'm like, okay, well, if I talk about... That and stocks, $100,000. Oh, wait, personal finance, if I broaden out even more, that's $500,000. And then if I broaden out, too, to personal topics, like what I'm doing, a million. And so every leg of the game, I'm like, oh, I got this little bubble here, but if I expand to this, now I reach more people. If I expand to this, more people. And so that was my entire thing. I'm just looking and saying, what do people want to see? And I'll make what you want to see. So how long before you actually went full-time? 2020 was actually when I went full-time, which is four years after I started. I was making way more money on YouTube than I ever was in real estate. After year three, it might have been. But I still did real estate because I was so worried that the YouTube algorithm could change because I saw with prank channels, they all got demonetized. I think it was 2018 for something stupid. And all of them just immediately fell off. I was like, ah, ----, that could happen to finance too. So I kept doing the real estate And like every. year on YouTube, I'd be like, all right, I'll just prepare for like, this is probably it. And then just continue. But 2020, like the real estate shut down, the channel took off and I'm like, all right, I'm going to go full time on the channel. Were you trying to move that audience elsewhere as well? Like were you building an email list or community or thinking about any of those things? I suck at that, man. I'm not doing, no, I should, I should have. I should have, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, because YouTube, the thing I dislike is that after all, you become like a dancing monkey for the camera of like, you got to shout for people's attention. Like, Oh, I got to do this. I got to act crazy for, you know, for these views now to get your attention. But then it's like, you got to keep doing that. Right. So it's becomes like a dancing monkey. It's not really a sustainable thing. Yeah. So I should have in 2020. Done like all these other things, created some other businesses, do something that's a little bit more scalable. I didn't. I was focused on YouTube. But you, and one time you actually got monkeys to like trade stocks or something. I did. Yeah. Like literally. That was the monkey. Dancing monkeys. That was the monkey boo. I would love to know how those stocks did. Yeah. Like through today. Because I would hold them a year and then I would sell and I'd do it again. The first year, I think we were up like. 20% in the first year. Yeah, but then the second year, I think we underperformed and then it did really, really, really bad for the third year, which is 2022. So on my other show, Travis makes money. It's all about money and finance and entrepreneurship, investing, whatever. And, um, my producer, Eric did, uh, had me do like a tier list of personal finance influencers. And I, you were the only one that I put at S tier. Oh, thank you. Because I think that you have, um, a very interesting perspective coming from the real estate space where you don't like write it off. Like I see some people in like the stock world that are just like, they don't even touch real estate. And then I see, you know, the, the Ramseys who are like, don't ever touch debt and all debt's bad and don't even carry a credit card type of thing. And there's like, there's always like a bit of whoever I'm getting advice from that. I'm always like, ah, I'll take like 90% of what they say this 10% though. I'm not a big fan of, but you have like a really balanced approach because you come from the real estate world, but you're also like really big into the stock market now. What is your advice to especially young people when it comes to investment portfolio? Like what should they be thinking about? What are like the safe things to do? What are the things you recommend to basically just about anybody that you talk to? Roth IRA, live below your means, be cheap, index funds. Consistently, that's it. That's a simple, you could just stop the video there and that would be it. What about making more money? Do you ever talk about side hustles or things that you're excited about? I used to and I hate those videos. They do well. I just like, the amount of people, because no one actually does these side hustles and the people who would actually do well don't need to watch a side hustle video. It's not like they're going to get hyped off a side hustle video and be like, oh man, now I got to drive for Uber. They would just be driving for Uber regardless. So yeah, I think obviously making more money is great. A hundred percent recommend making more money, but I think there's people don't need to be told to make more money. They just make more money. Yeah. What do you look at? Like I asked you the skills question earlier, what do you look at as the skillset that you have now that has allowed you to perform well on YouTube and manage a team and have all the spinning plates that you have going on now? Just discipline and maybe like very slight