Building a Team and Navigating Content Creation

I've been carrying myself down to build up my team over the past 18 months, creating a whole brand that I've kind of allowed to happen. I think this was a mistake because it's led to me being seen as someone who drops hardware and doesn't understand how stuff works. However, I've learned that you can build people up and be like "I defer to Anthony because he's the expert" without saying that I'm also an idiot. This approach has been key in building relationships between my team members and with the audience.

My team consists of experts in various fields, including modeling, programming, and technical support. Whenever we have topics on those areas, I'll pull them onto camera to explain what they mean. By doing so, I'm not pretending to be an expert myself, but rather acknowledging that I know the words and letting my team members do the heavy lifting. Building people up like this is a big part of building that relationship between them and the audience.

The key to our success is understanding that it's all about the interaction on YouTube. We need to push things along and create an engaging experience for our viewers. This involves having a cohesive brand and team, which I've been working towards over the past 18 months. By doing so, we've created a loyal following who appreciate our content and are willing to put up with the occasional technical issue.

One of the strategies that has worked well for us is co-hosting videos. While it's fine to have me hosting some videos, I've noticed that on certain days, the content quality can suffer if we're short-staffed or don't have enough testing done in advance. This is because I often find myself rushing to get a video done quickly, which can lead to subpar content.

To mitigate this issue, we need to rely on my team to help me prepare for those days when things don't go according to plan. Whether it's finding someone with technical expertise or pulling together last-minute ideas, having a strong team behind me is essential in creating high-quality content.

Even at our scale, there are still times when I have to pull videos out of thin air. One recent example was an unboxing video that I created using my old pocket PC from the attic. While it's not our usual level of quality, I believe that audiences appreciate these types of videos because they feel like a trip back in time.

In terms of future plans, we're always looking for ways to improve and expand our content. One idea is to have more of our team members host videos, which would not only help us with the workload but also bring new perspectives and ideas to the table.

The outro segment of our show features a special guest appearance by Linus from Gamers Nexus. We chatted about his experiences at LTX 2019, where we met up with other creators and had a great time. We're already looking forward to next year's event and hope that you'll join us again. Before we go, I'd like to thank all our viewers for their support and enthusiasm. Until next time, stay tech-savvy!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso have you guys actually got us some good content multi-axis here yes I like that we don't have an intro to this video oh right this is Linus we are at LTX it's the Linus tech Expo and thank you for bringing us out here we can get to that question though so your question was yeah well I was you guys at the making videos the whole time yes everyone else is like taking the weekend off here are you guys actually getting good videos on yes yeah really good I worked with worked with Roman you know there Bauer did like two with him for three with him for our channel and then he did two with us for his we did one with Kyle J Wendell right a postbox it's a really good content yeah oh I've got some trying to play to everyone's strengths a little bit yeah like Jay got water cooling Kyle got help me pimp my PC on a budget before that this video is brought to you by thermal Grizzlies conduct a not liquid metal conductor nada is what we've used in all of our liquid metal and deal it thermal tests capable of dropping TP thermals significantly and replacing the stock thermal interface lower CPU thermals don't just allow better overclocks but also lower noise levels because the transfer efficiency is increased the mix of gallium and indium makes for a thermal conductivity of 73 watts per meter Kelvin outclassing traditional pastes significantly learn more at the link in the description below stuff like that got it love it so I think I think and you 5 out of this but the real value of LTX i think is creators interacting with each other and making content as opposed to us going to booths and making content and obviously there's a fan meet side yeah but from a pure content perspective it's probably the best opportunity to all work together without a strict complex schedule what was really cool was last year it was just a few of us right it was you me Jay Lewis Rothman and Bernick Lee showed up and wandered around for a little bit yeah and what was cool was everyone was just kind of hanging out because there's no product launch yeah right yes so there's no like cutthroat race to your hotel room to beat everyone else so what I know but it's ever like that no so like I actually I thought Romans video the one that I participated in was one of the most creative ideas a keyboard I had ever seen yeah did she tell you my prediction what was your protector I was the first one I gave a prediction of where everyone else would fall yeah eisah blindness is going to win oh really it did end up winning did I wait yeah yes I made him do it on his own on K he technically beat you but he also watched everyone and observed the strategies but yeah that wasn't really creative video yeah I thought was really cool guys I'm sure Steve will link it or something yeah go check out Romans video there Bauer yeah freaking awesome so yeah I know that was absolutely like ok back when we started - video group - tech gifts old intro with like the orange box yeah so the last word intentionally is there for a lot longer than any of the other ones ok speakers mice whatever and it ends with community and then the logo comes up and our vision going way