Dusty (2:45)

Really looking forward to it. I think I want to open with being one of the earlier or earliest team members of YouTube. Can you just briefly explain what that was like and what you learned from that experience?

Ryan Carey (2:59)

Absolutely. It was an amazing experience. And just to give the listeners a sense of at the time I had only received YouTube.com links in my email from people being like watch this video. And I was like what is this thing that makes video? But the second that I clicked into the platform in like 2005, I was like, oh, this is the future, this is happening and I want to be part of it. And I was living in San Francisco and I found my way into the inbox of a hiring manager and was just like, I will sweep the floors to get to do whatever you need me to do. And so when I joined the sales team, so at the time YouTube wasn't making any money. There were no ads and they were creating a team. The company was under 50 people. They were creating a team to help figure out how do we monetize this thing. And, and again at this time there were no video ads. We had like banner ads next to videos and we were working with smaller advertisers and just trying to figure out ways to keep the integrity of the YouTube community because that's what made it great at the time and still what makes it great. And basically three months after I joined this small sales team, Google acquired YouTube. And my job went from trying to talk to Coca Cola and Toyota to run ads on YouTube to becoming an evangelist inside of Google to educate and inspire their SalesPeople on why YouTube was awesome because they had been selling keywords and they bought YouTube which is all about emotion. So I was getting paid to talk about why YouTube was great. So I did it around the country and then I did it at a global capacity and along the way was doing a job. But I also was watching YouTube videos, being inspired, be like this is the coolest thing in the world and I am so lucky to be here.

Dusty (4:53)

How many team members were on was like were part of the group at that time? Did you know or were you working so far off or out of office that you really didn't have an idea? But I assume it was still rather small even leading up to that, you know, purchase by Google.

Ryan Carey (5:09)

Yeah, I think the final number when Google acquired us was like 50 or 60 people. So we were all in an office in San Mateo, California and San Bruno, California. One big room. You had engineering over in that corner. You had privacy and safety in that corner. You had marketing over there. I was over here. People on their first days, it was like, here's a box, this is your desk, Put it together, start working. It was very much just get involved. And it was really cool people. It was just. Yeah, it was a magical thing that at the time I didn't under. I knew nothing about startup world. I didn't know what like a venture capital firm was or what that meant, and was just in it for the love of the game. And rode the wave early on.

Dusty (5:57)

What was the mission of. Obviously it's this new thing you want to utilize online video. We think it's going to be a big deal. But from the top of the people who were running it, running the show, what were their initiatives and mission in the early days of YouTube?

Ryan Carey (6:14)

I think it, if I go back and if we go back to the name YouTube, the tube is a, is another word for TV. And the early mission was like, we all have access to a TV now on our computer and we all have access to a camera to be on that tube. So it was really this call to authenticity, this call to be you here and share yourself. And like we could obviously dissect that a million ways, but I think that was the initial call which then of course led to this community, this global connection, this explosion. But it really asks people to look at themselves and offer them a chance to put themselves out there.

Dusty (7:09)

I love that. I wanted to just highlight that because that is a bit of your story that I think really tells a big tale of where you are now. And so now we transition into better on which is this place bootstrapped from you guys entrepreneurs. And your mission is to help people build more presence and to be more impactful in their day to day, whether it be on video, in person, whatever it may be. So talk about the mission of you're getting out of your YouTube days. You're. You have this idea, what are you trying to accomplish and, and how do you think that relates to the creator side of things?

Ryan Carey (7:47)

