Ronny Hermosa [00:00:00]:

So you need

Ronny Hermosa [00:00:00]:

to be with an ear to the ground and really listening and paying attention to what's going on, and when you see an opportunity, just go for it. I would say this is really crucial if you don't want to miss the train. Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Today, we're gonna talk about what it takes to make a living as a content creator. Hey everyone, I'm Bryan McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Many have asked me what software I use to record such high quality video for this podcast. I use Riverside and what's great about Riverside is it records the local camera feed from you and your guests around the world, which means crisp 4 k video without having to worry about blurriness due to Internet hiccups.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:49]:

Riverside is also a great editor, fitting with my philosophy of making it easy for yourself to create because there is nothing that your guests or you have to download. We also use Riverside's AI magic clips to find interesting moments for our episode intros. And I'm happy to announce that Riverside is sponsoring this episode. And if you sign up at creators. Riverside.fm/creatorsadventure and use code creators adventure, you'll get 15% off. You can find the link in the episode description as well. Now back to the show. Hey, everyone.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:20]:

We're here today with Ronnie Hermosa. He is a content entrepreneur and a Canva expert who focuses on design and generative AI in the digital marketing space. After working as Canva's head of communities, Ronnie started his own business as a content creator and grew his YouTube channel to over 430,000 subscribers. Plus, his courses on Udemy have now gained more than 80,000 students. Ronny, welcome to the show.

Ronny Hermosa [00:01:47]:

Hey, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:50]:

Yeah. I'm glad to talk with you today. So my first question for you is, what would you say is the biggest thing either you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Ronny Hermosa [00:02:02]:

Good question. To kick us off, I would say to really figure out what I enjoy doing. In your intro, in your bio of me, you mentioned that I started this business after my experience at Canva. I actually started it before the experience at Canva. So I had started created content about Canva, created a community, a Facebook group, but also kick started my YouTube channel before I actually was hired by Canva, and I think this opened some doors for me, this presence I had built, this expertise and content I had created about Canva. And the way I was doing it, I think this kind of caught the attention of some people at Canva, who then kind of like reached out to me. 1st to become a Canva Bryan ambassador. They they had a specific program.

Ronny Hermosa [00:03:02]:

They they wanted to start and invite people who were at the time back in 2018, I believe, were talking about Canva, and so that's how I started, I would say, the relationship with Canva. But this evolved into a full on, like, job offer from Canva, and so which I decided to accept. So at that time, I kind of left the business I had going on in the hands of my now wife, but at the time girlfriend, Diana. So she took care of that while we moved to Australia, and I started working for Canva. Still had a little bit of time to dedicate to my content, my channels, but most of my time was kind of absorbed by Canva because it's, like every tech company out there, it's a lot of work, and so, yeah. And then I decided, okay, maybe it's time for me to come back to this business as it was growing, as as things had changed a bit at Canva for me. And, yeah, I just felt like it's time for me to come back to my thing, and that's that's what I did. Cool.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:12]:

Yeah. I'm curious to hear more about that because I think this is a struggle that many creators go through of trying to decide, am I going to work on my own thing? Should I work at a more regular job? And was there a like, what was in your mind at the time? Were you always planning, thinking, like, can I make this creator thing into a full time career? Or were you thinking, okay. Actually, I I would like to work at a company like this. Like, at at that time for you, what what were you kinda dealing with in making that decision?

Ronny Hermosa [00:04:47]:

Okay. So it's funny. Like, the question is, I would say depend when in my journey you ask the question. If you ask the question, when I got the job at Canva, I was not looking for a job at Canva. That was not my intention. So my full story is that I basically, I started an NGO about, like, in 2011. I started my own little nonprofit organization. For about 8 years, I was running this project, which was kind of like a video producing agency, and I traveled to a lot of countries and worked with social businesses, social entrepreneurs, and helped them with their marketing.