autism to like, I could do the same thing. I could eat the same meal every single morning. I could have the same routine for years and I don't get tired of it. Like I could literally eat the same thing every single day for dinner for years. Yeah. It's like, it's that sort of consistency where I can, yeah. And so I think that's really, really, really helped me out a lot that like, it doesn't matter what, like, I could just keep doing the same thing and I get really good at one thing. And like that thing for me has been lately the YouTube algorithm. And then, you know, I do these little side quests here and there of other little like interests. But for me, it's like, I'm really good at just figuring out like what will do well on YouTube. For the podcast, uh, this. Came out of COVID or was this after COVID? No, this is May of 2020. Okay. It was Jack's idea to come up with the podcast. I said, sure, let's do it. Yeah. Let's do it, Jack. Was it, at that time, did it feel like a side quest? Like, we'll see how this goes? Or did you actually feel like this has legs? Oh, yeah. No, I knew it. Because at the time, my channel was like popping. It was getting like 500,000, 700,000 views a video. Okay. My second channel was getting like 200,000 views a video. Like anything I would post on YouTube, even like collabs with other people at that time. Because finance was like really taking off. It would do well. So I knew like I could even, I could post a video of myself taking a crap and it would get 500,000. Like I even did a video. We could pull this up. I filmed myself cooking lasagna in a dishwasher and it got 200,000 views. Like it was dumb. So, like, I knew the podcast would do well. It's just a matter of, like, is this what we want to focus our time on? Yeah. How did you start curating the guest list at the beginning? Friends. It's just, like, just finance buddies. We had, like, Jeremy Financial Education on as one of our first guests. Some of them would just be Jack and I talking. We would just have anybody on who wanted to come on. And it was just, like, we'd hit you up on Instagram or, like, we had your phone number. We'd just call you up. Hey, do you want to come film? How's this evening work? Just to come over and film. Grab dinner afterwards. Yeah. What was the original intention with the content of the channel? Were you trying to keep it sort of personal finance or was that just kind of, it happened to be because that was the people that you knew? Yeah, it was my audience. I mean, that's all I cared about. I really didn't care about anything other than personal finance. So like that was the whole point of the podcast, but it was also to be able to talk to people who I wouldn't be able to talk to otherwise. A lot of these people are busy and they're not going to care of like, yo, you want to grab coffee? No, but. You want to do a podcast? And you go, yeah, sure. I'll come do a podcast with you. So it started opening doors, essentially. And then you broadened out, though. You didn't, like, I think it was relatively quickly, right? You guys started having on people that weren't in the finance space at all. Yeah, it was just anybody. But it all had like a personal finance, like, origin story. Like, everyone we asked about their personal finances. At first, it was like, do you invest? Where do you? But that got boring really quickly. So we'd have other people on and just, but there was always like an undertone of, like, money. Yeah, that was like the common theme. It was. Yeah. Who are some of the people that you still to this day are in disbelief that they said yes to coming on the show? Probably Jeanette McCurdy. She was like the most random. She had sent me a DM. Like 2020 or something like that, maybe earlier. And I missed it. And it was something where like one of my videos just popped in. Like she sent me the thing. It was like great. It's like something, something like that. It's like, how do I miss this? Yeah. So I sent her a message back. I can't believe I missed this. We started a podcast. Would you want to come? And she said, yes. Nice. And so that was like, that's it. Crazy cool guest. She was so nice. I couldn't believe it. And we were brand new. So like we didn't have any sort of like following. It was kind of a random podcast at the time. I loved it. It was one of my favorites. Did you grow up watching those shows? Not necessarily iCarly. Like I knew of the show. It was more like- You had kind of aged out. Drake and Josh. Yeah. I loved. Same. We had Josh Peck on the show and I felt like that. Yeah. I was like, yeah. This is so cool. I don't know how many hours I spent as a teenager watching Drake and Josh. I know, I know. We would love to have Josh or Drake Bell on. I would love that. Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. That's still to this day, whenever anybody asks me about starting a podcast, I'm just like, if you're looking at making money, probably not a good thing to do, like starting a podcast, in terms of direct monetization of the actual show. However, there's so many other ancillary benefits that you gain from having a show. And the number one is the volume of people that you don't think would ever give you the time of day who actually say yes and sit down and actually talk to you for like an hour or 90 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever the time is. As a result of that, it's the access to information that you gain as a host. I don't know if you felt that way, but like for me, it's almost, it's like my personal accountabi lity partner for learning new things because I just bring on people who I find really interesting and get to, it's essentially like I can basically use it as like a coaching call more or less. you Like I can ask about all the things that are really interesting to me and they freely give all this information. And then I walk away with the most, so with the highest volume of takeaways. Cause I was actually the one in the conversation, you know? much. Yeah. Um, are you ever thinking about like, Continuous learning to that degree. Are you, do you take notes on any of that stuff? I don't. I'm so focused the entire podcast. I don't remember it because I'm so focused in the middle of the podcast. What's my next question going to be? How do we lead into this segment? Is this a good conversation? Do we have to cut this part? Like I'm editing in my head the episode and there's some parts where I know like our guest is speaking. I'm like, we're going to cut this whole thing out. And this, yeah. And I'm like, how could I get off of this subject? Like I'm thinking like in my, how could I make a really good podcast from this? So I'm not thinking for myself at all. Do you think in terms of clippable moments? I do, but I know that just happens organically. So you don't come in with like a bunch of notes that are like, oh, we do. No, no, we do a ton of like, I have an outline and this like shows exactly how it flows I'm going to get into this, but I don't try to like, like do a layup or anything like that. How many hours, but I know it's you and Jack and have some team members and stuff like that. How many hours collectively do you think is spent researching a guest before you? 10 hours. What is that mostly doing? Me on the treadmill, watching their podcasts at 3x speed. And then as I'm listening to it, I'll write down questions that I have or interesting parts that maybe were not expanded because I don't want to ask people the same things they've always been asked. So I try to think of other questions. And then when I have that and I listen to enough, I'll sit down and I'll just like, just go to town with questions. I try to structure it in such a way that We'll lead to a good conversation. What is your goal when you go into the conversation? I just want a good episode. And so everyone is different. Like some we get guests on and they're just not. And so sometimes we'll just have to say, listen, this is, uh, we got to start over or you got to like be better on camera and we'll, we'll coach some of the guests because it's like when someone's talking like this the entire time, it's not going to work out like this. It's like, Oh, come on. Like, cause I know we're not going to post it. And so we'll try to get people out of their shell and, and get something different. Has there been anybody that surprised you in? To the opposite degree that you thought coming into it, like we're going to have to do a little extra work on this one. They're not as like lively as some of the other guests we've had, but they ended up crushing it. Not really. Cause I do so much research, like to even get to the point of filming, we have a good idea of like what they're going to be like. What are you looking for now in terms of people you have on the show? Really interesting stories. Someone who's preferably notable, someone who would get the social media game has the person. I think just having podcast experience is probably number one. Cause even if they're like a really interesting person, sometimes they don't. translate to like a good podcast. I heard Ryan Serhant actually say one time that he tries to show up as almost like a caricature of himself to some degree. Like, like this is who I am still, but also when the camera turns on, I sort of like take that up to a 10. Yeah. Is that sort of how you look at it? A hundred percent. I told Eric too, like when we did ours, when we did the dinner party, I was like, Graham is exactly the person behind the camera as he is in front The way that you talk in normal life. Sounds like the way that a YouTuber would talk. You know what I mean? Maybe, because it's all I do. This vocal intonation, it's like second nature to you. It bleeds into the rest of my life. Yeah. Did you do any work on that, or is that just sort of came out of the consistency? Just, I watch YouTube, and then I can see what's working, and I just do that. Yeah. What would you say, in terms of priorities, are the things that... make a YouTube channel irresistible? Passion, consistency, and then you've got to know the game