Marissa Hill is the creator and host of Shade TV a brand dominating the sneaker niche on YouTube. She has grown her channel to over 100,000 subscribers and worked with the most popular brands in sneakers including Adidas, Nike, KSWISS and more! We dive into how she built her brand, whether gear matters, and how to breakout in a saturated niche and dominate!
In this episode, we explore the journey of Marissa Hill and how she built Shade TV and managed to not only standout in a saturated niche but dominate it with what I call "Big Creator Energy". Marissa talks in detail about how she got the attention of brands early on, and how she managed to get noticed as a Small YouTuber when she got started. She also talks to us about her challenges in the industry, imposter syndrome and how to deal with your haters.
Marissa Hill is the creator and host of Shade TV, a popular YouTube channel focused on sneakers, streetwear, and fashion trends. With a keen eye for style and a knack for storytelling, Marissa brings her audience inside the latest drops, reviews, and fashion insights. Her channel has become a go-to spot for fashion enthusiasts and sneakerheads alike, making her a respected voice in the style community. She has grown her YouTube channel to over 100,000 subscribers and been a featured creator speaking at both Vidcon and Vidsummit.
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Announcer (00:00:01):
Are you an entrepreneur, creative Pro, or in a transition to becoming one? Welcome to the Create Something Awesome Today podcast, where it's all about enabling you to develop the skills and mindset, encouraging success and helping you to thrive with everything you do, and of course, helping you create something awesome today. And now your host, creative entrepreneur and founder of Awesome Creator Academy, Roberto Blake.
Roberto Blake (00:00:28):
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake helping you create something awesome today with the amazing Marissa from Shade tv. How are you doing today?
Marissa Hill (00:00:34):
I'm doing amazing.
Roberto Blake (00:00:35):
Thank you for taking the time to do an interview with me. We just wrapped up VidCon, not to date this podcast too much, but how was your VidCon experience being a featured creator?
Marissa Hill (00:00:45):
So this was my second VidCon, a little different experience than last year. I was still a speaker, but I was featured this year with the YouTube team and I got to meet some incredible individuals. The panels were different this year, which was really fun and exciting, but I mean, I don't even know how to explain it. It's just the energy here that people bring is just so full and warm and consuming and leaves you inspired to just get out there and keep grinding.
Roberto Blake (00:01:13):
I know every time I come into a creator event, I leave with more energy and I feel motivated and inspired to create new things. But for the people in my audience who aren't familiar with you and your content, why don't you tell them a little bit about that since, especially now that you're officially in the Silver Play Button Club, congratulations on a hundred thousand subscribers. So
Marissa Hill (00:01:33):
I actually looked up to Roberto before I started my channel. One of the things that I really wanted to understand and educate myself on was how to start successful at the beginning and not five years down the road. And I of course was broke on my couch during covid and in need of some way to pay for my rent. I'd always really wanted to create content, but instead of course of saving money, I was looking for sneakers to purchase. And I realized there were absolutely no women creating content on sneakers. Which is weird because both men and women need sneakers.
Roberto Blake (00:02:12):
Hey, sneaker heads of all kinds, right?
Marissa Hill (00:02:14):
I mean, unless you're telling me somebody has three feet and they only want to wear heels, I dunno. I think almost everyone owns a pair of sneakers in their closet, but it was an underrepresented demographic. I was tired of seeing hairy legs in shoes. So I was like, we got to diversify this. I think we can do something
Roberto Blake (00:02:31):
Here. So an underserved market.
Marissa Hill (00:02:32):
Underserved market,
Roberto Blake (00:02:33):
That's what I always say is the opportunity. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:02:35):
Exactly. And the other thing was I wanted to see the shoes come to life with some styling and no one was really styling it. It was literally ankle down. That was it.