Ronny Hermosa [00:05:33]:

So mostly I was shooting little videos and presenting the projects I was visiting, but also helping them kind of like communicate down the impact they were making with their project. So that was like a very cool experience, traveled all over the world, saw like 30 plus countries, and that kind of kept me busy for about 8 years, met my wife along the way. We started working together on this project until we kind of got tired of moving all the time, like, traveling that much, and so we decided, okay, let's let's settle somewhere. And the settling part kind of had to come together with with changing the way we organize our business. We were making an an income. And so at that point is when we started the content business. We kind of took what we were doing before and and and see how we can translate that into a job for us or a business that would not require us to travel around like we did. So I never was really looking for a job.

Ronny Hermosa [00:06:43]:

Look me looking for a job part was before the creation of the NGO. The creation of the NGO is kind of like the the the being completely fed up with looking for a job. I pretty much like chain, like, maybe 10, 15 different jobs, like, between me getting out of university and starting this NGO and none of them really, like satisfied me in a way, like the longest I stayed in one of these jobs was 2 years and really I kind of thought, okay if I want a job that I love I probably have to create it myself. So that was my mentality all the way. It was so strong I even promised myself, like, I will never work for a company again. And then and then Canva comes up with like well, first of all, it's Canva. It's not like a random company in Belgium where I grew up, where I was I started my career. It's a big tech company in Australia, in Sydney, offering me a job, a good job with, like, a good package and an opportunity to live in Sydney.

Ronny Hermosa [00:07:49]:

So it was kind of like the royal way to get a job, I would say, and so, yeah, I accepted that job, though I promised myself I would never work for a company again. So I guess now I could really say that unless something miraculous happens and I got out of that one job that was like an ideal job. But, yeah, it was a great experience at Canva, that's, that is for sure. I'm glad I took that job, but, yeah, now nowadays, like, I I feel like I would not get back into working for somebody else because I'm not cut out for that. Like, I'm I'm an entrepreneur. So to answer your question about helping people decide, like, how do you know or when do you do it? Well, I would say do it whenever you feel like you you have the financial capacity to do it, like if you need money and you're just straight out of university, maybe you are in-depth or maybe you need to to find, like, your first apartment, renting your first apartment, or you need to buy a car. It really depends on your situation, like, if you need that money right now, maybe starting your own business is not the right move because it will take time. Building a business and having that business, like, we profit for you will probably take a couple of years.

Ronny Hermosa [00:09:16]:

So keep that in mind. Like, if you need immediate money, finding a job might be the way. Now if you feel like you want more freedom in in what you do, more decision making ownership, I would say, than than go for go for your own project because there's nothing like it. Like it's you are going to be in charge. So that would be my my my 2¢ for people trying to decide when to do it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:46]:

Yeah. I'm curious. You mentioned, going to over 30 countries. I have a similar story myself. I did did the same. I'm curious. So where did you end up after that? Are you in Belgium now or somewhere else?

Ronny Hermosa [00:09:59]:

No. Now I'm in Barcelona, Spain, but when we decided to stop, we lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand for 2 years. From Chiang Mai, we got offered the job in Sydney, so we moved to Sydney, stayed there for two and a half years and about a year and a half ago, we decided to come back. So after COVID, left my job at CAMBA and decided to come back closer to me and my wife's families. So we we are from different continents, she's from Colombia, I'm from Belgium, so my family is in Belgium hers is in Bogota, Colombia, but we felt we felt like Barcelona was a good compromise between, you know, a cool city, the beach, good weather and being not too far, I mean, much closer than Sydney from both families. So so, yeah, we decided to settle in Barcelona.

Bryan McAnulty [00:11:00]:

Cool. Yeah. I'm always interested to to hear that, and I think it's really especially interesting, the perspectives of people who have gone so many places, where they ended up and why.

Ronny Hermosa [00:11:10]:

Yeah. But, if I if I may add something to this, I really liked the decision we made to live in Chiang Mai right after, like in transitioning from one business to another because living in Thailand at that time of our new project like the on the online courses and the the YouTube, like, the content business was really practical in terms of, you know, purchasing power, like, the how far your dollars can can take you in a country like Thailand. Also the community, there's a really cool supporting digital nomad community in in Chiang Mai, and so we got a lot of, like, great ideas coming from the community at this stage of our journey, I would say. So, yeah, if if you are considering starting a business, And I I said that to someone, recently, like, he was thinking, he was really evaluating his options and maybe quit his corporate job and also start his own business. I told him, and he was from Australia. I told him, like, consider just moving to a country where life is way cheaper and and that that will take some pressure off your shoulders of, like, I need this to work right now. Mhmm. Maybe with your little savings that you have, you might be able to stretch it for a couple of months in a country where life isn't as expensive as in the United States or as in Australia or even some European countries.

