Zac Alsop : The TRUTH About The Impossible Hill Climb & Dangerous Challenges

I had to sit there and watch like every other contestant that day fall back down the cliff.

I had a lot of people to watch getting caught off in the ambulance.

Is there like a moment during that video are you genuinely think I can die here?

There was multiple times where I wanted to pull out but we were too far in.

Everything I do is try to create stories for the grandkids.

I've snuck my granddad into fashion week and got him featured in Vogue magazine.

I've flown to rural Algeria to race the hardest geezer in a race.

I've competed in cheese rolling twice with my recent video with the cheese rolling.

I employed five Hollywood stuntmen to win the race for me.

I knew that I wasn't capable of winning that race.

You see it in the videos, you see how people free fall.

Is there anything you've ever backed out of because of the danger on your channel?

Zach, you've built a career walking into places that you shouldn't be saying things

that you're not really allowed to say and seeing how far your confidence can take you alone.

But in your own words, who are you and what do you do?

It's a good question. I do struggle with that one.

I think, well, first of all, I'm a YouTuber. I'm a content creator.

I would say fundamentally everything I do is tied together by trying to create stories for

the grandkids. That's my tagline. That's why I started making videos.

I just imagine being an 80-year-old bloke and just having endless stories which are now my

YouTube channel but just being able to show my grandkids this crazy life that I lived earlier.

When I was young and had a bit of life left in me, I think trying to find a through line for

the videos is next to impossible. I've taken on the impossible hill climb.

I've snuck my granddad into fashion week and gotten featured in Vogue magazine.

I've flown to Royal Algeria to race the hardest geezer in a race.

Every video is a new adventure, so I think trying to find something to encapsulate it

all is difficult. I'm a YouTuber who likes creating stories for the grandkids.

I find it a great place to start by picturing you in an environment where you'll get asked

this question in real life, which is like in a pub. Someone says, I'll go on, mate.

What's the most fun you've had? What's the video that stands out the most to you?

Is that one that's maybe put you at the most risk or you've had the most fun? What's that to you?

It does change as Tom goes on. If you had asked me that probably a year ago,

I've got rose-tinted glasses to the first year on YouTube. Me and Jay, it was a joint channel to

start with. We were just young 22, 23-year-olds, fresh out of uni. We didn't really know what

we were doing, but we knew that if we did crazy enough stuff and lived in a certain way that that

would garner a viewership that would allow us to live this life continually. I think back to the

first year we made a decision to go bog snorkeling. Previous to that, we were known for sneakings

and getting into boxing matches. We snuck into the Olympic homecoming parade in 2016,

dressed as Olympians. All of that stuff was a previous channel or previous life. We were

get out of that rut of being stuck in the sneaking niche. We decided instead of going to

Logan Paul versus KSI, which was the biggest, it ended up becoming what YouTube boxing is today,

we decided to go to the smallest town in Wales and we competed in bog snorkeling, which is like

this weird tradition in the UK where there's two bogs either side of each other and you race

up and down and you try and become the bog snorkeling champ. We went disgustingly wet,

rainy day in rural Wales. People from all over the world shot up to do it. I remember questioning

multiple times, we had a dead set viral banger in sneaking into KSI versus Logan and we've

chosen to be in a soggy field freezing our tits off in rural Wales. It was just a cracking day.

I remember at the end, we were enjoying a little beer. This is the direction of the channel,

this is the new direction. If you'd asked me a year or two years ago, I looked back at that time

as such a great time. But as of recently, I think the impossible hill climb video is my new

favourite. It was matched in a childhood hobby, which is motocross that I raced from the age of

five through to 21, 22. This was a huge part of my life. A part that the internet didn't really

know about as well. Then this big audacious goal of this impossible hill climb, which only one guy

has ever completed. I felt like I could be the second. It was a mismatch of a nice little

journey with my dad rekindling of an old hobby and then also this just insane feat that I was

about to pull off. When I look back, putting myself in that position of being an 80-year-old

bloke and recounting a story, I think that story is one that I'm most proud of.

Is there any reason that you fixate so much and value how much those stories will mean to your

grandkids? I think it's twofold. There's the literal version of that of being an old man

and looking back on a life that wasn't wasted. There's also the philosophical side, which is

I think most people do not realise they're going to die. Really, really, you go through life and

you do not treat it as if you are going to die at the end. I think if most people realised that,

they would choose to live life quite differently to the one that maybe they have fallen into.

They've let fear dictate some of their decisions and I found myself in a position at the end of

uni. I tried to set up a business. I had two and a half years into this cartoned water brand

called The Helpful Waterco and a little bit ahead of its time, I got onto a Virgin Atlantic

flight the other week and there was a cartoned water brand on there. I was like, holy shit,

I could have been a water millionaire. Is that like the free water code type thing?

Yeah, yeah. It was just a sustainable alternative to plastic bottles, right,

which is like they can't be recycled and all that stuff. It was a cool, quirky cartoned water

brand. I set up, I got investment, me and my best mate at uni and then we got to the point of,

we were pitching to festivals, cafes, brands to stock our brand before making the first order.

We got to the point of making our first order and we realised there wasn't enough money in the bank

and that was because the co-founder stole half the money. So I had this weird phase

and the final year of university of like, shit, I've just piled in two and a half years into

this thing which I thought was going to be the business leaving university, my direction for

the next 10 years at least and it was all just ripped away from me. So I had this weird kind of

trying to figure out what I actually truly wanted to do in this world and I was on the cusp of the

real world. It was coming fast. It was one more summer and I was out of uni forever.

