Secret Academy Episode - Bart KwanBart Kwan was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Southern California with his parents at 8 months old. School was always a challenge for him; he was unable to truly focus and thus was kicked out of first grade, then third grade, and this continued all the way through high school. After finally graduating high school, Bart realized that he needed to find a way to learn self discipline in order get his life straight. He was an only child and wanted to make his parents proud, so he enlisted in the Marines. After serving his time in the military, he was able to pursue a college education and got straight A's during his last couple of years there. While he was in college, he started making funny videos on YouTube as a way to make his friends laugh. What he didn't know was that these series of YouTube videos would turn him into an entrepreneur running several different revenue streams. Today, Bart owns and operates a gym called Barbell Brigade, sells apparel under that same brand, and continues to run his YouTube channel JK Films.
- Started a comedy YouTube channel in 2007 as a way to share random funny videos with friends, and how he turned that into 1.5+ million subscribers and a legitimate business
- First year of ad revenue was about $60k with about 100,000 subscribers
- Collaborating with other YouTube channels to gain new followers
- The YouTube recipe for success is finding a unique voice that is still relatable
- YouTube pays per views versus number of subscribers
- How he used his YouTube channel to start his own powerlifting gym
- How his clothing/apparel business got started
- Changing from one manufacturing/distributing company to several different companies
- Driving traffic from your YouTube site to your website
- The difference between using Instagram and YouTube to drive merchandise sales
- Tips for those wanting to start their own YouTube channel or their own clothing line
