The tech YouTuber who opened a coffee shop

22:31So I always wanted to have that for a number of reasons. Just as a business person was like, I need to differentiate as much as I can in this space. because I just got to pay rent. Sure. And I don't know how long the coffee shop's going to take. I don't know how long the roastery's going to take, et cetera. So what's something else that I have some experience in, obviously, and was like, that could maybe also help just pay the bills for a bit. And I did research on Peer Space and started to look at all the other like rental studio spaces around here, realized none of them had a kitchen. And so that was my choice for building the kitchen.

22:58It was like, cool, differentiator, kitchen. You know what else they don't have? A podcast booth, which we're in right now. So got that as well. So it's just trying to like create a separate, another part of this business that like could help pay the rent because that's all I cared about and still do. And so, yeah, so that, but the truth is like, cause this isn't as we were talking about at some point, I don't, I don't need the backspace. Like I film most of my videos outside now as we've discussed. And so I don't really need to have a space that I'm going to film in. I, I, the bigger intent was for this to get rented out, help pay rent, but I do use it.

23:35And I also kind of design some things within here. For example, the kitchen has a very standard width of the oven. That way it can be swapped out so that maybe I can start doing appliance videos and not just phones and laptops and bikes and whatever else I do that are outside of the kitchen that are not as large. Can't do any of that in my apartment because I rent it. They won't let me. And then I did the same thing for the fridge. The fridge is positioned in a way where it's on the side where I could get a double-sized fridge and it would still fit. And I tried to do as many of the things as possible.

24:04Same thing with the, I'm never going to mount a TV in here because I want to be able to swap them out to do more TV reviews is something else. So I tried to add some elements of the space to benefit my YouTube channel in some way, but it's a small percentage of what the space should be used for, right? You really need to just rent it out. Okay. That makes sense. So, and to that point, actually, more broadly, like, how did you think about sort of connecting the coffee shop to the YouTube channel. There are a bunch of ways in which they are very connected, including the name. Like it's, you said coffee check in a lot of your videos.

24:40You open a coffee shop called Coffee Check. Yes. Which is dumb to anyone who doesn't know the YouTube channel, but it's fine. There's an easy thing you could have done, right, back to the like, how do I monetize this thing on my channel question, where you make this whole thing kind of about your YouTube channel, right, and you have a TV that's always playing your videos. Terrible. Hate that so much. And it's the background of all of your videos. And you try to make these things sort of symbiotic. Yeah. My sense is you have like deliberately run the other direction of that. Except for the little touches of the name.

25:14Like why not push these two things closer together? So to me, I think I wanted to make sure that I could do a good coffee shop. And then it stood on its own for that. I didn't want it to have anything to do with the YouTube channel as far as like, you know you know i dread those those headlines that are influencer opens coffee shop right and then which are inevitable sometimes a lot of the people go to those coffee shops though yeah which is which is great but like there's there's an implied like a lot of people don't like that word a lot of people don't don't know what an influencer does or you know and i don't i don't think i would ever call myself an influencer but you know media marketing company call me that so it's fine you know but it's like there's a connotation there that i think that is negative in a lot of people's minds.

25:54And I didn't want that, firstly. I also just, again, I wanted this to be, to live on its own. I wanted it to kind of be Easter eggs for people that know, like the coffee check symbol, like the name, right? But everything else is just, oh, it's just the local coffee shop that we enjoy and we like, and it's just, you know, whatever. That's it. I didn't want it. I think on the YouTube channel, I don't mind doing the other way around, right? Because for me on YouTube to be like, hey, here's the coffee shop that I made and like, come check it out. And like, here it is. And filming in it, I feel like there's less of a, like it's it's less weird to me that people on youtube know i have a coffee shop it's more weird to me that the people in the coffee shop know i have a youtube channel interesting yeah does that make sense yes and yet i feel like every time you bring it up on your channel you apologize for bringing it up absolutely why because i'm annoying i'm because a big part of it is that i keep bringing it up and i'm i'm doing that partially because i need to like get word out about the coffee shop to some degree and like and so it's almost like feels like a bit of an ad to myself right so i don't want you know so i'm apologizing for that and everyone has been very sweet which i very much appreciate all the comments have been like dude don't apologize like amazing like so glad you're like you know living a dream whatever and it's very very very sweet um well i think this is the thing i still feel like i'm gonna apologize so it's fine but this is the weird thing about being a creator in this moment i think right where like you could your point about influencer opens coffee shop is like, I tend to agree with you that it feels sort of gross, but like a lot of people will go to that coffee shop because for whatever reason they feel attached to that person.