of like marketing title thumbnail. Title thumbnail are the two most important on that side. Oh, a hundred percent. So like you could have a great video, but if it title thumbnail sucks, like no one's going to click on it. How often does that change? What do you mean? Like the science of... Of title thumbnail, like thumbnails relatively similar now as they were three years ago. No, I'd say it changes every like three to six, 12 months, but you just kind of see what's working. It's like when everyone's doing the same thumbnails, you got to switch it up. Do you test the thumbnails? Like multiple versions? I do AB testing for titles, thumbnails, also do like 10 thumbnails and I just like let YouTube decide which one it's going to use. Yeah. Are there any tools that you use for that before you go to YouTube? Or you use everything natively in YouTube? Just everything natively in YouTube. Really? And just common sense and just my own experience. Now that you, obviously the podcast is seeing a lot of success, you still have your other channel. What do you enjoy most? Probably reviewing a podcast on the treadmill is what I look forward to the most. Really? Yeah. Because I feel like I'm burning calories and like, no, no, I'm talking like the review, like after filming it, like I'll get sent the edit and I go and make comments on it. Gotcha. I look forward to that because I know it's like, all right, I'm going to be on the treadmill for an hour today. Yeah. How do you structure like an average day or an average week? I don't. I don't structure it. I just try to get like as much as possible done every single day, but there's no structure to it. Really? No. No lists, no journaling, none of that stuff? No, no. That's why even scheduling this was so difficult because like every day is going to be different. And sometimes things come up where I'm just like, I got to like just head down focus on other days. There's not much. Yeah. Or we have a travel day for the podcast. So it's like everything kind of is... changing. Would you ever consider selling your podcast? I'd be obvious. I mean, everything has a price. You give me a good price. I'll, uh, I'll sell the podcast. I'll sell you my fish tank. I'll sell you, I'll sell you a lot. Yeah. This microphone. Yeah. Take, take it all. Yeah. What do you make of like some of these deals that you've been seeing going around the podcasting world now with Netflix and Spotify and even Amazon and all these other acquisitions that have been happening to me? They're making some shitty acquisitions where I think how on Earth, are you going to make money from this? Being honest, you know, I think it's a lot of suits who are just like, oh, let's get these athletes together and, but do a podcast because that's what all the kids are, but it's like, but they're not good. They're not good podcasts. They're way too produced. Like I saw Netflix has the podcast thing and I tried getting through it. I'm thinking, who on earth? Like, this is what, like... Like their original podcast? Yeah, but, like, this is what you would, like, your grandparents would think of, like, a podcast. Of, like, this TV talk show-like host with, like, a set. It's like, people don't want that. They want, like, Theo Von. Yeah. Just kind of, like, riffing. I don't know. I think they're throwing a lot of money at the wrong places. Yeah. The Ice Coffee Hour would be a much better acquisition, in my opinion, but they're just throwing money at the wall, trying to get these names on there that get hype, but you know, they just need a good show. I know Spotify sunset a lot of their original podcasts because they acquired. I think it was Gimlet back in the day for like two, $300 million. I have no idea what that is. It was a production studio. They had a suite of podcasts that they started and started cranking out a bunch of content and then Sunset like 60% of the shows and fired a bunch of people. If they just paid me like 3 million bucks, I would go in there and save you. Probably $10 million. So just cut the shows. Just cut them. Like we were saying earlier, fire, fire, fire. I'd look at these shows like this is a bad show. Just don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. I'd save so much money. So much money. I don't get why they're not doing that. Well, What's the, in your view, the key to starting a successful show now? If you're a nobody. Because obviously you have the windfall of celebrity talent that's come into the space and they kind of go just get their big contracts. You know who's really great is Jack Neal. And the reason it's so good is because he asks good questions. He gets good guests. It's a good production quality. It's not overly done. And he understands YouTube. Yeah. That's a dude and he came from TikTok. So it was not like he was in the podcasting space, but he's crushing it. So I would say be like a Jack Neal. He's doing everything correctly. You don't need to have a big name or something really expensive. Jack Neal is doing it. You've obviously developed deep competence