back was okay we're gonna have like the YouTube channel yeah sure but we're also gonna like have this forum and then over the years I've networked with tons of other creators and what we realized is that our biggest value add to the entire space now is just bringing people together and so that's what LTX was and every year LTX has been the exact same strategy let's do the best we can and as long as we can break even then we'll just keep doing it right yeah and so this year we went a lot heavier down on the upfront investment we ended up bringing out over two dozen creators so we wanted there to be like tons of collab opportunities and we did that like three times larger space yeah and multiple flights for songs like we I brought Keegan out so the budget for creators was about 70 to 80 grand because some of those Romans come in from Germany Germany and stuff right like that's expensive but pretty much we tried to accommodate pretty much everyone who wanted to be here and so far the feedback has been that it's awesome so we're actually really excited like we're not confirming anything officially right now but if LTX 2020 doesn't happen I will eat my stealth it fulfillment awesome so honey how do you actually feel cuz I would imagine if I put myself in your sandals I would imagine that uh uh that being in the event you're not really thinking too much about the event have you had time to actually analyze how you feel about how it's going honestly you do do do the biggest feeling that I have is just gratitude and like that's such a stupid like interviewee PR thing to say like a Nikolay dancer I know I'm so sorry but like you know every viewer who walks up and is like thank you for throwing this event I'm like no thank you for throwing this event because you paid for it right I didn't pay for it like ultimately right like my whole thing is as long as I break even I'm good so as long as people show up and pay $500 for a VIP ticket to have dinner with me in the crew and show up and pay at 35 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever it was for an office tour and pay $35 a day for or 50 bucks for being suitable whatever it is all of that contribution makes this a thing yeah we're sitting here and like I've got guys on my team that are working really hard on a Colton Stephanie Vaughn especially staff busted their butts yeah I make this happen but I did hardly anything all I did was front the money ah I didn't even actually all right I don't even give it up ultimately like if we lose money I give it up but if we don't I'm just fronting it someone else does all the work the community pays for it and then the creators legitimize it because if it's just me I can't get 3000 people through the door yeah that's something I was talking with Kyle and Jay about as well is we get the lines to fart this never happens at CES recopy zags yeah first of all those are a little more their professional industry focused so a lot of the people there who recognize us well you might say hi for a minute but I think there's some like oh these guys are working right now yeah whereas here it's it's literally 4:00 it's a fan of n-no that's the heart of it so it's a lot different but yeah it's it's physically impossible for you to shake you know three four thousand people hands yeah I think in the two-day period you're here so like I can't carry this thing okay it's it's it's gotten it's not L so much anymore it's more T DX yeah and and that's so that's the thing that I'm most excited about is that there's all these people that make it work and I'm kind of they're sort of calling the shots I guess in a certain way or fronting the funding for it but at the end of the day it's about all that other stuff and I'm just I mean the fact that you show up and have a huge swarm of people around you and a lineup and people who are like you know jumping into your video like that those are all people that are having a great time that I don't personally have to entertain or that we don't have to create right and to be clear not because you don't want to but because you physically can because I can no one here can obviously meet everybody and this year we reached a critical mass I feel like so many people are looking I had the greatest time and it's Sunday it's already the second day it's the afternoon and I haven't even seen them yet and I'm like wow so does the Dreamhack collaboration you think continue honestly the Dreamhack collaboration continues shut up sorry fine the Dreamhack Club I think the Dreamhack collaboration continues as long as it makes sense for both we were so thrilled to be working with them this year and we were awesome like I can't say enough good things about the Dreamhack team that was another thing where again we're grateful we're great like they're grateful to us because they sold out their BYOC faster than any other Dreamhack really okay yeah so we thought that was pretty cool yeah but we're grateful to them because as soon as we announced guy's dream hacks involved it added legitimacy to what we were doing so you know we with the previous years we tried hard but like we know it was kind of yeah and well I mean first year first year you can't expect to be a smash hit right you got to learn well our our internal internal motto for even the second year actually was hash tag better than Tana cod yeah I remember that that was all that was a lie wasn't just in that end up on the forums today all right yeah either way you know this year my whole thing was I don't want it to look like a high school science fair because that's what it looked like to me last year I was like no we're just just spend it just just I don't I just do it just do it all right and so I forget what my point was but bigger better more focused yeah bigger better oh right right that critical mass so we've kind of reached that critical mass where people are just coming out and just having fun and actually I have nothing to do with it that's you're removing yourself a little too much there but I do understand your point though do you how do you see the comparison to PACs for example because I've spoken with multiple the people here the youtubers and everyone's drawing the comparison to pax where it feels