435: From 0 to 3.2M Subs On YouTube: How Philip Wang Grew WongFu Productions

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife, Quit Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today I have a very special guest on the show, Philip Wang of Wong Fu Productions. Now, if you’re Asian, you probably know exactly who this is, but in case you are not, Philip Wang started a YouTube channel a long time ago with two of his buddies, which has become a successful production company. His story just goes to show that if you’re willing to put content out there, good things will happen. And in this episode, we’ll learn exactly how he got started.

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But before we begin, want to let you know that tickets for the 2023 Seller Summit are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. It is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And you all probably know me well enough by now to know that my event has zero fluff. Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their e-commerce business and not high-level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. Every year we cut off ticket sales at around 200 people and it’s a very intimate event.

00:58
Everyone eats together and everyone parties together every single night. I love smaller events and tickets always sell out far in advance. Now, if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250K or $1 million per year, we also offer a special mastermind experience where we break up into small groups, lock ourselves in a room, cater in food and help each other with our businesses. The Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 23rd to May 25th. So go to SellersSummit.com. I also want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode.

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Now if you’re on an e-commerce business of any kind, you know how important it is to own your own customer contact list. And this is why I focus a significant amount of my efforts on SMS marketing. SMS or text message marketing is already a top five revenue source for my e-commerce store, and I couldn’t have done it without Postscript, which is my text message provider. Now, why did I choose Postscript? It’s because they specialize in e-commerce stores, and e-commerce is their primary focus. Not only is it easy to use, but you can quickly segment your audience

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02:19
The Profitable Audience Podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell it like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the Profitable Audience Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now on to the show.

02:40
Welcome to the My Wife, Could Her Job podcast. Today I’m thrilled to have Phil Wang on the show. Now, Phil and his partners, Wesley Chan and Ted Fu, started Wong Fu Productions back in 2004, and their YouTube channel today has over 3.2 million subscribers with billions of views. And their films have been featured in a number of international film festivals, like the LA Film Festival, the San Diego Film Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival. Now here’s why Wong Fu is meaningful to me personally. Now, even though I’m older than Phil,

03:10
I feel like I grew up with Wong Fu, like the stories that he tells in his videos are like stories of my youth, especially the romance stories and the angst of growing up as an Asian American. And I actually binge watched a bunch of the older hits right before this interview. Now, most of you guys listening probably don’t know this, but I actually made a bunch of films with my friends with a Fisher Price PLX 2000 camera when I was young, and actually wanted to make films growing up, but decided to pursue engineering out of

03:39
practicality. Now, Phil did not pursue one of the Asian big three, engineering, law or medicine, and decided to pursue his passion in a way. Phil has paved the way and has given permission for Asians to go into the arts. Now my YouTube channel just hit a hundred K subs last week and I actually owe a small piece of that to Wong Fu. So welcome to show Phil. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Do I get my royalty checks? If you said you owe me, I’m just kidding. Thank you for the kind words, man.

04:09
We’ve been doing this for so long. I think like, you know, since we’re so deep into it, it’s kind of crazy to see like the ripple effects of what we were doing kind of just casually or just what we thought was just for fun in those early days. And just to see like the effects of it, you know, 20 years later, it’s really incredible. And I feel really grateful that we got to do what we did at a very specific period of time. I don’t know if we would be able to survive and if we were to start now. So

04:38
It was a very, very unique period of time for Asians and media, for social media, for digital content. Like it was, was, it was such a, such a strange time. I mean, you’re definitely changing lives. mean, I mean, you influenced me for one thing too. And Phil, it’s funny. I know you’re Chinese. How the heck actually did you not end up as an engineer, doctor or lawyer? Were your parents on board with this decision that you made long ago? Well, it helped that my sister

05:06
It was a doctor and pre-med. But you know, yeah, like my parents, you know, they immigrated from Taiwan, you know, after college and they pursued higher education here. And they went down, obviously, like they went a very more structured route of just trying to, you know, create a better life. And they were computer programmers. So I was around like engineering and just like the

05:34
the typical Asian American upbringing from an immigrant experience very early on. school was, yeah, academics was always very important. I did Kuman, I did so many extracurricular activities. My mom was a super mom. She worked full-time and still found ways to take me to piano lessons, violin lessons, dance lessons, and still have dinner cooked. So really fortunate. But yeah, when it came time to…

06:02
choose a major for college, I actually went into UC San Diego undeclared. And I guess, I don’t know, maybe my parents, maybe there was a little bit of the younger son mentality, like them just babying me a little bit, and my sister definitely shouldering a lot of that academic weight. But I went in undeclared, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I thought I should do business, you know, so I went to like econ, because I knew that actually I was not good at math, I already knew that.