Okay, I'm gonna try and keep it somewhat. I could go, I could go super, super deep here, but I think just to keep myself on track, where I ended was that cameras and a video can be used As a mirror to see yourself and make yourself better. So where it all began though is that I was doing my role at YouTube and Google and when I could I would work with the community, I would go out and find users. I think one of the things about working at a corporation is that there's a focus on the community and the ecosystem. But those actual roles, like the paid roles, the jobs to go out and facilitate connection weren't, weren't getting any like becoming more common. So it was part of my love because without the people, without creators, YouTube's nothing. So I really took it upon myself to meet people, to find creators and just always kept the pulse on that. And of course I have my own interests in my own verticals and my own channels that I would, that I loved. But I reached a point after about seven years and was looked around and I was at Google and in my mind was like Google had still has a pretty high bar for who they hire. I came in through YouTube. Had I not, I probably would never have worked there. I was a solid C student in school. I was never really like big on academics and found myself in this very, very high caliber company offering a lot, being looked to. And I was like, wait a minute, like maybe I'm not an idiot, maybe I have something to offer here. And I think that it really began to gave me, it began to give me confidence to be like I've got something, I can offer something to the world. And I had this job that is pretty amazing and it's with smart people. But as I began to look more deeply inside myself, I'm like, is this where I want to be in 10 years, in 20 years? And I looked around myself and I was like, okay, if I am still here, what's it going to look like? And the people around me, like some were happy, but a lot weren't. A lot of them had a lot of money, but they were like getting divorced. And it was, I was just maybe holding on is not worth it. Maybe I should explore something else. So that's like summarizing a lot of internal work I was trying to figure out. So I left the company without a plan and I had some time to kill and like a little bit of money saved up. So I decided to travel. And what I knew was that I knew enough about video to be effective. So it's, I figured if I needed to get a job, I could maybe go out and use my experience to help a company or many companies figure out what's their video strategy, what's their YouTube strategy. And just I found that a lot of companies were, like, allergic to that. They were like, we don't understand the back end. And I'm like, oh, my God. Come on, put in some time here. Anyway, during this time away, I got out the camera. I was like, I need to be recording this. Like, everyone's an audience member. Not everyone. Not everybody is a creator. And that was the first step to be like, okay, I'm going to make time to film things and create a channel, upload it. And I just didn't know about that side of things, the creator side, the managing a channel and all that stuff. So all that to say, I traveled for a while, filmed a lot of stuff, and then I was living in San Francisco, and I returned back there, and somebody was like, what are you gonna do now? I was like, I don't know. They're like, like, you're living in San Francisco. You have time on your hands. Like, it's a great place. Like, people would kill to be in your shoes. And I was just like, great. I wish I could give it to them. I wish I could give them my time. I wish I could let somebody else have this amazing opportunity of just doing whatever I want for a limited period. And so that was the. The trigger for this idea where it was like, what if I created a channel and just put a call out to my friends? And I was like, hey, everybody, I'm in San Francisco. You're not. You wish you were, because it's a great place. And I know that if you were in my shoes, you would use your time to do something nice for someone else, right? And the whole idea was like. And we'll talk about this in a little bit. Audience development, audience connection. Tell me what you want me to do. What do you want to see? And so instead of sitting there being like, I want to make a YouTube channel. I want to create whatever I think of, I asked the audience, and I made it like a philanthropic effort. So it was like, tell me what you want me to go do today. I'm going to film it. So the audience member is the director of that episode, and it has to be in the realm of something nice. I don't go jump off a cliff or do something extreme. And if I made their video for them, they had to donate to a nonprofit. And the concept where essentially the audience lived vicariously through this episode. We took my name, Ryan Carrey, and called it Rycariously. And it just became a labor of love, where in the beginning, everyone was super skeptical they were like, wait a minute. Like, something's. There is no way you're just doing this. There's got to be a hook, a trick. Everyone's a little bit jaded. And I'm like, no, I'm. It's. I'm making this channel because you're so jaded. And I want to prove that there can be real, true, authentic human connection through this medium of YouTube. So the first person was like, all right, Ryan. And these were. Started with all my friends, like, all right, I'll play your game. I used to live in San Francisco, had a favorite coffee shop, and the barista knew me. So I want you to go to that neighborhood, I want you to order a coffee. I want you to ask the barista if they remember me, and that's it. And I was like, okay, that's today's mission. So I had a little GoPro. Most of my episodes were filmed on a little GoPro. There was no viewfinder. It was just like, point and shoot and record. And I went in and filmed my day and then would spend the night in imovie and cook up this. What I felt was a piece of art. And I would put it out there, and the person was like, holy shit. Am I allowed to curse on here? Holy shit. You actually did it. You did what you said you were going to do. So everyone's, oh, this guy's for real. So it was this small wave where I started getting all these ideas from people, and it filled my days, and it filled me because it was coming from real people. And instead of me being like, hey, everybody, here's what I want to talk about. I'm like, I'm having fun doing what you're asking me to do. And when all was. So I did it for about two years, year and a half, two years, made about 60 episodes, got all sorts of requests that I will say, when people realized that I was real about it, they were like, oh, will you go visit my family for me? Talk to them and film it? And it became an honor to. To become part of these people's psyche in that sense, that they would trust me over video to go do this stuff. So, anyway, I could talk about this forever. I'm. I don't want to be too long winded about it, but by doing it, recording yourself, just being in the zone of a creator, I felt great. I loved it, and I. I had to watch myself. I had to realize, oh, that wasn't good. I want to do that again. I want to do that better. I can Connect better in this if I do it a different way. So it really forced me to like flex my own presence muscle and my own audience connection muscle. And then I was like, I got to get a job at some point here because I'm just like going out there making, raising money for nonprofits. So there was a fork in the road. And Again, this is 20, 2012. Ish. I was like, I could either go be like a YouTube consultant, a YouTube coach in a way, and which I thought would work. And the other road was like, I can go teach this. I can teach this. Like, by watching yourself and focusing truly on your audience connection, you're going to get better, you're going to get stronger. It's going to make you a better individual and your audience is going to appreciate it too. And the whole YouTube consulting thing, everyone's, we're not ready for it, dude. Sorry. I was like, really? So that door got shut and I ran with this presence training into idea. And here we are. What began as sitting in a room with someone and a camera and a tripod, having them do a bunch of activities and watching themselves and telling me where they think they feel awkward and can do better, BetterOn has now built a training platform that uses asynchronous video to help people watch themselves and realize that once they get over that cringe, there's so much power in their presence and how they connect to an audience on YouTube, to TikTok, but also to their teams at work, their customers. And honestly, most importantly, people are like, oh, I feel more present with my family. So it affects, like looking into that mirror really affects the self awareness of how somebody shows up everywhere.