like it's a technology-focused Penny Arcade Expo Pacific Northwest Penny Arcade Expo started as a Penny Arcade event yes but is no longer really a Penny Arcade of a not at all so I mean is that kind of where you see this going what do you have a do you have a long-term vision I don't this year was kind of I mean honestly so this we actually have not talked about it externally this year is kind of a make-or-break for us because we dumped a ton of money into it and the there were only two ways that it was gonna go we were either it was either gonna be a smash hit and it was gonna go really smoothly and people were gonna have a great time and we could count on them to come back next year hmm or we were not gonna do it again do you do you have an answer yet to which one it was oh it's it's 2020 LTX is it's not official yeah like it's happening okay it's it's it's happening you know we want to bring and like honestly I like I said we spent 70 80 grand bringing our years out I will double that I will bring out everyone who I can possibly get to agree to be here to make this as much about bringing the community together as I posse and through like your Hall attendants Fire Marshal taja Tom creators everyone's gonna show up is it to be like well I guess we'll just make videos with each other that would be really fun for me actually so I forget what the question was again but well you answered it I mean Steve have you reached the point where you know it's make or break and you said it's made this wasn't yeah this was it oh yeah the comparisons to packs so you know what one of the funniest people who compared it to packs was actually Luke he was like yeah this feels like the second year I went to pax and I was like okay I'm not sure if that's the intent because I don't know if we want to be a 40 50 60 70 thousand people attendee event with like gigantic booths there cost you know a quarter million dollars on their own taking up all the all the show floor space like I don't know what it is but I definitely really liked the energy that we had here this year so I figure that but bigger should probably be okay and then we'll go from there right right and on the we're talking you've mentioned a lot about how you're stepping back from this one yeah we had a conversation on the show floor about writers making more appearances and videos yeah so alright when are you doing that yeah I mentioned to you who's interviewing who now I'm gonna fat yeah I mean I mentioned that the there's a few problems one of them is it's this is a my reminder that we have an interview together oh no so I mentioned that um you don't really want your face on everything always because yeah it is kind of exhausting you there's always that publication anxiety with certain types of reviews yeah really like if this is wrong I'm the idiot right in the face of it yeah yeah I'm the brand which that can be kind of tiring to juggle there's also just like having to be the one who's always in the studio when it's time to film like yeah you have a pretty busy busy schedule as my understand yes all hours it's tough yeah and having not having to be the one who has to be in that chair filming it every time you know in some ways gives you more time to actually go back to the basics and like producing content yeah weird right yeah it's just nice to have yeah it's it's it's amazing how much the original focus was always spend as much time learning about stuff as possible to improve the content depth but as time goes on and we hit that one day one video per day publication cadence and we've been carrying it it's not possible to do that anymore no so you have to either rely on someone else to be the expert and something or you rely on someone else to host so you can be the expert and you script them but and that's never gonna work or they script themselves in the case of your writers and that's what we that's the formula that we find found works best I mean honestly the biggest reason for it is because you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna mince words I enjoy the I'm not gonna call it fame because it's not quite that you know I can go to the grocery store and buy stuff and there I am but I but I definitely enjoy the notoriety I enjoy being able to when I'm in my you know my safe space you know LTX right I enjoy being able to go up on a stage losing people like it's cool I love it like I like being internet famous but there's lmg is again it's more about the MGE now than it is about the L there's litora two dozen people who work there who are not L right and so if I get hit by a bus or let's say I suffered some kind of critical illness or something if something prevented me from being that frontman anymore do I want that band to break up right right and so my my is at a point where it carries itself my mission statement since day zero has been inspired by Pinocchio actually okay so he was a wooden puppet and he just has one dream and that that's all I was I was just an absolution you want to be a real boy oh okay I want to be a real come here and to me a real company cannot fold the second that is CEO gets hit by a bus yeah cue man cause right that's right it's what that is exactly and so I think we are at the point now where I've had these conversations internally if lmg if I were to die and even Yvonne were to also go down on the same plane I think they could people are going I think they could keep it going it would be a bit of a struggle but we've built systems we've built talent we've built a workflow we've built infrastructure we have a building we have all these assets and I would I would want them to keep it going I think we could alex has been making appearances Anthony is like out of nowhere crowd favorite star yeah everybody loves Anthony yeah I'm pretty sure he's more popular than me and he's on his way yeah he's he was popular at the GPU booth I saw him like signing doing autographs there in selfies yeah he's a busy guy I love that yeah I love it because it's one of those things that again like my ego probably people might feel like it couldn't get any bigger but one of the things that makes my ego grow faster than anything else is people being famous by proxy yeah like this video that