27:25And that's a thing you can use for evil or for good, right? But if you use it for good, but I think if you use it for good, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. And I think like even what your original story about how coffee check became a thing, it's like that's people being connected to you as a person and like they want to know what you're up to and they want to know where you're going and you're traveling and where am I getting the coffee right and so you you get to a point where it's like okay actually what I'm doing is I'm bringing you along on this ride with me correct uh and that that would have just required a very different approach like to some extent it's surprising to me that you didn't make eight months of videos out of building the coffee shop seriously like a lot of creators would have done that I don't know if it's pride it's something there's like I want this to stand on its own I want to do a good job at this you want it to work because it's good not because exactly i want to have i don't want that to influence it in any way i want it to just do well i want to have this coffee shop do well the rose tree do well because they merit such things not because of some other outside influencer marketing or whatever else right i mean i've seen enough creators hawk the things that they're doing and kind of being like hey yeah i'm doing i'm doing i made this thing and like you know i wanted to actually do something with my hands like be in the space like not just like white label something, like actually make it, do the things and that.

28:44And like, I don't know, I think there's, I think I start to also, a good way to put it too, right? I think I start to skew my own data when I introduce those other things. If I want to make sure that this does well on its own, I need to not kind of push all of those other things into it because then I won't know what helped it do well. I have a very long lease, right? I did that on purpose. I want this to be a thing that doesn't just like get a bump of traffic because of influencer word and then dies, right? So it needs to be something that literally just can like be a part of the neighborhood and be a good thing and grow with the neighborhood and outlast my YouTube channel.

29:19This is the retirement plan, man, okay? All right, we got to take one more break and then we will be back with the rest of my conversation with David Kogan.

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30:04Okay, we're back. Now we're kind of back to the present in our story. David just spent eight months creating a coffee shop from scratch while still kind of sort of maintaining his YouTube channel. The thing is open. People are here. I ate a pie. It's all real now. The thing opened in late August. People are coming. It's doing the thing. You can find it on Google Maps, which I think is how you know you're really legit. Which means David has to decide not just what he wants coffee check to be, But now what will become of the Unlocker YouTube channel? And most importantly, and maybe most complicated, what he, David Kogan, YouTuber and now coffee shop proprietor, really wants to do all day.

30:45And because of the way the tech industry works, he has had to make that decision really fast and really intensely because it is gadget season. I think there were two days for the first time because I had events to go to because I'm now trying to go back to events. I'm starting to travel again and starting to get back into the normal routine of the YouTube stuff. There were two days that I was not here at all, and that's it for the last six weeks maybe. But now because of that, I'm starting to try to get back to doing videos. I have such a backlog. Again, I apologize to everybody. There's like all of these – like all of the Pixel devices I'm still going to do a video on.

31:22I just haven't had time. I finally did the flip like six. Two weeks ago. I think that came out in July. So like I'm just I'm trying to get through the backlog. And the way I'm doing it is I'm literally coming into the coffee shop and I'm writing somewhere in here as you do in a coffee shop anyway. And, you know, being pulled away to like fix this or do this and do that. And that's just it's just kind of doing both things at the same time. And then I'm now filming all of the videos. I still do them outside, but they're all within a very short distance of this coffee shop for now because I just don't have the time.

31:52I can't go any further. So I like come in here, you know, write the scripts for, you know, a day or whatever, and then run out, film that video, and like check back in on the coffee shop in between scenes. And then, you know, wait for sunset because I need that to like get the night shots if it's a phone, for example. And I go back out for that, come back into the coffee shop, clean a little bit, you know, reorder stuff and, you know, do inventory and something. So it's just been, it's literally just like a mix of the two worlds every day. Is the context switching of that brutal? Yes. Are you going to survive that?

32:22No. To be determined. Okay. No, it's been, I've been feeling pretty burnt out, to be honest. But there's something, it's a different burnout. Sure. Right? There's because, and I'm sure some of it's just, it's novel, right? The coffee shop is new. It is a different thing. It is very, to what we already talked about, it's very different than the YouTube channel. And so I enjoy it a lot. Even if it's stressful and there's things going wrong and everything else, there's something about it that is just so enjoyable that it kind of tempers the burnout from all the things that are happening. And I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, I think.

32:55You know, I feel like there is a world where I'm here less and less. I can, you know, not have to worry about doing certain things. I'm trying to figure out inventory, for example, right? Like, how do I make sure that the inventory I can project in a certain way that I don't have to order every time things get low, obviously, right? So, it's a goal you have to get to getting there. So, like, that's helpful. Is that the goal? Like, is the goal to spend less time on this so you can go back to making videos? I, yeah, I, questionable. I want to do both. I enjoy both to some degree. I think I enjoy the coffee shop more than YouTube at this point.