Dusty (17:02)

So there's so many places that I want to go, but I'm going to reign myself in. I think it's one of the main reasons I wanted to have you on the show. It's such a unique idea of using the camera lens and a recording to optimize and to analyze a person and their presence. And I think that the way that it's applicable to creators is what you talked about with audience growth and presence. And so we'll separate those into two kind of talking points. But let's go ahead and start with presence. There's nothing more important. I say that's probably a little bit much. There are more important things. But as far as what it goes in terms of being a creator, presence and the way that you build, I call it authority or I call it trust currency, you build up that with your audience or with your team at work. Or whoever you're dealing with. But in the case of a YouTube creator, their presence and who they are as a brand, whether if you're a faceless channel, that's different, right? But if you are someone wanting to grow a YouTube channel, which is 90% of my audience, that's not a faceless channel. Even if you are a faceless channel, building up the knowledge of learning how to grow that, of how to reach out to your audience, how to identify who they are, how to speak to that person who is your audience. Give me the core values that you teach in all of your programming about presence and about how to show up when you hit record in where you can speak to your audience in a way that's going to resonate totally.

Ryan Carey (18:35)

This may sound too obvious, but it starts with you. It starts with you being your first audience member, you being your own audience and asking yourself, do I trust myself? Do I believe what I'm doing? Do I believe what I'm giving? And it's usually not a yes or a no. It's like a range of like how much? And just putting yourself in your own hot seat and, but in the audience's shoes as well and asking yourself, how can I do better than I did last time for them? And I thought it's such the space between me and this camera and your screen and you or a screen and those audiences hearts and minds is like sacred space really. And one of my spirit animals is Mr. Rogers. And he used to say that like early days, like he really believed that. And I've just tried to stay really true to that because there's a lot of distraction and a lot of BS and a lot of things that don't matter that. But if you can create the connection with yourself, it's gonna, and you can keep growing it, it's gonna translate to your audience. And so the one question that I was thinking about coming on here, that I was just thinking about you and your journey doing this, but also for all of these listeners is since you've taken the plunge or just dipped your toe in the water and become a creator, just ask yourself, what have you learned about yourself? How have you grown and, and what have you gotten back from this? And I hope, because like everything, my whole story I hope is like a testament that there was a lot of love that goes in that, a lot of potential love in that kind of self growth opportunity that can be given and translated and hopefully inspire a lot of other people out there in the role of audiences. So yeah, I really think like and again, so that's more of the present side. Like, what is like. And asking yourself, what is my presence now? What do I want it to be? What is my aspirational presence? And that shouldn't be about the audience, to be about you. What do you want to be? Because while you're. Some people may be serving audiences in various capacities, this is your time and your energy. I want every creator to get something back from this work. And I. Whether it's a little bit or a lot.