to me is so cool like the fact that people can join like my my band of merry men and all of a sudden be like internet superstars that are like signing autographs at an event yeah like I'm so cool you said two years the magic number you thank for that for getting people on the on the screen from the from the moment that you hire someone to the moment that they host a video entirely on their own with no intervention from you I think two years is a minimum to get people because we were talking about this too but the first reaction to any new person is I hate that yeah person everyone on my staff has gone through it even and did you Lou all them Anthony was one of the more recent Luke was early obviously yeah so Anthony being more recent did you talk with him or with Alex before those videos and say this is the type of comment you're gonna get the first time absolutely so what is what is that training so you gotta remember to that so two years is too slow boil the audience right so that they don't notice that someone went from appearing in an occasional b-roll shot making a silly vase to all of a sudden hosting the entire damn video yeah oh when did that happen no he's just always been there right yeah so there's that part but then there's also this little oil for the talent because it's not easy putting yourself out there like the number of times that people have told me to you know rip those earrings out of your ears you the other F word yeah like your voice is annoying whatever you know like at the amount of personal criticism that I've taken over the years is something that you have to kind of learn to shrug off it's a skill yeah absolutely I think I didn't really I wasn't able to fully ignore a lot of that type of comment probably until 250 300,000 subscribers it takes time six years and so if you start people out writing and having a credit and having an account on the forum where they interact with the community in a really safe place and then from there you go to them being in a b-roll shot occasionally and you know people watch they'll gonna make comments so but but no matter the house but not like a finger does a perfect example of that yeah so people will make those little offhand remarks and it gets people used to it and then as it happens you can have these conversations with people you know like hey look let's talk about some of those really negative comments let's talk about what small petty people they are leaving that comment about their about that there and let's talk about what I thought about what a job you did mm-hmm and let's talk about you know what the rest of the team thought about how good of a job you did and so let's take that negativity let's filter it down into what was actually valid and constructive and then let's use that to keep improving and then over time that gives them more confidence as they take on a bigger role right one of the important steps I left out is the sidekick step so you've got just having a credit to appearing in the b-roll to where no appearance when show appearance is really important because I need to talk naturally to the audience live without anything it takes time yeah and then also the the sidekick in like a project so being like the one to bounce ideas off of and building people up is really important so one of the things that I've actually done a bad job of in the last 18 months is carrying myself down to build up the team so that whole brand that I've kind of if not built absolutely allowed of me as the kind of the idiot who drops hardware and doesn't actually understand how stuff works like all that stuff that I've I've allowed to happen I think was a mistake because I think that you can build people up and be like well I defer to Anthony because he's the expert without saying that I'm also an idiot yes definitely that's that's what we do I have two guys on my team man does three modeling Patrick does some programming to work when we have topics on in those areas I'll just pull them on camera because it's like I'm not an expert here I know the words but andrew is able to actually explain what they mean and so building people up like that is a big part of building that relationship between them in the audience and that's the big thing is it's all about the relationship YouTube it's right there you - right like it's about this interaction yeah and so you have to you have to kind of push it along yeah so let's let's close out what are you gonna do it dude are you stepping back no not anytime soon but we but you're asking me about strategies we have a key man clause actually don't but we basically do in that if I die everybody loses their job sorry Keegan that's how it works right now so there is no one else has any of the passwords right no one knows any of the processes so that's it but I would like to get we've had Andrew hosting some I'd like to get some of our guys hosting more videos were co-hosting them right co-hosting is completely fine with me because the problem is it's just some days I go in and the content quality can suffer if I'm making a video because I have to yeah like I'm making a video because we didn't get testing done we need a video tomorrow yeah and testings not done so let's find some idea to pull out of our butt yeah and yes film it and it'll be done in an hour and the content quality is okay but yeah it's not where I want it to be right so if like when I was with you and we did the tour we saw Jacob that phone review he was working on and he couldn't quite pull it together because he ran into a technical issue so then you go okay Alex are you ready great or okay Riley are you ready and eventually you find someone who's got it ready to go yeah so there's there's going to be a quality content piece there it's just you're relying on having a team so that when you run into those technical issues someone has solved it in the lead up to this just to say you know even at our scale I still pull videos out of my butt occasionally we're gonna leave it one of the ones that I did a couple weeks ago was I found my old my old pocket PC in my attic and I did an unboxing I was just like yeah like this is like obviously not up to our I think that's good though like I iced I definitely believe