I am working the hardest I've ever worked in my career. Your first video was super successful. It's still your most viewed video. Before I knew it, it was north of one hundred thousand views.
Now it sits north of five hundred. Five days later, I was able to monetize on YouTube. I was like, "This is easy." I got five inbound brand deals, and I lost all of them.
Every journalist has this difficulty understanding the business side.
We're always thinking about the audience, but when you're thinking about your audience, you have to think about the product you're giving your audience.
Why aren't we thinking about retention, about return customers, about churn, et cetera? What's the one thing that you would say, know this? I have one. Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.
My name is Francis Zehrer, and today we're speaking with Fernando Hurtado, creator of In The Hyphen, a YouTube channel publishing deeply researched and visually rich stories on US Latino culture.
He comes from a media background. He quit his job at NBC and Telemundo one year ago to go all in as a creator, so we caught up to talk about that first year. Enjoy.
We're speaking a couple of weeks before the one-year anniversary of your first YouTube upload. We're planning to release this on exactly that one-year anniversary.
I want to start with the ups and downs of this first year as an independent creator. You left traditional journalism a little over a year ago. We'll get into that later, but I wanna start with the disappointments. Hmm.
What did you hope to accomplish this year that you couldn't, or what was so much harder than you thought it would be? I think sponsorships.
I have gotten sponsorships now, but for whatever reason, I never calculated [laughs] all the work that goes into getting a sponsorship published. Once even you, you negotiate- Hmm...
the deal, the, the back and forth with getting approval on the ad read and the spot that will go in the longer video. It... Not that it's been disappointing, but it was a, oh, duh wake-up call.
Like, oh, of course, like, I have to budget in time to, you know, you know, send it, like, a week before the video publishes. Hmm.
Whereas before sponsorships I was really, like, you know, up to the minute publishing, finishing a video- You're only counting on you. Yeah, yeah.
Only counting on me, and, like, I'll get it done by the time it needs to get done. So that's been probably the biggest, uh, learning curb. And then the other one I think is, is not disappointing, but
I am working the hardest I've ever worked in my career. Mm-hmm. But I am also in the most rewarding stage that I've ever been in my entire career.
But the, it sounds like the trade-off there is you are either flirting with or experiencing burnout. I've never said no to so many birthdays, so many dinners just to, like, save my mental peace as I have this year-
Yeah... to avoid that burnout. It sounds- I think I've gotten really, really close. Uh, but right now I'm in a good spot. Now I'm at the spot where I can travel and go visit my family and take time off and be fine.
Like, I'll, I'll figure out the, my publishing and not miss a single upload. Realistically, that's not bad for a year in.
Which actually this reminds me, uh, I think this was on another podcast that you were on, and you were talking about how when you launched, you started with about a month-and-a-half buffer.
You had five videos ready, and you actually, you were seeking advice before you launched, and you talked to Cleo Abram, the famous big creator who used to be with Vox, and she said, "Five videos is way too many.
You should just do two so you can be more reactive to your audience," which I thought that was great advice.
Um, but the buffer, if you started with a five video buffer and it disappeared, obviously life, you know, happens, that's what the buffer is for, have you regained any of it, or do y- do you even want to?
Now that I have s- a good volume of sponsorships, I have regained it just because I kinda have to be aware- Hmm...
of what's coming in a month and a half and know the video topic at the very least, so I start gathering some interviews for that.
But what I didn't expect to happen is I'm actually happy I lost the buffer because it allows me to respond much more to what's happening in the zeitgeist. You know, I did a video- Hmm...
on the ICE raids that I was able to do and respond to kind of what was going on at that moment, which was this very Home Depot angle and kind of explaining why so many of them were and still are happening at Home Depots.
So had I had that buffer, I think my contribution to that conversation would've been outdated and honestly not as much of a value add. Yeah.
I do wanna talk a bit, a bit about the, uh, production process in a second, but while we're still on sponsorships, I know that your first video was super successful. It's still your most viewed video.
When I checked last night before recording, it was, it had 3.7 times as many views as your next most viewed video. Um, and I, I understand that you got a good amount of inbound sponsorship talk just based on that.
How many of those closed? How much actual revenue came in for you based off the suc- the, the quick success of that first video?
Yeah, so my first video was about why so many Americans speak Chicano English, which is this variety of American standard English. Very popular in LA, if you've ever been to LA. Probably you've heard it in Texas.
Some people call it the Latino, LA Latino accent. So the example I give is- Hmm... instead of saying something, you'll hear something, you know, with a, which has a bit of a, a Spanish I intonation.
So I published that video, and the first, like, two days it was in the hundreds, and I, I expected that. I had just launched the channel.
And then it just took off and, and before I knew it, it was north of one hundred thousand views. Now it sits north of five hundred last time I checked. And, um- North of 600, by the way. 600. Oh, thank you.
N- uh, after I published that video, five days later I was able to monetize on YouTube because of all the watch hours I got. So I was like, man, I've made it, you know? I was like, I- I'm rich, you know? I've done it.
And then I started getting all these, like, inbound brand offers. I was like, this is easy. I was likeIt took me five days to get monetized on YouTube, get sponsors reaching out to me, and then what happened?
I got five inbound brand deals offers, and I lost all of them. I- You lost all of them? I just negotiated way too high.
I, I was trying to-- I think I was in that, like, know your self-worth mentality, which you should know your self-worth, but also know your self-worth and do some research [laughs] on how much you're charging.
Sometimes you have to be realistic about- Yes. [laughs]... the self, the self will be worth, but today the self isn't worth. Exactly. [laughs] I was charging, like, way too premium, and all of them were like, "Nope."
And I, I kept... I was like, "No, no, no, like, I, I just gotta be firm on this." And they were like, "Yeah, no. Thank you."
And it was, like, good, like, solid brands, like, that other creators had been using, um, and ha- had sponsored other creator journalists specifically.
Uh, and yeah, I lost all of them, and then that was a, a big wake-up call where I realized I needed to be- do a little bit more research on pricing.
So when did you actually then land or close, execute your first proper sponsorship? How many months into this? How many videos into this, and what was the brand? What would- what did the partnership look like?
My first brand deal that closed was in June, and it was with this podcast from Amazon called This Is Small Business, and that one came about... You know, they say cultivate your relationships.
For a long time, I had worked with this company while at NBC, and they reached out.