Roberto Blake (00:02:46):
So no cent of photography, no storytelling, no magic, no
Marissa Hill (00:02:49):
Storytelling. And I come from the modeling industry, so of course it would be weird to do photo shoots where it's super cropped even when I'm shooting from. So I'm also a foot and hand model. I know this is really weird, but
Roberto Blake (00:03:01):
No, this is interesting. Inside baseball, it's something different. We don't get,
Marissa Hill (00:03:04):
You probably see my feet and my hands in a lot of different places, but it's unrecognizable. So you would never have known it's me, except I know because I've seen my legs and feet all over subways on top of taxi cabs
Roberto Blake (00:03:18):
Where the buses are. I used to be in advertising. I used to do billboards, bus, signage, OOH, everything out of home subway signage. So yeah, I'm very familiar with this kind of thing.
Marissa Hill (00:03:27):
So Roberto may have actually put my legs or feet or hands somewhere on
Roberto Blake (00:03:32):
Something
Marissa Hill (00:03:33):
Maybe.
Roberto Blake (00:03:33):
Nah, I was doing that way back in the day. This is more than a decade ago.
Marissa Hill (00:03:37):
Okay, maybe not. Maybe somebody similar though, I don't know. But yeah, so I just got this idea. There is something here. I feel like I can really create a brand new community that hasn't existed. And I really want to make it a safe place for women to be able to fill. They have a place to be a part of. And of course, I mean women have different problems than men unless you wear heels all the time. Roberta, I don't know.
Roberto Blake (00:04:02):
No, not really.
Marissa Hill (00:04:03):
Okay. Well I realized there was something lacking and my dad was actually one of the first influencers back in the eighties. So he ran with Carl Lewis, Flo Jo, the great joining cursors on the Pan-American team, did the Olympic trials for years, and I felt like all the best track stars for some reason they were all in the south in the Hades training together, but they used to literally get sent insane amounts of boxes of sneakers. And so I grew up seeing this
Roberto Blake (00:04:33):
And you fell in love with sneakers
Marissa Hill (00:04:35):
A hundred percent. I was like, dad, I'm going to be like my dad one day Adidas is going to call me up and be like, Hey, I just sent you 200 boxes of sneakers.
Roberto Blake (00:04:42):
So you're like, your dad was one of, like you said, the OG influencers in terms of what they used to be a brand ambassador and they would have as an endorsement. And it wasn't that it was a traditional celebrity, but somebody in the arena of sports and excellence and would be a really good person who could endorse and be a representative of the brand. And that's basically the prototype for what content creators on social media are today.
Marissa Hill (00:05:09):
Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, it's crazy to think because that wasn't honestly that long ago, but
(00:05:15):
Even just product wise, testing out product for the first time, he was one of those guys where it was like he would give the intel and information back to the brands and say, listen, I ran a meat and these and just this was a little off. We need to tweak it here, tweak it there. And even just being on TV or having that live audience perspective of, wow, what's Garland wearing? Those are so sick and people are wanting to buy into that. So before of course we had social media, it was that in-person effect of having that endorsement from those brands.
Roberto Blake (00:05:45):
I want to circle back to that on brand deals in a minute, but I wanted to ask you, so as somebody who is a pandemic creator who's actually still surviving and thriving post pandemic, what were the early days of your creator journey when you first started uploading? What was that like?
Marissa Hill (00:06:02):
I mean, I will say there were some bumps and obstacles in the road, but that was to be expected. I think for me, what made things easier was really being goal oriented. I love a whiteboard, lemme tell you, I love erasing things, love adding things, I love checking off things, highlighting things. There's just something about that manual piece that just analog is so
Roberto Blake (00:06:23):
Ing analog.
Marissa Hill (00:06:23):
Analog, yes, I love
Roberto Blake (00:06:25):
It. Smell of the markers.