that because I think that no matter what with technology you're always going to be roadblocked and it's not unlikely that everything to read blocked on once yeah but I think the audience probably likes those videos if they're occasional because it feels like back to roots yeah in some ways so yeah I don't know no current plans do you want a host oh sure sure okay wait what for the outro alright so thanks thanks for watching gamers Nexus guys this has been linus from gamers next no no I like that shirt thank you I have one of those yeah okay I got you on yeah yeah alright so I don't know if I owe you anything is well or you don't know what I brought me here you steal whatever you want from the merch if you just go up to the front Novus Gideon I stole I stole a hoodie earlier so I could disguise myself okay good if the fittingly named stealth hoodie yeah people helps so did you hear turn around turn around so whether it's like like gamers next to see colors or he has another one with gamers Nexus on the back or the gamers Nexus logo on the front people were spotting that and just like hoarding Steve when he was trying to make videos so he was like ok I need one of these just like black it is so awesome definitely so yeah LTX 2019 we had a lot of fun visited with a lot of the other creators as well and Linus thank you for hosting I'm really really for next year let's do it I'm excited as long as we can get people to come we're gonna do it make sure you come over to LTX 2020 yeah thanks for watching we'll see you all next time bye guysso have you guys actually got us some good content multi-axis here yes I like that we don't have an intro to this video oh right this is Linus we are at LTX it's the Linus tech Expo and thank you for bringing us out here we can get to that question though so your question was yeah well I was you guys at the making videos the whole time yes everyone else is like taking the weekend off here are you guys actually getting good videos on yes yeah really good I worked with worked with Roman you know there Bauer did like two with him for three with him for our channel and then he did two with us for his we did one with Kyle J Wendell right a postbox it's a really good content yeah oh I've got some trying to play to everyone's strengths a little bit yeah like Jay got water cooling Kyle got help me pimp my PC on a budget before that this video is brought to you by thermal Grizzlies conduct a not liquid metal conductor nada is what we've used in all of our liquid metal and deal it thermal tests capable of dropping TP thermals significantly and replacing the stock thermal interface lower CPU thermals don't just allow better overclocks but also lower noise levels because the transfer efficiency is increased the mix of gallium and indium makes for a thermal conductivity of 73 watts per meter Kelvin outclassing traditional pastes significantly learn more at the link in the description below stuff like that got it love it so I think I think and you 5 out of this but the real value of LTX i think is creators interacting with each other and making content as opposed to us going to booths and making content and obviously there's a fan meet side yeah but from a pure content perspective it's probably the best opportunity to all work together without a strict complex schedule what was really cool was last year it was just a few of us right it was you me Jay Lewis Rothman and Bernick Lee showed up and wandered around for a little bit yeah and what was cool was everyone was just kind of hanging out because there's no product launch yeah right yes so there's no like cutthroat race to your hotel room to beat everyone else so what I know but it's ever like that no so like I actually I thought Romans video the one that I participated in was one of the most creative ideas a keyboard I had ever seen yeah did she tell you my prediction what was your protector I was the first one I gave a prediction of where everyone else would fall yeah eisah blindness is going to win oh really it did end up winning did I wait yeah yes I made him do it on his own on K he technically beat you but he also watched everyone and observed the strategies but yeah that wasn't really creative video yeah I thought was really cool guys I'm sure Steve will link it or something yeah go check out Romans video there Bauer yeah freaking awesome so yeah I know that was absolutely like ok back when we started - video group - tech gifts old intro with like the orange box yeah so the last word intentionally is there for a lot longer than any of the other ones ok speakers mice whatever and it ends with community and then the logo comes up and our vision going way back was okay we're gonna have like the YouTube channel yeah sure but we're also gonna like have this forum and then over the years I've networked with tons of other creators and what we realized is that our biggest value add to the entire space now is just bringing people together and so that's what LTX was and every year LTX has been the exact same strategy let's do the best we can and as long as we can break even then we'll just keep doing it right yeah and so this year we went a lot heavier down on the upfront investment we ended up bringing out over two dozen creators so we wanted there to be like tons of collab opportunities and we did that like three times larger space yeah and multiple flights for songs like we I brought Keegan out so the budget for creators was about 70 to 80 grand because some of those Romans come in from Germany Germany and stuff right like that's expensive but pretty much we tried to accommodate pretty much everyone who wanted to be here and so far the feedback has been that it's awesome so we're actually really excited like we're not confirming anything officially right now but if LTX 2020 doesn't happen I will eat my stealth it fulfillment awesome so honey how do you actually feel cuz I would imagine if I put myself in your sandals I would imagine that uh uh that being in the event you're not really thinking too much about the event have you had time to actually analyze how you feel about how it's going honestly you do do do the biggest feeling that I have is just gratitude and like that's such a stupid