And yeah, I think I got quite deep in philosophical. I was like, what do I actually want to do in this

life and I figured out that throughout school, throughout my life, I always was the kid with

the camera. I always was down the skate park filming my mates doing crazy stuff and I held

that part of me down quite a lot because the kids in school who had YouTube channels got bullied

for it pretty much. That was kind of how it was back in the day with YouTube. It was a weird little

side hobby. So yeah, I think I realised, shit, I want to make YouTube vids. I wrote in this journal.

I was like, I had all my options laid out. It was like working at design agencies. I thought like,

that was quite fun and I had a graphics tab and I was kind of like doodling and stuff and

there was like resale clothes on Depot. There was all these options, just every conceivable

thing that I thought I could do and YouTube was the one which had the most pros but also the most

cons and I was like, I just don't even know where to get started with YouTube. But I really think

like I want to do it and that was the point I realised and that was the point where it became

impossible for me to let that go and I think anything other than YouTube would have felt

like I was wasting my life. I think YouTube emphasises skills that we may have repressed in

other parts of our life that live inside us and people with outlandish crazy skills or

personality traits tend to do so well on YouTube. Beer meets food. It's like, I'd love to copy

that guy but I can't. He stays skinny and still manages to eat that amount of food and that's

why he can do it no one else can. And it's funny you mentioned that video with you and your bike

being one of your top favourite videos that you've done. I think it's the second highest viewed

video on your channel. Trying to get to the top of that hill because that's scary man.

For some reason kids that grew up on bikes have a different level of fear tolerance to other

people that I've come across. That's true. I don't get me wrong. I was shitting myself

for that video. I've done some pretty wild things on YouTube whether it's like sneaking

onto the Olympic homecoming parade dressed as an athlete. I've walked out with Conor McGregor

when he was fighting Floyd Mayweather. I snuck into these crazy scenarios. I've

competed in cheese rolling twice. Get onto that. But the hill climb was just

something else man. There's something about knowing that only one person has ever done it

in its 17 year history. I think you have to be unreasonable to your point. When you start a

YouTube channel you have to be unreasonable to some degree whether that's your approach in

the world and an interesting different viewpoint which is why content will be interesting to other

people. I think yeah I was unreasonable enough to think that after being off of a bike for 10 years

that I could get back on one and become the second person to ever do that.

Yeah I think, fuck man, I still get anxiety thinking of it. The scary part is I'm going back

this year because I actually want to get to the top without crashes. So yeah stay tuned for part

two but that was an absolutely ridiculous weekend. Your dad was in that video. How did he

feel when you started your journey on YouTube? But have you ever thought that he'd been there

on camera with you doing that, getting millions of views? I don't even think he really ever

understood when I was starting. He was always very encouraging. He always encouraged me to

work for himself. He had a local engineering firm his whole life. He ran that for 25 years and

I saw that as a really cool thing. We used to go to his unit. It's just workshopped and I was

just loved being in that kind of like this is my dad's wear hat. This kind of unit space is really

cool and I think he really drilled it into me to be like if you work for yourself you'll never

work a day in your life and he always said that to me and I think I don't think he really knew

what YouTube could become. I think I had that vision of like this could be my life and in theory

if I make a YouTube career I can make it in whatever field I want. My channel is a representation of

that. I think it's all these weird and wonderful ideas that I have but ultimately at the core it's

like me trying to live a life that I want whether it's like getting a different toe back into

motocross. These weird traditions is traveling the world. I think for him he loves being

involved. He's just happy to be there but I think that one in particular we raced motocross

like year in year out, weekend in, weekend out for the best part of my childhood and it would have

been weird to not have him there. I don't think I would have been as confident. I don't even know

how to maintain a bike like he was the one that did all of that. I want to get him involved in

Morvid for sure and he's a funny character like the audience seem to love him. Did it make you

realise that wholesomeness that there is a real importance to getting your family involved in

the videos on the channel? I think coming into it I was like I want this to be a fun wholesome

throwback kind of like nice experience for me and dad fundamentally and then also I want to complete

so it's twofold. I knew it going in that it could and it will be like just a fun trip but

I think getting that into the video was like another thing like making it an important part

of the story was I didn't think the video would do as well as it has done which is insane to me

that I think at the minute it's like just about to tick over 40 million views and it's been up for

maybe like two months so it's huge success and I you know we saw that the compilation of those

hill climb attempts go viral but we never thought that an audience who watch a crash every 30 seconds

is that kind of like dopamine hit would tune into a half an hour long story of me and my dad trying

to like piece together this big hill climb thing and so it really surprised me how well it's come

down many of you might not know this but away from the recordings that I do in my van studios

I've actually got a digital marketing agency now we specialize in a lot of automotive clients but

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so if you're interested in starting a project and you'd love to speak to us just tap the link below

and let's hop on a call but are you like looking at that experience and like you know you're there

to make a video you know you're there to to film whatever happens whether you make or you don't

make it or show whatever but is that like a moment during that video are you genuinely think I could