They, they said they, they'd been following what I was doing, and they asked if I could, uh, you know, would consider doing a sponsored ad read for their podcast, which is about small business owners.
So that would've been f- s- five months after launching, which puts me at, like, 10 videos after, after launching that I got my first sponsored brand deal.
Are you then to figuring out concepts well ahead of time and selling against those long before you've actually sh- shot? But... 'Cause you ha- kind of have to do that to plan these deals in advance. Yes and no.
So one big thing that I've been really strict on with my journalism is that when I do sponsored videos, it really is just an integration and an ad read.
So what that means is the sponsor is sponsoring that 60-second, 90-second ad read. They're sponsoring the video overall, but they have no control over what that video is about, who I interview, who I don't interview.
So in that regard, it's like, you know, if I get sponsor X, uh, to sponsor my video that's coming out in February, I actually still don't know what that video is going to be, but there is that- Hmm...
understanding of, you know, I'm a news journalistic brand, so, you know, that video is gonna be about something in that realm.
For example, I just have a sponsored video that's coming out today, and it's about, um, the obesity epidemic among Latinos and why Latinos have a much higher rate than other groups in the United States.
And, you know, I think some people might, might consider that not super brand safe, but the brand understood that that's what they were getting into, and they approved, and they, they, they were approved the, the video topic that was gonna be associated with them.
And I was expecting a bit of a battle, but they were totally fine with it.
I, I mean, I think more and more brands are getting more sophisticated about how to work with creators too, and you have to, you have to give up some of the things that you're usually not used to giving up when you're working directly with journalists.
Uh, uh, let's talk though a, a little bit about your background as a journalist. So I wanna get the, the quick overview. What I understand is that when you quit, y- you were working with NBC Telemundo.
You were working in a bit of a national role with 40 stations producing segments, shows. You'll tell me, but it was a really good job, kind of your dream job. You're producing video journalism.
You're making six figures, and you decide to leave. Tell me what your job entailed at the time you left.
I love being interviewed by people who do research 'cause you do good research, and, and I, now I understand how it feels to be on the other side of it. I'm like, what else does he know about me?
But yeah, I was at NBC for five years working in this team that was called the digital innovation team, and it kinda served as a, a national hub, as you said, that produced national content for all the 11 NBC stations, 30-plus Telemundo stations at this point, and the r- the, the ethos of the team was, you know, we're gonna cover national news.
So for example, if Trump says something, we'll cut a video, which could be just a soundbite, or it could be something more produced, like an explainer video explaining Trump's speech that just happened, et cetera.
Uh, so that we do that, and our local stations, NBC Chicago, Telemundo Miami, can focus on their n- local coverage, which I cannot do local coverage for Chicago or Miami being in Los Angeles where I live, right?
So it was a great job because on the breaking news front, it was a great ground to just train yourself on so many types of stories.
And then eventually, I got promoted to manager of digital video, uh, special projects in OTT, which meant I was overseeing the production of a lot of our temp poll and special series.
So NBC has the rights to the Olympics.
That meant producing a multi-platform podcast that told the stories of rising Team USA stars that you maybe hadn't heard of before but you're about to hear a lot about in the upcoming Olympics.
I got to travel for that job. I got to cover three Olympics, which was amazing, with Paris being my most recent one. It was a great job.
I, I, I, I always told my friends that it was one of the best-kept secrets in journalism because it allowed you to work with really robust local reporters but also with, like, such a national brand that is NBC.
And I cannot tell you how many people respond to your emails when it's @nbcuni.com coming from a previous job where I... it wasn't as big of a name.
Like-I would, people would say yes or at least respond to my email 90% of the time when I asked for it. And wait, is- do they... Has that dropped off now, now that you don't have that here?
[laughs] At the beginning, but now... At the beginning I was, like, closer to, like, 40%, uh, but now I'm, I'm proud to say now we're, like, we're closer to 80%.
Uh, I still have a theory that a lot of my emails are going to spam because of my Gmail workspace- Mm... uh, setup that I have to figure out. Uh, that's how, what I tell myself to make [laughs] myself feel better.
Um, but yeah, it was a great job, and after doing it for five years something started to happen, a few things. They do say when you, when you wanna leave, you start looking for reasons- Mm-hmm...
in, like, even the cereal you're eating that morning, right? You're like, "Wow, there's a sign there." But one big thing happened, and that's that
at the time that I was working at NBC, uh, there was this division that had launched as soon as I joined NBC, which was called NBC LX, and it was a news outlet targeting millennial, Gen Z American consumers.
It was a fantastic job. I got to do a lot of really in-depth, like, premium style explainer videos for, for news, which is unheard of. You know- Yeah...
for anyone who works or has heard of working in local TV news, you, you work really fast, you do really short pieces, and you move on to the next one, uh, literally within five hours.
Uh, with NBC LX we were given more time, we had longer run times. You could do a seven-minute piece on X topic of your choosing that you thought would resonate with the viewers.
So I did one story there that was about the future of Spanglish, and that video, you know, I interviewed so many people. It... I was, kind of wanted to explore, like, is Spanglish going up or is it kind of dying?
It's unclear to me. You know, I grew up- Which if you've watched your Chicano English video, you'll know that these are two very different things. I'm gonna, I'm gonna plug that video 'cause it's really good.
But anyways. [laughs] Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it... a lot of people think, oh, Chicano English, Spanglish. They're two different things. Uh, Spanglish is a mixture of English, Spanish. Um, you hear it a lot in songs.
So I remember shooting that video. I probably, like, shot the interviews over a course, the course of two weeks, and my boss had asked me, like, "Oh, when do you think you'll, you know, have that edited done?"
I was like, "Oh, probably, like, next week," whatever. And I remember coming in, that was a Friday, and I remember coming in on a Monday with a final cut already done, and he's like... It was a 17-minute cut.
He's like, "Wow, you edited that really fast." And I was like, "You know what? I did. I did," and I realized I edited [laughs] it so fast, almost neurotically fast, because I was really passionate.
You were in a flow state. Mm-hmm. What's that? You were in a flow state. Yeah, I was in a flow state. Yeah. Totally. I was like, man, I'm like, I just wanna know the answer to this question.
I wanna know how this story ends, and I was so geeked on it. I had all these motion graphics, and yeah, I had it by Monday, had minimal notes on the video, and then, you know, by Tuesday it was published.