33:29But again, I think it's something to do with it being novel and it's with your hands and everything. And I've been doing the other thing for 13 years. But I, you know, YouTube is still the thing I've been doing for however long, right? It's also, I assume, the business. It is. Like it's paying for everything. Yeah, yeah. This is just losing money. This is just a very expensive hobby. Sure. So, yes, YouTube is paying the bills. And it is kind of the thing that I've built over all this time. I can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Fair. Not that I would. I still enjoy YouTube, but like, you know what I mean?

33:57So I've now just, I'm trying to just get back to a better cadence of making the YouTube videos while still being involved in the coffee shop. Okay. And I think that's the goal. It's not necessarily like step completely away from the coffee shop and then just run YouTube like I was. I think there's an element of like if I could figure out more things to hand off in YouTube and make that a little more efficient, make the coffee shop more efficient. There's some, and maybe this isn't real, but there's some ideal world where I can kind of do both in a healthy balance and still have a social life somehow.

34:28I'll figure that part out later. Yeah, details. Details. I think one of the things people burn out on YouTube and really kind of creator life in general is just that it asks so much of you in so many different directions all the time. Right. Like I hear from creators all the time who are like, I started making videos because I like making videos. They were fun. Either the thing in the video is fun or the process of making the video is fun or something. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, I'm spending all my day essentially doing data analysis. Like that's actually not a good time.

34:57And then your option is either grind until it burns you out. Not worry about it so much and kind of limit your cap of success on the platform. Sure. Or basically try to systematize, right? Like hire people, outsource some of that stuff, make it no longer your problem. And you just get to do the parts of it that you like and sort of solve the rest around you. And it sounds like that's the thing you're aiming for after a long time of just grinding. Yeah. Look, so I think there's a couple of things there. Like the – I think that is the goal I would like. But not quite, right? Like I don't want to be a Marques.

35:32Like that's just never a goal for me. I don't want to have like – or a Linus or, you know, whoever else, which are essentially media companies. Correct. That's never a goal. I don't want to do that. That sounds like more stress for me than I want, to be honest. It also like I don't need to be that big. Right. I'm happy to like, you know, I just want to – I think I need to let go of more things. And this coffee shop has kind of forced me to do that. Not to the point where it's like I come in and I talk on camera for more four seconds and I walk away and that's the end. I don't – and also just the nature of my videos.

36:01It's very difficult as well, right? Because I enjoy having this like you're coming along with me, very vloggy style. As soon as there's a cameraman holding that camera, it gets a very different vibe, which I just don't want as a creative choice. I just don't like that. Maybe it will happen one day because I won't have a choice. But like that's, you know, like I kind of like bouncing around with the audience and like kind of – and I even enjoy making those videos where like it's literally me like exploring places with you. I'm – a lot of these places are new to me too. So I don't think I'm going to let that go.

36:27So there's somewhere else that I think I can hand things off but still be as involved as I can be without, you know, killing myself and going insane. But I do, but I also think like creators in general, we have this issue too, which is the fact that like in order to do what we do, especially YouTube or Instagram, whatever, social media, you, you have to make everything formulaic, right? So in other words, like in order to churn out as many videos as I do, I have to make everything so like fit into a box. Like I'm going to write the script. It's going to be like this. I'm going to get the shot like this.

37:02I'm going to do. there's no area for creativity at some point because the only way it'll get done is if you make it as efficient as possible. Yep. And that is where I think we all start to burn out because then you're just like, I'm just a hamster on a wheel. Nothing feels gratifying at that point. It's just cool. Making a video, putting it out, right? And especially around this time of year is even worse, but that's what the audience demands of you, right? Correct. That's what the industry demands. Over and over and over and over again. That's what the algorithm's like. Like, that's what the audience expects.

37:30And at some point, it just becomes easier and way less fulfilling to just deliver the thing. Correct. Yeah. And like, yeah, and you need to do the optimization in order to be able to do it. And the only way you can, you know, keep up with that cadence is to make things as smooth as possible, not as creative as possible. Has that transferred to the coffee shop? Does it feel the same way? No. No? No. Which I think maybe that's another reason why I enjoy it so much. Like there's, there is a lot of, because we just opened, there's a lot of creating all these processes and optimizing. And I do enjoy a lot of that, which is interesting.

38:06I enjoy it in this respect more so than like, I think I enjoyed trying to figure those things out with YouTube. But now that I've figured them out. Right. They're just. Building systems is much more fun than living inside. Than just living in them. Yeah, correct. A hundred percent. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. But yeah, so like I'm building those systems for the coffee shop. And every day, like I get feedback from the baristas or I'm behind the counter with them sometimes. I'm like, I see, okay, there's a bottleneck. Like, let's figure that out. You know, hey, guys, what do you think? You know, what is a better setup for this?