Marissa Hill (00:06:25):
Yeah. Oh yeah, I do. And then it dries up and I got to go buy a brand new pack from Costco. I like to buy things in bulk, which I need to stop doing that. I don't need 20
Roberto Blake (00:06:33):
Bags. There's nothing wrong with Costco and everything. Don't ever take my dollar 50 hot dogs away from me. I will cut you.
Marissa Hill (00:06:39):
Includes a drink too,
Roberto Blake (00:06:41):
Roberto.
Marissa Hill (00:06:42):
You can't beat it. But I think that starting out with some goals in mind and really having some really intense goals of this is where I see my channel in two years, three years, four years, five years, and these are the ultimate goals. But also when I started my channel, I didn't name it my name, people always ask me, why did you keep such a broad name? And it's because I wanted to think of it as more of a media outlet. That's always what I wanted it
Roberto Blake (00:07:09):
To be. You wanted to be a brand, you wanted to be a media company and you wanted to be the host of your own programming. Yes, smart.
Marissa Hill (00:07:15):
And if I wanted to extend it and add different personalities, it's now not just belonging to just me. Like shade TV could be a complete whole media entity where I can now bring on five personalities. If I wanted to slowly integrate them and introduce them to my audience,
Roberto Blake (00:07:33):
I think that's a great way to extend the lifespan of a creator business. Me, I'm a big fan of personal brand. My YouTube channel is my name. In some ways I actually kind of wish I had gone a different direction with that. Sometimes I debate it. I don't think there's anything wrong with building a personal brand or building a YouTube channel around your name, but you have to live with it as you evolve and change and you grow. And that can be a little hard to pivot, transition. But the thing is, I think when something's a media company, that vehicle has a lot more longevity than most people will have with a personal brand.
Marissa Hill (00:08:06):
Marissa Hill's also a very common name. There was a baby boomer moment of Marissa's in hills all at the same time. And I don't know why, because my name used to be so unique and now I look up my name, I'm like, there's a Marissa Hill that's a gyno, there's a Marissa Hill that's an attorney, there's a Marissa Hill that's a doctor and surgeon. So I'm like, I guess there's a lot of love for Marissa Hill out there. And so it is kind of nice to be associated with just more of an uncommon name where people know me as that a little bit more and it's easier for them to remember that because it's not such a common name that people utilize.
Roberto Blake (00:08:46):
So there's a lesson in that when people are looking up your content to your brand on social media, your name should be something that is easy to spell,
(00:08:54):
Easy
(00:08:54):
To pronounce, and easy to remember. Those are the three main rules when it really comes down to it. And the fourth one would be something that's unique enough to stand out and not be common. So I would say that you figured out or intuited that very early, which is really smart. And I don't think it hurt any of your success.
Marissa Hill (00:09:15):
Yeah, I mean I would hope so. I always think I have great ideas and I hope they succeed, which sometimes as may not always work out, but again, that was part of the structure before I started the channel. There was a lot of groundwork before it was even up and running and also learning everything from scratch, learning how to edit, learning how to film lighting, all of that wasn't at the start of my channel. I was shooting out of my kitchen, Roberto. I had
Roberto Blake (00:09:41):
A lot of space. You had no space, you no background in the cinematography, and you have some of the best cinematography in your entire niche on YouTube. In fact, a lot of people now they copy cap it and ape your style now, but you had to learn all of that from scratch during the pandemic. And then you still managed to grow to a hundred K in about three years, which is also about roughly the time it took me.
Marissa Hill (00:10:00):
Okay. Yeah, I mean I feel like I always say everyone's journey is different. We all have our different route. If we all left from New York at the same time, we would all get to LA at a different time range if we took a road troop. So I knew my journey was going to be different. I didn't want to compare myself to any other creator and I knew that I was diving into a male demographic where I was going to have to fight for those eyeballs and to share them. And what a lot of people don't understand is when you're a female and you have to convince men to also want to watch your videos over other men, how do you do that? Yeah, well
Roberto Blake (00:10:36):
You do because people watch mostly people they identify with on some level. But I do think that something interesting, and you can speak to this more than I could that happened I think for you is that you found that there was a little bit of a universality to the thing you said earlier. Everyone likes sneakers.