And so that was the first inkling. I was like, I wanna do more of this, and thankfully I was at a place at NBC and Telemundo where it made sense to do stories like that, not every day, but every now and then. And so,
you know, then a few months later I did a story on Hot Cheetos, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, why it had such a chokehold on Latinos, another story that I edited super fast.
And I was like, you know, I love doing these kinds of stories. And even with the most supportive, like, team and boss, I, I realized it wasn't, like, 100% brand fit for- Mm...
the NBC DNA, and it also wasn't 100% fit for the Telemundo DNA 'cause these stories were in English, and they were really targeting, like, the kids of the people who watched Telemundo, Telemundo being a Spanish language network.
Well, which is, this is kind of the thing too, right?
I, I would imagine w- the, the broad trends with, with broadcasters, NBC, Telemundo, probably both working hard to target younger audiences, and this, it sounds like what you're describing, was a play to do that.
But at the very same, at the same time, maybe they hadn't figured out a way to monetize it and still connect to those viewers, because those viewers are on YouTube. I actually...
Well, I, I wanna give a quick summary of something you wrote, um, in March.
You kicked off your News From Creator Land column with TV News Check with a p- with a piece explaining why you left your job, and you give four distinct reasons.
And you're talking right now about reason number two, which is, which as you called it, was, "I wanted to fish where the fish were."
The other reasons, reason number one is I wanted to learn about the business side of journalism, which you graciously referenced, Creator Spotlight here, our interview with Lindsay Stanberry.
But it's that, you wanted to fish where the fish were. Reason number three, craving a more direct relationship with an audience, and number four, you wanted to see what was possible.
So, uh, sorry to interrupt, but that, that's what I'm hearing right here, is, is you kind of got this taste of, this is this content I could produce, but for this brand, for this company, they don't really have a way to get this content to the audience that wants it, but I can do that if I leave.
Yeah, I was like, I could do that with the click of a button tomorrow. If I really wanted to, I could do it tomorrow. Why couldn't I do it?
Because, you know, you work at massive corporations like NBC, which have really, really tight restrictions on what you can do outside of work, which I understand.
It's a huge liability to have all of your journalists just kind of, you know, doing independent work.
Uh, I have more thoughts on that in a bit as well, but, you know, I was like, that was happening, and then the other thing, the big thing that was happening, I'd been teaching a class at USC called Visual Journalism- Mm...
which is a sophomore, junior level core class that journalism majors have to take. It's the basics of writing, shooting, editing digital video.
And at the end of the, the semester I do a lecture on the future of visual journalism- Mm... where I kinda highlight three, four trends that I'm seeing in the space. And by the fourth year of me,
you know, doing that lecture, I realized two trends had been on that slide for four years, and it was creator journalism, and it was AI.And I was like, "Man, I have some gall to portend to know what the future of visual journalism is, but I'm not doing anything in it."
So I was like, "Let me put my money where my mouth is." I also had just turned 30, so that might have had something to do with it, and I was like, "Let's, let's switch things up." Yeah.
Uh, really quick on the class side. I think this is... W- You teach three classes there now, I believe, or you're about to start teaching a third.
But one of the other ones you teach is called Multi-Platform Olympic and Paralympic Storytelling, and you just wrapped the semester as we speak. And you wrote this LinkedIn post that struck me. I'm gonna read it.
So, "One big takeaway from this semester: today's 19 to 21-year-olds are innate video editors. We don't cover the how-to of editing in either of the classes I teach.
I've been teaching these courses for about four years, and this is the first year I've seen high-quality video editing across the board.
No flash frames, interesting pacing, and sometimes even sophisticated editing tricks. The more I think of it, the more the quality makes sense.
This is the first generation that had to edit video to be casual social media users." So I thought of this with what you were just describing because you're saying, like, these...
You keep putting this trend on four years in a row, this is the future, and then it sort of becomes the present, and you feel like you're becoming the past. Yeah.
I, I, I think w- with the class I've, I've learned a lot of things. One thing that happened, uh, two years ago.
You know, I bring in guest speakers into the class, and I was really excited that I was bringing in a journalist from Rolling Stone to speak to the students, and I remember kinda teasing it.
I told the students, "Guys, next week we have, um, this journalist coming from Rolling Stone." And when I tell you, it sounded like I said, like, The Wichita Times. [laughs] No shade to them. They were like...
Like, it just didn't register. They were like, "Okay." And I was like, "Do you guys, do you guys know what Rolling Stone is?" And they're like- They're like, "Yeah, 'Sympathy for the Devil'?" [laughs] Yeah.
They, they were like, "Y- n- you know, something?" They couldn't identify it as an outlet, but they're like, "Yeah, okay, cool." And I was like, "What?"
I was like, "You know, when I was at USC, uh, you know, as a student 10 years ago, I was... I would've been so geeked." And then what happens a- Which is not long ago. [laughs] No. No, no, no.
And then what happens a few, a few weeks later, I tell people, "Hey, guys, um, do you guys know who Cleo Abram is?" They're like, "Yeah, yeah." I'm like, "She's coming next week to s- speak to us."
And it was like eyes lit up. Mm. And I was like, "Oh my gosh." You know, I knew that was happening, but it...
to see it so concretely in front of me, I was like, "Man, I, I'd really have to be, you know, making a conscious decision to ignore what I'm seeing in front of me." [whooshing sound] Hi there. My name's Tom.
I'm the producer of the Creator Spotlight podcast.
Just interrupting to give you a quick stat that I've come across, which is that 78% of the people that watch our videos on YouTube are not actually subscribed to the YouTube channel. Now, that means two things.
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[whooshing sound] Um, going back to those reasons, the four reasons that you wrote about about why you left. So the number one, you said you wanted to learn about the business side of journalism.
I was just speaking to somebody yesterday, not for a recording, but just chatting, and they work with a lot of journalists, and they were saying how that's...
Every journalist they talk to has this difficulty understanding the business side.
And in that piece that you wrote, you referenced the interview with Lindsay Stanberry, her point that there is traditionally a firewall between journalists and the business side of the publications they, they work for.
And at the very beginning of this conversation you said that, n- not really a surprise, but that's been the hardest part to figure out is this business aspect of it.
So, so tell me a little bit about, uh, some, some wins here. How have you [chuckles] been figuring out the business side of independent creator journalism? I have had some wins more recently.