in a lot of areas. You also have a variety of really high quality relationships. For a young person thinking about their career development and trying to be successful coming up, do you think it is more prudent for them to spend their time on the competence side or on the connection side? Who you know or what you know? Probably more who you know, because yeah, you could be competent, but like just know nobody. Maybe Joe down at the liquor store down there, but like Joe's not going to, you know, help your career out. It's probably more connections. Like you probably got to be a bit of a people person, but sometimes you just got to take the shot and like you get the shot. Do you think your career in YouTube is atypical? Probably slightly atypical, but that's only because I see a lot of people who did the same as me and then they like started getting success and making money and they're just like, oh, I'm I think they just stop. They get, like, complacent. I saw so many people who just, like, started making, like, 10K a month, and they're like, oh, man, this is, uh, do, uh. And then they stop doing it. Or they take their eye off the ball. Yeah. Like, you know, all of a sudden, they, you get the, you know, a nice car, and they do this, and now they're not as focused. They start going out. They start drinking. They start getting girls. And then it's like, well, you haven't uploaded in a month. Yeah. And, like, now your channel's suffering, and, like. What got you there is now like you're putting it to the side. Like I said, I'm really good at just like, hey, I found this thing that works. I'm just going to keep doing it. On the personal finance side, what have you found to make it more appealing to you to do the work? Because I know you were doing like five uploads a week or something like that. At the peak, it was 11. Yeah, 11 uploads a week is crazy. At the peak, yeah. And then... Now you obviously have the podcast channel as well and you're doing a lot of other things. Has there been a trick for you in order to be able to be like, all right, I got to make this video. It's just me talking to the camera. I just do it. It's just on the list. You got to get it done. Yeah. How many uploads are you doing now? One a week on the main channel, five a month on this channel. That's it. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I mean, we have clips channels and things like this, but that, I don't count that. In terms of creation hours. In terms of creation hours, yeah. So what is that? Four, five. We'll round it up to 10 a month. Yeah, yeah. How much time on the Personal Finance channel do you spend in research and prep for those? 30 hours a week. Going into a single video? Yeah, because a lot of that's just like, in fairness, I could spend six hours browsing Twitter. But I count that as research, because without that browsing, I spent all day on Twitter yesterday, and then at 6 p.m. Trump floats this idea of like, uh, indexing capital gains to inflation because I was out of, I was out of ideas. And then like, Thankfully, Trump is just like, here you go, Graham. Here's a video idea for you. Like, if we didn't have him, I wouldn't have a channel. Yeah. You know? And then before then, it was Biden. And it's just like saying the wackiest stuff. Yeah. And he was all like, tax the rich and do this. But you know what? For me, those were videos. Yeah, right. Those were videos. And then Trump comes back in and just says, he just throws a curve. I'm like, let's bomb this place. Let's do this. All of it for me. Yeah. Content fodder. Listen, in fairness, it's every president, Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter. They're all a little crazy and it gives me something to talk about. But in fairness, Trump did help me this week because I was out of a video idea. I did not want to do like another side hustles video. So very thankful. That's what I was working on. Speaking of current events, are there any macroeconomic trends that concern you at the moment? In fairness, no. Okay. No, no, no. Because it's all white noise. I know I make videos on this. I like talking about it, but in fairness, it makes no difference to the average. For the average person to show up to work, do a good job, save money, invest. You could basically just not check the news for 30 years and invest. You'd be just fine. Yeah, if you're investing in just like index funds and stuff like that. Yeah, realistically. Yeah, I'm not trying to do stock picks. Yeah, you don't need to, yeah. It's not good to say that for my channel. Just watch my channel. Like, I enjoy talking about it, but like in fairness for the, like you don't need to hear any of it. Like, it really doesn't matter. But it's entertaining. Yeah, no, it is. It is definitely. What about primary residence? There's a lot of... A lot of arguments online about whether you should buy your primary residence or not. What do you think? Uh, cheaper to rent from a, from a number standpoint, it's better for you to rent than buy. Um, only, only, yeah, right now it's