Produced By

[00:00:00] Stephen: Hi, I'm Stephen, and this is Produced By. In today's episode, I talk with Jody Musgrove from Just One More Watch. That's a YouTube channel he started in 2016 to review watches, and his focus is on affordable watches. The channel has over 360,000 subscribers and 1,400 videos. It's one of the most successful watch channels on YouTube.

We're gonna talk about the show origin, how Jody went from a hobby to making a living on YouTube, and the reality of building income on that platform, what happens if YouTube shuts your channel down like it did for him.

Using his expertise in affordable watches, Jody launched his own brand in 2023 called Erebus. I've seen a number of watch YouTubers design and sell watches. Jody is building a serious watch brand with Erebus, and we talk about his transition from a reviewer to releasing a product that is being reviewed. I also love his reflection and advice on creating content.

Went something like this

Have an idea of what you're doing, and as you go along, you may be the same guy, a different guy, or a combination of both. And you may change direction, but just keep going. I hope you enjoy my discussion with Jodi

Jody, thank you for joining me today.

[00:01:27] Jody: My pleasure, Steven. Thank you for inviting me today. It's nice to see you.

[00:01:31] Stephen: Yeah, and as one of the first episodes of Produced By, I'm excited to have you for a number of reasons.

One, I'm fascinated by your story. Two, I am a watch nerd. I have been for about two years, and- Okay ... you've been one of my influencers in the watch world. You're,

[00:01:49] Jody: you're st- you're still at the top of the rabbit hole. You haven't really- I have not ... fallen all the way to the bottom.

[00:01:54] Stephen: I have

[00:01:55] Jody: not yet. People usually, people usually find me when they're near the top, and then they go much, much deeper.

So good luck with your personal journey. I hope it goes well for you.

[00:02:03] Stephen: Are you saying I'm gonna forget about you at some point?

[00:02:06] Jody: At, at some point, you'll move past me, and you'll be buying quarter of a million dollar De Bethunes- Okay ... you know, getting them, yeah, engraved- ... to your specifications, all of the rest of it.

I'll be a distant memory.

[00:02:17] Stephen: Okay, we'll see about that. So, um, I'm interested to start with, like, just a basic description from you, like maybe your elevator pitch of what Just One More Watch is, which is the show we're f- kind of focusing on today, and maybe who you are.

[00:02:34] Jody: Okay. Um, the, the channel, Just One More Watch, started fairly randomly about a decade ago.

I was buying a lot of, uh, of, of relatively affordable watches. Mm. And I've always favored the relatively affordable things in life. Perhaps that's my Scottish upbringing that did that for me. So my channel has, is, and always will be dedicated to the affordable end of the, the, the watch space, the affordable end of horology, if you, if you wanna call it that.

I'm not usually grand enough to call it that myself. They're just watches. So I'm dedicated to affordable watches. I guess the motto is that you don't have to spend a fortune to get a great looking watch, and to have fun in this kind of crazy hobby that we, that we enjoy.

[00:03:21] Stephen: Yeah. There's one word you use a lot, is value when, when in your videos.

[00:03:25] Jody: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Value, value for money. I always... A bit of a bargain hunter, whether that's cars, watches, a- anything I buy, I always like to get a deal, and I guess that, you know, manifests itself in the way that, that I recommend stuff, the stuff that I recommend. Uh, you know, not a lot of big luxury brands on the channel over the years.

I still do look at that end of the market, but my own interest taps out at a certain point. I don't really see any value beyond that, so I don't tend to, to show them on the channel either.

[00:03:59] Stephen: Well, your, your channel, um, Just One More Watch, has, I have 363,000 subscribers. You've recorded over 1,400 videos and- 1,400.

[00:04:14] Jody: I know

[00:04:15] Stephen: That's crazy, huh? And 118 million views lifetime.

[00:04:21] Jody: Yeah.

[00:04:21] Stephen: Um-

[00:04:22] Jody: Those are, those are fairly accurate statistics ...

[00:04:24] Stephen: yeah, so going back, and it's been a decade, so the first episode was in 2016, so you're approaching 10 years. What is the intent of the channel when you launched it? Outside of what I understand to be a bet with your wife.

[00:04:41] Jody: Yeah, it, it was. It was a, it was a bet with my wife. I'd been watching other people's YouTube videos. Uh, a friend that I worked with, and still do work with, at Sydney Opera House, I've been part of that building, and that building has been part of me for the last two decades now, and he is a watch guy, and we used to talk about watches.

This is probably 2015, and he... I wasn't really into YouTube at all at that point. I didn't really watch YouTube much, and he told me about this certain channel called The Urban Gentry, TGV. Uh-huh. And I started watching a young, you know, we were all 10 years younger in, at, at that point. Yeah. A, a young, a young TGV talking about watches and walking around New York City, and I was buying the occasional watch that he recommended.

And I got to the point that I had so many in the house, and I was working as a tour guide at the time at Sydney Opera House, and I think that kind of, those two things in combination, I thought, "You know, I can do this. I can have a go at this. I, I'm gonna have a bit of fun." And I made a bet with my wife that I, I recorded these two videos, fairly scruffy videos, in October 2016, and I, I said, "I bet you I'll have 2,000 views by Christmas."

And she said, "No, you won't. You're, you're too old for YouTube." Ah,

[00:05:48] Stephen: okay.

[00:05:49] Jody: Now, this was 10 years ago. A, a dagger. I, I'm still trying to get it from between my shoulder blades, but- Oh ... she was, she was right and she was wrong. I didn't get the 2,000 views. I got close, but I didn't quite actually get there. But I enjoyed the experience, I enjoyed the comments, I enjoyed chatting back and forth, and I began to do it a little more regularly in 2017.