I could die here like I like do you ever think that because it was crazy yeah there was there was

multiple times why I wanted to pull out but we were too far in like I and then you always have

that voice in your head which is the voice of reason the logical voice and and you know

doing what I do on the internet there's always that voice that and you know to just tell it to

be quiet and fuck off basically um but this one when there's like real real it's the unknown

it's not necessarily the danger because you know the danger is there but it's the

it's the not knowing like the outcome of your decision and I think with the hill climb

just for context like it is 50 meters of of a pretty pretty steep incline and then the top 50

meters is just a cliff face and you know over 17 years one guy has done it and he figured out

a very specific line where you hit a rock full speed and you manage to jump like 30 40 feet and

land at the top and if you've got enough momentum that'll carry you over the edge of the cliff

if you don't make it you're falling backwards down a cliff um and I had to sit there and watch

like every other contestant that day fall back down the cliff like very minimal people got to

the point where they would stall out on the hill and they would stop like gravity would just

take them to the bottom so I think how like I I had number 80 so I was like the 80th in line

so I had a lot of people to watch I had a lot of people to watch get caught off in the in the

ambulance and yeah I think in my head I was just like the moment when we turned up to the hill for

the first time and we realized oh my god it's a lot steeper it's a lot steeper in person than it is

on on the video um we pulled in and this was three days ahead of the competition and my dad goes

he says fuck off you're not doing that immediately let his gut react he was like you're not doing

it that's ridiculous that's stupid and for the first half an hour we were just like stood at

the bottom just looking up at this like thing which I was going to have to tackle and and I just

didn't I knew it was possible because I'd seen the guy do it and I knew that I had enough bike

skill to do it but still like I didn't see I didn't see success out of that I was working out ways to

that I think I could fall and not injure myself in the first like two hours and looking at the hill

it was a real battle with my like this voice in my head and I think over the video you see that

you see like the guy who coached me he was the one that had done it before and he's speaking to my dad

like when I'm not even around he's like he's got the skill but he just is there something in his

head which is like holding him back and that was it was a hell of a journey man like to to try and

overcome that and just like silence those voices in your head and just go for it anyway and I think

during my two attempts I kind of blacked out like I remember the start I remember being there

it's like a couple thousand people behind you and the audience goes like quite quiet

and you just kind of like go take a few deep breaths and then you just look up and you're like

in 10 seconds I'll either be falling backwards down this cliff or I'll be at the top and luckily

both times like when I started and then I kind of blacked out and then I was at the top both times

so I still now like when I take myself back to that place I'm like oh horrible feeling

it seems like so many experiences on your channel are made by getting over the voice in your head

whether it's walking down the corridor for the Connor McGregor whether it's doing that thing

doing the thing which could literally kill you if you get it wrong what was more dangerous

cheese rolling or that hill attempt or that's a tough one I think

that's a really tough one cheese rolling is is again another hard thing to to

you see it in the videos you see how people free fall you see just like the unknown of that hill

there's so many hidden rocks there's so many like massive ditches like every year there's like bad

injuries concussions like broken bones and it's because there is no controlled way to get down

that hill like you have to rag doll yourself to get to the bottom whereas the hill climb

you there's still an element of unknown and it's like no matter how skilled you are

that will take you so far there is an element of like luck and if you hit something slightly wrong

your foot might get ripped off and then you're heading towards the cliff and like so I think

I would feel more confident going back to the hill climb than I would really going for it on

cheese rolling the asterix to that is I would say you can do cheese rolling as as crazily or as

not crazily as you want like I with my recent video with the hill with the cheese rolling

I employed five hollywood stuntmen to win the race for me so I knew that I wasn't capable of winning

that race I've got a slip disc in my back like I've had multiple injuries from motocross over

the years like my body's not tip top so I hired the stuntmen to dress all the same as me and run

down that hill and risk their risk their life so that we could do a switcheroo at the bottom so

I was kind of quite chilled with the cheese rolling this year because I knew that I could

take it easy at the back whereas hill climb if you don't go for a hundred percent you aren't

going to make it to the top so is that with the hill climb you need a hundred and ten percent

commitment of cheese rolling you can just do it for a fun day out but if you want to win it

you're also going to have to go a hundred and ten percent so they're both dangerous is there

anything you've ever backed out of because of the danger on your channel I've wanted to back out

more sometimes I don't know if I don't know if I had like with the hill climb when we first

got to the hill in my head I was thinking how do I actually want to do this and I knew I had three

camops flying out that day I booked an airbnb for the week I'd you know got given a bike by ktm and

there was a just so there was so much like gone into getting me to the place of doing it that I

felt too much of a fraud to back out so it was almost like I'd called my own bluff to be like

put myself in a position where I couldn't I'm just trying to think if there's been any any

video where I've called it I don't think so what what is the biggest phobia of someone that's willing

to do the things that you do yeah like a only particular animal you're crazy fearful of and

there's a reason behind this question honestly I think what scares me most is getting to my

later years and regretting not having lived a life that I deemed to be full of experience and

you know I think one of the the regrets of the dying is not having lived like a life true to

their interests or full of adventure full of more risk-taking I think that's one of the biggest

things that most old people regret and I think you get probably a certain clarity when you're

when you're that age you can look back on a life looking looking forward you think fuck I am got

you know I'm in the tail end of my life and I think that provides a certain clarity you see

the never never ability of death and you look back and think fuck I should have done that different