Bryan McAnulty [00:12:51]:

Yeah. Definitely. I I think it's more well understood now with the the rise of digital nomads and everything. But for me, yeah, definitely. Like, people used to look at traveling like, oh, you're gonna travel the world? Wow. That's that's gonna be expensive. Yeah. But when when I did that, I I spent less than my cost of living of what I'm spending here in Austin.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:12]:

So Yeah. Yeah. It can be a way to to save money, but I think it's not even just about saving. It's the other things you mentioned too that there's a lot of ways that the place that you're in can really open up your mind and and possibilities of things you can learn, the the people you can meet, different things like that. So, I do think that's very good to consider.

Ronny Hermosa [00:13:32]:

Mhmm. Yeah. There's nothing like traveling. Like, it really opens up your mind. You're going to have fun. You're going to discover things, about yourself, about the other cultures, going to meet a bunch of people, create a lot of connections and still today like that we are hosting people coming to Barcelona, we've seen in Thailand, in Vietnam, in Argentina, so people from all over. These years were really, really fun. Yeah.

Ronny Hermosa [00:14:03]:

So if you can do it, don't be scared. Like, a lot of people are also scared of traveling, like, they they're scared of the unknown, where where am I gonna live, is it gonna be very expensive, how am I gonna travel, is it safe? So there's a lot of, apiaries, I don't know if that's a word in English, but there's a lot of, like, limiting beliefs maybe about traveling and living that nomadic lifestyle. I encourage you guys to to try it. If it doesn't work, you can always come back. You can always stay with mom and dad for a while and just get back on your feet. But for me, it worked out very well. Traveled a bunch of countries and, had some great experiences.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:47]:

Awesome. Yeah. And I can attest to that as well. I think the the travel and everything has been not only some of my best experiences, but also some of the best education Yeah. Of learning about the world and and people. And, yeah, I would I would definitely say don't, don't worry about it. It's, for me, like, there's a lot of places I went to where I feel much more safer walking around that city or that place at at 2 AM in the morning than I would in places near where I grew up. So, safety, I think, is not an issue.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:20]:

As you said, you can actually save money depending on if you're you're from a western country or not. And you can also, really, like, I I wouldn't be afraid of, how you might have to interact with other people or or the fear of the unknown because, like, you'll find that many people are really good and really wanna help you.

Ronny Hermosa [00:15:40]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:40]:

And so if you do ever get to some point that you're uncertain and you're you're feel like you're lost in some random country, like, people will see that, like, wow, this person's on the journey. I I wanna help them. Yeah.

Ronny Hermosa [00:15:52]:

Yeah. People are much kinder than we believe they are in general, and a lot of places are actually much safer than your own country. That's very true.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:03]:

Yeah. So what was it about, Canva that, like, captivated your interest, when you started creating content, around that as a creator?

Ronny Hermosa [00:16:13]:

So I got to know Canva in the early years of Canva. Alright. I guess what really interested me in that platform is how easy it was to use compared to Photoshop. So I was creating a lot of videos, but also I was promoting my own NGO and I always had to pitch the next project, create project proposals that I would send to clients via emails and stuff like that. And I used to do these with Photoshop, but then I figured, oh, that's much easier to use. You can just drag and drop stuff and Canva had a bunch of features that made it easier than Photoshop. So that's how that's kind of what piqued my interest, I would say. And then, so I was using it for myself, for my business, I was not yet at that point, and I don't remember the year, the exact year, but it was maybe 2016, something like that.

Ronny Hermosa [00:17:27]:

I was not yet using it as a content creator. I was not using it to I'm not I was not creating content about Canva. I was just using Canva as a regular Canva user. And then it's when we stopped the NGO adventure and settled in Thailand that we decided to continue creating online courses. We already had created a few online courses, within the context and the framework of the NGO, so it was more courses for social businesses, for that specific niche we were working with. And I remember being in a co working space in Chiang Mai with Diana, my my wife, and we were kind of like thinking, what should our next courses be about? So we both decided we would create a new course, and I I was like, I was there and I I thought, okay, I'm gonna make a list of the things I like using, and one of them was Canva. So I decided to go for a Canva course and she ended up creating a course about Instagram marketing or something like that. Yeah.