Uh, I, I, I think maybe organic is a word I'm gonna end up using a few times- Mm-hmm ... over the course of this conversation, because that's a nice way of saying kind of random and unplanned, isn't it? So it, it just kinda grew from there. I bought DSLR. I think a lot of people were recording on their, um, mobile phones- Yeah

at that time, and so was I, uh, using a desk lamp. You know, the first few videos are pretty horrific. And then I bought a DSLR, couple of soft boxes. The face reveal, as they say on YouTube anyway- Right ... when you- Uh-huh ... you show your mug for the first time. In about the middle of that year, I officially kinda branded as Just One More Watch.

[00:06:46] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:06:46] Jody: Uh, originally I was gonna do it, uh, in a pair with my friend from the opera house, but that didn't quite happen. And then it, it just never stopped, and here I am nearly 10 years later still doing it. So I, I, I gotta be doing something right, and I, I gotta be doing something I enjoy to be continuing to do it after nearly a decade.

[00:07:06] Stephen: And the great news is it turns out you weren't too old, right?

[00:07:09] Jody: No, it... My wife was wrong. I, I'm still, I'm, I'm looking at myself, you know. I look at these older videos, and I've got some color- Yeah ... in my hair and- Right ... perhaps a little less meat on my bones than, than I do now, but-

[00:07:20] Stephen: Yep ...

[00:07:21] Jody: thinking, "Well, Jody, are you gonna be doing this in another 10 years?

Are you gonna be doing it when you don't have any hair?" You know?

[00:07:26] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:07:27] Jody: It, it's all gone. Possibly. Who knows?

[00:07:29] Stephen: So this transition, uh, I guess it, it, it doesn't sound to me like it started as a hobby. Was there intent at the beginning to make this more Did, were you, did you have the intent to make a YouTube channel with some success from the beginning?

Or was it just, "Hey, let's play around with this a little bit"?

[00:07:51] Jody: It was, it was... There was absolutely no plan to turn it into what it is now. It was... I, I've always been into watches. Yeah. Always enjoyed watches. Yeah. And I got to the point with, in my personal hobby, I guess- Yeah ... that I had sufficient watches, I felt, to start doing what I'd seen other people doing.

And at that point, I was like, "Oh, maybe, just maybe I could get this to the stage where people will send me the occasional free watch, you know?" Uh-huh, yeah. Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. But there was, there was no... I, I remember within a couple of months some guy had sent me 10 of the same watch or something.

I was like, "What, what, what do I do? What do I do with all these things?" It, there was no plan to turn it into a, an ongoing concern. There was no plan to turn it into a business. There's no plan to turn it into what has been for a number of years my, my main income source, and, you know, I, I rely on this. This is, this is my job.

[00:08:43] Stephen: A- and for people who are watching this back, I just wanna put this into a little perspective. So with 363,000 subscribers, that's a lot, but it's significant in my mind in the watch world, right? If you look at the watch channels, this channel is considered one of the top channels, and you're like one of those guys where it's by the first name.

People mention Jody on other channels by your first name. Yeah. They just say, "Jody, Jody."

[00:09:09] Jody: Yeah. I think, I, I think, um, 365,000 is not a lot in YouTube terms. Right. I mean, it's just not a lot of subscribers. Right. But in the watch space-

[00:09:19] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:09:20] Jody: it's, it's not too bad, and I think I was lucky. You know, I, I can't really give myself too much credit.

I got in at the right time, and I kept going, and I, I, I s- I pretty much stuck to a formula. I guess I knew what I wanted to do in terms of the content that I was producing. It was designed as a studio show, something that I could easily replicate and do in the background because I was studying at that time as well.

I was doing, um, my thesis, my writing year of a two-year master's. So it was a kind of pleasant distraction- Yeah ... to, to what was going on in the background there, and it was designed as something that could fit in and around the rest of my life. I wasn't out roaming the streets of New York like TGV or like London like Adrian Barker did, Bark And Jack, in his early- Right

videos. I was in, you know, my kitchen or my bedroom or my bathroom recording Loom videos or a- all of them- ... at one time, so.

[00:10:17] Stephen: What do, what do you think is some of the key decisions you made early on, and maybe you didn't even consciously make them, that had the channel grow? 'Cause it's, it had some pretty good growth quickly, right?

[00:10:31] Jody: Yeah. I, I, I think the... So of 2017, I started with zero- subscribers- Yeah ... basically, if we're looking at subscribers, the key metric, at the beginning of 2017 and I maybe had 10,000 subscribers by the end of 2017, and maybe 50,000 by the end of 2018. You know, it, it, it did go quite well quite quickly. I feel it's kind of plateaued since then.

Mm. Other channels have gone past me. The new guys, I feel like I'm the, the old lion on the plains nowadays. Uh-huh. There's all the, the young guys coming in, and girls coming in now. There's some ladies- Yeah ... in the space that simply weren't there 10 years ago. I think I was quite fortunate. There, there weren't an awful lot of other creators.

There were maybe only six or seven guys doing watch content, two or three of whom are not doing it anymore. So I think that was luck, luck, good timing. Uh, I think I worked out that you needed to show your face- Uh-huh ... because it, it's... I'm not saying it's about personality, because I try and keep it about the watches.

Mm. But of course, if you've listened- Mm ... to me a few times, there's a sense of humor, there's a turn of phrase. Yes. There's a, you know- Yeah ... the, the, there's, there's various things that come through. So showing my face was... I, I worked out that that was gonna be important. I've tried to keep the technology, um, that I use at current p- uh, pace, if not beyond it.

Mm. So I've gone from a phone to a DSLR camera, to 1080, then up to 4K. I've improved my camera. I mean, from the single desk lamp, I now have 10 lights, you know, key lights and hair lights- Mm ... and all the rest of it. So I've, I've tried to keep that moving as well. But at the same time, the, the channel philosophy has remained consistent, so it's still about the value for money, it's still about the affordability, it's still about that 500 US or downwards if, if I can find it.