Dusty (21:06)

Yeah, you can't fake it. You can't fake it forever. And trying to be something that you're not. And on YouTube, this happens quite a bit. I'll. Someone will hire me to be their coach and consultant, and I'll get in there and I'll start digging into their channel and then I'll pull up our first call, and they sound like a completely different human. And it's just okay. Or is it a Persona? Is it an act? Is it a little bit that you're doing? That's fine. Being comedic and. And all of those things are good. But normally it's not that. It's just them trying to portray what they think the audience wants, but that's them really not knowing who the audience is. And that gets into the fact of building that. Now let's talk about what I call trust currency and building that with your audience. How do we do that? How do we build that connection to where? There's nothing more powerful on YouTube than getting that ball rolling down the hill of people coming into your channel. And we see all these channels that explode and do well. They're these people that do a very good job of interacting with their audience. And they balance the fact of being on camera, answering the comment section, creating content that they love and are passionate about and that they know their target audience wants to see. So what are the main points that. That you cover in this topic?

Ryan Carey (22:15)

So before I answer that, can I ask you a question, Dusty?

Dusty (22:18)

Yes.

Ryan Carey (22:19)

Have you ever met any of your audience members live in person?

Dusty (22:24)

Yeah, I. I've been out before. More times than not. It's the podcast because my YouTube channel is more educational, where I do tutorials for technology. And I've grown that. And that channel has done really well for me. But as far as the podcast go, they'll come up to me and they'll say, do you? Especially now that I do video, they'll say, have you. Do you do a podcast? Or whatever? And then I'm like, yeah, I do. And it's really fun. Getting to interact with these people.

Ryan Carey (22:49)

Cool. Okay. I think that the trust currency, in terms of how I feel about it and how better on approaches it is, it really comes back to the depth and the potential of your own imagination. So even if you've got. Even if you know your audience really well, and I hope people do, and I hope they're always trying to learn more about who are these humans out there that are drawn to me or following me or connecting with me for whatever reason in the moment that you or the creator is on or trying to connect or creating something, they are not there with you, they're not there with us. But you've got to still tap into something inside of yourself. Mind, heart, body, soul, whatever it is that connects to that and that to me. There's a couple elements to it, a couple of like pieces of that pie. But imagination is a big part and imagining who is this person. And for some people it's picturing one person. So for some it's like a, like blend. But it's like, what do you want to give that person? How do you want them to feel? And that's an active muscle to constantly flex and try and get stronger. Because if every time you create, you can tap into that and I'm sure everything I'm saying, people, I'd be like, yeah, man, like this is what we do. Like, duh, maybe, maybe someone's. I thought about that way. But I feel like if you are in this space and you're actively doing that, um, really. Because by doing that, it's going to affect your presence. It's going to affect how you show up, how you come through. And when it comes to presence, there's the inner side and the outer side. People can see me smile and change my voice and be like, hey, everybody. But you can't see my imagination. You can't necessarily see my passion or my drive to connect. But if I'm tapping into, that's going to come through. And that goes back to, to like the self work, like observing yourself, being your own audience member first, trusting yourself, that's going to translate.

Dusty (24:58)

You mentioned a lot and I mentioned it in the open. A lot of people have reached out to, you know, finding that when they see themselves on camera, they cringe a little bit. They don't like the sound of their own voice. They don't. They. You've talked about self love and being able to appreciate yourself and who you are and just put yourself out there. That's all good. And it's very rosy to talk about. But as far as getting past that barrier of being able to watch yourself back, I deal with it a lot. I have to listen to my voice a ton. You could imagine with podcasting and videos on YouTube and I do other podcasts as well. So hearing myself, I had to really, I wouldn't say that I even, not that I don't enjoy it, but I've had to really grow to accept and love and appreciate what I can offer and hearing my own voice. So for those listening to this as creators today, Ryan, what would you tell them? Getting beyond that of you've got to, you've got to get beyond that to be able to even start to resonate with your audience and to grow at all.