Marissa Hill (00:10:53):
Everyone likes sneakers. But I wanted to go back to the quality. The way I was going to tap into everyone was I wanted to give everyone the highest quality content out there in my space. That was my focus. It wasn't going to matter if you were a guy or a girl. I wanted you to come to my channel because we had high quality content. It was educational. You were leaving my channel with something and every time you would come back, I wanted that consistency.
Roberto Blake (00:11:18):
So you weren't for high effort, meaning that you can't, someone couldn't necessarily just start off the street and ape your quality. So it was going to be high effort. There's going to be a barrier to competition. So that's number one. That's kind of your first moat. Number two, you're going to look at the market, you analyze the market and you said, I will produce a higher quality product than everybody else. Three, I'll deliver more value
(00:11:42):
Than
(00:11:42):
What's out there in the market. So you'll be undeniable here and then you were going to be consistent. So it's like, hey, on long enough timeline, you can't avoid me. You're going to see my stuff and you're going to fall in love with it and you're going to respect and you're going to like it because you can't sit there and say, I didn't put in the effort. You can't say that this isn't a quality experience and you can't deny the value and then I'm going to just keep showing up and I'm going to beat down those doors and I'm going to wear you down.
Marissa Hill (00:12:06):
Exactly. I mean prime example, and I know there's no proving this necessarily, but we started with this concept. I wanted to give people three different options of looks and I wanted to take those options out into the elements. I wanted to go places and showcase the product, not so much, I mean everyone can do e-comm easy, but did I want to go the easy route or did I want to go the difficult route and see it pay off? So I
Roberto Blake (00:12:30):
Decided So that high level of effort and difficulty.
Marissa Hill (00:12:32):
Yeah, exactly. Which is I'm going to go outside whether it's hot, cold, I mean I've shot when it's below zero outside I've shot. When it's a hundred degrees outside, it's miserable. Yes. But it's worth it in the end because of the value of the quality of the content that I'm showcasing to you with the product. So we really established ourselves as that one channel that will always give you three guaranteed looks on showcasing the sneaker, whether it's a dressed up look, it's a casual look. It's a street wear, gender neutral look. I wanted to provide almost a storytelling scheme of I'm not giving you the answer of whether or not you should be buying this product. I just want to paint you a beautiful picture. So at the end of the video, you can decide for yourself, okay,
(00:13:15):
This
(00:13:15):
Is for me or this isn't for me. It shouldn't be up to me to tell you. I want to just tell the story. And in the end, you can decide the ending, whether or not you want to pull the trigger and actually buy the product or move on, watch another video and find interest in value in something else.
Roberto Blake (00:13:31):
So you to paint them the dream. Yeah.
Marissa Hill (00:13:33):
But now I see the Nike sneakers app and they're doing exactly what I've done. No one's done that before. We were the first to do it. Nike never showed styling sneakers who never cared. And we had a voting system always. It was like, which outfits do you prefer? Do you like this? Do you like that? It was the whole engagement aspect that really made my community tight knit. What do you think started popping up on their app? It was this engagement portion. We always tapped into our community by having polls. They never had polls on their app.
Roberto Blake (00:14:05):
So the thing is, because you were part of the community, you understood what you would want to watch as a member of the community. Yes, you gambled on yourself that this will be something that's cool and engaging and if nothing else, you gambled on the uniqueness. The unique value of this will make me a destination channel. You can't go somewhere other than shade tv if this is what you like and this is what you appreciate. Once I get you to see this content, you're going to want more of it. So that was the bet you took on yourself.