10 years of inflation hasn't helped that, unfortunately. Right. So I do creep beyond it more often than I used to.

[00:12:30] Stephen: Have you ever considered changing the formula for your show?

[00:12:37] Jody: I tried, uh, I, I really enjoy getting out and about. You know, I've done a few- Mm ... videos where I've been out and I've, you know, challenged myself to buy a $500 watch from a High Street jeweler.

Mm-hmm. And I, I've been to Costco. I went to Costco. I saw- Uh-huh ... I saw that Costco sold watches. Costco was selling... Costco Australia was selling $30,000 Omegas. I'm like, "Who's gonna buy a $30,000 Omega from Costco?" Costco. Costco. And I've, I've, I posted the... I posted on Instagram pictures of the $30,000 Omega next to the, the coffins and whatever else you can buy at Costco.

I couldn't believe it. And it was one of my most successful Instagram posts ever. So I thought, "Hang on. There's a video in this." Yeah. And I contacted them, got in touch with their media and PR, and said, "Look, can I come in and buy a watch?" Uh, and they set me up with the manager for the day, and I, I did that.

I've done a few other things as well, you know, out to, um, a couple of racetracks, and, you know- Uh-huh ... watches and cars, always popular. But it's much more involved. It's not something I can do on my own generally. You need somebody with you filming. Mm. My wife is compliant to a degree, but not that compliant.

She's got her own career happening.

[00:13:44] Stephen: Okay.

[00:13:45] Jody: Um, so it, it's convenience that has kept it as a studio show, I, I guess. But there is, there is a kind of desire to expand beyond my four walls, beyond this kind of garden shed occasionally. It's just difficult.

[00:13:58] Stephen: So this is a good time for the question of, um, are you a, is...

Do you do it all yourself? Is, do you do all the production from start to finish?

[00:14:08] Jody: Yeah, I, I, I certainly used to. I was recording, editing, doing everything myself

[00:14:13] Stephen: Mm-hmm. Yep

[00:14:14] Jody: Uh, no s- no scripts actually. I started with no scripts, all off the top of my head

[00:14:19] Stephen: Yeah. Yep.

[00:14:19] Jody: Not really any notes

[00:14:21] Stephen: Yep ...

[00:14:21] Jody: you know, just kinda off the cuff.

Until about 2021, beginning of 2021 Uh-huh ... I, I kind of, I knew I needed an editor. I was no good at editing Yeah ... it was just chop, chop, chop, chop, but it was taking me a long time- Yeah ... to, to do, do fairly basic editing. Uh, I did a course, um, a kind of program run by the New South Wales gov- New South Wales government here in Australia, and it was encouraging small YouTubers to get together and give them advice.

And one of the best tips I got was, you know, you build, build those, build the, build the help into your process. So I had to kinda think, change how I thought, change how I recorded. It was incredibly awkward from-

[00:15:04] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:15:05] Jody: uh, in the beginning, building somebody else into your process.

[00:15:08] Stephen: Right

[00:15:08] Jody: Not just speaking to nobody in a camera, but speaking to a guy that you knew was gonna be recording this- Mm-hmm

and, you know, judging you. But I found an editor, he's in Ireland, he's called Joe. Ah. And he's been editing my videos since, I think, the middle of 2021. We've been working together for years. So- Fantastic. Yeah ... he now speaks fluent, speaks fluent watch, which is- ... which is useful. Yeah. He, he wasn't a watch guy when we, when we started working together- Yeah

but he's a watch guy now. Um, the only other- ... person that's involved is thumbnails. Again, I used to do my own thumbnails, but-

[00:15:38] Stephen: Yep ...

[00:15:38] Jody: much like the camera technology- Yeah ... I feel there's a kind of, uh, there's a, there's a space race that goes with, with thumbnails. You know, you see shifts in other people's thumbnails and you realize, "Oh, I've got to do something with mine," or you change your style occasionally.

So I, I use Fiverr, one of these freelancer websites- Yep ... and get somebody, who I think is in Indonesia, to make my thumbnails. Uh-huh. So I've got my editor in Ireland, which isn't always convenient time-wise Okay ... and I've got a, a thumbnail creator in Indonesia, and it's me. I did have an assistant. I kind of dabbled with somebody who came in for a few hours a couple of times a week to shoot B-roll for me.

Um- Okay ... whi- which was, which was good. I had two, two gentlemen, two kind of film school students-

[00:16:21] Stephen: Uh-huh ...

[00:16:22] Jody: uh, who came in with ideas and kind of their own creative, um, you know, talents, I guess. So that was quite nice working with them. Uh, and then I moved to, uh, the bush a couple of years ago. So I've moved to-

moved to the outer, outer rim of Sydney- Wow ... and it's probably not, probably not so easy to find, um, willing talent down here to, to come and help me. So- So- ... that's the current setup ...

[00:16:46] Stephen: so what does your workflow look like for... Are you currently doing two videos a week? I think for the majority- Yeah ... of your channel you've done three videos a week.

What does that workflow- Yeah ... look like in the lead time?

[00:17:00] Jody: I did, I did three videos a week really from mid-2017- Yeah ... to, um, to the, to the, uh, tail end of last year. It just got, it got too much for me. I, I, I guess we're gonna talk at some point about Erebus Watches. The other logo

[00:17:15] Stephen: right here on the screen

[00:17:16] Jody: right here.

The o- the other log- the other logo in the corner. Yeah. I'm not wearing... I, I sh- I should be spruiking my own wares today. Yeah. I'm not wearing an Erebus T-shirt. I'm, but I am wearing an Erebus on my wrist. Okay. So, you know, I, I took one opportunity. Um, that was, that was all getting too much, so I cut down to two videos a week last year.