I should have maybe pursued something I cared about I should have you know not cared what people

thought of me so I genuinely think like my biggest fear is getting to um yeah being full of regret

when I'm old no one of those videos do so well I showed my other half one there was like 95 million

views and it was just like an old man's wise words it was just here full camera with a thumbnail

that's like 95 million views and I'm like well I know he was watching that every single time they

drop now it's my laugh yeah you obviously started your first channel with your best mate yeah

when you are doing that and you're in that experience and you're breaking into festivals

and doing all of those things did you ever think that was going to come to an end

I think there was part of me that knew this can't go on forever like you can't be the

sneaking guy forever and it did get to a point within a year of being probably going a bit too far

to be honest it's because it's one of those things where if you're if you're

if your whole value to an audience is shock factor of where's he going to go next you have to one

up yourself YouTube's quite a cruel game if you're not impressing the audience it will just not

the video will just tank and I think yeah we you know we started off quite strong with the sneaking

stuff we we how it all started was in university we had this the final summer as students and we

were like shit the real world is coming we're gonna have to be professional we're gonna we're

gonna have to work careers like how do we just have the most fun where we've still got the

excuse of being students and also being students we were broke and we you know we enjoyed going to

music festivals and we just like we started sneaking into festivals dressed as bin men we'd carry like

we'd carry a bin bag with all our beers in it so that we didn't have to pay for drinks when we got

inside we had hi vis jackets and we just walked to the entrance and we'd walk past and in and

that was like a real buzz when we were students it got to the final year of students and of

festival season and we were kind of we'd we'd got backstage we'd got on stage we just kept

pushing it each and every time to see what we could get away with and it was 2016 the Rio

Olympics had just finished and they were homecoming parades in London and Manchester

and Jamie was from Manchester who was who I was like filming a lot of videos with at the time

and he actually had an idea to sell flags and face paint like he was a proper hustler like he

was a wheeler dealer he was like let's I reckon we can make a couple grand in a day um and I just

said well why don't we try and sneak on and like make a video like ride the buses through the streets

of Manchester as Olympic athletes so yeah we bought we bought replica track suits from JD

Sports I think they were like discounted because it was the end of the Olympics we bought gold

medals from eBay um for like 20 quid and yeah we just walked we walked onto the buses and we

that one was the first one which went like crazy viral because we we got exposed on live TV

on the broadcast when we were on the buses and the broadcasts accord us the Olympic blaggers

and um that just went crazy we were in every print newspaper like we were on Snapchat's home page

we woke up the next morning and it was the story was absolutely everywhere so I think

that was kind of like bittersweet because we realised like how do we even one up this like

it's it's got all the attention we could have ever dreamed of of like starting a YouTube channel

with a banger video um but yeah in the back of my head I was like where do you go from there you

know is that why your channel never became purely you on bike okay because it'd be so hard the video

you've just done would be the one up one it would be at the top is it is that why you never fully

immersed yourself into like the passion you had as a kid I think so yeah I that's the two bits

that are disaligned from where I see is I see this crazy unbelievable talent and passion as a kid

yeah on bikes you're obviously extremely creative but I'm just surprised that because of that that's

not the direction your channel went fully in yeah catching catching clouds and putting in jars like

you're just like what yeah I definitely think I held back the motocross side I think I just saw it

as something that people wouldn't be that interested in I don't know why I think and I think the hillclimb

video you know it is a gold standard of crazy story crazy feat personal hobby I just yeah I think I

was interested in other stuff I'd raced really intensely like from the age of I think I started

racing when I was six I first got on a bike at four years old and I raced almost every weekend

through till the final year of uni so I was like 22 and you know I was I was like racing at a

national level I was traveling all around the UK sometimes into Europe to race and it was

fucking amazing but I wouldn't change it for the world of that growing up every weekend traveling

around the country I had like loads of mates like you just grow up in these like weird little fields

across the UK and you're racing your mates and but I think I was just a bit done with it at the end

of uni I was kind of like I wanted a new challenge I wanted something else to to put my focus on and

I think now or 10 years later post racing I've only got to ride a bike maybe once or twice a year

like in the last 10 years and after the hillclimb video I've definitely got the bug back I realized

that motorsport was like a huge part of my life and I I've loved everything about filming that

video I loved putting together that video I just I love watching that video so something I'm eyeing

up like is there a world where I can dip my toe back into motorsport knowing what I know now about

YouTube and knowing what I you know what I've always known about motocross is there is there a

world where I could set up a a side channel where I'm enabling myself to get back on the bike a bit

more well that gets in your mind a little bit there of how your channel actually operates and

how you think to someone that you mentioned that's just kind of doom scrolling and gets hooked by 30

seconds of people falling backwards down a hill and you then unpack back to make them watch something

that's 30 minutes long talk us through like your standard I suppose creative process in a video

because what I'm getting into is the fact that that video sits on the same channel as a video of

you collecting air in a jar like like I don't get how the two coexist so well yeah I don't even