Marissa Hill (00:14:30):
A hundred percent also just, and
Roberto Blake (00:14:31):
Then people started aping you, including,
Marissa Hill (00:14:35):
It's crazy. And I get it, even from the designer perspective, you're going to create something amazing and then 30 people are going to go and try and make exactly your handbag or your dress that you
Roberto Blake (00:14:46):
Saw. I've seen this happen before where creators do something original and brands then literally kind start to mimic or ape their product. I've seen that happen in almost every niche you can think
(00:14:57):
Of
(00:14:58):
When it comes to creators doing something first in innovating. What have been some of the challenges with staying relevant in a world of copycats?
Marissa Hill (00:15:07):
I think for me, I want to style things the way I'm going to style them. And I get a lot of people talking behind my back saying Sneakers shouldn't be styled this way. I've always been authentic to who I am individually, and I think that's what's always set me apart. One of the things I've always done with sneakers is I wear them with dresses and people are like, the two don't mix. You should not be mixing dresses with sneakers.
Roberto Blake (00:15:29):
Tell that to every girl I went to high school with.
Marissa Hill (00:15:32):
But you know what I'm saying, it's so crazy to see this transition now that I think Covid, to be honest with you, was the perfect time for me to start the channel. I don't think that everyone was ready for it. And I do think there's a time and a place sometimes.
Roberto Blake (00:15:45):
So there was the benefit to the captive audience of people just consuming as much content as possible gave you the opportunity to make exposed, comfortable that too
Marissa Hill (00:15:52):
Comfortable for the first time people were working from home and they realized, I don't need to dress up. I can say comfy and cozy. And as things started to slowly open up, it was almost becoming acceptable for women to now be wearing dresses and sneakers. It wasn't this typical stereotype of, oh, you can't go out to a bar or go out on a date and be in sneakers. That would be against the rules and guidelines.
Roberto Blake (00:16:15):
Some kind of taboo,
Marissa Hill (00:16:16):
Some kind of taboo. And I think that that made it even more valuable to offer the option of this is what you can do if you can't visualize it. I'm going to give you those visualization cues as to how to figure out ways to style your dresses with sneakers.
Roberto Blake (00:16:33):
So these were style scapes and mood boards for the sneaker community, especially the female sneaker heads out there. And this is interesting because it would be obvious to some people that this would blow up on something like Pinterest or Instagram. Their first instinct isn't YouTube. What made you decide that YouTube was the platform for your brand?
Marissa Hill (00:16:51):
I mean, we do own Pinterest on the images. So when anybody's searching, I like to think of things as an ecosystem. I use all platforms for different reasons, but
Roberto Blake (00:16:59):
Platform agnostic. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:16:59):
Yeah, exactly. So it's everything I need for a reason. But I do think beneficially in being able to monetize per platform, like the most transparent of the maal is going to be the YouTube space
Roberto Blake (00:17:11):
Facts.
Marissa Hill (00:17:11):
I definitely think when working with brands, I just gain better relationships through going on the YouTube space when I'm targeting to understand and get the story out to them which one will benefit them more product wise. And I think for us, we're very product driven channel.
Roberto Blake (00:17:31):
Yes.
Marissa Hill (00:17:32):
So a part of that, a huge part of that is the SEO and knowing that when somebody is going on the Google search engine, what questions are they asking? And women are probably saying, what are the top five white shoes? What are the top shoes under a hundred dollars? Or even just specific silhouettes. And I want to make sure that I own that space. And so anytime somebody is searching for a specific topic, I want them to know that I'm going to have a video on that.
Roberto Blake (00:17:53):
So you want to dominate every search result in your niche, every question, every query, every input for your niche, for your specific thing, for your specific person. Your audience avatar.
Marissa Hill (00:18:03):
Exactly. But
Roberto Blake (00:18:04):
Why is it everyone says SEO is dead. If that's been so successful for you, why do you think people keep saying SEO is dead? Because clearly it's working for you.
Marissa Hill (00:18:10):
Unfortunately, for us personally, I create my channel as a library. That's the way I think of it.