Yeah. Plus two small children in the house as well. Yeah. So, it, it, it's trying to find a balance between everything because it, it can... Y- when you're self-employed-

[00:17:39] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:17:39] Jody: which I, I guess I am, your days are as long or as short as you make them. So, you know, my, my days can start too early and finish too late sometimes.

And with three videos a week it was, it was just too much. So- A- again, I would love to tell you that I had a system. I would love to tell you that I had six videos in the bank, I had the next three weeks worth all planned and organized, but I, I, I don't- That's not

[00:18:00] Stephen: the way you roll, huh?

[00:18:02] Jody: It's, it's not the way I roll.

I, I've tried. I do- Yeah ... I do know, I do know that that would be the best thing for me.

[00:18:08] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:18:08] Jody: And a, a couple of years ago, I got to the point where I did have, you know, a, a week's worth of videos in the bank. Right And the, the pressure, the weight, I could feel it lift from my shoulders at that point.

[00:18:19] Stephen: Yeah,

[00:18:20] Jody: yeah.

And why, why haven't I done it again? I don't know.

[00:18:23] Stephen: Uh-huh.

[00:18:24] Jody: So just- But when you've- I, I'm, I'm-

[00:18:24] Stephen: But when you've gone away, your videos keep coming out, right?

[00:18:29] Jody: Yes. If, if-

[00:18:29] Stephen: Yes ... if you're traveling, yeah.

[00:18:32] Jody: A- a- again, that kinda... When you're self-employed, you don't get sick days. No, that's right. Yeah. And if you wanna take a week off- Yeah

you gotta do a week's work. You, you gotta spread that week somewhere else. So I generally have a couple of crazy weeks, uh, doing videos till 11:00 at night the night before a holiday, all of that good stuff. Yeah, all, all of that stuff. So yeah, I, my, my processes are a little bit random. I, I made a video start to finish today.

Um, it generally takes me about a full, a full working day-

[00:18:59] Stephen: Okay ...

[00:18:59] Jody: to make a video. Yeah. There's, there's a couple of different styles. I, I sometimes do the kinda live hands- Yeah ... where, again, it's unscripted. It's just me and a microphone. Um, the alternative to that is kind of what? Narration over B-roll, where I'll do- Mm

a two-camera piece. That's scripted- Yeah ... so I write that script, and I record the B-roll, and my editor chops it in and out. He edits it all together for me. So I kinda try and mix and match those. To be honest, they both take about the same amount of time, you know? You would think that the live hands would be shorter- Right

and in, in some ways it is, but it, it doesn't, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference. Some of the longer videos, the top 10 lists, that type of thing, they can be two days, really, two full working days to, to do them, so. And still not too bad. It still sounds like I work two days a week then, doesn't it, if I make- Yeah.

if I make two videos a week, it's a two-day working week. But if only that was the case. There's, there's other things as well.

[00:19:53] Stephen: Do you have trouble finding, uh, topics to talk about, or watches to review? Or how often do you throw in the, you know, top 10, top five, um... Yeah. Are those filler episodes when you don't have anything to do?

Like, how does that work for you?

[00:20:09] Jody: No, I mean, I think, I think the content has changed a little bit- Yeah ... over the course of the last s- four or five years. Um, I used to do a lot of micro brand content.

[00:20:21] Stephen: Mm.

[00:20:21] Jody: I think it's getting harder and harder to get views on micro brand content because-

[00:20:27] Stephen: Interesting ...

[00:20:27] Jody: the, I think the micro brand market is getting pretty saturated.

[00:20:31] Stephen: Saturated, right

[00:20:33] Jody: I'm now partly responsible for that, of course. I've, I've got myself- I've only got myself to blame, but it- Yeah ... yeah, it's getting harder and harder, I think, to get eyes on those, on those kind of single watch videos- Yeah ... unless it's the big brands. So, yeah, in some ways I am relying on Seiko, Casio, Citizen, you know, the, the, the other big brands, some of the Swiss brands, Tissot, the entry-level Swiss brands, releasing good watches.

Yeah. Because that's, you know, that's the way to get people to watch a video- Yeah ... is for them to be interested in, in what's been shown. So this year, I've begun to migrate a little bit more into commentary, rather than, "Here's a watch. Here's another watch. Here's another watch." Yeah. And so far, so far it's kind of working.

It's, you know, again, after 10 years of doing the same thing, you need a bit of a change as a creator, I think. You need to- Right ... mix it up a little bit to keep your, to keep your, y- you engaged with what you're doing. That's helped, and I think it does help to kind of balance out the, you know, break up the watch reviews as well.

Y-

[00:21:31] Stephen: you were mentioning, um- The viewer, viewership on Micro Brand Watches, how close do you pay attention to the analytics of your show? Ooh. And how often does that drive the direction and the decisions you make?

[00:21:50] Jody: Yeah, you're only as good as your last 10 videos. Mm. YouTube shows you your last 10 videos. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, that can be a, a, a beautiful, uh, statistic, or it can be a scary statistic sometimes. Yeah. So yeah, generally I kinda know what I'm doing for the next couple of months. I, I have a kind of rolling Word document where I've got a, a calendar diary of the Wednesday and the Saturday, the Wednesday and the Saturday, and I kinda shuffle them around- Yeah

fill them in. So I, I, I generally know what I'm doing. But if I've had a couple of videos in a row that haven't gone well, if I've had two or three or four that have had fairly low viewer numbers, then I will throw in a top 10 list because people love a list video. Yeah. You know, the list, list videos are the, they're kinda backbone of, of YouTube in some respects, or watch YouTube anyway.