Ronny Hermosa [00:18:35]:

So that's when I started to really get deep into Canva and and look at it through the lens of a course slash content creator. And so decided to explore every single feature and started to teach about Canva. And, yeah, the rest is basically where we got today, like, over 500 tutorials about Canva, several courses, and the experience with Canva, also being a Canva verified expert. So all of this is kind of like the consequences of that one decision in that co working of me decided to create a course about about Canva versus I don't know whether this was on my list. I don't remember. But, one of them was creating a course about being a digital noma, something like that. So, yeah, probably didn't wouldn't lead me to the same kind of, like, story, life story I had if I had gone down this this path. But, yeah, funny how sometimes a decision in your life can really shape like a big portion of your life.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good way to go about it too because a lot of beginning creators are stuck on, well, what is it that I teach about? And they want to look at what everybody's talking about now as, oh, is this the thing that I can do to make money? But I think your approach is much better of, like, what are the things that I use? What are the things that I know about and I enjoy? Because you can really make money doing any of those things. Of course, it's helpful to to have some kind of small sense for the potential market for what you wanna do. But, like, you can definitely make you may not be able to make a $1,000,000,000 company or or tens or 100 of 1,000,000 doing anything, but you can certainly make a good living doing pretty much anything. So, I think that's a a great way to approach it. And now you've expanded your focus to include generative AI. So

Ronny Hermosa [00:20:37]:

Mhmm.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:37]:

Can you explain what what that kind of means and how it can help creators and business owners?

Ronny Hermosa [00:20:44]:

Yeah. Sure. So we decided to get on the AI bandwagon, I would say, in March of last year when everybody everybody else and their grandmother were talking about AI on YouTube. So we were not the first, we were not probably the best, but we did see a huge benefit of using it. At the at the time, it was mostly ChargeGPT, so I was using ChargeGPT myself. I really went deep into it and and got my mind blown like many people, many other creators. So we decided to introduce this to our audience because we saw a clear fit. Like, our goal with this YouTube channel is to teach about Canva, but more than the tool, we want to teach people kind of like to follow the same footsteps we have followed, like since the NGO, creating a content business, developing a real, like, business around a YouTube channel and audience, and then monetize this audience, this attention in many different ways.

Ronny Hermosa [00:21:55]:

So eventually that is kind of like what I want to pass on to our audience. I just found that Canva as a tool is a very powerful way to get there as a person who needs to create that content. So that's why we decided to focus on Canva and when I saw how powerful Chargegpt was, like, I wanted to introduce this to my audience. And obviously there is also some interested reasons, like I thought this would make some good views on YouTube as well. So there's always this balance between what, like you would ideally want to, trans like transfer in terms of skills, in terms of knowledge to your audience, the people watching you, but also if you are a YouTuber you need to play the YouTube game, and you need to basically talk about the things that you know people will watch, or talk about the things in a way that you know people will watch on YouTube. So that's one of the main differences between teaching on YouTube and teaching in an online course because the YouTube thing, you need to play the YouTube game, otherwise you kind of get punished by YouTube and Heights algorithm, and basically the way it works. In an online course, you can take your time, you can you can develop, you can go deep, you can do it the way you want, and then if it's successful or not, depends on a whole set of different reasons than the ones that you have on YouTube. So, yeah, I'm getting a bit lost here, but the the the main answer to your question is because I felt like the tools, mostly Chargegpt at the time, would be super useful for our audience.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:49]:

Yeah. Got it. So when it comes to, like, AI images specifically, what would you say are your top tips for somebody who wants to either start out or figure out, like, why or how would I use this potentially in my business as a creator?