I do wonder whether people look at the channel and think like what is this about what yeah what

it's like runman's of a mad man even it is entertainment I suppose yeah but it's it does

make it harder to build that community I think it's like I'm obviously I've got a weird mind

when it comes to how I view the world and how I like to live in this world of like every

month's a new adventure I can be you know taken on the hill climb one month or collecting a cloud

in a bag and selling it as art the next why is that the weird mind is that because in your mind

more people don't do that so then you don't fit in with them because really most people would want

to do that when you say it like that I just think I think I don't know I think when you when you

think about what's what can harness a community like you've got a great community for this podcast

because you're there's a through line right you're interviewing people that are in a certain industry

who are like have become successful in a certain way there's the automotive angle like you build

that community around common interests and you hope that your curiosity of like interviewing the

guests will also like hit your audience's curiosity I think if you're trying to create a through line

of my audience it's a whole lot more random do you think is the kids that were got kicked out

for being naughty at school that connect with the things that make you brilliant today perhaps

maybe I think like when we started the channel it was it was we were just 20 something you know

like guys in their early 20s just going out in the world trying to make something happen for

themselves and I think people really relate to that like we didn't want to fit within the traditional

system we didn't want to go out and have normal jobs we both tried to become entrepreneurs before

this we just like we if there was a refusal to like fit within that um traditional path like

post university I think that really relates to people now um you know I'm like seven eight years

into YouTube I don't know if the audience feel the same way I've been a youtuber my entire like

professional career like life so I don't know whether they just see me as a weird guy but I don't

know to your earlier question I I don't know what it is that that people see on the channel it's just

weird wonderful ways to to to just go out and experience the world I think does your channel

teach you discipline because you're putting out one video a month yeah right a lot goes into an

average few duration of about 20 30 minutes per video yeah that must be quite hard not not to

just go okay I'm going to cut down to 10 minute videos and I'm going to do a video we can go and

find something to do do you have that kind of really disciplined side to your mind that even

though on the face of the thumb now there's this crazy stupid mental challenge that appeals to

entertainment and brains but on the other half of it there's actually a lot of discipline to do

that right I think so I I I'd like to be better I I think I'm I'm not diagnosed but I'm I'm pretty

ADHD when it comes to um most things which is maybe why the channel is so random but I've

managed to build a small team that keep me honest you know like they my producer is an

organizational powerhouse she adds like some order to the chaos you know I've got like two

editors and you know we work with a bunch of freelancers so I think having that level of

responsibility allows me to be like right I might not feel like I might not feel like sitting down

for another like two three four hour brainstorm where we're smacking our heads against the wall

but I understand that it's important to keep the creative juices flowing keep ideas moving and

always you know the whole strategy for the channel is like we'll have a brainstorm we might come up

with a hundred ideas there might be one good one in there so you're always topping up that tank and

you're always just like trying to one up the current ideas that are on the board that are

currently moving through production so yeah we've got it's not really a concrete process but like

we always start with the titles um and that's the the big you know you're casting your net out

trying to try to get that whoa like you're trying to stop people from doom scrolling effectively

and then from there we we think video plans so we try and think is this like a seven act video

plan where it's kind of like pinch points and midpoints and like the hero's journey to get to

the end or is this a simple kind of three act thing where it's just like a crazy goal a midpoint

and an ending um and then that's my job to go through and think what does this video actually

look like um what do you think the views your your average views on your videos are like say

you are outliers at 35 million and 14 million many millions but say like two and a half three

million a video maybe that might be a bit generous who knows do you think where do you think your

video average views would be without the team you just mentioned honestly like because you've got the

talent yourself without you it wouldn't come together but how those one percent those two

percent how much do they add do you think to the actual average views so much i the last time

i edited a full video was 2019 maybe the start of 2019 and i was i was burned out man like i

when we started the channel it was called the zack and jay show and we were making a video a week

and we would go out film on weekends and i'd i'd stay up till 4am like two three days a week

and i'd be editing and turn on those vids around in like two three days and that on a weekly cycle

was just i got to the point where like i i loved editing like i would i haven't found anything

that's got me in the flow state like editing used to i sort of love it um and i just got i was so

done with it because you just to run a successful youtube channel that's growing and you build in

that audience you just have to be relentless and i got to the stage of being like i never want to

see premier pro again like i never want to have to and you know i've been working with my editor

for a couple of to five years this year and i feel like we've crafted a whole style together like

i've imprinted everything that i know into like his brain but his technical skills far outweigh

mine so like we've collaborated on this channel for close to five years and i think

even just from the editing perspective i like i would never be able to put together a video

like he does um i think i've still got a great grasp on storytelling and there is absolutely no

chance i'll be able to do any of this without a producer like i am not organized enough like even

trying to organize this podcast i'll speak into your your producer like multiple times and then

realize i'd forgot to actually lock in the actual date and like i'm just not very well organized so

this whole thing doesn't work without a team behind the scenes and like i don't want to run a big

team we were a small but effective team for doing weird shit on the internet well but you've only

got 12 videos a year that's the bit that kind of blows my mind a little bit because if you get a

nine out of ten or a ten out of ten which we've explained to many of the audience listened before

is 10 out of 10 in real life is excellent 10 out of 10 on youtube is not like that that means

that's your worst performing video of the last 10 you've uploaded and if you're only doing 12 of a

year you must end up seeing a lot of five out of 10s four out of 10s the odd 10 out of 10 etc

does that and then you've got a month until your next opportunity to be happy again like

how much is your personality yeah you see i'm happy is at the minute he's obviously had a really

good one how much is your personality linked to the performance of your channel like your day to

day life i think let less so than it has been but still more than i'd like to be admitting i think

like the the perf it's a weird trade-off in your head you think like maybe this is a logical but

you know if i don't if i stopped caring about the results of the channel then the channel's

going to fall off a cliff and it is the those obsession of like small details that i think

allow us to i think we're one of the best channels on youtube for storytelling i think we can tell

i'm confident that we can tell intricate stories in a in a way that like can entertain millions