So one thing I did, I realized, okay, I've gotten a lot of inbound... Not a lot. I've gotten a good solid amount of inbound volume for brand deals.
But if I wanna make this sustainable and I wanna live off this, I also have to have some outbound deals. Mm. I have to start reaching out to brands that I think would want to work with me.
And before doing that, though, I, I really honestly had no idea of how the, the... how to go about that.
Thankfully, people like Colin and Samir exist, and, and they have a course on, I think it's called, like, The Brand Deal Blueprint, and that helped me, like, make my initial sales deck, and I've already had some really neat, um, successes with that, with the pricing alone and having a better understanding of packaging, too, and how to sell stuff.
At the beginning I was really thinking that you could only do one, one sponsor per one video, and then gotta start over, right? Let me find a new sponsor for the next video. But now it makes sense to me.
You could sell a package of three videos, four videos, and that could be kind of your baseline. Like, I only do, uh, sponsorships that are three videos minimum. That's the commitment.
Uh, it's a bigger ROI for you with my audience, and also with production it's just easier, um, on my end. Um, so that's been a, a big learning.
And so now I'm in, like, a, a good cadence where I have more foresight, too, of, like, okay, February right now is, like, looking a little, a little slim, so, like, what can I do?
Maybe I can sell short-form, which I hadn't really been monetizing up until, like, a month ago. Uh, now I had monetized on TikTok- Yeah... but in terms of sponsorships.
Uh, now I'm really excited 'cause I had never really planned to monetize short-form if I'm being honest. I was just so laser focused on long-form on YouTube and building an ecosystem around that.
So now I'm starting to think of ways, "Okay, what can I do with, like, a, a three package deal for, for short-form video?" Speaking of short-form, you're on all the socials.
On Instagram you have 12K, TikTok 14K, LinkedIn 3K, Twitter 1.7. This is all besides the 29,000 you are currently at on YouTube.
Uh, I do wanna hear more about how-Short-form has become maybe an asset that you monetize, what that is for you, if you've been posting, like, alongs- posting on it, excuse me, the entire time.
You said you're doing about three per week right now. What are these other platforms, these extra YouTube platforms, what do they do for you?
They, you know, I hate to use the, the phrase, but I'm gonna use it, it's a great top of funnel, uh, [laughs] to get people.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay, let's stop, let's stop you for one second, because, like, this is the thing.
When we talk about, you know, indie creator journalists figuring out how to build their business, it's like that's the thing is, is, is, is using words like top of funnel and not hating to say it.
This conversation I was having with somebody yesterday, and look, it, it's, it's, it's... This is the thing.
When you come from a journalism background, or if you come from a more pure creative background and you're entering this world where you have to build a business, like, that's one of the things that people lack.
I spoke to another person for an interview that will, should be out by the time this comes out, a guy who comes from a consulting background, right? Mm-hmm.
And I was talking about this divide and why do all the people who... 'Cause there's been a few people who come from a consulting, like, Deloitte type background.
Why do those people, when I speak to them, they have such these, th- these businesses are just dialed in, and it's such a system, and it's so in opposition to people who come from a more creative or journalism background.
Um, and this is a big part, is a knowledge of terms like top of funnel, which when I s- I mean, a term, like, knowledge of a term like, like top of funnel just means a knowledge of how a content b- a media business works, and how to bring revenue in, and how to monetize subscribers.
LTV, another big one. Yeah. Lifetime value, you know. Anyway, my little rant here aside. HGTV. HGTV. [laughs] Okay, now, now you're, now you're being smart. Uh, but, but this is the point, right? Like, you have to...
This is part of, like, actually building a business is you, you, you learn [laughs] the term, like top of funnel, and you just use it in conversation. No, yeah.
Well, it's, I- [laughs] It's so interesting you mention that because I remember one of my first catch up, uh, chats with my former boss at NBC, again, great guy, best boss I've ever had, I remember using the word inbound.
I'm like, "Oh, I- I've actually gotten some good inbound." He stops me, he's like, "Oh my God, look at this guy, inbound." [laughs] "Check him out now." And I'm like- [laughs] But you're right.
There shouldn't be this kind of like, ooh, what, what are you talking about? Because as journalists, we're s- we're, we're always thinking about the audience. Like, that- Mm-hmm...
that's been, like, the last th- the thing in the last, like, 10, 15 years. We're so audience centric, but when you think about your audience, you have to think about the product you're giving your audience.
As journalists- Yeah... we are making a product every single day, whether that's the actual interface that your journalism lives on, or even that specific video or article. Mm-hmm.
So why aren't we thinking about these things? Why aren't we thinking about, you know, retention, about return customers, about churn, et cetera?
Uh, and why are we leaving that to someone else who has a firewall and l- quite literally can't see what- Yeah... we as journalists are working on.
Um, so yeah, those additional platforms, I'm gonna say confidently now, are a great top of funnel to expose people to my brand- There we go... and what I do.
So in every single video I do, which is three of, three short-form videos a week, I say, "You know, my name's Fernando and I cover US Latinos," because I realize, like, my friends sometimes even forget what I'm up to, right?
Mm-hmm. So strangers are not gonna know what I'm up to. So I have to remind them. Um, and so that's been great to, like...
You know, I just did a video, a short-form video on Afro Mexicans, uh, which got me, you know, I think I could reasonably deduce, like, some nice traffic to the long-form YouTube video.
Uh, and also just awareness and, and followers there so that I can create more of a, of a full, full loop.
What I don't do as much, which I'm proud of not doing, a lot of people will grab their long form and, like, split it up into, like, five different short-form videos.
I really do treat TikTok and Instagram as, like, standalone platforms, where I pretend that if, uh, if I were just, like, a, a short-form video creator, what would I be creating for the platform? Yeah.
And I think that's helped me, and I think that's given me nice returns, where I'm not trying to force this, like, 15-minute mini doc into three separate short-form videos because, hey, I spent all this time and work and money working on this long video.
I need to juice it as much as possible. So I didn't watch the, the Afro Mexican one, but I watched the long form, I watched the YouTube. Mm.
And I'm guessing, based on one or two other of your short forms I watched, that you're basically taking the same research and just m- turning it into a 90-second script. Yep, exactly.
I, I do, I do rewrite everything for short form. I'll change the hook. I'll change, uh...