38:30Like, what's slowing you guys down? And like, that's fun. There's something I think as humans, we like to solve things, especially when there's small problems, like where the cups should go, right? You know, like bigger problems, terrible. But like, you know, these kinds of things are like, they're fulfilling. They give you like a nice, ah, I did that. I checked the box, right? And so there's a lot of those right now in the coffee shop that are fun to do. So back to this like content coffee shop mix, I can now imagine a world in which you become a coffee content person. Like the roastery is going to happen.

39:02You already do a lot of filming of cups of coffee. As someone who has watched your channel for a long time, I can vouch for it. There are hours of videos of coffee cups on your channel. I don't even need to create new content. I can just splice all that together. Boom. Exactly. It's a reel. To reverse all the questions I asked you at the beginning, right? You're like, oh, now I have a room full of coffee equipment. Maybe I should just point a camera at it. Yeah. Yeah. It occurs to me in the way a bad habit occurs to you, right? Like I sit there and I'm like, I should film this. That would make some good content.

39:32Look at that. Yes, I think I always think that. It's like a junkie thing. Like how do I make this content? It is legit that. And after a decade of YouTube, you see the world as content opportunities. It's real. For better and worse. No, it's real. It is absolutely true. And so I have thought about it. And I think there is a world where maybe more coffee stuff ends up on the channel. or the audience, you know, if they, if they want that, maybe I'll try it and let's just see how they feel about it would be the way to do it. Um, I mean, I did of course grab all of the social things for the coffee shop just preemptively because I was like, well, we're gonna have to start doing content here as well.

40:07So I, I mean, I think, but that's different. So like, I think, I think in the world in which we exist, you are going to have to take pretty videos of your espresso machine and put them on Instagram occasionally. And I think to some extent, again, those things are symbiotic, right? Like it's, it's, it brings people into the shop. People watch the thing, people like the thing, like that's all good. But I also think it changes the way you think about the thing when it becomes most lucrative as a content opportunity. Right. And I then become the thing I hate. Exactly. And so I think for you as someone who is like, who is in part, this all appealed to, you know, as a thing that is not content to then have that pull of what if I make content about this?

40:46And, and what if the content could help the coffee shop? But then eventually you get to a point where the coffee shop is just helping the content. Like how to pick all those things apart in your brain just strikes me as very complicated. So, so I think I've simplified it because I'm just so, I so don't want that last part to happen. Right. I don't want that coffee shop to ever be making more money from the content than from the coffee shop. It becomes like a studio that happens to serve real coffee, which I don't want. Right. Cause then, cause then to the point, I would then just be doing the thing again that I'm sure.

41:16So like, I don't, I won't ever let that happen. And so that like in the same way that like I don't want the influencer part of this, like, and I just want to have one coffee shop. I don't want to have more. Like, I think these are ways to limit that chaos that would normally happen in my head. I've given myself this hard no. And, and so like, I think we need to make content and we will like right now we're posting photos and stuff and like, whatever, I'm terrible at writing captions. I just have too much, too much to do though is the other problem. Sure. Right. So if I was going to try to make content in here and like try to get back to my own channel like that it's just i'm burnt out as it is that's just gonna throw me over the edge yeah so but i do i do like the idea of doing some sort of coffee content maybe when things start to settle and they start to get like at least i get caught up on all the techtober stuff that i need to get caught up on um i just don't know actually in my head if that's something that maybe lives on its own channel and it's kind of just the coffee check channel and i host that maybe to some degree maybe someone else can also maybe i can set that up in a way where it's not just me because then that would be more scalable easier for me to not have to be a part of all the time whereas like youtube take the unlocker i'm not i can't do that right right if some other face showed up it just would be a totally wrong yeah um i just again i want this to be a good coffee shop roastery like known for the things that are that are those things um and not tied to an algorithm and other things like that all right that is it for the verge cast today thank you to david for being on the show and for lending me his podcast booth to do it and thank you as always for listening.

42:40As ever, there's lots more on all of our coverage of the creator universe and YouTube and links to David's channel at theverge.com. I'll put some links in the show notes, but as always, read the website. A lot of stuff going on right now. And if you have thoughts, feelings, questions, or other places I can record a podcast in the back of cool coffee shops, you can always email us at vergecast at theverge.com or call the hotline 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you. Please keep all your questions coming. It's the best. This show is produced by Liam James, Will Poore, and Eric Gomez. Verge Cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

43:16We'll be back on Tuesday and Friday to talk about smart rings, Kindles, and all the other news happening right now. Because again, I know I say this every week, but there just continues to be a lot of it. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

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