of people and i think when i think back to like you know the times where we were struggling on

youtube and you know maybe we didn't get over 200k views that would be a good video for us that was

probably not just post covid and we had a meeting and we decided fuck i need to get better at youtube

we're like stalling out here like there's no we i didn't people are getting millions of views and

we're not like that it's not impossible we need to figure out how this whole thing works and and

you know i thought i was still a great storyteller i thought the ideas were good and then we went on

this whole journey of trying to figure out how to actually do youtube effectively and like i never

want to stop learning on on the platform i think the goalposts are always moving i think you know

the people's tastes change the algorithm changes and i think like yeah navigating that has been

like a really fun process but yeah man i it's it's it's not a simple one if you are enjoying this

wonderful episode of road to success please like the video and subscribe for more good stuff it's

something i see in you which is i really want to unpack is i listen to a podcast you're on on the

way up here like i do for all the guests try and pick out little things and say things think i'd

have never found that if i was actually doing normal research yeah and i was listening to the

way you're answering questions about like other creators that have built businesses off the back

of their youtube channels yeah and obviously i never knew the part that you'd actually own that

business the water business for two and a half years before and it was almost like you're really

putting yourself down in that so like oh we're just not there yeah we've not launched a product we've

not done that i don't think anyone would realize when you describe yourself as i'm a youtuber and

you answer that question in your own words what you are and what you do that you're responsible for

the whole life of you know your producer you know to feed themselves and editors and everybody that's

part of your channel do you think people realize that a youtuber like yourself how much actually

goes into that one video a month probably that it is a proper business you have people to pay

probably not and i think that's part of the magic though like i went when when i grew up watching

like top gear or whatever it was like and travers pastrana's nitrous so because i would never be

you don't want to break the four four and realize that there's a whole production crew and like

probably a little like funny moments they pre-plan like it just the the job of the audience is to

just enjoy and be immersed in the story so i think like while youtube you can show a peek

behind the the kind of the curtain a little bit because we are a small team we are all traveling

the world together you know there are times where that makes sense for the story that maybe my

producer is telling me to not do something because it's too stupid like yeah i think it's not the

job of the audience to to care about that really but i think most people would be surprised to see

you know we've got an office we're in the office everyone's always like what how do you spend

your weeks i'm like just we're in the office like we're sending emails we're planning shoots like

we're it's it's a business at the end of the day but um yeah i don't think i think most people will

expect it because on the surface level you've got just these ridiculous silly challenges stories just

like events that take place and you don't think that there's any seriousness going on inside an

office to actually execute on those do you get stressed with managing that side of the business

and paying people is that the toughest part of what you do paying paying people this really

no carrying that responsibility yeah i yeah i i haven't met many creators that are natural

managers i think that's a different i think if you're high on the creativity scale you're probably

quite low on the organizational typically i think there are a separance of the rule but

i'm yeah i've never i've never wanted to manage a team like i've never wanted to do these

monthly check-ins progress reports that sort of thing and actually recently in the last six

months i've started working with a business manager who can take care of some of the more like admin

heavy kind of more traditional business kind of tasks and take them off my plate so i can stay in

that creative zone where i'm just ideally i want to replace everything i think people

made it is way better at editing than me my producer is way better at producing videos than me

there's there's a few more aspects that i think i could let go of um and ultimately i just want

to be filming coming up with ideas and um being excited for the next one you know that that way

of thinking that entrepreneurial way of thinking of always employ someone better than you to do

any given role do you always feel like that's forcing its way out and maybe from your dad when

you were studying that warehouse as a kid looking around thinking this is really cool do you think

like it is those things that end up like you just can't help it they force their way out of yourself

maybe i think when my dad was just terrible at delegating like he had a he had a business partner

who was great at delegating and you know he he would never do any of the dirty work and my dad

to the day that he retired was on site getting his hands dirty like he just loved like

my entire upbringing he just was always like in the workshop or the van and like come back filthy

dirty hands like he was a proper grafter and he didn't need to be in that position like he but he

loved it and he absolutely loved just problem solving and being the guy that people would call

and be like can you get on site quick he thought the relationships went a long way in in business and

i think perhaps him and his co-founder was a good mix of like both where somebody was like

overseeing the operations but my dad was just in he was in the trenches like so i think when you

start out as a youtuber you you do you wear a lot of hats you're editing you're planning the videos

you're you know paying freelancers you're doing you're doing everything to run that business which

is the same as a lot of small businesses when they start but letting go of you know you're

like an octopus loads of tentacles i think like cutting off some of those tentacles and like

allowing somebody else to take the reins is is inherently quite hard um but i just well i got

so burnt out i just thought is a necessary thing i was like i need to figure out how to get an editor

that can tell the stories i want to tell because this thing doesn't i i cannot last on this channel

if i'm the editor and the face of it it just isn't sustainable do your family watch your videos i

think so maybe like a bit later like it might be out for a month or two i think i was back home

the other month and i was like talking about a video i put out my mum's like i haven't seen that

yet so i think at times they sit down they put it on the tv um but yeah i they're not

they're not watching every upload from the minute it goes out are they ever messaging you when you

do something crazy and i want to unpack this story because it's just the best story ever

the the Conor McGregor story like oh my god are you able to plan a video like that or is that just

a case of send it and hope for the best and do you ever still send it and hope for the best

this is a good question back in the day there was no other there was no plan you can

so for the audience the i think this is the probably one of the riskiest sneakings i've ever

done um and it had if there was zero planning involved zero planning so Conor McGregor versus