06:31
I knew that I was not going Actually, I didn’t know that about you, Phil. Yeah, I’m terrible. I’m terrible, man. I didn’t even like in senior year when all my friends were taking like AP Calc, I took like a stats class because in senior year, was like, I can’t do this. Yeah, science I was not very good at. I was like, okay, maybe I think I’m a good talker. Maybe I can go into business or something. And then when I get to college and I take my first econ class, was…

07:01
find out that there’s so much math involved and I was like, all right, this sucks. So at that point, I got really lucky that I was already making videos just for fun. UC San Diego has just a bunch of like prereqs that you have, or sorry, yeah, prereqs that you have to take. So I was just doing that and then I was making videos for fun. And one of my friends was in visual arts and she’s like, why don’t you just do this? You’re making videos already just on your free time where you can get credit and you can actually make this your major. so I didn’t…

07:27
think there was never like this moment where I’m like, I’m going to be a director or like, I believe that I’m like, this is my path because as an Asian growing up in America, you don’t really see that. Yeah. Especially in the nineties, right? Like there was no one that I could say like, Oh, I it’s possible. Like it was only Jackie Chan and Jet Li, Chow and Fab, but those were all imports, right? So in America, I wasn’t like, Oh my God, there’s this director that I can be like, right? So it was very just happenstance. I was like, okay, I’ll just make that my major. And I,

07:57
what I told my parents at the time was, hey, entertainment is a business. So it’s like, if I go into this industry, it’s like I’m going into business. I’ll find a desk job somewhere. So even in my biggest dreams, you know, declaring visual arts as my major, I still saw myself as a desk job. that’s interesting. Like, you know, the Asian mentality where it’s like, yeah, there was, there was really, I didn’t have this dream that I felt was possible. Yeah.

08:26
Sounds like your mom is more supportive than mine. I actually just told her about my milestone last week and she was like, what? 100,000 people watch, what are you talking about? Why would 100,000 people want to even listen to you? It’s a learning curve for them. It’s funny that she’s feeling that now because now she should have enough examples of like, she’s probably watching YouTube herself, right? So she should know what’s out there. But when we were first starting, my mom was like, you got to get off the internet. You’re going to get sued, you’re going to get viruses.

08:56
upset about it. And my dad for a very long time, even after like the videos were going and we were, set up our business. My dad was like, Hey, you know, law school is also, you know, you you should go to law school. All you got to do is read. And I’m like, I’m sure it’s more than that dad, but he was pushing law school for a very long time on me. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever have a job full-time job or was like one for your first thing? Right. I might.

09:21
My first job ever was at Target. I pushed carts in high school and I was a cashier and yeah, I was the guy that collected all the carts at the end of the day or throughout the day. So if anyone’s listening out there, if you only have one bag in your cart, just leave the cart in the store. Okay? Don’t bring the entire cart out for one bag. I’m actually very conscious of that myself. I always put it backwards, supposed to Thank you. Yes. And then in college, I worked at a boba shop for three years.

09:52
Also part-time and we can talk about that because that obviously we’ll get to that into my business now. So to answer your question, no, I actually have not had a full-time job. I’ve never had to like have a formal, formal interview. And I, that’s something that I do feel is a huge blessing and a huge privilege. You know, like not ever having to like do that at the same time, like it comes with different challenges and struggles also. I’ve been my own boss technically since the beginning, but

10:21
You share all the successes, you get all the successes 100 % on your own, but all the failures are also 100 % on you too. So it’s a different kind of level of stress and there’s no clocking in or out. There’s no benefits in the beginning. You just got to believe in what you’re doing and hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. So let’s talk about the early days. How did you actually create such a large following on YouTube? And what was it like in the very beginning when money probably wasn’t coming in?

10:50
Yeah, no, for sure. There was. Yeah, that’s a good point. There was no money for many years in the the YouTube digital space. And the reason why I’d say digital space is because YouTube technically wasn’t even around when we first started. That’s how old I was. predate YouTube. didn’t know. Yeah, YouTube was 2005. And our first like video came out in like 2003. Like I was a freshman in college. And this was you. You’re of the right age. You remember like Evon’s world? Yeah, of course.

11:17
Break.com. This was the era that the videos that we were making were kind of coming out. We had a website we had to build with GeoCities. We had to buy server space. So when you asked how do we find success in the audience in the beginning, it wasn’t that conscious. I think you have to remind yourself at that time, even saying that you had an online video was like weird two words to put together. There was no expectation of building a brand online.

11:47
there was no formula, there was no expectation. That’s really what it came down to, to like say, hey, I need to get a bunch of views so that I can create a business. We were just doing it for fun. And so like, I think there was a little bit about it that was just novelty of just like, hey, here’s a new format that some young kids are taking advantage of or having fun with. And then the other aspect obviously is the fact that we were Asian, Asian-American students. And I think at that time, you know, there was even less,

12:17
you know, then then what we there was so much less so far less than what we see now of Asians on screen. And back then it was just only TV or movies. It’s not like you even had social media to see influencers or YouTubers. So I think seeing even us on a small 240p, you know, Windows Media Player file was already representation for like a lot of students. And we I always say we were at this crossing point of

12:44
of technology being available of like high speed internet and also like digital camcorders and just like, you know, culture just ready to consume, you know, digital content as well. And so we were, we were right there and our stuff just started getting passed around college campuses first because that’s the only, the only places that had high speed internet. So it’s all word of mouth. All word of mouth. All, all it started with like instant messenger, like

13:09
And we would just put it in our bio or our away message. Like this is old people talk right now. And we would just go down our buddy list and send it out to people. And we had a guest book and we’re like, oh my God, people are watching from Canada. People are watching from this other school. If you think about it, this was also when Facebook was only invite only, you know, like on the college. So it was cool just to see like our links get passed around and yeah, just a very different time. So was all word of mouth. And by the time we graduated, we had a pretty substantial following.