Roberto Blake (00:18:16):
So a utility channel.
Marissa Hill (00:18:17):
Exactly. So this is a place you're going and it's perfectly indexed by brand, by product. And whenever somebody is going on the page, they're probably a hundred percent likely going to find at least one of the seekers they're looking for
Roberto Blake (00:18:31):
Because this is how they would use and how we used to use sites like East Bay back in the day and stuff like that. We'd use East Bay as the website, even the magazine, we'd go through the index and we'd go through the catalog and try to just get to the thing that we care about.
Marissa Hill (00:18:43):
And I think retro sneakers for instance, or re-release products, that's always going to happen in the sneaker industry. Prime example, the Saba and Gazelle from Adidas, I was the only one doing those sneakers. People mocked me. They thought it was silly. They're like, oh, these are trash. These aren't hype. Why are you even talking about these sneakers?
Roberto Blake (00:19:00):
Something for everybody.
Marissa Hill (00:19:01):
Let me tell you, fast forward, it is the hottest sneaker. They will not keep that sneaker on shelves and retail departments.
Roberto Blake (00:19:07):
So it's not in stock. It's hardly,
Marissa Hill (00:19:08):
It's so hard to get a gazelle or a samba. It's almost nearly impossible. But I was the first one to start really getting videos on that product early on because it has been something I've always worn since high school and it's perfect for my foot type. I didn't care. Even though it wasn't the cool sneaker at the time. We were early on that.
Roberto Blake (00:19:30):
So first mover advantage.
Marissa Hill (00:19:31):
Exactly, exactly. And also just diversifying myself with brands. I think a lot of individuals in my specific niche catered to just one brand and that really
Roberto Blake (00:19:40):
Limits them. Oh, so they're more like fanboys and stuff like that. So it's
Marissa Hill (00:19:43):
Primarily Jordan's and Nike. They would never cover any other product or Yeezy and Adidas. They're not going to jump into the other brands.
Roberto Blake (00:19:50):
I get it. That makes sense. So you have this advantage, and I think part of the reason you grow a subscriber base is there's enough of a variety within your specific thing. So you're not variety channel, but you have variety within
(00:20:01):
Your
(00:20:01):
Niche audience.
Marissa Hill (00:20:02):
Exactly.
Roberto Blake (00:20:03):
And then you can have these sub pockets of audience and there's enough to cater to them to say, I can also subscribe. So the thing is, if you only limit yourself to one brand that you cover, this is why I tell people not to niche down too narrow, like this niche down to an audience, not a thing.
Marissa Hill (00:20:18):
Yes.
Roberto Blake (00:20:18):
So niche down to a type of person, not a thing. Because now you can have 20 videos there for a specific type of sneakerhead that they can binge and enjoy. You're going to subscribe after three of the 20 videos, but you still have more to binge and to watch and to support. And then there's going to eventually be a video for you at some point. You don't have to watch everything. I think a lot of YouTubers get caught up in the idea that they want every subscriber to watch every single video. Exactly.
Marissa Hill (00:20:43):
Instead,
Roberto Blake (00:20:43):
Realiz, you could make videos for just a sub portion of your audience. And it's okay. We have
Marissa Hill (00:20:48):
Subgroups within our community. When I first started, so my first retainer I did was a six month and then it got extended to a year. It was with Key Swiss,
Roberto Blake (00:20:57):
And that's a brand deal retainer. That's a long-term contract, six months.
Marissa Hill (00:21:01):
This was 5,000 subscribers on YouTube when I was able to actually create this relationship, and I actually met the CEO in one of my clubhouse chats, surprisingly. And I was actually getting,
Roberto Blake (00:21:13):
This is really during pandemic times, clubhouse. I
Marissa Hill (00:21:15):
Like Clubhouse and I was getting pummeled. Women were being so rude to me in this conversation. And what a lot of people don't understand when you're on these platforms, you have to be careful. You never know who's in the room. And I support everyone.