Yeah. And if, if I'm here to give product advice, if I'm here as a product review channel, then I've got 1,400 videos of archival footage to rely on, and the knowledge of a thousand different watches that I can genuinely either tell people to buy or tell people to avoid. So it's quite fun for me to go through the, the, the back catalog, the library if you will, and, and, and dig around and come up with some lists occasionally.

[00:23:00] Stephen: You mentioned, uh, earlier in our, in our conversation about that your main revenue was coming from YouTube. Yeah. I think you phrased it like that. Um, I don't know if that's still the case, but how, how did revenue drive your decisions about the channel? And did you make a living, or do you make a living on YouTube?

Yeah, I- It seems like a very volatile place to do that, and we can talk about, um, July 5th, 2021 in a minute as well.

[00:23:32] Jody: July 2021, yes. Oh man, that's... I, I've got the shivers thinking about it. Oh, it, it is. It, it, it definitely is. Um, i- as discussed earlier on with you- Mm-hmm ... there was no plan. I never thought, "Hey, this is a business."

I never came in here. Yeah. I know, I know certain YouTubers in the watch space came into the watch space with big financial backing and a brand manager.

[00:23:53] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:23:54] Jody: I certainly didn't do that. You know- Yeah ... I, I was very much, and still am, a guy in his bedroom just gonna muddle- Yeah ... and my way through.

[00:23:59] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:23:59] Jody: But, you know, you, you start making some videos and you think, "Hey, I've made $14 off this video.

I could buy a Casio for $25, and then I could pay for it in- Yeah ... two months." And then, you know, it, it just- Yeah ... it just begins to snowball. And I, as I said, I was a full-time student at the time. I went from a master's into a PhD, so I had three years, you know, three and a half years with some COVID breaks in it, studying, studying for that.

So I didn't have a, another job that was bringing in steady income. So YouTube was a, was a fantastic, convenient way of earning a living whilst doing full-time study. So I was making three videos a week and doing a PhD. I, I have no idea how I managed to do that for three and a half years looking back on it, but anyway.

So no, it's, it is my main income source. I was in hospitality for 15, 20 years before, um, moving into this I still do work at Sydney Opera House. I worked there on and off really since 2006. I've been an usher. Wow. I still go in oc- occasionally now, uh, just the kinda minimum number of shifts so they don't fire me because it's- Uh-huh

it, it's an incredible place to work.

[00:25:11] Stephen: Right.

[00:25:11] Jody: Uh, I've got so many, so many friends, so many experiences, so many stories there. I've seen so many great shows, and it's nice to see people in real life,

[00:25:18] Stephen: but- Yeah, that's right. Right ...

[00:25:20] Jody: it, it's not, it's not something that I could have relied on as a, as, as a main income, so I'm not quite sure what I would be doing was I not doing this, and had it not gone so well.

[00:25:33] Stephen: So I mentioned July 2021, um, and that's the day that YouTube turned your channel off.

[00:25:41] Jody: Yes, they did.

[00:25:43] Stephen: Maybe you could talk about that a little bit, and I'm curious- Oof ... I've been curious as, as I was researching, uh, for the show, I was curious if there was e- ever a connection between that and maybe a decision to expand your business into other areas, which we'll get to in a few minutes.

Um, because you're relying- Yeah ... at any point in time, YouTube can just turn you off- Yeah ... or, or just change- YouTube ... change the rules of the game.

[00:26:10] Jody: Yeah, I mean, I, uh, that, that was a real shock that day. I was at the university library-

[00:26:15] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:26:15] Jody: on my own. I think it was mid-COVID, and I was kind of sneaking out because there was a bit of a loophole for e- education.

Yeah. So I was still able to go and study, but nobody else was turning up, so, uh, that, that was quite fun. And I got an email, it was like a two-line email with a no reply saying, "We found your channel to be, uh, you know, promoting counterfeit goods-

[00:26:38] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:26:38] Jody: i- in, in violation of our rules. It has been deleted.

Thank you. YouTube team." And my heart just, you know, fell through the floor- Yeah ... because, uh, it was just horrible. You know, everything, everything you've built up over the last number of years gone in an instant with a- with no reply.

[00:26:55] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:26:56] Jody: Oh, yeah, yeah. Pretty, pretty, pretty ghastly. I got a phone call about five minutes later from Peter Cotza, who's a, a Melbourne YouTuber- Yeah

who perhaps you've come across, does, does beautiful work. Uh-huh. He actually does all our photography for- Fun. Yeah ... Erebus Watches. And he's like, "Mate, what happened? Your, your channel is black."

[00:27:15] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:27:15] Jody: I was like, "I don't know. I don't know. I've just been cut off." Yeah. And then, you know, people start messaging and phoning and contacting me through Instagram, and I had done that course, um, a couple of months prior, so I didn't have a contact at YouTube.

There was nobody there I could, I could get in touch with. But I contacted the organizer of the course who had contacts at YouTube and said, "Look, I, I don't know what's going on. Is there anything you can do?" 'Cause it's Singapore that is the, the hub. You know, they, they deal with the Asia- Oh ... Pacific region.

[00:27:46] Stephen: Okay. Yep.

[00:27:47] Jody: And I, I put out a couple of Instagram posts and I was like, "Look, I haven't done anything wrong. I don't know what's going on. Maybe give YouTube a, a bit of a shake if you can, please." Because I started watching other people's videos on YouTube got, I got my channel back. Yeah, yeah. YouTube shut me down, but I got it back.

So the process you have to follow, so I followed the process and I then produced my own video on here's how I got my channel back after that. And within, I went to bed that night, I spoke to my wife, you know, just absolutely devastated obviously. Went to bed with a, well, feeling nauseous. Woke up the next day to a, you know, "We've reviewed your channel, it's back."