13:39
of just college students and, you know, the college students would share with their friends and family back at home. And when we graduated, we’re like, man, I think we should probably try to take this seriously. Like this is lightning in a bottle. We shouldn’t take this for granted. Let’s see how far we can take this. And again, this was still before YouTube had their first ads, you know, program. I remember in 2009, that’s when they had the beta version of their AdSense.

14:09
Google didn’t have ads for a very long time. It’s insane to think about that, right? And people were actually really upset when YouTubers started putting ads on their videos. They thought that they were selling out. People would say, oh, I’m clicking away if I see an ad. Now, it’s funny, fans get mad at YouTube for not giving them ads because they want them to support their content creators. So the culture really shifted in an incredible way to actually make this

14:39
an industry like it really matured over the like definitely in the 2010s. How did you survive? What is it like five years of not making money until? Yeah. So it’s funny. I mean, you have you have a you know, your e commerce, you know, guru here, right. So when we were first starting out, so we graduated in 2006. And yes, no money was coming in through our videos. So on a more like just trying to be stable way we did like

15:08
little commercials for local TV stations, like a few hundred bucks here and there. We did wedding videography for a couple of years. And this is like not like, nowadays if I say wedding videography, people are like, whoa, dude, that’s like thousands of dollars. No, this was like early days. Like when we were college students, we did one wedding video for like 500 bucks. so. Wow. Okay. That’s really inexpensive. That wouldn’t be unheard of in 2022. And we did like club.

15:35
videography. So if you ever went to like a nightclub and saw people with video cameras, like that’s, that was us for like a, for like a couple of years. But the, but the big turning point was actually when we realized that we were getting emails and people were leaving comments on like our guest book and videos that were saying, Hey, what’s this t-shirt that you guys are wearing in one of your videos? We had this one t-shirt that

15:59
It’s a pretty problematic t-shirt now if it came out now, but it basically in Mandarin said like, white people can’t read this. It said like buyer and can’t And it was just a funny t-shirt like back in the 2000s and everyone was like, where’d you get that? Where’d you get that? And it was just gifted to us by another fan. And I just wore it in a video and I’m like, oh my gosh, what if we design our own shirts and we sold them because we have all this viewership. Let’s at least parlay this audience into some type of goods or product, right?

16:28
And so we launched a merchandise line. I would say, I would say that we were probably one of like the first like YouTube channels to create merch and create a business around our merch. Was this print on demand or were you actually physically? We actually had inventory. So it was very scary. Yeah. We would print like hundreds and we would, and slowly in that business really matured as we learned more and more like, you know, of just like different quality, different, you know, price points.

16:57
fulfillment issues and it became like like that was actually like a very big part of our revenue stream for a very long time. Ted, who is still actually in e-commerce, like he really took over it and he got us to a point where we had a warehouse and we had a fulfillment center. But for a long time we were packing things in our living room. We were too. Yeah. And we would have to just buy like big orders from Uline, just boxes and we would take big shipments.

17:23
or big orders out to the post office, you know, and like, and go straight to the back, you know, and drop them off in the bin. And then we actually started getting into like toys, you know, like we were thought, okay, apparel is actually really, really difficult because you have to have like sizes, you get like returns, things like that. But if you have like products that are just like one size fits all, or just like, no, no size, you know, it’s just like, it’s just the product that you can sell. Like we actually really had found a lot of success through that. It was called Awkward Animals. And it was just like this plush line.

17:53
So that’s how the money first came in. then on top of that- still around by the way? I think it’s dormant right now. Ted is kind of in charge of that and he has like his own like e-commerce kind of a business. But on the Wang Fu side, so not the pleasures, but the Wang Fu side, are still doing merchandise, but it’s a little less of a focus now because other parts of our business have matured. But we also did like speaking engagements.

18:23
year after we graduated, made this feature film and the only way to watch it was if people booked us to go to their schools. So we toured like 20 plus universities in the first six months after graduating. And that was actually what really opened my eyes to see like, hey, this is something really special. We have people that are driving in six hours to watch our movie.

18:47
you know, in the middle of Virginia or Pennsylvania. that’s one it’s one thing to see like a web statistic of like, hey, thousands of people are watching. And there’s another to actually go out into Calgary, Alberta, the middle of Canada in the snow and see a line in the snow of people that just want to watch, you know, that they were craving and starving for like Asian faces and media. Like that’s how much they were willing to watch. And that’s when I was like, OK, you know, just fresh out of college. I’m like, we got it. We got to keep this going whatever way we can. When you were toying the colleges, were you charging?