Ryan Carey (25:55)

Yes. One of kind of better on biggest values is like the privacy and the safety of watching yourself in front of that mirror. If I drop that for a second, I would ask everybody who's like curious, it's like, how bad do you want it? This comes down to competition. There's a lot of people out there. There's a lot of people that are putting their energy out there, putting their presence out there. This is a multi billion dollar business of the world of creators. And not that everybody's in it for that. When you step, I tell our clients, like when you step out of the kind of safe, soft, private space which we try to create and people still hate it. They're like, thanks for the safety, but I hate watching myself. It's just get over it because nobody sees what you feel. And when you realize that and maybe you're like, okay, I feel weird, I'm not going to work on it today. Fine. That is up to you. Don't. But just realize no one sees how you feel and no one really cares because they're here to receive the gift of your presence. And that's creator creating for others. So it's. And I just think too like this is a skill. There are skills of the now, skills of the future. And I do believe that the skill to be able to a get over yourself, get past yourself, realize no one cares. You have to make them care. And what comes with the power, when you graduate from that is a really valuable thing. And one of the byproducts, which is why we do what we do, is self confidence and self awareness. If you do choose to get over the hump, if you do choose to be okay, listen to yourself. And watching yourself even it gets less painful quickly. And usually a, a new level of confidence comes with that.

Dusty (27:48)

No one cares as much as you think they do. It's often something that I talk about in my coaching calls, is that, let's get down to the bottom line here. What are you really worried about? You're worried about what they think about how you look or how you sound? Man, once we get beyond that, there's power in that. There's freedom in that. And I think that as a creator myself, I know once I realized that, I didn't care if people that I grew up with listened to my podcast or saw my face on video. I was so proud of what I was creating. And I think that's another thing. And being proud of what you're creating, the art that you're doing, the videos that you produce, those are all things that are so important. As we tie things up here into a bow for kind of what you're doing and what you're offering for creators, what is something that you wish you would have known sooner? Ryan, I love this question. Looking back as someone who was on video for all that time and creating that programming that. That really resonated with people, what is something that you look at now and you're like, man, if I just would have known this, I could have grown my channel even faster and I would have reached even more people.

Ryan Carey (28:51)

Oh, my God. That's a great question. Maybe if I treated it more like a job. To be honest to me, and I think for me personally, my channel and it's still there, and I. And to be honest, like, the reason I started better on was to be able to someday come back. People are like, what would you do if you were doing better? I was like, I would be running my YouTube channel, and I haven't said that in a long time. But talking to you and talking to this audience, I proudly say it, connecting the people through video is a labor. Is a labor of love. I think that when I was in it, really doing it a lot, the possibilities were endless. I'm like, what can I do with this? What can I do with this channel? Do with my time? And I was like, how do I make this my life? Because it's wonderful. Like, it's making people feel something, and it's using video and it reaches hundreds or thousands or millions or. I didn't get anywhere near those metrics. God.

Dusty (29:45)

I was just going to say, it's in what you're talking about, there's power in. In. In knowing that it is a labor of love. And it's kind of the reason why you went to do what you're doing now, because the power in it that if the right people get a hold of the skill set and have the presence on video, they can really do some amazing things with the power of YouTube and being able to distribute their content all over the world.

Ryan Carey (30:09)

Absolutely, 100%. It's, it takes time, it takes effort, it takes work. So it's really just being diligent about that. And, and if you're lucky enough to, if you're lucky enough to really love it, that's something to follow. A lot of people don't do anything that they love. So if you can find one thing and it's in this space and it's something where you get to be who you are and be seen by people who want to see you and appreciate you, like it's a real opportunity.