Ronny Hermosa [00:24:03]:

Okay. So you're talking about, generating images with tools like DALL E and stuff like that? Yeah. Yeah. So I think there are several ways you could use these these images that you can generate with AI. You could the way I like to use them is to transform an idea I have in mind or a concept into something tangible, into some sort of visual reality. Okay? So we do this a lot with, for example, concepts for characters. We might create for stories or for for social media visuals that we need to to create a post, or for representing a workflow, or things like that. So that is mostly how we use it, but I also love to push the limits just for the sake of it, like to see, okay, how real can I generate, like how realistic could I create this photo, for example, using a tool like DALL E? So I I like this challenge of finding the best prompts, for for generating my images.

Ronny Hermosa [00:25:22]:

For example, like I also love the fact that you can you can design, create things, like beautiful things, like almost things that you can consider art, with these things without having without needing to be able to draw, take a good photo, or anything, like if you can if you can prompt it, if you can express your mind and your idea clearly in a language that is understood by the model, then you get great Heights, and I think this is very powerful. Like you get a base prompt, for example, I did a tutorial about this last week, of a 70 year old grandpa with glasses, okay, that was my base prompt. And then I start adding these information about the aesthetics, and I found this website, it's called Aesthetics Wiki, and you can, like, you have a gold mine of information about different sub genres and styles, like the grunge style, the emo style, the cyber goss style, the whatever, you know, you have all these styles. And so if you combine tools like Chargegpt, This Wiki, and DALL E, you can really create prompts that are super powerful, and then you can style your grandpa in in like an infinity of different styles, and you have the same person, like the same character in different outfits that represent all these styles. So this is just like something, like, impossible to do 5 years ago and it's just so fun, so creative, and I don't know it just feels like an open playground for me that I just find I'm passionate about this, and I'm passionate about transferring this knowledge to other people as well because I can see like how useful it could get. Now it's true that it's still a little bit sometimes blurry how, like, what is the real value in doing things like that. I believe, like, today it's not so much about the value, but it's more about getting used to these tools, getting used to interacting with these tools. It seems like AI is where every company in the world is investing, and therefore, this is not gonna fade away.

Ronny Hermosa [00:27:48]:

This is not gonna just blow away, like, I don't know, web 3 has blown away, like, it's it's it's it's there, it's gonna be here to stay, and I believe the sooner you learn how to interact with these mothers and how to get the most out of them, the better, because it is really a strength, a superpower that you can have develop that will help you in your career. That's my that's my belief right now, so I decided to go deep into this, decided to start using it and discover interesting ways of using it. So that's that's a research, like that's a constant research. I'm not pretending to be an expert in AI, tons of people are better than I am, but I'm trying to find angles for content creators to integrate this into their workflow. Sometimes I just use it to have fun with it, but I do believe it's something that everybody should learn.

Bryan McAnulty [00:28:52]:

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I think that the point you mentioned as using it almost like a prototyping tool to to be able to visualize things that you're imagining right away is so powerful. And even if you're not planning to to ever use that that image as a final thing, If if somebody listening or or watching this right now has done kind of creative production, whether it's, like, drawing, designing something, you know that you're working on something. And often, you have to get it to a certain point just to see where you can take it next. And being able to use generative AI to create these images lets you kind of get to those points immediately. You can have an idea and say, well, what would this look like? And instead of just trying to picture it in your mind, you can really make that image, and then you get to see it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:43]:

And you say, well, what if I change it? Like you mentioned, you change the grandpa and all the different styles. And it it's really changed the process of creation that enables a creator to go from instead of, like, okay. I have an idea. How do I now learn how to implement these ideas? How do I figure out the tools? Eventually, get to create something. Now it's just imagine, create. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think it is super important for people to realize that AI is kinda here to stay Yeah. And begin to become familiar with these tools because there is so much potential in it for creators, and it's it's only going to improve.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:22]:

Yeah. And I think while in some ways it is scary, maybe how fast it's changing and evolving and and to know what's going to happen with it and and how it's going to impact us, I think that for the individual creator, it's really an incredible thing, and it's really going to empower us to be able to create more than we ever have. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Great. Definitely an exciting one of things.