19:16
people to watch or were you just? Yeah, we had, mean, yeah, so we, we nowadays we still, so we still do a speaking engagements and we have like, you know, upfront speaking fees and honorariums. It’s been like that for, for over a decade, but in the early days, like, you know, lot of these colleges and we were like, who are we? We were just like other college, we were just fresh out of college. We were basically their age. Um, we, we, we didn’t feel right saying like, you know, here’s our fee. So we did say, Hey, let’s just, let’s just sell tickets. We can split the profits and, um,

19:45
like some of the tickets were like $5 a pop, you know, and, it didn’t barely covered our travel. We like, would actually, we stayed in some people’s like, like, um, dorm room suites, the couches and stuff. was, it was, we slummed it out for a little bit. Like we were definitely paid our dues as like these, these, these starving artists for sure. I love it. It’s the twenties. It’s what they say. Like when you’re in your twenties, that’s the age where you, it’s acceptable to do these kind of like, you know, grungy things to make your business happen. Right. Yeah. Absolutely.

20:16
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21:26
All right, well, okay, so we talked about like the past and when you got started, let’s say someone wants to get into what you’re doing today. You mentioned it would be a lot harder, but I’m just curious what your thoughts and what steps you would take for the people listening. Yeah, it’s a totally different game now. And in some ways, like it’s harder, in some ways it’s easier, right? The ways that it’s easier is that there’s ecosystems, there’s a culture of understanding of what you’re doing and what you’re offering that’s built into our DNA now, right?

21:56
when you go on your phone and any app, like people are ready to consume. People understand advertisements. People understand online courses. They understand e-commerce. They have their wallet already saved on their phone. I remember like back when everyone just still had desktops, right? This was before smartphones. We were on razor phones, okay? And I was like, it would be so cool if someday you could just put a quarter into your desktop or something, or you could scan your credit card just to watch one of our videos. Imagine if the technology for that existed. We would be millionaires.

22:25
And now that literally exists, you know, like it’s crazy, like what is already built into like the infrastructure of just digital content consumption, right? So that’s where it is quote unquote easier. Where it’s harder now is everyone can do it, right? Yeah. So there’s so much more noise. There’s so many copycats. There’s so many, there’s so many just people that are just trying to just get your attention and basically like maybe you can even call them scammers. There’s people that are just here for clickbait.

22:55
So it’s really hard to break through and get noticed, right? So that’s where I would say it would be a lot more difficult. no matter who I talk to, no matter whatever generation of content creation they came up in, like whether it was the 80s and it was just film and television, whether it’s the 2000s and early internet days or 2010s and new YouTubers, it’s still content is king, right? If your content is good, like,

23:24
that’s what will always rise to the top. You have to make good, helpful, meaningful content and it will for sure find an audience. Of course, if you want to find your niche, that’s the number one thing you should figure out is like, what can I offer this space or this industry that I’m trying to get into? What can I do differently? Or how can I package it differently? And you got to get creative, right? There is so much

23:54
I see on Instagram, so many people that are doing the same type of content, but every so often, I’ll find someone that’s doing it a little differently. And I’m like, wow, that’s genius. There’s a reason why I decided to follow you and not follow someone else. You decided to do your content a little differently. So you just gotta be creative. And I would also say, have patience. I think a lot of times we’re in this,

24:21
fast instant gratification kind of mentality that people aren’t willing to put in the work. I know it sounds like really old and grumpy, like, no one wants to This podcast started to sound like an old grumpy hour. But it’s true. It takes time to, and not just necessarily say that you can’t adjust and pivot quickly, but just know that what you’re doing and if you want to find success, it’s going to take time.

24:51
adapt quickly, but also understand that it’s a marathon, right? And that whatever your business you’re building, it’s going to take some time to really catch on, or you have to like, re-strategize, try things different ways. This is speaking super broadly. would obviously like- Well, you I always tell people don’t do something unless you plan on doing it for at least three to five years. That’s general in my- Yeah. And I don’t know if you would agree or disagree with me with this, because you brought up passion a little bit earlier, but like, I would also say like, don’t do something unless you’re

25:21
willing and ready to do it for free for a little bit too. And what I mean by that is not to say like, don’t like just give away your work and service. I’m saying like, you might be at a loss for a little bit, right? Or there’s gonna be some initial investment or sunk costs or things like that. And so you should be ready to at least like put in your own investment of sweat or your own capital to like say, I’m putting in this time so that I’m building something bigger in the future is all I’m saying.

25:48
I 100 % agree. Free is actually the way I make money. Like you give so much away for free that people just want to support you, right? It’s probably the same way that you guys did it. Actually, speaking of money, I’ve just noticed over the years since I’ve been following you for a long time that the number of views for your short films has just been decreasing over time. Like how do you guys make money? It can’t be AdSense. Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m smiling right now as you’re being very critical and Asian dad of me right now.