That was it. Within about 18 hours, I think it was- Mm-hmm ... from switching it on to switching it, switching it off to switching it back on again rather, but th- they were not a, a pleasant 18 hours, and just shows, showed me how fragile it all was. Also showed me the strength of the watch community. The

[00:28:44] Stephen: community, right, yeah.

[00:28:45] Jody: Oh, ab- absolutely. You know, I'll never know quite how it happened, why they decided to look at my case and why they decided to switch it back on. Yeah. But I had, I was deluged with people saying, "Hey, what can I do to help other creators?" Yeah. Viewers, so, so many. You know, I, I, I listed them all in that video, and it was- Yeah

a big list. I had to write them all down on a bit of paper- Yeah ... and thank everybody. You know, everybody was just saying anything I can do? I saw, I saw a change.org

[00:29:11] Stephen: petition to support.

[00:29:12] Jody: Brilliant. Yeah. Somebody, somebody said, "Bring, bring Jody back," you know? Back,

[00:29:17] Stephen: yeah.

[00:29:17] Jody: We need cheap watch reviews. We need reviews of cheap watches.

How dare you, YouTube? But yeah, I mean, that, that, that was a shock. I, I had, I had the idea in my head that, um... And it could still happen today. Yeah. I ended up with a, I ended up with a, what they call a partner manager who is one of these- Oh, okay. Yeah ... is, is a contact at YouTube- Yeah ... who will periodically have a conversation with you, a, a, a Zoom meeting where they run through the back end and tell you what you're to do.

Really, they're, they're just there to try and get you to- Oh ... sell memberships to your customer base- Okay, yeah ... or, you know. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, th- th- she, she kind of disappeared. I think she moved on after a couple of years, and I got the, the email from YouTube again recently, "Hi, we've, we're taking applications for partner managers."

[00:30:04] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:30:04] Jody: And maybe I should have done it, but I didn't- Yeah ... even bother because, yeah, there was no... YouTube's not gonna help you. They don't really care. There's how many channels? Yes. Who knows how many channels? I, I don't necessarily blame YouTube. Right. How could they possibly-

[00:30:18] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:30:18] Jody: keep tabs on every single video?

It's somebody in an office looking at something saying, "Yeah, yeah, click, delete." Yeah. Next. You know, moving on to the next one because that's their job.

[00:30:29] Stephen: I notice a lot of YouTubers lean heavily on memberships, uh, Patreon, things like that. Yeah. I don't believe that you've done that, or you don't- I had a- You certainly don't overtly- No

push it. No, I ha-

[00:30:44] Jody: I had, I had a Patreon for a couple of years, but- Yeah ... I, I did- I never did anything with it. Yeah. I never gave pat- patrons any value for money. Yeah. And I was like, "What? That's... I'm just taking people's money for n- for no reason."

[00:30:55] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:30:56] Jody: YouTube pays ad revenue. If you wanna support the channel, then, you know, watch a video.

Yeah. That's, that's good enough for me. Yeah, I never, I always felt a bit uncomfortable about that part of it. You know, I, I commercialized in other ways, so that, that didn't involve asking people for their money. Directly

[00:31:13] Stephen: Direct. Right. Well, that takes us to 2023. Mm-hmm. So in 2023, you launched the Origin- Yes

um, an Erebus watch.

[00:31:26] Jody: Yes.

[00:31:26] Stephen: So you started your own watch brand.

[00:31:28] Jody: Yes. I, I guess the idea had- Oh ... been in my head for a number of years. When I got to reviewing other people's- Yeah ... micro brand watches, seeing how they were growing their brands and their businesses, it, it looked like great fun. Yeah. And it has been great fun, and I thought who better to start a watch brand than somebody who's so intimately involved, who complains, deliberately complains about every watch he comes across in one manner or another?

You know, I could surely have a go at this. So I think it was shortly after my channel got deleted, I started a website, and I did a lot of channel giveaways. I still do the occasional giveaway. Mm-hmm. Maybe not as many as I used to though, admittedly, and a condition of entry was give me your email address, and I thought, "Well, that's me building up an email address- Yeah

for a future watch brand." So that was kind of in the background. I had met Steven, my business partner at Erebus. We met, I think, in maybe 2020. Uh, there's a kinda big community, as I'm sure there is in, in every kind of region or country, big watch community over here. P- people know each other, y- you know, never met each other, but there's a lot of buying and selling and trading, and we bought and sold a few watches from each other, and then we met and became friends.

And one of us, we still can't quite remember, said, "Hey, you know, do you wanna, do you wanna start this business?" He is, he's a background in sales, logistics. He's got a kinda warehouse that he operates his own business out of. Um, it's just been a really good combination of skills, experience, and knowledge.

It's, it's been a really good combination of skills, experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm for, for what we do. You know, we're, we're both watch addicts. We're both kne- knee-deep, well down the rabbit hole. Yeah. Um, and it's, it's been great fun to, to build something together and to, to learn. You really feel like every watch that we release now, we're three years in, they just kind of get better because we keep refining them, we keep tweaking them, we keep learning from, from previous models what we want to do better.

[00:33:39] Stephen: It feels like you had a, a built-in customer base or potential customer base with your audience when you launched. Mm-hmm. You were probably over three... I assume you were probably 350,000 subscribers at the time. Um, how did you balance, uh, like the launching of a new product and not- Mm-hmm ... ramming it down the throat of your subscribers?

[00:34:06] Jody: I, I-

[00:34:08] Stephen: Or did you?

[00:34:09] Jody: Yeah, good... Or, or did I? I don't know. I mean, you'll need to ask them. I'm sure, I'm sure a few people dropped off. You know, there was a lot of, "Oh, you've, you've... How could you possibly review watches now that you're trying to sell your own as well?" Yeah. A- again, if that's what people think, fair enough.

