Ben Uyeda

So when I moved away from architecture and wanted to focus on providing affordable design to the masses, I thought that YouTube would be the right channel to go at.

YouTube is sort of the instructional manual for the world, right?

If you want to learn how to cook something or make something, you go to YouTube.

So I started publishing videos of how to make affordable modern furniture.

And so I actually use YouTube as a vehicle for delivering design.

Now, like many YouTubers, I'm interested in also monetizing that and getting sponsors.

But what I quickly sort of learned is that the real money is in not through sort of selling how many views you get, but in doing product integration into the video content itself.

Because if you think about it, it's really easy for a big brand to go out and buy a bunch of traffic or buy a bunch of views.

They only have to deal with Facebook and do a boosted post or buy traffic from Google, right?

What's really hard and complicated is if they want to go out and produce the video content itself.

Then they have to talk to an advertising agency.

The advertising agency has to hire a video production agency.

And then they also have to bring in somebody that actually knows the creative substance of the video itself.

So there's often three or four entities involved.

So I always tell people, even if you don't have a lot of subscribers on YouTube, I got my first branded deals with pretty major brands before I even had one of them.

They paid me for that.

So, for example, let's say Home Depot is probably my biggest client.

And so they'll come to me and they'll say like, hey, you know, what can you do for us as an influencer?

And I'll create like a series of content packages that I'll include.

So let's say I create like a DIY project, how to build an outdoor kitchen.