Lessons - Building a Million Follower Brand | Ilya Fedorovich, YouTuber (Vlog Squad) & Entrepreneur

Welcome to Lessons Episodes of Success Story, part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. These lessons episodes will be shorter conversations with past guests, valued members of the success story community, and myself. They'll be focused on teaching you actionable, insightful takeaways that you can use to upskill your personal and professional life. If you had an entrepreneur that's looking to take your product to market, what advice or how would you suggest they start to build a personal brand because we're already going to be on the same page about you have to have a personal brand to some extent. I think it's very important, as opposed to just building a company brand, you have a product and you have a CEO or a founder that puts their self out there and they're not just an invisible founder CEO, I think that it makes a huge difference in the company. So when you look at how David built his channel, when you look at how you built your channel, your content, your Instagram following, your TikTok, what are the things at home? Because you've obviously, you have some sort of formula that works, I mean, you see it, you see it with your friends. So somebody's trying to figure this out for the first time, where do they start? I think the number one thing, the number one thing is authenticity. I think being authentic, being yourself and truly like truly taking a step back and asking yourself, did I love that? Do I love what I'm doing in this post video story or whatever the fuck it is? I think that's number one, let's keep. And whether you're goofy or whether you're super intelligent and upright, whatever your brand is is what your brand is and not everyone's going to like it. And that's just what it is. So I think that if you're authentic to yourself, people will see that. And if you're bullshitting, people will see you right through that. And that's when it doesn't work. When people are like, okay, I don't know how I feel about this, like even through a screen, it's really weird. People tell, people can tell, you know what I mean when you're not being authentic, people can tell. Yeah, I feel, I mean like even with like, like when we do interviews and shit like that, I think that as I've progressed like my show, I've like toned down the formality of the show is just because when I first started to do it, I was like three-piece suit fucking doing this. Like I felt like that's what you had to do, like you go back with the original one. It was like, it was like dressed up and now I'm just wearing like a, well it is because it's hot outside of the still. It's like, it just feels more fun. And I think when things are more fun than come easier and then you don't stress as much about the content you make. People resonate with you more than anything. When you're not authentic, people don't see you for what you are, so they can't really connect with you, right? It's hard to connect with somebody that has a fucking wall in front of them. Did you, like when you first started creating content, I mean like I feel like people put up a wall because they're stressed, because they're stressed and they're nervous and yeah, you have this, you have this like thing, you know, this voice in your head telling you people are going to perceive me a certain way and you know, I don't want them to think that I'm full of shit. I don't want them to think I'm stupid or I don't want, you know, my boss to think that I'm acting like a clown on on social. So you, you put up this like facade, but when you first started, how did you get over that? Because obviously everybody has that stress when they first record their first video or they first put out their first post seriously. Yeah, so I'm in a very interesting situation because my followers, my following mostly was given to me and by giving, I mean like literally handed over to me. How was handed over was I was in David's videos, I was in David's posts and obviously he's one of the biggest influencers in the world. So when they see him and they see me with him, they go follow me. So again, I was, I'm in a very, very rare situation where I, I have attained these followers through a handout essentially. I didn't necessarily earn these followers. Now, it's, it's interesting because with Zilla, right? And my Instagram page on Zilla, like those followers I consider earned and the reason is because there's work behind that brand. My personal brand, my personal Instagram, for example, I don't, I didn't give a fuck about. And I was just kind of like, I'm going to post shit that I think is funny, you know, the simple is that. And, and hopefully people like it and think, don't, whatever. But I thought what I posted was cool, people thought it was cool. And that was kind of that. There was never, there was never a moment where I had a wallet in front of me. I was always open. I was always like, I fuck it. You know, these, these followers are following me and then I might as well have fun. Do you get, like at the level, like the David's ad, obviously he gets some of it. But I'm sure you get some of it too. Like, you get like a ton of hate with the shit that you post or like at that level where you see like, like millions of people see you. Like what does that come with? Uh, I mean, it depends. I try to keep things pretty neutral because I just don't think that, um, going on the offensive and or making a statement that allows someone to necessarily already polarizing statements and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, because the thing is about social media. It's like, it's like, it's so, it's so, I think isn't the word. I mean, it is fake. But fake isn't the word. It's very toxic. It's very, very toxic. Yeah. And, you know, it's just, it's even hard to talk about because there's so much nuance. There's so much bullshit that goes on, um, that like, you know, yeah, sometimes people get hate, um, and if, you know, someone's listening, but basically, you don't let that affect you basically. Like you, you have this, you have some sort of thick skin or no, I don't let it affect me because I don't, I really, anything like that, I don't let it affect me. Like if there's, if there's a comment that is, uh, constructive criticism, totally, totally, I'll take that any day, I'll take that fucking seven out of it. I'd rather know what I'm doing bad than what I'm doing good, but when it went, it's like hate, like, pay hate, fuck that. I don't pay attention to that. It's just like, it takes up way too much of your, of your headspace, way too much mind share. Yeah. Oh, you definitely have to let those people go and, you know, it is what it is. People, again, not everyone's going to like you, you know, uh, and that's just days what it is. And the people that fuck with you, fuck with you and the people don't fuck with you then, you know, whatever, go find, go look at somebody else, no one's forcing you to fucking look at my, my story or my video or my advice, there's tons of other people out there. Go ahead. 100%. Um, no, I think, I think it's a healthy way to look at it. I just sort of, I want to bring this, I want to bring this out because when people do put themselves out there, like, we're trying to like eliminate all the fears they could have about putting themselves on social and, and when, again, you know, yeah, you don't have five million people or 10 million people that follow your every move, but you have like millions and you've been exposed to that. So you just have to be in the right half space going into it and build your tribe because again, if people, if everybody likes you, you're probably not doing something right anyways. I mean, right? You, whatever you build, somebody will hate it, no matter what. Um, okay, so you're building Zilla, uh, you also have a podcast. What is your, like, and you also trade and then you're doing the pizza thing. So you have like, you like do a lot of shit. So you have a, so what, why, why podcast? What was that for you? Why did you, for example, not go and try and build something like a massive YouTube channel based on just pure vlogs? Like, what was the podcast play? So I just like podcasting. I like talking to my friends, I like sharing information, I like sharing stories and that's pretty much it. Um, there was no specific intent behind it. I just, I like telling stories like making people laugh, you know, um, so that's kind of the story behind why I even do the podcast.