Mayweather was like if i take myself back to that time it was just everywhere it was like the most

viral thing it was on like every every screen you'd look at there'd be like highlights from the

press conference and it was just obviously a big media circus and i just spent a year and a half

sneaking into places and kind of you know trying to make that my thing on youtube um

and my mate Jamie actually he text me saying McGregor versus Mayweather is on in London

in like a day or two like you need to go and do it and he was living vicariously through me

because he actually had to take a step back from doing the sneakings with me because

he was running his own business at the time and he had you know mentors and other people that was

telling him don't go this isn't a good look this isn't a good look um so yeah it was that text and

i just got obsessed with the idea of like like being around Conor McGregor and Mayweather and like

how cool would it be to be in the same room but also like walk out with McGregor as he's getting

announced like through the through the curtains like i just had that as a vision and yeah literally

with the days prep i just scoured instagram i managed to find all of the triple a passes that

the crew was using and it was actually Floyd Mayweather's driver so his like chauffeur that

posted a pass on instagram to probably like a couple hundred followers it was like his personal

account and i found it and it was a perfect photo it was good enough for me to like photoshop a pass

i guessed about how big it would be and i always had a joke on the channel was like i had the keys

to the world which was like a 15 pound laminator from Tesco's and a printer and that would allow

me into like almost any room on the planet and it was kind of true like i went with two passes one

was a press pass one was a triple a pass only this the the close friends and family circle

of each fighter had a triple a pass so i rock up i literally drove i was living in Somerset at the

time um i was i think i was still living with my parents this was before i moved to london and i

i i used to have a van that was my like motor transport so i drove my van up to london it was

in wembley arena um i'd find some parking i put on like my prom suit from when i left like six form

um and these like press passes and i can't always carry the camera because i thought it was a great

prop and like i could film the videos and say you know media and it was just like a great

excuse to have one um and yeah i i i got in relatively easily but i was like where's the

backstage area and i finally find this little like side door which was open and i walked through it

and there was a security guard maybe like 50 feet down the corridor and in those moments you're like

you're not prepared for what you're gonna say you just kind of like but as we mentioned at the start

it's like blind confidence act like you belong like all of these things you if you if you feel

like you're meant to be there then there's a chance that the other person will feel the same

and i just remember i said like i held up the pass to him like from a distance so you couldn't

see it i was like is this the right one mate and he was like no no no you need a triple a pass to

be down it i was like right i know i've got one in my pocket so i was like i think they've given me

the wrong one mate i'll i'll just go and like grab the real one um i go back go into the toilet

quickly change one out put the other one on and i walk back in and i just go mate they got the

wrong one so yeah i'm sorted walk towards him and he was already like i believe that i was meant to

be there um and then for the rest of the night i had direct access to the changing rooms of both

athletes just past him just fix how i'm feeling i fist bumped him i bought him uh i bought him a

bottle of water i was like do you need anything mate i was just acting like his best mate and

you know bless him he was he was sound does you ever hear from him after the event no and i i

think i did like a quite a careful job to make sure that nobody gets in trouble you know like i

think i put on a bit of a masterclass like even the best security guard maybe might have analyzed

the pass a little bit closer but it was a pretty good pass it looks pretty legit why does that

matter to you because i can see it matters to you why does it matter to you that someone

doesn't get in trouble because there's so many youtubers with a fucking mentality yeah you know

why does that matter to you we always i just think you've got to have a moral compass with

this stuff man like if you're if you're going out and you're kind of doing these like quasi-legal

like risky kind of moves you don't want to drag anyone down with you like it's always been quite

important and even to this day on the channel like if we're going up against the system whether

it's like the fashion world or like you know we we often take the mick out of like these

things we always try and shoot up we never want to shoot down at like the individual we always want

to make the target like a like a worthy one so like somebody who's just there on security there

you know they're just there to do their job i never wanted to be the guy to get in security

chases you know take the piss there was a lot of youtubers doing that you know like they were

you know whether they were staying in you know shopping malls overnight and being a bit disrespectful

to the security guys i just didn't like it was entertaining but i didn't like the taste that

left in my mouth so in all of the sneakings early days i left at the end of the day if i had never

made a video no one would have known i was that the video was like the ha ha i got you kind of thing

did you ever as someone that obviously is really creative and i imagine loves watching other youtubers

and getting ideas and things from around the internet well did you when you were growing up

have a feel let down by a creator that you followed hmm do you think that's what triggered that

probably not by a creator no i'd well i'm trying to think of who i watched back in the day this

like good or i wasn't really a i watched youtube before that kind of like vlog era to be honest

um i didn't have high expectations for logan to be honest um i think i watched youtube before any

like youtubey controversy to be honest i think um i'm trying to get into why what makes you the

good person side of being a youtuber like that actually takes that moral compass and why it

matters and it's like is it because your family is watching you've always had that family around

you to watch and like yeah keep you in there because it's very easy with virality yeah to be like i'll

just do the stupid thing i'll just run naked through there because it will get the virality but

you actually quite need that moral compass to kind of keep you grounded with it i remember when

when we started the channel and it was me and j my mate from uni and we said look we can we can go

about we even get virality from exact the example we use was like running through trefalgar square

bollock naked you'll go viral but like at what cost you know like what what are you trying to