like interviewee PR thing to say like a Nikolay dancer I know I'm so sorry but like you know every viewer who walks up and is like thank you for throwing this event I'm like no thank you for throwing this event because you paid for it right I didn't pay for it like ultimately right like my whole thing is as long as I break even I'm good so as long as people show up and pay $500 for a VIP ticket to have dinner with me in the crew and show up and pay at 35 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever it was for an office tour and pay $35 a day for or 50 bucks for being suitable whatever it is all of that contribution makes this a thing yeah we're sitting here and like I've got guys on my team that are working really hard on a Colton Stephanie Vaughn especially staff busted their butts yeah I make this happen but I did hardly anything all I did was front the money ah I didn't even actually all right I don't even give it up ultimately like if we lose money I give it up but if we don't I'm just fronting it someone else does all the work the community pays for it and then the creators legitimize it because if it's just me I can't get 3000 people through the door yeah that's something I was talking with Kyle and Jay about as well is we get the lines to fart this never happens at CES recopy zags yeah first of all those are a little more their professional industry focused so a lot of the people there who recognize us well you might say hi for a minute but I think there's some like oh these guys are working right now yeah whereas here it's it's literally 4:00 it's a fan of n-no that's the heart of it so it's a lot different but yeah it's it's physically impossible for you to shake you know three four thousand people hands yeah I think in the two-day period you're here so like I can't carry this thing okay it's it's it's gotten it's not L so much anymore it's more T DX yeah and and that's so that's the thing that I'm most excited about is that there's all these people that make it work and I'm kind of they're sort of calling the shots I guess in a certain way or fronting the funding for it but at the end of the day it's about all that other stuff and I'm just I mean the fact that you show up and have a huge swarm of people around you and a lineup and people who are like you know jumping into your video like that those are all people that are having a great time that I don't personally have to entertain or that we don't have to create right and to be clear not because you don't want to but because you physically can because I can no one here can obviously meet everybody and this year we reached a critical mass I feel like so many people are looking I had the greatest time and it's Sunday it's already the second day it's the afternoon and I haven't even seen them yet and I'm like wow so does the Dreamhack collaboration you think continue honestly the Dreamhack collaboration continues shut up sorry fine the Dreamhack Club I think the Dreamhack collaboration continues as long as it makes sense for both we were so thrilled to be working with them this year and we were awesome like I can't say enough good things about the Dreamhack team that was another thing where again we're grateful we're great like they're grateful to us because they sold out their BYOC faster than any other Dreamhack really okay yeah so we thought that was pretty cool yeah but we're grateful to them because as soon as we announced guy's dream hacks involved it added legitimacy to what we were doing so you know we with the previous years we tried hard but like we know it was kind of yeah and well I mean first year first year you can't expect to be a smash hit right you got to learn well our our internal internal motto for even the second year actually was hash tag better than Tana cod yeah I remember that that was all that was a lie wasn't just in that end up on the forums today all right yeah either way you know this year my whole thing was I don't want it to look like a high school science fair because that's what it looked like to me last year I was like no we're just just spend it just just I don't I just do it just do it all right and so I forget what my point was but bigger better more focused yeah bigger better oh right right that critical mass so we've kind of reached that critical mass where people are just coming out and just having fun and actually I have nothing to do with it that's you're removing yourself a little too much there but I do understand your point though do you how do you see the comparison to PACs for example because I've spoken with multiple the people here the youtubers and everyone's drawing the comparison to pax where it feels like it's a technology-focused Penny Arcade Expo Pacific Northwest Penny Arcade Expo started as a Penny Arcade event yes but is no longer really a Penny Arcade of a not at all so I mean is that kind of where you see this going what do you have a do you have a long-term vision I don't this year was kind of I mean honestly so this we actually have not talked about it externally this year is kind of a make-or-break for us because we dumped a ton of money into it and the there were only two ways that it was gonna go we were either it was either gonna be a smash hit and it was gonna go really smoothly and people were gonna have a great time and we could count on them to come back next year hmm or we were not gonna do it again do you do you have an answer yet to which one it was oh it's it's 2020 LTX is it's not official yeah like it's happening okay it's it's it's happening you know we want to bring and like honestly I like I said we spent 70 80 grand bringing our years out I will double that I will bring out everyone who I can possibly get to agree to be here to make this as much about bringing the community together as I posse and through like your Hall attendants Fire Marshal taja Tom creators everyone's gonna show up is it to be like well I guess we'll just make videos with each other that would be really fun for me actually so I forget what the question was again but well you answered it I mean Steve have you reached the point where you know it's make or break and you said it's made this wasn't yeah this was it oh yeah the comparisons