Ronny Hermosa [00:30:47]:

I think definitely here to stay. There's no doubt about this. To come back to, like, how I would use these images as well, like, it's it's not just the creating of images, but how the technology is moving into a space where everything is in more integrated right now. Like yesterday, I went to the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona, which is a huge, like, fair for everything technology, and I got the the opportunity to be, to visit the Samsung booth on the on the fair, and they had like their flagship smartphone and, I got this guy at the booth giving me a demo of the new Samsung, I think it was a Galaxy S 24. So it's it was marketed as the the AI phone, Heights? Like AI is here, it's in your phone, it's in your Galaxy S 24. And so he showed me a bunch of the AI features, and pretty much there was nothing new in terms of the features and what they can do. So you can you have a photo, you can tap on the subject of your photo and you isolate it, and then you can move it around, you can stretch it, You can circle around, like, an element of your photo and run a Google search based on that circle. It's called circle search.

Ronny Hermosa [00:32:12]:

You can do a bunch of things like that, so these were features you could already use in other tools like Canva or things you could do with chat gpt or Google Lens or stuff like that, but now the novelty is that everything is integrated into your camera app directly in your phone where you use it. So kind of show showed me where the phone things were going. I'm pretty sure Apple will launch, like, a new AI iPhone very soon or something in that range of ideas. So AI is gonna be everywhere, and the image generation, for example, like another feature he showed me was you take a picture, it's a little bit like, the horizon is not straight so you you straighten it, but then you have parts of your picture missing in your frame, so you can ask the AI to regenerate these missing parts of your photo. That's called, I think, out painting. So stuff like that, it's AI and it's AI image generation, but not just the traditional like I write a prompt in DALL E and I got an image, but that's also AI image generation. Yeah. Now we have AI video generation just like knocking at our door, like, with Soarer, and and this is the next frontier.

Ronny Hermosa [00:33:35]:

This is gonna come very fast. This is gonna be here within a few months. So who knows where it's gonna go, but, I do believe the core principle of being able to prompt, understand what these models really are so you come with realistic, realistic expectations. Because if you don't understand what they are, you might think, okay, they are smart, I can talk to them and they will give me whatever I'm asking them. But if you do realize they're just predicting the next logical thing and the way it works as a mother, then it kind of opens your mind to, it's kind of like traveling, like you understand how the world works, well the more you use AI you understand how the model works. But this ability to interact with these models is, in my opinion, again, like, super important to learn because that's where we are going. I think I

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:29]:

think you're uncovering a really important point here. And that is, like, number 1, the interface and the the way that these models can help us is not only going to be through, like, a chat in the future. Yeah. But it's the the tools that they will get access to to help you in other ways. And so we're seeing more and more of that. I think this is gonna be probably a big year for that. Mhmm. Like, Inside Heights platform, our own product, we have like, you can chat with the AI to ask questions about our software, but it can also go and generate charts for you to show you analytics.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:02]:

It can also go and actually edit your products for you. You can instead of finding the asking a question of where to go to click that button, you can just ask it to do it, and then it can do it for you. And so I think we're gonna see it connected in in all these different things that we use in similar ways. But the the fundamental kinda underlying skill is, like, even if AI is really good, even if it can go and do those things for you, the the skill that you have to learn in interacting with these models is similar to if you've ever hired a contractor or a virtual assistant or something in your business. Have to learn how to communicate to them the right way and describe the processes and things you need done. And that won't really go away because even if there's, some new GPT 5, 6, 7, whatever comes out and, it can do everything then you still want to understand how to communicate what you want it to do and what you're imagining. So, definitely, it's a it's an important skill to keep in mind. Alright.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:03]:

So, wanna ask you one more question. I know there's probably a lot more we could cover here with AI, but I'm curious about your YouTube channel. So you've grown that to over 430,000 subscribers. Anything you could share in terms of strategy and what you believe had impact in that growth or maybe some creative ways you've monetized it with, matching with your course creation business and things like that?

Ronny Hermosa [00:36:32]:

Yeah. That's a good question. So, again, like, realistic expectations. If you are about to start a YouTube channel, realize it will take time. It's it's just the way it is. There's no shortcut, in my opinion, to YouTube. It does take time. And, unfortunately, unfortunately, for starting creators, the 1st years are the the difficult years.