I don't change the visuals, like, I use the same B-roll, but I'll, I'll change kind of the, at least, like, the first 10 seconds for sure, and obviously, you know, it's a vertical video and I don't just, like, grab a 16x9 horizontal video and slap it on a, on a si- on a 9x16 template.
So that was totally built on the research that I did for that long-form video. Uh, but, you know, thinking more of, like, what would people on, on TikTok be curious to know about?
'Cause there is a lot of really good nuggets in that video. Uh- Yeah... but I decided to take a more, like, US-centric approach to the TikTok video. Okay, that makes sense.
So how are you actually making your living right now? You are teaching three classes, about to be two... It's been two, about to be three. You have some brand deals coming in.
I imagine that you have not yet regained the full salary you were making before you quit a year ago, but what are all the different ways you're making your living right now? Yeah.
So I, I do teach two classes at USC, but I teach three classes because one of those classes is a repeat. Oh, okay. So I do two sections of it.
Um, and then now with this creator journalism course, like, it's a, it's a sizable, like, chunk of... Well, I don't wanna give anyone bad i- ideas. I'm the... You know, you don't make a lot of money as an adjunct.
[laughs] But you make- Mm... you make enough money to- Yeah... to get by. And then, um, I've got in some speaking gigs, which I was not forecasting at all. Mm. So that's been a nice little surprise.
Um, and then what I do is I do this, like, conglomeration [laughs] of freelance gigs. Um, I try not to do too much editing because I- Yeah... I try to reserve my creative energy for my...
channel and for In the Hyphen, but, um, I find that's the easiest type of work to get. So I've done, you know, editing for like- But you're great at it as well. Thank you. Not to flatter you, but yeah.
It's, it's, it's my, it's my strongest skill- Yeah... which is like, well, I might as well use it.
So I've done, you know, like freelance editing for like motivational speakers on Instagram, you know, like cutting, uh, videos of their speeches, finding the, the best hook.
And with that, with my USC, uh, part-time teaching gig, uh, I'm definitely making less money than I was at NBC.
Um, but now that we're recording this, like, you know, I've 3X'd my revenue with In the Hyphen, so I'm hoping to keep that going. That's amazing. Let's talk about the video production itself for a little while.
So first, you're publishing about two a month. Um, you're 11 months in at the time of recording, and you've published 24.
Most videos are around 13 minutes long, really ranges from about 11 to 23, but they're mostly around 13. Is this a sustainable pace? Yes. Oh. I can confidently say that now.
I- When I first started, the big mistake I was making was that if I had a video publishing in two weeks, I would spend those two weeks, every single day of those two weeks stressing about this video. You know, I...
If I wasn't researching for the video, I was doing interviews for the video. If I wasn't interviewing for the video, I was out shooting B-roll for the video.
And about, like, video four or five, I was like, "Man, I am working every single day [laughs] on these videos or thinking about these videos every single day."
And as much as I'm passionate about the topics that I'm covering and the questions I'm answering, I knew it wasn't gonna be sustainable long term.
So I told myself, I was like, "Well, you know, I could stress out about this video for two weeks, or I could time box it-" Mm.... another corporate media term.
I could limit myself and say, "Fernando, you have four days to work on this video. Figure it out." And I knew I could make a good video in four days. Is it gonna be- Well, this is, this is the thing.
Like, for me, I'm somebody who, you know, we've got a, a twice-a-week newsletter schedule, and it goes out at the same time every Tuesday and every Friday.
And Natalia, assistant editor here at Career Spotlight, she, she writes most of those these, these days.
Um, but when it was just me too, it's like, it's very easy to just fill the whole week, and then, you know, the last two hours- [laughs]... before it sends, you're in it, and I, and it's this thrill.
I'm addicted to this, like, deadline-based work.
But the trick, you know, I think this is something that's really hard when, when you're independent, like yourself, when you don't have somebody telling you, "This has to be done at this point," right?
Like, it's very easy to just, "Oh, well, it, it, it has to be done when I have to publish it." So how have you achieved, you know, rearranging the, the deadline chemistry in your head?
[laughs] Well, the, the upside is that now I have downtime, and now I can go to the thrift store on a Sunday and just- [laughs]... little shop. But, but not buy anything because I don't have to buy. It's not an errand.
[laughs] It's like, I just wanna go to the thrift store and, and just look. I just wanna go to drink coffee, not to answer emails, [laughs] just to drink coffee. Uh, and- Love that. Love that...
so I told myself too, because when I left NBC, I realized, you know, I was working a lot and at minimum 40 hours. It was a good team to be a part of.
But I also realized if I'm gonna take the leap and leave the security, I also wanna build this, like, not I wanna say idyllic life, but a, a better work-life balance. Mm-hmm.
So I told myself, "I need to figure out a way where I am working 30 hours on a video that publishes every two weeks."
So 30 hours within two weeks, so that's 15 hours each week, so that when this grows, I can start filling in those other hours with different revenue streams or different projects that I wanna take on that aren't necessarily tied to In the Hyphen or my bottom line for In the Hyphen.
So I kinda set that limit of, like, 30 hours. So I told myself, "How do I do that in [laughs] four days?" Um, so it, it does mean that, like, my interviews take around, like, four hours to complete.
Um, most of them are virtual, but sometimes I shoot in person. Um, those probably take closer to an hour per interview, whereas virtual interviews take closer to 30 minutes.
And then writing, um, you know, I'll do that in, like, four hours for a script, where I'm still kind of doing some research there, uh, as I write.
And then editing, which is probably what I'm the fastest at, like I can get a solid, like, video that's at least 10 minutes long, probably max like 17, 18 minutes in like 16 hours. Um, and I did that this week.
I did it last week. Um, so that's sustainable, and I kind of enjoy having that, like, deadline of, as you say. Mm. Like, this is gonna end Thursday at 9:00 AM because it has to.
[laughs] Like, I just have no more time 'cause I gotta get the video out. Um, and so that's also a good challenge to not chase perfection and focus more on, like, the story selection, at least right now.
And then later, you know, once I have more time, I can start thinking about, you know, the actual more experience that I'm creating for my viewers. Right now I have a good format going, so I'm gonna
keep doing that format but innovate more on the topics that I'm selecting and thinking, "What, what can I do that I haven't done yet that I've been a little too scared to try?"
Well, tell me more about that because, you know, it sounds like you've got a decade of editing experience at least, so th- that's just this, this skill that you've really developed.