26:16
Hey, kiddo, your views are actually nothing to do with the quality, man. The quality is better than ever. No, so I mean, even when our even at the height of when our videos were like, you know, getting hundreds of thousands, millions of views, it was still not our main source of revenue. And this is why actually, like, I actually think I’m not a great person to talk to in terms of YouTuber success. People like I mean, yes, like they categorize me as a quote unquote YouTuber. But I think I think I’m actually a terrible YouTuber because

26:44
Um, our Wong Fu’s model, um, if you’ve been following has never been never really taken strategy out of what, uh, what YouTube, the algorithm, whatever YouTube has, has said, which is like, you know, daily, weekly, you know, scheduled content, um, you know, make it quick, make it short, now make it long, make it, you know, uh, whatever. We just always made what we were passionate about, what we thought we wanted to make. And, and that’s actually a testament to how great our fans have been and, and what our, our purpose.

27:13
as a channel has been, people were following our purpose. They weren’t following us for just some trendy thing. I think like, if we were trying to be a YouTuber, we would be doing things a lot differently. Our content would be a lot different. So because of that, we were never reliant on our AdSense because we didn’t make weekly videos that were getting millions of views. We weren’t trying to hop on the latest trend just to make sure we got in front of the algorithm. That was nothing we were doing. We were always…

27:42
using our audience and using our viewership to get other business revenue streams, whether it’s the merch, whether it’s the speaking engagements, whether it’s commercial brand deals, that’s what was more important to us to have quality, not quantity. think that’s like a super old adage, right? but that’s really what was driving WongFu and so is like, so now just to answer, I want, it’s great to address this because I actually don’t really talk about this, but yeah, our views are not anything close to what we were in like, you know, the earlier days.

28:12
or just like a few years ago, but we’ve actually been generating more revenue than before because we are now as a brand known as a production company, we have this built-in audience and we have this, again, quality that other platforms and brands or companies are coming to us. We’re doing more commercial shoots. We’re making, we’re doing productions for

28:37
other platforms. For example, we just did this huge campaign for Vicky, which is a Korean content platform. Yeah. just, and they want to do like, they want us to like make an entire like series for them. We we’re doing a web show for Netflix’s YouTube channel, which is called spill the boba tea, where I interview Asian American or Asian guests at my boba shop. And that’s its own budget too. So yeah, we basically diversified. And also what one thing that’s important to say too, is that

29:06
the early days of YouTube, everyone had more views. And the reason why is because if you think about it, that was the only place to watch video content. It’s kind of like a freeway. All the cars are on one freeway. So if you have a billboard, everyone’s going to see that billboard. But now as the industry, as digital content has sprawled out, and we’re not in just this one little urban area, it’s sprawled out now, there’s more freeways, there’s more avenues.

29:34
your billboard on that one freeway is not going to have as much traffic. Now you have to actually have billboards and you have to have content on all these other platforms, all these other freeways, right? And so our viewership across other social media channels is just as strong as ever was before too. just on YouTube, it’s just been diluted. That’s kind of what’s happened. Interesting. Well, I noticed your other channel, More Wong Fu, that’s more like the YouTube style. Right? A little bit. Yeah. And even that, we, like we’re…

30:02
We’re kind of like, ah, we’re kind of over this or maybe we’ll find another purpose. Like there was a period of time where second channels was a very YouTube strategy thing. And it’s like a little less necessary these days. That’s all. Like, so that’s us just trying to like kind of keep our eyes and ears open to just what, what like the culture and trends are. Yeah. I kind of like that channel too, cause it’s like more of a behind the scenes about how you guys are like as people, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think like that was another thing too. I think.

30:31
you know, when people, when we were first starting out, there were a lot of most, when you think of YouTube channels, you think of like actually like a personality, right? Even, yourself, right? And so we actually started off like not wanting to be in front of camera. Like we wanted our content, like we were, and that’s actually, think one reason why Wong Fu’s longevity has been what it is like this long is because it wasn’t so reliant on a single person continuing to make the same type of content.

31:00
because that can get old and that can get tiresome or boring and people lose interest. But because we have short films that have other actors or a variety of content or messages, people know Wong Fu maybe for something that I’m not even in. And I love that. Essentially we created a brand and an identity that’s not necessarily associated with me. Of course, the big fans will know me and Wes and the team if they want to go deeper.

31:29
but it’s the stories that I think can last forever. Yeah, I mean, I just love all the stories. And you’re right. I’ve actually come to follow a lot of the people you’ve had on these in your movies. Yeah. Like Keena Grannis, for example, like I listen to her music now. Yeah. I am curious, what are the economics like? Let’s just take Single by Thirty, which you guys did a while ago. Yeah. Like what are the economics? Like it was a real production. Right. You had actors and whatnot.

32:00
I vaguely remember you charged, like if you want to binge watch them, otherwise you get them for free. how did that make money? So, so with Sing by 30, that one was specifically for YouTube Red, which is now YouTube premium, but they were trying to basically, you know, in 2016, everyone was trying to make their Netflix play. This was like still when Amazon and Apple TV hadn’t even really started releasing anything. So everyone was just trying to make their own premium content. So YouTube actually paid us a fee to make this, this series.