to packs so you know what one of the funniest people who compared it to packs was actually Luke he was like yeah this feels like the second year I went to pax and I was like okay I'm not sure if that's the intent because I don't know if we want to be a 40 50 60 70 thousand people attendee event with like gigantic booths there cost you know a quarter million dollars on their own taking up all the all the show floor space like I don't know what it is but I definitely really liked the energy that we had here this year so I figure that but bigger should probably be okay and then we'll go from there right right and on the we're talking you've mentioned a lot about how you're stepping back from this one yeah we had a conversation on the show floor about writers making more appearances and videos yeah so alright when are you doing that yeah I mentioned to you who's interviewing who now I'm gonna fat yeah I mean I mentioned that the there's a few problems one of them is it's this is a my reminder that we have an interview together oh no so I mentioned that um you don't really want your face on everything always because yeah it is kind of exhausting you there's always that publication anxiety with certain types of reviews yeah really like if this is wrong I'm the idiot right in the face of it yeah yeah I'm the brand which that can be kind of tiring to juggle there's also just like having to be the one who's always in the studio when it's time to film like yeah you have a pretty busy busy schedule as my understand yes all hours it's tough yeah and having not having to be the one who has to be in that chair filming it every time you know in some ways gives you more time to actually go back to the basics and like producing content yeah weird right yeah it's just nice to have yeah it's it's it's amazing how much the original focus was always spend as much time learning about stuff as possible to improve the content depth but as time goes on and we hit that one day one video per day publication cadence and we've been carrying it it's not possible to do that anymore no so you have to either rely on someone else to be the expert and something or you rely on someone else to host so you can be the expert and you script them but and that's never gonna work or they script themselves in the case of your writers and that's what we that's the formula that we find found works best I mean honestly the biggest reason for it is because you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna mince words I enjoy the I'm not gonna call it fame because it's not quite that you know I can go to the grocery store and buy stuff and there I am but I but I definitely enjoy the notoriety I enjoy being able to when I'm in my you know my safe space you know LTX right I enjoy being able to go up on a stage losing people like it's cool I love it like I like being internet famous but there's lmg is again it's more about the MGE now than it is about the L there's litora two dozen people who work there who are not L right and so if I get hit by a bus or let's say I suffered some kind of critical illness or something if something prevented me from being that frontman anymore do I want that band to break up right right and so my my is at a point where it carries itself my mission statement since day zero has been inspired by Pinocchio actually okay so he was a wooden puppet and he just has one dream and that that's all I was I was just an absolution you want to be a real boy oh okay I want to be a real come here and to me a real company cannot fold the second that is CEO gets hit by a bus yeah cue man cause right that's right it's what that is exactly and so I think we are at the point now where I've had these conversations internally if lmg if I were to die and even Yvonne were to also go down on the same plane I think they could people are going I think they could keep it going it would be a bit of a struggle but we've built systems we've built talent we've built a workflow we've built infrastructure we have a building we have all these assets and I would I would want them to keep it going I think we could alex has been making appearances Anthony is like out of nowhere crowd favorite star yeah everybody loves Anthony yeah I'm pretty sure he's more popular than me and he's on his way yeah he's he was popular at the GPU booth I saw him like signing doing autographs there in selfies yeah he's a busy guy I love that yeah I love it because it's one of those things that again like my ego probably people might feel like it couldn't get any bigger but one of the things that makes my ego grow faster than anything else is people being famous by proxy yeah like this video that to me is so cool like the fact that people can join like my my band of merry men and all of a sudden be like internet superstars that are like signing autographs at an event yeah like I'm so cool you said two years the magic number you thank for that for getting people on the on the screen from the from the moment that you hire someone to the moment that they host a video entirely on their own with no intervention from you I think two years is a minimum to get people because we were talking about this too but the first reaction to any new person is I hate that yeah person everyone on my staff has gone through it even and did you Lou all them Anthony was one of the more recent Luke was early obviously yeah so Anthony being more recent did you talk with him or with Alex before those videos and say this is the type of comment you're gonna get the first time absolutely so what is what is that training so you gotta remember to that so two years is too slow boil the audience right so that they don't notice that someone went from appearing in an occasional b-roll shot making a silly vase to all of a sudden hosting the entire damn video yeah oh when did that happen no he's just always been there right yeah so there's that part but then there's also this little oil for the talent because it's not easy putting yourself out there like the number of times that people have told me to you know rip those earrings out of your ears you the other F word yeah like your voice is annoying whatever you know like at the amount of personal criticism that I've