Um, the, the story selection, the ideation, what is in my... what's on my beat and also will hit on YouTube, I would love to hear more about that. Yeah.
So my overall beat is US Latino culture, and within that, I kinda think about it a- as three buckets or content pillars where I have business, history, and culture, which I know is a little redundant.
What, what's an example... For each one, what's an example- Sure... of like a video that fell in that column and really hit? Okay. Business, I did a video on Bim- Bimbo, not bimbo, uh- [laughs]...
Bimbo, which is, uh, the largest bread company in the world. It's a Mexican-owned company. It owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas, the English muffins. So that was a video that did really well.
It kinda walks you through the story of Bimbo and their, the strategy and how they've grown. And then under history, we'd have something like AAPI Latinos.
Why you see so many AAPI Latinos in the US, that's a very, like-History dense video talking about immigration patterns, uh, policy in the US, um, anti-Asian sentiment in the US, how that's changed.
And then we have culture, which is the one bucket [chuckles] that I had to add in because it's videos like Chicano English, where Chicano English is a video about history, but it really is in the present tense, talking about how culture is changing, how Americans are speaking, and how that is changing.
I had that bucket as language before, but I was like, "That's weird." Like, I don't wanna be [chuckles] the language- It's too niche maybe... too niche, I don't wanna be the language journalist. Uh- Yeah...
like, I, I enjoy stories about language, but I don't want that to be my, my niche. So those are my, the, the way I think about those three videos, those three verticals.
And now what I'm doing as of this month is I'm gonna start investing more in my videos.
And what I mean by that is one big advantage I've had this whole time is that I don't have to hire editors, I don't have to hire videographers. I'd have to hire reporters 'cause I'm doing everything.
What I wanna do now is investing in my videos, and that could be, you know, I hired, uh, someone to shoot B-roll in Mexico for my Afro Mexican video.
Uh, I'm going to Mexico in a few days to shoot a story, and that allows me to really think about the story that I'm doing [chuckles] and whether it's worth that investment. [chuckles] And I think it- Yeah...
also pushes me to make a better script, to make a better edit because I'm realizing I've invested so many resources into this video, let me make it an experience. It's a forcing function. There's more at stake. Exactly.
Whereas before- Mm-hmm... you know, it was a good, like, runway to just kind of, like, experiment, see what topics. I didn't have my content pillars before, even, like, three months ago. So that allowed me to have that.
Now I can drill down in those content pillars and think about, okay, how am I telling these stories, and what makes these-- the Fernando way of telling these stories unique? Yeah.
So let's talk about the Chicano English one quickly. So, uh, we were talking about how many views it had. I wrote this down last night. It was at 646,000 as we record.
So doing amazing, and like I said, that is 3.7 times as many views as your next most popular video, which was published, I believe, just a month or two ago.
But this one, Chicano English, was published on January 30th, 2024, three days after your first video, which is where you explained, "Here's what In The Hyphen is. Here's what I'm doing. I left my job," the backstory.
Obviously, there's a factor of this has been around the longest of any of them, and so it just accrues views.
But looking at the, on your short form as well, I think on your TikTok, the short form version of it is your most popular video there, or if not the most popular, it's the second.
I, I-- maybe it's as simple as this is something that so many people have seen. Where does that little accent come from, right? Like, why is that a thing?
And so it's really widely relatable in a way where the market for people who want to know the history of bimbo, right, probably a bit smaller. So I, I don't know. Am, am I overthinking it?
Is it just that there's a big market for that? Why do you think it hit so well? I think because it's probably the biggest curiosity gap I've had on a video.
And what I mean by that, it's the biggest curiosity gap I've had on a video as a journalist. Hmm. Yeah. Like, I, I knew I'd heard this accent, but I didn't know what it was called.
I didn't know it had a name, and I didn't know why I was hearing it everywhere. And so in the video you'll see, like, I, y- I take you along the journey as I'm learning stuff.
And without a doubt, it's the most research I've done for a video. Ah. I think it's the most number of interviews I've done for a video. And so I see a very direct correlation there.
And then of course you do have that, like, semi-familiarity with the word Chicano. People know what Chicano is, but they've never seen it juxtaposed with English. And you're like, "Wait, what?
Like, Chicanos speak a different English? I'm Chicano. Do I speak a different English?" And since January 30th [chuckles] I've been chasing that high of that video.
[chuckles] And I haven't quite gotten there yet, but I'm, I'm, I'm glad that I now have different reference videos that, you know, haven't been quite as popular, but have been relatively popular.
A bunch of them are above 100. Yeah. Which is- Which is, like, so great. Like, and but a lot of my identity language videos are, like, my most popular. Mm.
And so that's something that is exciting because I'm like, "Oh, those stories are, are really fascinating to do," and they're also a little easier to do because when you're doing people-centric stories, you're not waiting on the FDA to respond to a request for comment.
Yeah. You're not, you know, waiting for some executive to give you a, an interview. Uh, you really are just interviewing people about their experience.
I mean, this, uh, literally right before we hopped on, I was halfway through your, uh, A- AAPI Latinos video.
And there's, the part I was at, you go to West Covina, which I don't know my Southern California geography too well, but I know you live in, like, the LA area, and this is also vaguely in the LA area. Mm-hmm.
And you go there because there, um, you, the, you, you learn that there's a lot of, like, Latino Filipinos there, right?
And so you pull up to a mall just to get a coffee, and then it turns out there's this, like, Japanese cherry blossom festival, and you're like, "Well, I bet there's some folks here."
And you just run into all these people, and you're having these amazing interviews with all these interesting people, right? And, like, that kind of thing, like, I love seeing that.
In, in a simple way of when I think about, like, the difference between what's, what's a jour- a journalist and a creator, like, this is almost, like, just very basic journalistic thing of going out there and collecting primary source informations that if you're just...
Information that if you're just making a video essay you might not do. Uh, and I kind of forget why I started talking about this. I just l- I love this video.
But I think the point is, like, going out there, doing this research, and just talking to a lot of people.
And there's a clear, there's a clear skill that you have too where people are, uh, where you're warm and people are warm back to you. Like, the, the, the sm- smiles on these people's faces and they're, like, it...
You probably didn't have a lot of time to talk to them, but they've clearly opened up really quickly. Um, now I think I'm just flattering you, but people should watch that video anyways. [chuckles] No, keep going.