Yeah. They can, they can- Sure ... they can go elsewhere to another channel who's also trying to sell you a watch, but in a slightly different way perhaps. Exactly. You know, there's, there's... Yeah, exactly. There's, there's a lot of various things happening. Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah, I've just kind of... I don't talk about Erebus all the time.

Mm-hmm. Um, this week we've got a watch coming out in a couple of weeks' time, so today's video I give, you know, a sneaky little plug, a few sneak peeks here and there. Mm-hmm. I wear the Erebus T-shirt occasionally. Um, if I'm doing a sponsored video for another brand, no mention of Erebus, no links in the description, nothing at all.

Obviously, that keeps very separate from one to the other. But, you know, I feel like I've... It's made me a better watch reviewer in some ways because- Oh,

[00:35:08] Stephen: okay ...

[00:35:08] Jody: I know, I, I, I feel I know more about what goes into a watch. I know how difficult it is to get a product from concept to delivery. I also know better how much things cost.

Right. So I know when a company is turning the screw or when a company- Interesting ... is cutting their profits, you know? It's made me appreciate that value, to go back to that, you know, key word, even more. And, you know, there are certain brands that now I have more respect for than I did, certain brands that I don't have quite the same respect for.

You, you begin to look at other businesses, other micro brands differently. You begin to assess them and look at how they have grown and evolved and, you know, we have our own ideas of how we would like to grow and evolve and, you know, we've, we've got a few companies that we, that we look up to in- Yeah ... in the micro space, for sure.

[00:35:58] Stephen: You mentioned earlier that maybe two days a week you're working on videos. Is the rest of your time- Mm-hmm ... consumed with Erebus?

[00:36:07] Jody: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I, I try and go into, uh, we've got Steven's, um, we, we call it Erebus HQ, but we're- Yeah ... a kind of an office within an office in a warehouse area- Uh-huh ... um, probably about an hour or so drive from where I am.

So I try and go in one day a week, one day a fortnight, or Zoom meetings or whatever. Lots and lots of conversations, lots and lots of emails. You know, Steven can be pretty intense in his own way. I don't think he'll watch this podcast, so, you know. So it's, it's okay. He's, he's pretty intense. That's been one of the key factors driving the whole thing is, is his- Yeah

personal intensity. But yeah. Yeah. There, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of chat back and forth, and it's only gonna get busier, I guess, as, as we get bigger. We, we've got our first full-time employee. We've got an operations manager who now does a lot of the day-to-day stuff. We've got a, a couple of part-time staff as well.

Again, never thought- Yeah ... that that would happen, certainly not when I posted those first scruffy videos in 2016 with a phone and a, a swan neck-

[00:37:08] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:37:08] Jody: holder, you know, that I would- Yeah ... be, become an employer.

[00:37:12] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:37:13] Jody: Right.

[00:37:14] Stephen: Yeah, as I mentioned, um, before the show started, I bought an Erebus for my daughter for her PhD when she graduated.

Thank

[00:37:22] Jody: you very much.

[00:37:23] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:37:23] Jody: That's amazing.

[00:37:23] Stephen: And, uh, she absolutely adores it. Um, and it was a pleasure for me to buy it. It's the most expensive watch- Yeah ... I've bought so far, and I gifted it to somebody. I didn't buy it for myself.

[00:37:34] Jody: Oh, you gifted it. Oh, there you are. There you are. Well, we'll need to, we'll need, we'll need to do you a deal.

Have a look at the website and we'll, we'll, we'll give you a- ... we'll give you one on special. But no, that's really nice. It, it's- Yeah ... it's, it's surreal to see something that you've created, something that you've designed- Yeah ... and then, you know, brought to market and- Yeah ... quality controlled and shipped and done all that on the wrist of somebody on the other side of the world and, and to, to hear that they enjoy it is, is, is fantastic.

[00:38:01] Stephen: So I have to ask this question then. So as Erebus is growing, it looks like it's a success- Mm ... do you feel yourself pulled that, "Hmm, oh, this is the day I've gotta do the video. I'd rather be focusing on Erebus"?

[00:38:16] Jody: I, I, I mean, I'm very conscious that one needs the other. Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, Erebus needs just one more watch.

Yeah. And I still, I still need both for sure. Yeah. I, I couldn't just do, I couldn't just do one. Not at this stage. Perhaps that's the kind of, um, the, the dream in the future where, uh, as much fun as I've had here, how many years can I- Yeah ... carry on making YouTube videos? Is, is YouTube gonna shift? Is something gonna change?

You know, we, we just don't know what- Mm ... whether the next media platform's gonna come in in a couple of years and take over. So I, I think it's, at some point it would be nice to, you know, not wind down the channel, but to, to maybe, maybe take it down to one video a week if-

[00:39:03] Stephen: Right ...

[00:39:04] Jody: if things will allow and kind of balance things out.

Plus I've got, you know, a couple of small kids, and I am conscious of the number of hours I'm splitting across the two different jobs. So I think- Three ... Steven feels the same.

[00:39:16] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:39:17] Jody: Three jobs. Yeah. Yeah. I forget about the other one. But that's, that's my fun job. It's not really- Yeah. Yeah, right ... it's not, it's not work.

Sure. Opera House is a fun... But Steven feels the same way. I think he- Yeah ... he has the same mindset, that he would love it to be his full-time, uh, hi- his main and only, you know, business. We've talked about what we wanna do with the brand in, in five years, 10 years' time. So I'll still be doing YouTube for the foreseeable future.

[00:39:40] Stephen: Yeah. So it's pretty clear that, you know, your YouTube channel, the skills and what you've learned about watches has impacted Erebus. I'm wondering about maybe the other side of the skills that you've developed doing YouTube videos. Have any of those skills applied to running a, you know, watch business?

