120k Subscribers & Working In The Music Industry with Ricky Tinez

In this chat I talk to Ricky Tinez about how he grew his YouTube music channel of about 120,000 subscribers, how he ended up working in the music industry at Novation and what its like, as well as tips for other creators who would like to do what he does.

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Important Points:

Ricky talks about one of the keys to getting more subscribers on YouTube, which is that you create content that you would like to watch for yourself, that you are passionate about and to learn from your own experience watching videos made by others, to avoid things that turn you off personally. He also shares why adjusting your content too much to fit YouTube’s algorithm can easily backfire.

Andrew talks about his experience when he was starting his YouTube channel, writing down his brand avatar, his ideal customer, just to realize that this person was almost exactly like himself, 8 years ago. This put him on a path to create content that he himself would wanna learn about and would want to watch instead of following other trends.

Ricky shares insights from working with Novation, how to land a job at a music gear or music software company, and why working in the tech support department at the beginning can lead to amazing opportunities later on.

Podcast Outline:

[01:41] Ricky’s journey of growing his YouTube channel – Ricky

[03:53] How Ricky got Novation’s attention – Ricky

[04:25] From 0 to 120k subscribers in 3 years – Ricky

[06:28] The effect the pandemic had on Andrew’s YouTube channel – Andrew

[09:21] How to come up with new video content – Ricky & Andrew

[12:21] How much time goes into making 1 video? – Andrew

[13:13] Tips on how to get more subscribers on YouTube – Ricky

[15:32] Why adjusting your content to YouTube’s algorithm might backfire – Ricky

[17:55] How Andrew’s YouTube channel came about – Andrew

[19:16] Your past self is your ideal customer – Andrew

[19:50] How being in a certain niche can help your videos to get discovered – Ricky

[22:23] “You don’t have to pigeonhole yourself to any one idea” – Ricky

[25:12] Why authenticity is attractive for your viewers – Ricky & Andrew

[26:55] Ricky’s relationship with Novation – Ricky

[34:32] How to find jobs in music gear/software companies – Ricky

[41:50] Does location still matter when trying to make it in the music industry? – Ricky & Andrew

[43:39] Online events vs real-world events – Ricky & Andrew

[56:05] Ricky’s advice for upcoming artists & YouTubers – Ricky

[57:52] Why getting started right ahead and not being afraid of making mistakes is important – Ricky

[58:54] Why persistent is one key to success – Ricky & Andrew

[01:02:40] “If you’re doing a channel, you gotta do something you can actually be happy doing, cuz you’re not gonna be able to do the amount of work if you’re not happy” – Andrew

[01:03:21] The loneliness of being a content creator – Ricky & Andrew

01:05:49] How to save yourself time in the editing process when filming a video – Andrew & Ricky

[01:11:51] What you should not waste time on when creating your YouTube videos – Ricky

[01:14:44] Why you should invest time in creating great and authentic videos – Ricky

[01:18:14] Filming your performances outside – Ricky

[01:21:28] Making music for Spotify – Ricky

Wise Words:

[02:50] “When you’re first starting out, you’re really shy, I feel like most people are, I find that it’s rare that someone’s like, I’m a YouTuber from day one“ – Ricky

[15:07] “what it ultimately boiled down to is making content that I wanted to watch because I would tune into different YouTubers and a lot of times I was like, Dude, I can’t, I can’t make it through this video as badly as I wanna learn about this thing. I just can’t get through this“ – Ricky

[19:16] “ I heard all these things about thinking of like your brand avatar, like who’s your ideal customer? And I’m writing out all these things and then I realize like, this is just me, like eight years ago.“ – Andrew

[35:12] “I do know at Novation we do promote and hire from within. So a lot of times, like our marketing manager as well as our like sales liaison, our lead customer service agent, they all came from tech support, which is nuts. , you know, they all just were like doing boring work at the beginning, but eventually moved on up into like full blown really cool positions.“ – Ricky

[56:37] “Be stubborn in not giving up, but don’t necessarily be like needy of it, like understand that it is something that you want and that you want to achieve and be willing to work heavily at it, but be okay if it doesn’t happen. Because a lot of times it happens when you kind of least expect it.“ – Ricky

[01:02:40] “If you’re doing a channel, you gotta do something you can actually be happy doing, cuz you’re not gonna be able to do the amount of work if you’re not happy” – Andrew

Resources Mentioned:

• Ricky’s YouTube – link
• Youtube Growth Machine – link

Learn More:

If you enjoyed this interview you might also like this one I did with Trey Xavier on how he started as a writer at the blog Gear Gods, grew their YouTube channel to 237k subscribers and then purchased the brand from his employer.