32:29
And then they had a paywall for their own platform of YouTube Red or their own membership of YouTube Red. But we did take a page out of that and our own independent projects like for Yappy, for Dating After College, and even for some short films, we started experimenting with actually just charging quote unquote like ticket pricing. Kind of like what I joked about like in the beginning of like, when we had desktop and me imagining this technology, I wish people could just pay to watch. And now that exists, you we use Gumroad, we used

32:59
Indiegogo, used Vimeo Pro and actually had people. I think we got to a point in the maturity of our audience and our content where we’re like, hey, I think there’s a sector of or a higher tier of our fans that are in a position where they have expanded income. They want to see us shine and keep going. They’re willing to pay $10. They’re willing to treat us like as if it was like a movie ticket. And so

33:24
we did put some things behind paywalls so that people could watch for free. And if they were of this tier of fans, then we could basically, you know, utilize them and service them. And then for the rest of the fans and to also keep our brand and keep our engagement up, we released it for free maybe after a period or a certain window. So this is, it’s really nothing different from just like, you know, even just like old traditional media where you have a theatrical release.

33:52
then you have the home video release, then you have it for free licensed on TBS on, you know, on Saturday. So it’s just, we were just taking similar strategies, but just applying them to our YouTube channel. So maybe Single by 30 is not a good example, but like when you put out like a short film, I think you just released one relatively recently. It’s just like a singular, you know, one video. I mean, does that make money or is that just to basically build

34:20
It’s a little bit of both. Part of it is to recoup. at the very least, if you’re not losing money on your content, that’s already positive. But luckily, most of our stuff, we would actually make a profit on. It’s not enough to have us go be like a movie studio or whatever, but it’s enough for us to feel like, that wasn’t a loss and we can reinvest into the company. But like I said, most of our income and revenue right now is still from

34:49
you know, commercial gigs and branded deals and collaborating with other studios and other platforms and utilizing, you know, our talent and skill set. And that’s actually what I think that I would rather I’d rather make money that way than like, you know, just be like, aching for views and ads, you know, like, know, absolutely, absolutely. So is all of the deal flow inbound? Like, do you have are they just all coming to you for the most part?

35:19
Um, it’s a, it’s, would say it’s the majority is still coming to us. Uh, but I will, I will have to say like, yeah, there is still a lot of effort in terms of just me putting myself out there and networking with people, letting people know that Wong Fu is available to do things. Wong Fu is interested in collaborating with certain people. So you have to put yourself out there. Cause I remember there was actually a conversation that had with one producer one time where I was like, Hey, I’m totally down. Like, Oh, how come you guys didn’t call us for that? We would have been totally down to like, Whoa, I had.

35:48
I thought Wong Fu was just happy doing their own thing. Like now that I know that you guys are willing to collaborate, I’ll definitely give you guys a call. So a little bit of it is, like, you know, just almost like an agency. it’s Wong Fu has so many different facets and identities that have to kind of work together in order for us to just to, you know, make videos. It’s pretty interesting that a lot of people, yeah, don’t kind of see that back, you know, behind the scenes. And you’re acting yourself, right? Are you dabbling or?

36:17
I do, in Wong Fu stuff, I’ll do it as necessary. Like, you know, if they, if they need me to be in something or they need me to be the face of something outside and other people’s projects. I have like done auditions and stuff. I’m actually really terrible at auditioning. I mean, you did audition for Partner Trek, hear. Yeah, I did. You’re right. And I did terrible in it. And so yeah, like now if people, if, if people ask me to go cameo or something, I’ll do it. And if people ask me to audition, I’ll like, I’ll do it too. But.

36:47
Um, yeah, like acting is definitely not a primary. I don’t have this. I don’t have this, the, the, thick enough skin to, go do it. Yeah. Well, let’s switch gears now. I mean, you just had your first child and then you decided to launch two brick and mortar Boba shops. Yeah. Which is a lot of work. Yeah. Let’s talk about that. Um, well, we didn’t launch two at the same time we launched one and then, um, three years in, we were able to finally, uh,

37:15
open our second one and we’re in the works for our third one right now. yeah, I opened a cafe called Bo P’o Mo Fo Cafe. And for those that don’t know, Bo P’o Mo Fo are the phonetic alphabets of like Mandarin Chinese. And it’s just like, you when you went to Chinese school, you learned the Bo P’o Mo Fo is just like you learned the ABCs. So it’s like the ABCs, right? And that was actually like the inspo for like, you know, our identity as a cafe. We’re like, oh, this is kind of like, you know, our

37:44
a mix of Eastern, Western sensibilities. This is like, you know, I eat my traditional food at home, but then I go to school and I eat cafeteria tater tots and chicken sandwiches. it’s essentially like, yeah, like a fusion of like our bi-cultural upbringing here in America. originally we wanted to call it like, we were like, oh, it’s like kind of like ABC food, like American born Chinese. Like it’s like ABC cafe, but that’s such a boring name. like, oh my God, Bokumafua. It’s already taken too in Hawaii, right?

38:14
So yeah, yeah, there’s tons of ABCs, everything. But it all started with in like around 2016 where I was like, you know, like I, it’d be really cool. And honestly, I looking at like what Bart and Joe had done, like with their gyms and with like their, their products. I was like, I think I would, I think this was interesting. I would, I would like to explore starting a separate business and again, utilizing the audience into a more physical customer base, right? And

38:41
I mentioned earlier that I worked at a boba shop in college and just to really take it back and go deep into the meaning and why a boba shop versus Froyo or versus anything else. Boba is really meaningful to me in the sense that in the late 90s, early 2000s, like the special ASEAN era, for those that aren’t Asian, there was a very special time in the 90s and early 2000s where there was an Asian identity kind of movement.