Dusty (30:39)

Yeah. And I think that treating it like a job. So many people tell me I just don't have the time, I just can't do it. I just, I have this or that come up. I have family, I have to make a living. But then if I were to put a spotlight on their lives, they're scrolling social media for hours a day or they're watching Netflix. There, There is a bit of sacrifice that it takes to be able to succeed as a creator. It's, it's. We, whether we're talking about spending the time working on presence like what we talked about today, or spending time working on connecting with your audience and becoming better at that, or if we're just talking about the skill set of, as a creator of getting better at packaging with thumbnails and, and, and titles and description. It takes time. It's not going to be something that you just start and it grows immediately. It's not instantaneous. There may be viral videos, you may be a viral hit, but it all takes time. It all takes effort and it all took takes you putting that time and effort in. And so treating it like a job and hearing Ryan say that is important. I remember when I got laid off, it felt forced me to treat the creative process like a job. I went from just oh yeah, I do this thing on the side to oh no, now it, you know, my income depends on it. And when I started treating it like that, even if I wouldn't have gotten laid off, I would have seen the fruits of my labor because of the time I invested in said thing. So I love hearing you talk about that. Ryan. Is there any follow up to that?

Ryan Carey (32:03)

I think it's just finding like there was an incentive there for, for you to just like really hustle at it. Something this sort of pertains to this, but something that I think about. I don't know what the data says now, but in the early days of YouTube, there was this stat that was 10% to 90%. And what that meant was that out of the whole YouTube audience across the globe, which back then wasn't like that big, it was like a couple hundred million. Ninety percent of that audience never had a channel. They're just, they, they were just watching. And then 10% were creators, which mean, which could mean you've got like a thousand episodes or two videos of you walking down the street. And I just, it just says something that it is a small population on the creator side and I'm sure it's gotten a little bit bigger. But if you're doing it, like, you're already ahead of the curve. Like you, if you already. Even if you have the interest and you're like, I'm going to get the confidence, I'm going to make the time to do it. Like, it is a small group that, I don't know, like, to me, it's like a competitive advantage in a way. It's like most people are sitting in the stands watching and they're like thinking to themselves, man, that looks easy. I'm going to create a channel. And so, no, you're not. This is.

Dusty (33:23)

Yeah, that's a really great point to close out on today. I think that it's interesting that every, not everyone, but a lot of people I've encountered over the past decade find out what I do and they all, not all of them, but a good majority of them say, oh, I could, I could do that. Man, I wish I had a cozy job like that. I wish I could just create stuff. And then I laugh now, early on it would make me mad, but I laugh now knowing the work involved in it, knowing what I do in the day to day, trust me, they don't want to do it. They don't want to put in the time and effort to get to where I'm at. The years and years of creating content without making a dime. The hundred plus episodes of this podcast before I got a sponsorship of having conversations, reaching out to people, now people. I get three or four emails a day about people wanting to come on the show. But then it was a grind, it was effort, it took time. So if you're listening to this as we close out today, listen, stop sitting on the sidelines. Whether it's that TikTok account you want to start, whether you want to start becoming an influencer on Instagram whether you want to start a YouTube channel. I was just on a coaching call this morning with a guy that runs a farm. He just purchased a new homestead and we were talking about launching a new channel for him about covering the story and the journey of what it took and the story behind why he purchased this. And it's so fun to be able to interact with these people who are no longer sitting on the sidelines and they're putting themselves out there in front of everyone. The world to see. And it's the power of what we do as creators. And I hope that as you listen to this today that you've got something out of it again. We have been joined today by Ryan Carey from Better on. I'm going to put links to Better on his website if you're looking to get better at presence and audience interaction and growth as well as his LinkedIn. If you want to connect with him there, his Instagram. All of those links will be in the show notes. And Ryan, I really appreciate you being a guest on the show today.

Ryan Carey (35:10)

Dusty, it's been an honor.

Dusty (35:12)

And that's a wrap on this week's episode of the YouTube Creators Hub podcast. If you would leave us a review, it really does help the show out. So wherever and however you listen to your podcast, just leave us a review. It really does help us within the algorithm and if you're a podcaster, you know exactly what I mean. Also listen, I've talked about it before, but our Discord Server, the Creator Communities Group, is growing very fast and I believe that you're missing out if you're not joining that group. Five bucks get you in, get you access to the Creator Communities Group as well as our monthly Mastermind calls that I host on Zoom. I promise you will not regret doing that. And if you want to go even farther than that, I do offer one on one YouTube coaching. I've actually opened up my services and I'm offering longer calls as well as a monthly retainer where you can set up a six call onboarding. And then we get into the analytics and then we go through a process of what I believe you can do to be more efficient on your channel. But with all that said, thank you again for listening to this week's episode. See you next week.