Ronny Hermosa [00:37:00]:

It's it's it's just like you're going to want to quit like a 1000 times because it's not giving you the return on investment during for for us, it was during the 1st 2 years. So if you look at the curve, like the growth curve in terms of subscribers, it's just really flat for 2 years and then it starts to take off. So my first piece of advice is understand that. Please do understand that it's not an overnight success, being

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:32]:

I wish more people knew that that it compounds the way that it does.

Ronny Hermosa [00:37:36]:

It does.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:37]:

And if you had if you could have more confidence in that, I think people would keep going.

Ronny Hermosa [00:37:41]:

Definitely. You need, like and when you listen to successful YouTubers give some advice, like, the most successful one being MrBeast, he always says like create a 100 videos and then they are going to to be pretty bad, but at least you'll have gained that experience of creating a 100 videos. It's completely right, like you need to just get in there, get your hands dirty, create videos, and learn by making mistakes during these early days. There's no way around that. You can watch all of the YouTube strategy channel that you want. I mean, it's probably not gonna hurt, but it's not gonna do the job for you. You need to kind of, like, show YouTube show the YouTube algorithm that you are a content creator that creates 1, 2, 3, x video per week, that you do it every single week, and that your videos are getting better and better every time. And you are answering the comments that you receive, you are trying new things, you are adapting to whatever the platform wants you to create, you are listening to your audience, so all of these things are important.

Ronny Hermosa [00:38:55]:

But if we look back at our story, so I would say not giving up during these times where it was it was very frustrating not getting views, but also I believe in the beginning, my focus was more on my Facebook group. When I started this whole thing, like this whole Canva education thing, I was creating videos for my Facebook Facebook group and I and I thought, oh, this is already the right format, why not also put it on YouTube? But I was talking to the audience as if I was talking to the the members of my Facebook group for a very long time, for a year, a year and a half. I know it's not recommended to do so, you should speak natively to the platform you are creating for, but that's just my personal story. And so I was not really paying attention to YouTube for these these years, but I was just uploading my Facebook content to YouTube, to the point where I started to see some things moving on YouTube, and then I saw a little bit of growth, and so I decided okay, let's switch things up. I'm going to create for YouTube first and then publish to the Facebook group because I didn't have time to publish, like to create content natively for both platforms. So I did that. We played the YouTube game with, like, you know, more catchier hooks and better thumbnails, calls to action appropriate to YouTube. This helped some more.

Ronny Hermosa [00:40:30]:

Then we got a little bit lucky. We got the pandemic going on and everybody like spending more time online, so we saw a peak in our viewership at this time, and we just when we did see the peak we decided to double down, and that was a good move. So if you are kind of like paying attention to the analytics and you you see something going on, same went on with with Chargegpt in the peak in the AI kind of content, so we saw, we observed other creators knowing some good success with generative AI content, so we decided to jump on that bandwagon. So you need to be with an ear to the ground and really listening and paying attention to what's going on, and when you see an opportunity, just go for it. I would say this is really crucial if you want to if you don't want to miss the train, like, we missed a couple of trains, we didn't want to miss the AI train. So, yeah, pay attention to the analytics and and be super consistent. That that is cliche, but that is a reality on YouTube. Try different things, see what works, do more of what works, do less of what doesn't work, but don't give up.

Ronny Hermosa [00:41:46]:

Yeah. So that's pretty much, in terms of monetizing, so one funny story is that we waited way too long to monetize the channel with the YouTube partner program, so the the ads that you can turn on to to be shown on your on your content. You need to have, I think it's 1,000 subscribers and ten 10000 hours of watch time to be able to turn on this monetization option on YouTube. So 1,000 subscribers, we waited until we got 30,000 subscribers. And so we turned it on, and then I think it was, like, 25th of the month, we turned it on, and then YouTube paid us like something like $200, $300 and we thought, oh, you see, it's not that much, but then we realized the next month it was only for the 5 days the remaining 5 days of the month, so the next month we got like almost $1,000 of ad revenue, and we thought why did we wait so long to start monetizing the content? So that was that was a fail, but hey we learned. So, yeah, I would say look for different strategies to monetize. Definitely do not rely on the YouTube ad revenue as your main source of income for your business, because this could be very inconsistent, and this could very fluctuate from month to month, though we got pretty lucky, like, with the niche we're tapping into, it's quite of a high CPM cost per mil, so that's what advertisers are willing to pay to show their ads in your content. But this will also very much, it will be different from content creator to content creator.