Keep going. No, yeah. Oh, okay. No, go ahead. Yeah. You make a good point about process journalism too, where I'm, I, I, I always love seeing how journalists do their work.Because I hear it from my friends.
I hear how hard it was to get that interview, or I hear how easy it was to get that interview because you walked into a mall, and you found these people.
But in, in news and in journalism, so much of the industry has been about the finished product. Just show the finished product- Mm-hmm...
the two-minute-thirty piece, polish it up nicely, add the graphics package that we have for the station. And we forget that people don't know-- a lot of people, I should say- Mm... don't know how journalism works.
Most people. You know, I-- Most people. I have, I have friends who ask me, like, "Oh, how much did you pay for that interview?" [chuckles] And I'm like, "No, no, no, we don't pay for interviews."
[chuckles] Um, or at least most journalists I know don't pay for interviews. So showing that, but also, you're so right.
I think in journalism school, I heard a lot about g-g-getting, get in the field, do on-the-ground reporting- Mm... door knock.
And, and increasingly, you know, even as I was in my corporate career, I didn't really door knock. I...
You know, it was a lot of online outreach, whereas now within The Hyphen, it's fun to just go put myself in that mall. Or for Chicano English, I put myself in, uh, in this market in, in Mid-City- Mm...
which is a very Latino neighborhood here in Los Angeles, and I found people.
Because if when you fish where the fish are, which is a good business lesson, but also a journalistic lesson, you're gonna uncover really cool things. Yeah.
Uh, on any of the videos that maybe haven't hit like that, that view count high of, you know, over half a million, are there any metrics-- is there any video that has, like, some metric that you're so proud of, where like, this one had a crazy click-through rate or the average watch time, like everybody is still watching halfway through?
Is there any one video you can think of where one of these, um, invisible, more, you know- Yeah... behind-the-scenes metrics just really hit? Uh, two, two videos come to mind. Bimbo, our lovely- Mm...
red, uh, what do I call him? Red daddy in the short form version, I mean. [chuckles] Uh, I [chuckles] the, it's the highest click-through rate I've gotten on a single video. I think it was, like, north of ten percent.
Um- Wow... b- and I'm proud of that. It was-- I think it was the thumbnail.
I added, like, red laser eyes to the fluffy, cute Bimbo bear, uh, and that, those are ideas that come to you at the gym, and you're like, "I can't wait to get home to execute this idea."
[chuckles] And then on a way more unquantifiable metric is the API Latino video. Uh, I think it's the, the highest number of comments I've gotten after Chicano English.
And the comments, it wasn't just the quantity of comments that I, I received, it was what those comments said.
Uh, I joke that sometimes my, my comment field on my YouTube videos feel like a discussion forum on Blackboard, which if you remember your college days, is what people used to, you know, submit assignments.
Uh, because people come with the really researched comments of like, "I read this book in college. My sister told me about this book.
I heard about this, uh, public figure that people should know about in the APL Latino space."
Those comments are cool, but the really cool comments were things like, "Wow, I'm so glad someone finally made a video about this. I always thought I was the only one.
Uh, it's so cool to see myself reflected," which, you know, as cliche as it can sound, I think is what journalism is. It is, is- Mm-hmm... its job is to reflect what's going on and, and not give a voice to the voiceless.
I hate when people say that because these people do have a voice. Um- Yeah...
and actually now with social media, uh, the voice is pretty loud, and, and you'd have to choose not to listen to it to say that they're voiceless. The voice is there. You just kinda gotta go capture it. Yeah.
So I wanted to get the numbers, uh, for you here. We have one hundred four thousand views here and seven hundred and seventy comments, which, which is really amazing. And it's-- I mean, I'm just reading through them now.
And you-- And if you're, if you're, if you're watching this, just go watch this video. If you're listening to this, go watch the video, look at the comments. It's really sweet.
I [chuckles] at the very beginning, I asked you, uh, some of, you know, through first year, what's been disappointing? What's been hard? [chuckles] We never, we never got to the wins.
We, we've gotten to some of them, um, just in the course of the conversation, but I wanna explicitly ask you, what are the wins of this first year? What are you most proud of? So many things.
I, I, I, I was preparing for the interview before this, and I was like, "Oh, let me write down my wins and losses," and it took me, like, thirty-five seconds to write down my wins, and it's a pretty big list.
And then my losses, not to be... You know, I, I wanna paint an accurate picture. I was having a hard time coming up with losses because there is so much
that, so many good things that come with the liberty and freedom of being an independent creator journalist.
And so starting with the fact that I get to decide what to cover and that I get to do stories about my community is really cool.
I, I told myself when I launched this, would I be okay if this didn't make a single penny ever?
And the answer, truthfully, I don't think I would've done it for ten years, but I think I would be fine doing it for a year or two years for free if it meant that I was adding some kind of value, uh, to the conversation around the US Latino experience in twenty twenty-five.
If in ten years, people could look at my videos and say, "Oh, that's so cool. I got to see what it meant to be a, a Latino in the United States in twenty twenty-five," I was like, "Yeah, that's worth it. That's cool."
Um, but then more quantifiably, um, I'm really proud of the fact that, you know, moni- I monetized on YouTube after five days.
My initial projection was a year, so that came three hundred and sixty days earlier than- [chuckles]... uh, plan. The speaking gigs was cool. You talked about short form and how I think about short form.
All of those speaking gigs came through my short form content. Mm. Then I think then people watch my YouTube videos, but a lot of them thought I was, like, a, a TikToker is what they called me when they reached out.
Interesting. Which is fine. I don't, I have no hangups about that. Uh, but I was like, "No, no, I have, like, longer videos too if you wanna see them."
Um, and then the creator journalism course, getting approved, me pitching it, me developing the syllabus, that's a huge win because I think it shows... And this isn't a me thing.
There's people who've been doing this longer than me that are being so loud that journalism institutions are paying attention to this space and taking it very seriously. So that's been lately my, my, my biggest win.
And then finallyThe qualitative reception. I'm stoked about the numbers. Like, I am doing much better than I thought I would be, you know, a year in. Um, but the qualitative reception, I will mention this quickly.
Before launching, I did this entrepreneurship lab with the Google News Initiative that kinda gives you the know-how of, like, how do you make a revenue projection? How do you make a business plan?
And one thing they make you do is write three comments that you hope to get on your work that'll make you feel like you're, you're, you're, you're having impact.