39:11
Boba was just coming over to the States. And I remember going to my first Boba shop in 1999. It was in Berkeley. I grew up in Walnut Creek, but there’s this place like outside UC Berkeley. And I was like, this is so cool. This is like the first time I feel like I’m like in an Asian specific area. this is like Boba felt specifically Asian American culture. And I’m like, as a impressionable high schooler, was like, this is what cool Asians are doing. And so when I went to college, I was like,

39:40
I want to work at a boba shop because that’s where all the cool Asians hang out. That’s where can people watch other Asians and I can, you know, hang out with other Asian people. can, you know, uh, see cute Asian girls too, you know, like, you know, like crush on girls and stuff. And I can also, it unlocked his hospitality side of me too, where I liked talking to people. liked being, um, you know, in service in some sense too. And in college, I discovered that, you know, that little bit of a, I guess, um,

40:10
passion or it was growing. It was like a seed of like, hey, maybe someday I can actually have my own shop. And I imagine it like when I was like super, super old, but then, you know, like five years ago, I was like, Hey, like, what if I actually try to do this? I mean, my partner, we linked up and he was at a crossroads in his career too. And he’s like, Hey, let’s let’s do this together. We’re both first time owner operators and we got our asses kicked. Like it was, I didn’t hear this story. I mean, it’s just like,

40:39
You know, we thought like, you know, it would not, we thought it would be easy, but I think we just didn’t realize how much work it would be. Obviously we knew that owning a restaurant was going to be a lot of work, but I, but I think just like the incessant nature of just how many problems come up every day, you know, just having a physical store versus like an online presence is so different. Having staff that you have to like tend to and manage is it’s more like people management than it is even our product. That’s on many days, right?

41:09
And so, yeah, it was just us two and we probably could have had a bigger team when we first started out, but like, yeah, like we really grinded it out and we still are. But thankfully we’re now we’re getting more team members and more like leadership people around us that understand what we’re doing. But in the beginning, like people didn’t know what we were doing. Like they didn’t know if we would be good. They didn’t know if we would last. So even finding like a location was hard. No one wanted to give us a shot. We opened up in the San Gabriel, in San Gabriel where there’s

41:38
you know, dozens, hundreds of boba shops. like, you landlords were like, why do we need to give this to you? you know, so interesting. Yeah, was surprised. Yeah, it was really, really hard to even get started. mean, to me, renting to you would be a no brainer. think I think I’m proven in one area. But you know, as a as a business, I think a lot of people that I think that’s what was frustrating to me. I think I saw and I was trying to convince people guys, like, it’s going to be good. We’re going to be we’re going to have lines out the door. But

42:08
But people that are not as maybe savvy with what I’ve done online or with social media, that might not translate. mean, you are like, hey, look at look at me. No, I’m not that cocky. I was definitely was like trying to sell myself. I was like really trying hard to sell myself. was was it was like trying to convince people landlords. But but thankfully we lucked out with one spot and and it was like a restaurant that was on the way out.

42:38
And again, we put in a lot of money just to get it going. I bet. Yeah, I bet. This is a passion project for you, right? I mean, it’s not for the money. Per se. I think the funniest thing that I heard when we when I announced, you know, on social media that I was doing this, all the comments that were like, oh, my God, what a money grab for Phil. Really? Dude, I mean, there were several comments that were like, oh, my God, of course, Phil’s going to do this is such easy money, blah, blah. And I’m like,

43:08
No, this is not easy money. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This is harder than Wong Fu. With Wong Fu, you know, like you make something and it’s like, there’s a wrap date, you dust your hands, you’re like, hey, that was great. Onto the next project. With Bopo, it’s every day and in theory for the rest of my life. You know, like it’s scary to think about it. I remember the first day of our grand opening of the first location, I sat up in bed and I’m like,

43:35
This life’s never gonna be the same again, because now this business is alive. I will never have a weekend again. I will never have a moment of silence where my phone’s not going off of some problem. yeah, people think that it’s like, I’m just there to collect a check. No, I haven’t collected very much from this yet, man. And I’m the owner and I’m there a lot serving drinks. Are you really? I didn’t know that. Okay. I’m there a lot, physically there a lot.

44:04
And we’re three and a half years in and I foresee it still being like this for a little while. But yeah, this is not easy money. To anyone that wants to open a brick and mortar, it might seem like very, very glamorous from the outside. Like, oh, it’s so cool. You have a physical space. have people coming through. Man, it’s really, really hard. Really, really think about if you find that hilarious that people are thinking this is a land grab. I mean, of all the things you could start, this is like the hardest money. Right?