what are you trying to put out in the world i think we always cared about

we cared about like what we were doing and showing that you know the sneaking stuff is easy to look

at and be like are they just like two young lads like creating a bit of um creating a bit of mischief

like having fun whatever um there was an angle that that some of the headlines for the olympic

stunt used it was like disrespectful to the athletes and stuff like that but even with the

athletes that they were cool with it and like when we got onto the bus we got chatting with the

athletes they all thought it was hilarious and we said look guys if you want to do you want us to

go we'll go like this is your moment and they they added to their experience they were like no stay

they invited us to the after party so we went to the after party with all the olympians so

i just think it's always just been something that was discussed early doors that if we're making

videos to get a lot of views we want to be known for you know creating a narrative that is positive

and i think one of the first first comments that really hit with us was something like

we're like unproblematic positive um kind of like content creators like unproblematic is a great

word to use because there's never been a better time to be controversial like you know you see in

jake and logan pool just profit from being controversial assholes at time and scamming

their audience but i think we always wanted to be known for the right reasons and i think those

micro decisions you make in the videos whether it's like

you know choosing to be respectful of everyone you come across which sounds a good like a

obvious thing that you should be but those things do like they come out of the of the narrative and

i think they lead people with like a nice taste in their mouth do you have to get quite strong

to saying no because when you end up with over two million subscribers you know millions of views

of video there's going to be people that want to collaborate with you left right center or do this

but do you think the key sometimes to success in the village in the videos is having the ability

to go no i'm really sorry it doesn't work for me and have you had to find yourself doing that more

i think on brand stuff specifically yeah but you just get a producer to do that yeah you try and

put up a few barriers in between no i think yeah there's there's lots of you know i only made 12

videos yeah i want to make sure that the ones that i'm making i'm making for uh for the right

reasons i think like brand work and sponsorships are a key component to the business model but

you know you i say no i probably say no to more money than i make like because you know the videos

to sponsor a finite and there are sort of limited opportunities to find partners that actually

you know aren't there's plenty of dodgy ones i got an email yesterday from like a

like a vape brand and i was like i'm sure it's great money but like i can't i can't entertain

like pushing that to an audience so um yeah there's a lot of no said on the brand side there's a lot

of also um when you do work with brands often there's so many layers of of kind of it needs to be

approved multiple times over and i feel like quite a common thread that we see when working with

brands is that people don't get fit you'll never have a brand collaboration without loads of feedback

and it's because i think because most people need to justify their existence at every level so we

often leave bits in the brand work that we do that are like little bits of bait that the brands

will pick up on and be like can we change this and that almost then allows us to have more creative

flex for the rest of it um but there's oftentimes i've got more confident now in the last few years

to be like i am the expert i know what the audience will want to see and what will make this like a

an authentic collaboration um and i'm quite happy to tell tell brands when they're wrong and and

kind of not not playable just to kind of appease them just because they're putting that money

does it drive you crazy that your top videos on your channel did 35 million views 14 million views

and are you always thinking about moving the bar to that being the average and do you think that if

you get to there would you ever even be happy because you'd be thinking why is it not 100 is

there any level of being a creative youtuber that gives you contentment um i fit all of that i actually

i could run a very very like successful channel with just like a million views per video

it's just like consistency that i love i don't like i love seeing videos like have huge outliers

like we had two videos last year we only uploaded like six and we had two which

like beat 10 million views like in the first month and that's great you can try and backwards

engineer why that did so well um how do we replicate that success but at the end of the

day i like filming videos i don't want to get to the point where i'm delaying or stalling out or

trying to perfect like draw myself insane trying to get 10 million views per video

we aim for one one million views per video and that's a shit ton of people like it's easy to

get desensitized with like that's how many wembley that's like over 10 wembley stage streams it's

insane um so yeah i think the i just want consistency of viewership i want to build that

community i'm not overly fussed with um trying to get crazy viral bangers every time i want to

i want to regain a sense of community on the channel where people will feel like they're there

for the same reasons they're in the comments there's a law to the channel um and i want to do more

in person stuff i feel like now more than ever it's i've felt like i'm at war with my phone um

and i'm pretty aware to the fact that i'm kind of contributing to people being

in and on the internet i think you know i i think my videos can people can take things from my

videos which are positive but at the end of the day like our our business model is based on eyeballs

and attention so i want to do a few things this year where i'm getting people out of the real

world touching grass like actually meeting each other and i think when i think back to the most

fun i've had last year is filming the videos in person is like it's doing things that matter

like whether it's a journey with my dad and something that we'll be able to look back on

years to come also i did a a cinema tour when i was in australia um and i just met like three

four hundred people who watched the videos who came out and they they watched a a secret video

that i've never released i've never been allowed to release because my lawyer told me i would get

royally fucked i had one of them last week really yeah i did actually oh the temptation's

always there though isn't it to release it yeah i want to know what it is i'm off camera but

yeah so i i i had so much fun just chatting all night like with these people who watch the videos

and just i want to do more in person events so i'd say while the business depends on getting

millions views i think like i want to do stuff that matters outside of the internet

well i think no doubt when we watch your content over the coming year that we'll start to see that

coming together i can imagine a a zack cheese rolling championship mx pike in motocross catching

air in jars and selling it the charity style event somewhere in summer set with apples and

when that happens i'll make sure that i like many are going to be there zack thank you so

much for your time on road success i appreciate it what a van by the way guys what a setup

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