taken over the years is something that you have to kind of learn to shrug off it's a skill yeah absolutely I think I didn't really I wasn't able to fully ignore a lot of that type of comment probably until 250 300,000 subscribers it takes time six years and so if you start people out writing and having a credit and having an account on the forum where they interact with the community in a really safe place and then from there you go to them being in a b-roll shot occasionally and you know people watch they'll gonna make comments so but but no matter the house but not like a finger does a perfect example of that yeah so people will make those little offhand remarks and it gets people used to it and then as it happens you can have these conversations with people you know like hey look let's talk about some of those really negative comments let's talk about what small petty people they are leaving that comment about their about that there and let's talk about what I thought about what a job you did mm-hmm and let's talk about you know what the rest of the team thought about how good of a job you did and so let's take that negativity let's filter it down into what was actually valid and constructive and then let's use that to keep improving and then over time that gives them more confidence as they take on a bigger role right one of the important steps I left out is the sidekick step so you've got just having a credit to appearing in the b-roll to where no appearance when show appearance is really important because I need to talk naturally to the audience live without anything it takes time yeah and then also the the sidekick in like a project so being like the one to bounce ideas off of and building people up is really important so one of the things that I've actually done a bad job of in the last 18 months is carrying myself down to build up the team so that whole brand that I've kind of if not built absolutely allowed of me as the kind of the idiot who drops hardware and doesn't actually understand how stuff works like all that stuff that I've I've allowed to happen I think was a mistake because I think that you can build people up and be like well I defer to Anthony because he's the expert without saying that I'm also an idiot yes definitely that's that's what we do I have two guys on my team man does three modeling Patrick does some programming to work when we have topics on in those areas I'll just pull them on camera because it's like I'm not an expert here I know the words but andrew is able to actually explain what they mean and so building people up like that is a big part of building that relationship between them in the audience and that's the big thing is it's all about the relationship YouTube it's right there you - right like it's about this interaction yeah and so you have to you have to kind of push it along yeah so let's let's close out what are you gonna do it dude are you stepping back no not anytime soon but we but you're asking me about strategies we have a key man clause actually don't but we basically do in that if I die everybody loses their job sorry Keegan that's how it works right now so there is no one else has any of the passwords right no one knows any of the processes so that's it but I would like to get we've had Andrew hosting some I'd like to get some of our guys hosting more videos were co-hosting them right co-hosting is completely fine with me because the problem is it's just some days I go in and the content quality can suffer if I'm making a video because I have to yeah like I'm making a video because we didn't get testing done we need a video tomorrow yeah and testings not done so let's find some idea to pull out of our butt yeah and yes film it and it'll be done in an hour and the content quality is okay but yeah it's not where I want it to be right so if like when I was with you and we did the tour we saw Jacob that phone review he was working on and he couldn't quite pull it together because he ran into a technical issue so then you go okay Alex are you ready great or okay Riley are you ready and eventually you find someone who's got it ready to go yeah so there's there's going to be a quality content piece there it's just you're relying on having a team so that when you run into those technical issues someone has solved it in the lead up to this just to say you know even at our scale I still pull videos out of my butt occasionally we're gonna leave it one of the ones that I did a couple weeks ago was I found my old my old pocket PC in my attic and I did an unboxing I was just like yeah like this is like obviously not up to our I think that's good though like I iced I definitely believe that because I think that no matter what with technology you're always going to be roadblocked and it's not unlikely that everything to read blocked on once yeah but I think the audience probably likes those videos if they're occasional because it feels like back to roots yeah in some ways so yeah I don't know no current plans do you want a host oh sure sure okay wait what for the outro alright so thanks thanks for watching gamers Nexus guys this has been linus from gamers next no no I like that shirt thank you I have one of those yeah okay I got you on yeah yeah alright so I don't know if I owe you anything is well or you don't know what I brought me here you steal whatever you want from the merch if you just go up to the front Novus Gideon I stole I stole a hoodie earlier so I could disguise myself okay good if the fittingly named stealth hoodie yeah people helps so did you hear turn around turn around so whether it's like like gamers next to see colors or he has another one with gamers Nexus on the back or the gamers Nexus logo on the front people were spotting that and just like hoarding Steve when he was trying to make videos so he was like ok I need one of these just like black it is so awesome definitely so yeah LTX 2019 we had a lot of fun visited with a lot of the other creators as well and Linus thank you for hosting I'm really really for next year let's do it I'm excited as long as we can get people to come we're gonna do it make sure you come over to LTX 2020 yeah thanks for watching we'll see you all next time bye guys\n"