better to rent. So like, if you're just looking at the money, rent a house primary only makes sense. If you just consider that a lifestyle expense, like you would, um, go to the spa, you know, maybe do some, uh, shopping, whiten your teeth, uh, you know, all of these things. It's a personal expense. Yeah. Is there any lifestyle expenses that you find yourself doing? Are you, like, pretty much? Oh, gosh. Believe it or not, the more money I make, the less I desire. Like, I have no desire. Like, I've been trying to, like, sell ----. I sold a watch recently. Debating selling off a car. It's just things I just don't want. I don't need. All of my attention now is going towards, like, I'm collecting old animation art from Disney. Oh, really? And I like that. So that's a little segment where it's like, I feel like I got a good grasp on maybe what's going to go up in value. And maybe not. So, but I like that. So those are the only things I like to own and collect. What about like trips or experiences, travel, stuff like that? Does that matter to you at all? Not really. Okay. You know, maybe once a year I get a little itchy to like go somewhere, but like I travel so much for the podcast. To me, a vacation would be staying home for a month. Like that to me is like, oh. That sounds awesome. Do you always try to get the guests to come to Vegas first? Yes. And then it's like, oh, they can't, they're traveling. And then you just go to wherever they are. Yeah. We got to post five times a month. So like five times a month, we got to get someone either here or we got to go to them. Yeah. And so it depends on the guest. If it's like Vlad from Robin Hood, we're not going to get him in Vegas. We're going to go to him. That's fine. Mike Rowe. It'd be very unlikely to get into Vegas. We're going to him. Other guests, if they're passing through in the next three months, we'll just pencil them in when they schedule, you know. Which is a nice part about being in Vegas, to be honest. Yeah, it's really nice. Who's some of the guests that you have on the list that you have not yet been able to get to agree to come on the show? Yeah, some of them agree. It's just like scheduling. Bill Ackman is one that we've really been like so excited to get Bill Ackman. And his team said something about like, yeah, you know, at the end of the year. So it's just like a wait and see. And then probably end of the year, it'll be like, oh, the beginning of next year. It's gotta be patient. There's so many guests like that that you just, you're patient. But if you have 20 of them like that, one of them will pan out every few months. Yeah. Do you do all the guests reach out? Most of it. Really? Yeah. Instagram DMs? Yeah, DMs, email. We get a lot of inbounds, but a lot of the inbound is not quite like. what we're going for. But you never know. Some of the inbound we look at and we're like, that's awesome. Let's do that. Yeah, people on promo tours and stuff like that. Right. Yeah, I don't even know how many emails I get from that, but probably, I mean, at least 200 or 300 a month. I assume for your show it's significantly more than that. So you've got to do a lot of weeding through media bios and PR. Press kits and stuff like that before you find somebody that's interesting enough to finally say yes. Talk to me about your clipping strategy. Do you guys own all of the places that you post clips to? Have you ever taken a part in like, oh, this clipping company is going to come in. They're going to clip all this stuff. They're going to post it on all these anonymous accounts. No, no, we've never done that. No, we have two people that we work with. Josh from Social Media Money does a great job on our main Ice Coffee Hour page. We also work with this guy, Anton, and he's doing a lot of my personal clipping and short strategies, but we don't have anonymous accounts posting. If they repost us, that's not us. And what type of volume do you put out for clips? I don't know. I think it's twice a day. Okay. Twice a day per channel. On pretty much every platform. Yeah. Yeah, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Right, I think it's that, but I'm not really involved in that. Yeah, but no newsletters or anything? No, we probably should be doing that, but no. It seems like a good vertical. You know what I mean? Like if you had like a sports podcast or something, it may not make sense, but for a finance podcast, a lot of those people like to see it. Not to give you an extra thing to do. No, you're right. We should be. We should be. We're dropping the ball. Um, so what are you thinking about next? Like if you, you know, you've seen multiple iterations of YouTube come and go, you've seen the podcast spaces significantly changed since 2020 as well. Um, is there somewhere that you're looking to where like you think the puck is going that you're trying to skate to at the moment? No, it's just, it's YouTube, man. It's like the next month it could be gone. So. I don't know. It's just month to month is kind of where we're at. And if it changes, we adapt. From a personal finance perspective against the business, and you can share whatever you're willing to share, what is your philosophy on this money is the business's, this money is mine, and this money I'm going to take, this is my money, I'm going to invest that in my investment portfolio versus this is the podcast money or the business's money, we need to use that to hire new people. Yeah, we always keep a certain amount in the business checking account, and then anything beyond that, we just take as a distribution. And then my philosophy is just save and invest it all. Yeah. You know? And mostly index funds? 