Ronny Hermosa [00:43:32]:

Depending on what you talk about, who's watching, what countries are the people watching your content from, this will all influence the the amount of ad revenue you could get from YouTube. So

Bryan McAnulty [00:43:46]:

Yeah. I think that's great advice, and I think that the best way to look at it as a creator is YouTube is a great way to build an audience for other products or things in your business that you may create. But it's what's so cool about it is you can get paid to build that audience, which will then buy things from you. So, that that's a great way that it works in that sense.

Ronny Hermosa [00:44:09]:

Yes.

Bryan McAnulty [00:44:09]:

I've got one more question for you today. Yeah. And that is that on the show, I like to ask a question or have guests ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether it's something you're curious about, something you wanna get them thinking about, what would that be?

Ronny Hermosa [00:44:24]:

Yeah. So my question would be, what is the one thing you could read 10, 15 books about and not get bored? If you can answer that question, it means you probably are passionate about something. Right? And and then the next question would be, okay, so that one thing that you could read 10, 15 books about, how could you see yourself making a living off of that? If you see the slightest opportunity, if you see, if you start having ideas of how you could potentially monetize this, this means, it probably means, there is a content opportunity there. I strongly believe that today with the tools we have in mind, in our hands, being YouTube, social media, any social media, generative AI, and tools like ChatGPT, for example, like, you can definitely start a business around content, you know, and a lot of people don't know that. Like, a lot of people think, like, it's too late, YouTube is oversaturated, I don't know what to talk about, I'm not a camera person, like, all of these are excuses. Anyone can do it, in my opinion. If you don't want to show your face, figure out a way to do it without showing your face. I would not recommend it, but it's doable.

Ronny Hermosa [00:45:51]:

There are a 1,000, like, there's a 1000000 different ways to make a living from a content business. It just takes time, and there is no secret, like, there's no also, there is a another thing, like, I want to debunk right away is the passive income kind of, like, myth. There's no such thing as a completely passive income. Like, if you want an income, you're gonna have to work for it. You can create digital products that will sell, but it's not like you create it once and then you become rich and then you never have to work ever again. It's not like that. You'll have to if it's a course, you'll have to update your course, you will have to promote your course, you will have to create another course. So there is a bunch of different things, So don't expect to to to be become rich overnight, and don't believe the snake oil a lot of digital gurus are trying to sell you or just like influence you into believing it's super easy, you just need chat GPT and and a good YouTube video to to inspire you.

Ronny Hermosa [00:47:01]:

It's it's not like that, like, it's it's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be worth it. I'm gonna stay with that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:09]:

Yeah. That sounds great. And, yeah, I agree. We like to say leveraged income instead of passive income because

Ronny Hermosa [00:47:14]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:14]:

You can create a leveraged return on your time, but you still have to do something there. And as you said, updating things over time, and that's the beauty of it. You should want to do that because you should build the business around something that you're passionate about, something that you would be doing even if you had all the money in the world that you would wake up tomorrow and do that same thing. And, yeah, I definitely, wanna echo that. Yeah. It's not too late. You just, get started with it and stick to it, and, you'll be successful as well. Alright.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:44]:

Well, Ronny, thanks so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Ronny Hermosa [00:47:49]:

Yeah. So our YouTube channel, it's called Design with Canva or you can use the at TeamRondi. Randi, like, r o n d I for Ronnie and Diana, my wife. So that's our YouTube channel. We are launching a DAL e course on Udemy. So by the time you're watching this, it should be live. It's gonna be called the DAL e master course, learn DAL e with Roni and Tianyu, who is my co instructor for this course. Great guy, great, knowledge about DAL e.

Ronny Hermosa [00:48:22]:

So, yeah, watch out for this course.

Bryan McAnulty [00:48:25]:

Alright. Thanks, Ronnie.

Ronny Hermosa [00:48:27]:

Thank you, Brian, for having me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:48:30]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at thecreatorsadventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.