Making Videos For Other People

Building a YouTube Business Before There Was a Blueprint

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This is the first in an occasional series of posts about my experiences in the very early days of YouTube and online business.

In this series, I'll share what I’ve learned from my early days on YouTube, hoping that my experiences can provide insights and lessons you can use in your creator journey.

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Behind the scenes of our micro-budget travel show (2013). We kept it cheap so we could keep more cash!

My son and his friends are all obsessed with YouTube.

It’s TV for their generation with one big difference—they can make it themselves.

He’s starting to connect the dots and ask more and more questions about what I do for work.

Now, he wants to be a YouTuber.

He is fascinated by the fact that we’ve been full-time YouTubers since before he was born. He’s even made a few guest appearances in some Hilah Cooking videos as “Chef Baby.”

I wanted to show him some of our old videos, which are no longer available on YouTube or anywhere else.

Luckily, we still had access to our Vimeo account, which we used to share video drafts with production companies for feedback. We still have a huge archive of videos, including rough cuts and some that were never released.

Logging into our account brought back a flood of memories.

One of the things that enabled us to quit our day jobs was producing shows for other companies. Hilah and I produced them together; she hosted, and I shot and edited the videos.

Many of the companies we worked with back then have changed a lot. Some were acquired by even bigger companies, some changed their business models, and others are out of business.

Because of this, most of the videos we made for them have disappeared.

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Cooking With Kids (2013) - Our first show for someone else.

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My son loved watching these videos, especially the Cooking With Kids series. It must be fascinating for him to glimpse what our lives and personalities were like before he was born.

Watching these videos transported me back to a period of my life that has become a little hazy.

Like a flash, everything snapped back into focus.

Going Full Time (or trying to…)

From 2012 to 2015, we embarked on a series of ambitious projects that taught us invaluable lessons about the production process, business growth, and the value of experimentation.

I was still working a full-time cubicle job. On the side, I was making weekly videos for the Hilah Cooking and Yoga With Adriene channels. We weren’t making enough money from YouTube and digital products to go full-time yet.

Back then, there wasn’t any model for YouTube success to follow.

I was friends with a lot of YouTube creators at the time. While we were all making money, we weren’t making much. Almost everyone was doing it because they loved it.

We thought it might lead to something bigger—like a TV show.

Something was definitely happening with YouTube. The problem is that nobody knew what it was. Or where it was going.

Legacy media companies wanted to figure it out, and the easiest way for them to do this was to work with creators who were already active on YouTube. We began to get inquiries from companies asking if we had ideas for shows they could finance (and own). In 2012, we produced a series called Cooking With Kids, followed by Hilah’s Texas Kitchen and Lunch Lady.

Almost overnight, we had more money coming in than either of us had ever seen before.

But now, we had to make a lot more videos—and fast.

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Hilah’s Texas Kitchen (2013) - Hilah and I traveled all over Texas for this one.

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This was long before we had outside help, and we had no idea how to hire anybody. At the time, I was shooting the videos with a Canon 60D (which we won in a YouTube contest) and editing on an iMac. We had recently switched to the first version of FCPX for editing.

Today, we could probably do the whole thing on an iPhone.

I shot and edited videos on nights, weekends, and vacation days. During the week at my day job, I managed the websites, optimized YouTube videos, and kept the day-to-day operations of both businesses running. I didn’t know anything about "business" yet. All I wanted was to make the best videos I could and get them seen by as many people as possible.

Even with their rough edges, these early videos are pretty great. I love them. They’re more humorous, fun, and warm than I remembered. They have a raw energy that came from the fact we didn’t really know what we were doing.

We worked around the clock, stayed up late, and figured it out as we went, channeling all our creative energy into these new businesses.

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Lunch Lady (2014) - I still love this title sequence. We did the stop-motion on the coffee table with a DSLR, a tripod and a MacBook.

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From 2012-2015, I shot and edited two videos a week. Sometimes more.

This included contract shows and the YWA standalone courses. I went full-time in 2013, and we ramped up to an average of four or more videos per week. By this time, Hilah had learned FCPX, and she was managing files and assembling rough cuts while also coordinating talent and locations for new shows.

It was a lot.

Then, in October 2014, we had a baby. That should have slowed things down, but we had already committed to the first 30 Days of Yoga series, launching on January 1. I spent countless bleary-eyed nights editing. The reality of making 30 full-length videos began to set in. But it was too late to turn back. We had already committed and promoted this big series. I finally hit a wall, and it felt insurmountable.

I finished all 30 videos, and we launched the series on New Year’s Day. It was a success beyond anything we had hoped for.

But I didn’t have time to enjoy it because I had to pivot right back into the weekly videos and another seven-video yoga course. We were also in the middle of production on yet another contract series for Hilah Cooking.

This was a pivotal moment that taught me the importance of pacing yourself and bringing in help before you hit a wall.

It was beyond time to start bringing in more help.

My first hire: a therapist.

Fast Forward to Today

I now spend almost no time making videos. So, what do I spend my time on? Zoom calls, marketing strategy, managing to-do lists, approving financial reports, business development, schedules.

I’m back to cubicle job stuff.

We are now an actual business. It’s a stark contrast to our early days.

Bureaucracy creeps into any business over time, and the processes meant to streamline things can easily turn into their own monsters. Over time, everything starts to slow down.

This may sound like complaining, but it’s not. We now generate reliable, consistent revenue. Profit margins are high. We all have health insurance, retirement plans, and regular paychecks. The early years of insane work have paid off.

In retrospect, I miss those early days.

Late nights... grinding hard... too much coffee... too much whiskey... last-minute brainstorms... implementing ideas fast... stomping the gas and seeing the needle move... building new things.

I was so focused on making it work that I never stopped to appreciate what was happening.

I blinked, and it was over.

Showing these old videos to my son reconnected me to those early days of creative energy and excitement.

Back then, I didn't know if anything I was doing would actually work.

But it did.

If you’re in the early days of your life as a creator, you may be feeling drained and burned out.

My advice is to take a moment to pause and celebrate how far you’ve come.

One thing I wish I had done more in those early days was to take the time to celebrate small wins. Don’t let the hustle make you forget how far you’ve come.

As much as I love the stability we’ve built, there’s something irreplaceable about those early days of raw creativity. If you’re in the grind now, take a moment to appreciate it and celebrate how far you’ve come.

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💡 TIP: Working with outside companies taught us the importance of balancing creative freedom with business needs. If you're approached by brands today, remember that it’s essential to protect your own creative voice.

Have an attorney check the contract. It’s worth the money and the inconvenience.

Try to avoid anything that includes requirements for arbitration outside of the state where you live. We learned this the hard way. 😬

Above all, don’t let the need for short-term money compromise your long-term success.

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