This 23-year-old athlete has made millions of dollars posting videos on social media, racking up over 1 billion views in the last year alone.
So I flew to the Netherlands to spend a day with him to learn how he did it.
What's up, man?
We're gonna dive into his life as a fitness YouTuber, tour his studio and break down his revenue streams.
Let's meet Brownie.
This is your office.
This is it, man.
Whoa, this is the gym.
The real office is upstairs.
So this is the first floor.
You gotta show me something cool.
You gotta prove.
This ain't fake.
Oh my goodness.
Holy crap.
Brownie for you guys.
How much did you make last year in 2022?
2022, we went decent amount over a million.
So I was pretty shocked almost by that.
Tell me your come up story, man.
How did this all start?
Created the YouTube channel when I was 13.
Started making videos, tried twice a week and I was getting like a thousand views a video.
I was enjoying it.
At this point, I was like 16 and YouTube wasn't going well.
I had been making videos for three years straight.
My paycheck from YouTube was either non-existent or it was like 30 bucks.
My parents were like, hey, You kind of need to start making money.
I was at a point in my life where nothing was really going well, basically.
Last year of high school, I failed that year.
First time I started liking a girl, didn't like me back.
I was a bit chubby as well.
At some point I had to just get a job form to fill in.
I wanted to change.
So I started to gain a passion for fitness.
Fitness and working out calisthenics started to become my life.
One day I uploaded my body transformation video of what I did in the past year.
It started to blow up.
That year I passed school and I asked my mom and dad, I think I'm going to take a gap year.
And during this gap year, I started making more fitness content.
And then that started to be successful.
Thank you guys so much for 50,000 subscribers.
And it just exploded.
100,000 subscribers.
1 million subscribers, which is crazy.
And I can't get it in.
Can I get this in?
Can I do it for the camera?
He does.
You don't rent this place.
This is your place, this is my place.
We bought this place and it was completely empty, so there were like holes in the floor.
It was a blank canvas that i could just work on.
How much did it take to install this thing?
This entire thing is 10k, a 10k setup.
We designed like every inch of this studio so every angle we could use.
So this is a set.
This is a set.
This is a set.
Obviously it was a big investment, but it worked out, it paid for itself.
Yeah, Can you break down a little bit about your business and all the revenue streams you have?
Yeah, it's definitely ad revenue.
Ad revenue has always been my main priority, because I feel like it's the best one for the viewer's experience, because you don't let people pay for something.
Brownie posts on his main YouTube channel, as well as his second channel, where he uploads shorts and reaction videos.
He also posts on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to a total of 8 million followers.
Did I mention he has a Spanish channel too.
Brand deals we're very picky on the brand deals.
The main brand deals and the main deals with the most revenue are actually from long-term deals.
I'm working with my protein for six years now, maybe even longer, and with gymshark for like two years.
What i like about these brands?
They let me do my creative thing.
I don't have to talk to the camera and have like a 60 second integration and just talk about something that you don't want to hear.
And then my own brand We have a series 90 day challenge where we help people transform in 90 days.
That's a course we sell online as well.
And that has been doing super, super well, because people seem to like the videos and want to transform their own bodies.
What is the percentage breakdown?
So we got 25% for brand deals, 35% for the courses, and then we have 40% for like ad revenue.
That's interesting because I think a lot of creators the ad revenue is smaller and the sponsored part is the bigger one.
Yeah, definitely.
You not totally depending on that is really great in terms of diversification.
What is that, yo?
Guinness World Records?
We have a world record in most pull-ups done on a helicopter in one minute.
A flying helicopter.
Arjen did it first.
Arjen smashed the record.
And then a few minutes later, I smashed that record.
Shout out to Arjen for letting me break it again.
I think Arjen should get actually another one for probably like shortest world record.
But personally for you, are you really into investing and finance and all of that?
I know a decent amount about it, but my main focus has been the creative process.
The investing, for example, happens just by a bank, a team that invests for me like every single month.
I invested in ETFs, I invested in Tesla, I've also invested in crypto.
I really believe in investing back into the channel.
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Holy, so this is the office.
This is the office space.
Welcome to upstairs.
So let's start off with the kitchen.
Yeah, this is an awesome kitchen.
Also, we kept in mind as a set, we could do a lot of stuff before the courses.
We could do some diet stuff related to that, pictures.
Yo, the gear wall.
This might be one of my favorite walls.
This is my main camera.
This is a Canon C70.
It's huge.
It's massive.
Would you consider yourself a very frugal person?
Kind of, yeah.
I never like spending money.
I do like to spend a lot of money in camera gear though yeah, i have to say that, although like that's into the business yeah, i also have a tesla, which is something like oh, that's a pretty expensive car, but you mean, you use that to work on your business.
So exactly, we've got the man in the blue shirt over here.
I'm eating.
This is the perfect moment.
This is the perfect moment.
Arnian, or the guy in the blue shirt, is brownie's right hand man and is an essential part of brownie's videos.
I'm basically been there since the fitness part, so that's like seven years ago.
We go way back, Way back.
In growing your YouTube, what was one of the most difficult moments?
Outsourcing of stuff.
You always think you're the best editor.
You always think you're the best at this or no one else can match your style.
How big is your team?
Well, let's see how many friends and family I have because they're all in the company.
Obviously, the guy in blue shirt.
My dad doing lots of the finance stuff.
My brother and my girlfriend, friend of mine, someone working in germany, someone else working in germany i'm also working well.
The cameraman that you're enjoying right now.
He's also from germany.
I actually pay a lot of my people in performance-based revenues, so like, if a video performs really well, they get like a certain percentage.
For example yeah, that definitely happens, but also for the courses, which a big chunk of the revenue as well.
The guy in the blue shirt he works super hard on the courses and he is performance based on that as well.
He's earning good right now.
What is work-life balance to you?
Do you have it or are you trying to work on it?
I'm trying to work on it now.
For all entrepreneurs, it's so hard.
You never really let go of the pro of having your own space.
It's like you can leave work a little bit here and go home.
For an aspiring entrepreneur or a content creator, what advice would you give them?
Pick something that you like.
And I really see a trend going up of people picking a random niche, picking something that they think is doing well, like Mr Beast of something whatever.
Or maybe like a side hustle or business idea just because it's making money just right now.
Yeah, it just feels so not maintainable mentally as well.
And also just in the long run, you're not going to love your life.
You won't even get to 100 videos.
If your passion is not in it.
If it's not your passion.
I definitely feel like what I'm doing right now is the dream.
And I think it's a combination of creative part and the business part.
And I also feel like I just started.
We got an extra space, which is like down the road.
Second office.
Second office.
It's one floor, but it's the same size as these two floors combined, a bit bigger even.
We're also developing an app right now.
So there's a lot of investing, a lot of investing.
That's crazy.
How do you define success?
I feel like success is when I can create the best videos out there without having to worry about money.
And my people here don't have to worry about money.
It seems like you really invest into your team.
I'm super happy with being able to provide my best friend, girlfriend, family with a good salary.
I couldn't have gone here alone.
Like that would have been close to impossible.
Thank you so much, Brownie.
If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it and check out this video here and Brownie's video over there.
Peace out.