And I remember writing them verbatim, like, "Wow, I'm so glad something like this exists." "Wow, I've never seen a journalist cover us in this way."
And I kid you not, I've gotten those comments almost to a T, with some- I mean, I bet there's hundreds of those on the AA Pa- Yes... A- AAPI list. You know the one we're just talking about.
Yeah, this is your fifth time mentioning that video, so now people better watch it. Uh, yeah. [laughs] Tom, Tom, link it. Tom, Producer Tom, link it right here. I'm pointing to where you're linking it in the YouTube.
[laughs] Thanks, Tom. [laughs] Yeah. Uh, okay, no, that's awesome. I mean, I was, I was waiting to come back to that, too.
You were talking about, you know, uh, you could do this, maybe you would do it for 10 years without getting paid, but you would do it for a while because it was contributing something meaningful, and I was like, that's qu- quite quantifiable in the comments themselves, in, in the volume of comments you've got.
I think on the, uh, on the, the Chicano English one, too, it's, like, 2,700 comments or something. It, it's quite a few. Um, what are your goals for year two? So I wanna double down on the creative.
I am in a good place where I know how to publish consistently, which is one of the biggest tips I got when I launched, was be consistent.
Okay, I know how to do that, and now what I wanna do is think more intentionally about how I'm making these videos. You know, I had a really brief idea that I was like, "Oh, should I do music video journalism?"
I don't think I'll do that. Someone else can take that idea. Uh, but in that vein of, like, what can I do that makes sense for me as a person, music videos do, but not the singing part.
I'm like, I'm not a singer, so I don't need to be singing. Uh, but I was like, it'd be fun to do, like, music video journalism.
So I wanna think more creatively and take bigger swings in terms of the presentation of these videos. Like, how is this story being told? Where am I going for this story?
So you're gonna start seeing a lot more travel in the- Mm... in my videos, um, domestically within the US, but also in, uh, Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
Uh, not every video, based on budget, but I think pretty regularly. So I'm excited about that. And then, two,
um, I will be launching a newsletter, uh, in part because there's so much reporting that I sit on that I don't make anything from it because I'm like, I don't have good visuals, or I don't have, like, enough information, but I do have enough information to- Let alone the time.
Let alone the time. Well, now, yeah, that's why I've l- left those hours, like, free, um, to be able to kinda craft this, this nice little product that documents the US Latino culture every two weeks.
Um, so that's what I'm working on next.
TBD on a launch date, but I, I'm pretty excited about it, and I think it'll be a nice, um, feedback loop between my YouTube channel as my top of funnel to get really nice subscriber, uh, quality coming into the newsletter.
Yeah. So new video products and a newsletter product. Mm-hmm. Big themes. Yes. Uh, what, what must not happen? What would, what would some of the, what would be failure in year two, right? Like, what just- Ooh...
cannot happen? What are you [laughs] afraid of? [laughs] That's what I'm asking you, I guess. Well, it's funny. [laughs] I do have this, um...
I have a podcast I do for my Patreon, uh, subscribers that kind of pulls back the hood on the business side of In The Hyphen.
In October, I did a spooky season-themed episode of this podcast that was called What I'm Afraid Of. [laughs] So I'm glad you asked that question. A lot of things.
I mentioned my wins list being so long and so easy to write. My fears list is pretty long, too, and, and easy to write. I'm afraid that
I'll plateau, that, um, that I miscalculated the, the TAM, um, the SAM, uh, and the serviceable addressable market for this.
Um, I'm afraid that I am biting off a little too much, that maybe I'm telling too much of the Latino experience, and maybe I should just focus on the Mexican American experience because I'm Mexican American, and I shouldn't try to speak about Venezuelan American issues.
I have gotten zero indication that I shouldn't be doing that, but that's just something I think about- Mm... in this, you know, very diverse US Latino landscape.
Um, and then I think, you know, there's always this fear with the platforms. I, I, I... Um, it's not lost on me that I'm so reliant on...
Yes, I'm an independent journalist, but I am so reliant on third-party platforms, including Patreon, including, you know, when I launch the newsletter, um, email service providers.
I'm dependent on whatever they do or whatever they do- don't do.
So there's always that, like, in the back of the head, uh, in the back of my head, but also, I, I think I'm preparing against it pretty well or as well as I can by diversifying, um, my revenue sources.
Last thing, word to the wise. For any journalists considering following you, leaving their place of work, starting their own thing, what's the one thing that you would say, "Know this"? I have one. Grab a credit card,
0% APR, and I'm saying this 'cause this is what I did. Grab a credit card, 0% APR. Buy $9,000 worth of equipment, and I bet you you'll launch your creator journalism business tomorrow. Why?
Because once you have that looming 9,000 loan debt, you're like, "Wow, I better get going on this." And so that's what I did.
I kept pushing back the date of when I would launch In The Hyphen, and I was like, "I know what gets me going, debt." Like, I, I don't like- [laughs]... having debt, so let me... This is terrible financial advice.
No, this is- But let me- But this is great advice. [laughs] Well, I was like, if I don't have this looming over my head, I won't have a goal to. So I told myself, "I better make this money back in a year.
Otherwise, I'm gonna have to start paying interest." And I'm proud to say I, I made it, uh, and significantly way above that.
Um, and so that was a good, like, uh, uh, under me to, to, that kept me going and told me, like, "Okay, you better... You said you're leaving in January, you better leave in January." That's...
I, I love that because whenever I ask some kind of advice question, it's, I often get a, you know, a tepid, milquetoast answer. This, you know, maybe is, maybe we'll put the legal disclaimer here.
[laughs] You know, this is not financial advice. Like, I always love when they do that. Um, but I think that is such a real piece of advice. Literally, literally bet on yourself.
You just literally place the bet, and, uh, if you don't, if you don't bring it in, you're gonna [laughs] have to, you're gonna have to pay.
Um- When you ask what's the worst thing that can happen, it's probably being in crippling debt still from that, but thankfully, we're past that now. We're past that, and this has been a great conversation.
Thank you for [laughs] coming on. Thanks for having me. Of course. Uh, listener, we will see you next week. [outro jingle] Hi there. I'm Tom, the producer.
If you liked that episode with Fernando, I recommend this episode with Joon Lee. He also left corporate media to become an independent journalist but focusing more on sports.
Uh, it's a similar path, but a completely different story with different lessons. It's a good episode. Go watch that one there.