90% index funds. Really? Yeah. That's crazy. So not really an individual stock picker? No, I stay out of that. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. If I do, I might throw like 10K in a stock and just see how it does. It really won't be more than that. What about the crypto game? Never gotten there. Yeah. I mean, I DCA into like iBit, but I would count that more of like an index than like an individual stock. I'm sure it's similar to an individual stock, but I just, I just DCA into that. Yeah. Did you ever buy any NFTs? No. Stay out of that. Stay out of that. I never got the point. I thought NFTs were dumb and I'll still stand by that NFTs were dumb. Maybe CryptoPunks are kind of cool. So like maybe a CryptoPunk, but even then I'd rather have like a Keith Haring than I would a CryptoPunk. A what? Keith Haring, the artist. Oh, okay. Like something physical. Yeah, because for like 70 grand, you get like a nice Keith Haring. I was like, I'd rather that than an NFT. Yeah. How do you spend your free time? Working. -------. Yeah. That's the, that's the real answer. Yeah. Yeah. Working like consuming content on YouTube or Twitter. Yeah. I'm just planning out videos, scripting something. There's something I'm doing that makes money. Yeah. And you got married recently. I did. Oh, two years ago. Not that recently. Yeah. Okay. Kids on the horizon. One day. Has it been an adjustment at all? Like going into married life? No, no. We, we have lived together for like, by the time we got married, like five years, we've already been living. So I mean, no, she, she, we, we, we were all very like accustomed to each other's schedules and there's really no adjustment. Yeah. What does she do? She has a YouTube channel. Oh, great. Yeah. Okay. There's Legos. And then she also does some personal training on the side. Nice. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, dude, I appreciate you for a lot of reasons, the work you do in the world. It was one of those ones, um, you know, I've been podcasting I think this last week is nine years and I, it sounds crazy to say, but when I started YouTube and podcasting were not the same, you know what I mean? They were, they were different sort of factions. It was like, are you going to be a podcaster or are you going to be a YouTuber? And I chose podcasting because I'd never consumed content on YouTube. So I just would, I listened to a bunch of podcasts. I was like, I'll be a podcaster. And then. This marriage of the two platforms started happening, um, right around the time that you started the Ice Coffee Hour. And I started seeing like podcasts just blow up and blow mine out of the water. And it was like, at first it was that initial, like, ah, damn it. You know, like, what am I doing wrong? And then initially, and then a pretty immediately a change to like, well, what are they doing that I can learn from? And how can I, you know, look at what they're doing and use that as sort of inspiration and what we can be doing next. So in a lot of ways, like your channel, there's a few other ones that, that, um, that I'm thinking That were sort of the reasons that we wanted to do a dinner party style show, something that was more visual, something that was for YouTube versus like being a podcast that we kind of just were like, Oh, we'll release it on YouTube, but it's mainly a podcast. So I appreciate the work you do in the world, the influence that you've had on my life as well as a lot of other people's lives. You're doing a lot of really good stuff, man. And thank you for being a part of Dinner Party. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming here. Regardless of what happens, dude, with that, you know, I had a great time filming. So yeah, I'm eager to. Send it out into the world. But either way, I was just stoked that everybody made the time and showed up and we got two plus hours of content to film. Me too, and I got a good photo with Shaq. You did, you did. And you had a couple of the best Shaq moments, to be honest. Yeah, even when we were watching it back, we're like, that's an epic moment. Yeah, I'll take it. So yeah, I do appreciate you, man. Appreciate all the work that you do for everybody watching, tuning in. Be sure to go check out all of Graham's stuff if you're not already, which you probably are. And remember to leave every relationship better than you found it. We'll catch you on the next episode. Peace.