44:30
I would say, yeah. It’s not like I got an NFT project guys. I’m not trying to sell you guys crypto. Sheesh. Actually, when you were describing BollPoll, I was just thinking about like, this is what having a kid is like. You’re never going to have a weekend free again. But guess what? I would say it’s even harder because you can’t give your store to a babysitter and just be like, all right, I’m leaving for a little bit. And also Yelp can’t review your baby. So people that

45:00
are just passing by that don’t know you, don’t care about you, can leave a review if they had a bad experience or even if they didn’t have a bad experience, but they’re just having a bad day and really negatively affect your business by leaving a bad review. Your baby doesn’t get that. So I, in the early days, I was really, really upset with Yelp just because it’s like, people had no idea how much work was going to it. And like people just like coming by so passively, just leaving like,

45:24
negativity is like, was that necessary? Do you guys know how this actually like really hurts people? You know, like we’re not doing this maliciously. Anyways, I don’t want to get. even get me started on Yale. yeah. All right. Well, last question, since I know you have to go pretty soon. You have all these projects, you have two locations, you have Wong Fu, you have a child, you recently got married. Like how do you balance all of that? I’ll be honest, I don’t think I balance it well. I don’t think I’m as graceful as, as I think I could or should be. And I’m trying.

45:53
to get better. I’m trying to set up systems and schedules and stuff. right now, on some days, I within like a 30 minute span, I feel like a, like a headless chicken, like I’m like, I’m jumping from one email to a text chain, to a phone call, to a zoom podcast interview, podcast interview. Literally, I’m jumping onto another call for Wong Fu after this. So the thing is, is I have to give full credit to the people that are making it possible, which is my teams, right? So

46:22
Wong Fu, definitely handed off a lot of responsibilities to a couple guys that I promoted into manager positions, Taylor and Benson, who now run a lot of, have a lot of responsibility of running that show. My co-founder, Eric for Bopo is incredible. And he does so much of like the, the operator duties to, make the, the, business run there and, our manager, Gene on the ground there when I’m not able to be there.

46:51
He’s there all the time. So those guys are amazing on the, with the kid coming. Yeah. That’s, mean, that just threw in a whole mess of, you know, messes and time. I have to, you know, I’m not going to act like a super dad. Like, you know, we, have had help from her mom and my mom who her mom’s in Boston. My mom’s in NorCal, but they fly in and they stay with us for a couple of weeks at a time. And they’ve just been kind of.

47:21
ping ponging back and forth. And that’s been a huge help. We literally have been having, you know, a stay in, you know, someone staying with us for the majority of this time. And it would not have been possible because Helen’s also full time, you know, owns her own business and she’s trying to balance that too, right? So both parents working, trying to keep these businesses alive. So I have to give credit, you know, to the village around me. Yeah. Oh, also I don’t take a moment to thank Helen also.

47:51
Yeah, Helen’s been great. Our moms have been great. Also, I just don’t, I don’t watch a lot of TV. I don’t have a lot of hobbies right now. Like once the kids down at night, that’s when I, that’s when like I put another like six, seven hours of work, you know? Wow. Okay. when I’m, that’s when I’m working on. Actually, I feel like a nine o’clock. I’m like, Oh my God, it’s, it’s early. Like I could do, I could do like catch up on emails. I get to write scripts. I get to brainstorm. That’s that. That’s actually when I do like my more of like the creative stuff. Like I’m like developing like, you know,

48:19
five different scripts right now. I have to like, basically like those things would be moving a lot faster if I had, we’re spending more time, but it’s moving slow because I’m balancing everything else. So, which is why I said I’m probably not as graceful as I could be, but I’m just trying to, you know, do as much as I can. I’m only creative for about three hours in the morning. I can’t do anything at night. I’m a vegetable. Yeah. want to get to that point. We’ll see. Well, right now I feel like there’s,

48:47
there’s too many things that people are relying on me for. So I just kind of feel like I have to deliver. Yeah. Cool. Hey, well, Phil, this was great. Thank you so much for coming on despite your hectic schedule. Where can people find you if they want to see your works or if they want to get in contact with you or hire you? Well, you can find me on Instagram, Wong Fu Phil, and my cafe is located in San Gabriel in Artesia. And that’s Bopomofo Cafe. B-O-P-O-M-O-F-O.

49:17
love to serve you and maybe I’ll actually be the one handing you your order. yeah, you can just DM me there, leave a comment and we’d love to meet. And Steve, it was great to meet you too. Congratulations on what you’re doing as well and taking control of your own career narrative. Thank you. I’m going to show my mom that statement coming from someone who has a big channel.

49:41
Hope you enjoy that episode. Now if you’ve never watched one of Wong Fu Productions short films, go to their YouTube channel right now. Now I rarely get emotional when watching a film, but they just have a way of tugging at the heartstrings or making you laugh. More information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 435. And once again, I want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base.

50:08
SMS is next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postcook.io slash div. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash div. I also want to hang out with you in person next year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Grab a ticket to Seller Summit and let’s meet up. So go to SellerSummit.com. That’s S-E-L-L-E-R-S-S-U-M-M-I-T dot com. Now I talk about how I these tools on my blog and if you’re interested in starting your own eCommerce store, head on over to mywifequit.com and sign up for my free six day mini course.

50:38
Just type in your email and they’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.