[00:40:03] Jody: Uh, I would love to say so, but probably not really No? Okay No

[00:40:07] Stephen: Yeah

[00:40:07] Jody: Yeah, no, not really. I mean, just it's the, the, the handling, ha- having your job as, as handling watches-

[00:40:14] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:40:15] Jody: in this price range. You know, I've been doing it for 10 years. I've seen what most other brands have to offer, whether they're big brands or small brands, Japanese brands, Swiss brands, whatever.

So I've had hands-on experience, and that has been a kinda real privilege and an advantage for our watches, plus all the sort of backend contacts and my friends and colleagues in the space. Yeah You know, it's been great. YouTube's a phenomenal marketing platform for us. We've... Maybe last year we started doing, um, Facebook advertising and, uh, a little bit more social media content, but really it was YouTube plus that email list has been our, our main marketing focus to this point, and it's, it's worked very well to this point.

[00:40:59] Stephen: So how would you define, back in 2016, success for you was hitting 2,000 subscribers, right? 2,000

[00:41:08] Jody: views. Yeah.

[00:41:08] Stephen: 2,000 views Views, okay. All right It wasn't even subscribers. 2,000 views

[00:41:11] Jody: Within three months. I know, I know. Fairly modest.

[00:41:14] Stephen: So how does that look for you today in terms of your two businesses?

[00:41:19] Jody: Yeah. Well, YouTube, it's, uh, it's now a million views a month.

That's-

[00:41:24] Stephen: Yeah ...

[00:41:25] Jody: that's what I kinda need to do to keep it ticking over, to not let it kinda slide, um, yeah, and to keep the, the Google Ad revenue coming in at a sufficient rate. Uh-huh. It's a million views a month. That's the k- the kinda metric that I work on. Obviously, I have a kind of... I don't have a target for each video, but obviously I assess each video and, oh, well, that one hasn't done so well, so I'll need to do something in the back end of the month to drag my views up and...

Yeah, so that's, that's what it is. That's what success looks like. The subscriber count is kinda going nowhere fast. We had that explosive growth period at the beginning, and now it's kinda plateauing. It's about keeping... I guess it's about keeping regular viewers regular. Yeah, yeah It's about keeping people engaged, keeping them interested, and producing content on watches that they're interested in or, or content on topics that they're still interested in.

That's maybe where, where my priority is now. And maintaining rather than, you know, what's the next area of growth? How can I get to 2 million? I, I, I'm not really, I'm not really there. Maybe if I hadn't started the watch brand, maybe if YouTube was my only f- thing to occupy my mind and my time, I would've driven it further and harder.

But- Yeah ... because of the watch brand, that's three years now doing that in parallel, you know, I, I, I'm more interested in, you know, realistically maintaining rather than any huge growth.

[00:42:53] Stephen: Mm. So as we wrap up here, and thanks for joining me today, um-

[00:42:59] Jody: My pleasure ...

[00:43:01] Stephen: what one thing would you say you would have for advice for someone starting a channel or a podcast or just trying to get their message out?

What is the one thing that you would advise them to pay attention to?

[00:43:16] Jody: Oh, I would, I would tell them for a start, just do it. Yeah. So many people have an idea and don't actually do anything about it. Just do it, you know? Yeah. It doesn't matter. You don't have to get it right first time. You will learn from every single video you do, especially in the early days.

Have an idea of what it is you're doing, whether that's you're the same as that guy, you're different to that guy, or you're a combination of those guys, or, or you're, you're gonna do something different entirely. Have a bit of an idea of what you wanna do, and keep doing it. So once you've started it, start it and keep doing it.

And I think that's, that's been one of the reasons why, you know, if you follow a creator and they disappear for two or three weeks at a time, then, you know, they disappear from your consciousness as well. Whereas, if you know every Saturday morning, ah, it's, it's, you know, that Scottish guy, I can, I can do the washing up and listen to him ramble on about watches, and there's gonna be a fresh piece of content, then people will keep coming back.

So that's it. Have an idea of what you wanna do, actually do it, and then keep doing it.

[00:44:18] Stephen: Be consistent.

[00:44:18] Jody: Very simple.

[00:44:19] Stephen: Yes.

[00:44:19] Jody: Be consistent. Absolutely.

[00:44:21] Stephen: Fantastic. Uh, do you have, um, if someone wanted to reach out to you, uh, either about- Yeah ... Just One More Watch or about Erebus- Yeah ... or whatever, where's the best place to contact you, Jody?

[00:44:32] Jody: Yeah, um, email I guess is the best place. Jody, J-O-D-Y, @justonemorewatch.com or jody@erebuswatches.com. I'm on Instagram, but to be honest, I, I don't-- that was one platform too many for me- ... and I stopped. I st- I still, you know, look at o- other people's watches and whatever else there- Yeah ... but I stopped, I stopped posting content because I just didn't have...

Maybe the reason why I haven't started a podcast as well is because it's just an- one more thread too many threads

[00:45:01] Stephen: happening.

[00:45:01] Jody: Just one more thing. Oh, I've got enough. Hey, look, I love cars. Yeah. I would have- Oh, right ... I've been, I've been squatting on Just One More Car for several years. I would love to do the- Oh,

[00:45:12] Stephen: yeah

[00:45:12] Jody: buy the cheap car- Yeah ... do it up, and I would, I would love to get into all of that. Big Formula 1 fan. Mm-hmm. Again, I've thought about starting a Formula 1, you know, commentary channel- Yeah ... you know, content channel. That's really, that whole space has- Yeah ... exploded over the last- Yeah ... five years or so as well, so-

[00:45:29] Stephen: Yeah

[00:45:29] Jody: maybe I missed that particular boat, but just don't quite have the time, unfortunately.

[00:45:34] Stephen: Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me.

[00:45:37] Jody: My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. It's been

[00:45:39] Stephen: fun

[00:45:39] Jody: to chat.