Roberto Blake (00:21:29):
I
Marissa Hill (00:21:29):
Don't want to bring people down. I want to support especially,
Roberto Blake (00:21:32):
You just want to be a nice person.
Marissa Hill (00:21:33):
And especially when there's so few women in this space, why tear others down? There's no reason to. There shouldn't just be one
Roberto Blake (00:21:42):
There. Jealousy usually. But
Marissa Hill (00:21:43):
Yeah. And so the CEO o said, Mars, let's take this offline. I want to have a conversation. I really want to continue this. He valued what I was actually putting out there. And
Roberto Blake (00:21:53):
Probably valued the way that you carried yourself.
Marissa Hill (00:21:56):
Yes,
Roberto Blake (00:21:56):
A good reputation. Think about how many people could have had opportunities, how many people were bigger than you that burnt a bridge because they just couldn't stop being catty and they couldn't just be nice to somebody they disagreed with and they embarrassed themselves. And the thing is that put them out of the running for an opportunity.
Marissa Hill (00:22:12):
Exactly. And when I was speaking with the team over there, it was just an incredible experience as one of the first brands that I started working with. And what was cool, it was this long-term relationship. So I became the Kwi girl and I loved it. It wasn't Nike, it wasn't Jordan. And I think that's the thing that people forget. You don't start out with the biggest brands.
Roberto Blake (00:22:35):
Of course
Marissa Hill (00:22:35):
As you're growing,
Roberto Blake (00:22:36):
KWI is still pretty nice though. That's still pretty
Marissa Hill (00:22:38):
Big. I mean, listen, I wore Kwi. It was the shoe I could afford. My mom limited me to $50 or less with her Nordstrom discount of course. So I was like, mom, that doesn't even count. Come on. But K Swiss, that was my go-to sneaker. And I had it in every baby blue baby pink colorway. That was a thing.
Roberto Blake (00:22:57):
I was a feela kid.
Marissa Hill (00:22:58):
Okay, you're a feela kid.
Roberto Blake (00:22:59):
Yeah, we were broke.
Marissa Hill (00:23:01):
Well, hey, I used to get shoes from Walmart that had the kind of, it was like a C Nike swoosh, so looked like Nike if you hid your pant just above it. So it looked like the actual swoosh mark, but it was really like a C. That's how they kind of
Roberto Blake (00:23:15):
Have Nikes. They were fakey.
Marissa Hill (00:23:16):
Yeah, it was a fakey, yeah. But no one knew as long as my pant was covering the top of that weird angled swoosh mark.
(00:23:23):
So I think that understanding too. I think as far as economics go, everyone's coming from all over the price point range. So I wanted to make sure with the channel that I wasn't covering just $200 sneakers because that wasn't something I could afford when I was growing up. And I knew that and I understood that. So Kwi was one of those foundation brands that I needed and I wanted to have on board for that specific reason because they made a difference in my life. And that was the foundation of when I started really getting into sneakers.
Roberto Blake (00:23:52):
That's a good basis for brand deal relationships is not only the brands that you use today, but your go-to the thing you have a history with. For me, Adobe changed my life. So when I got the opportunity to work with them a few years ago and everything like that, I was like a kid in the candy store. I was like, what do you want me to do? What do you want? I'll give you whatever you want. I was just really excited just to happy to be asked and it was like a dream come true. So I can imagine how you felt with that, especially at 5,000 subscribers. I mean, I was a small creator. You couldn't get Jack all at 5,000. You couldn't get stuff. They refuse you free product, you review units at 30,000 back in the day of us, OG cra. If you think it was easier being an OG crater, it wasn't. So when you only had 5,000, was it they felt you brought to the table to be able to do a six month commitment with you? Because a lot of people don't believe that there's any possibility to do. And this was I assume, a paid brand deal sponsorship, not just product
Marissa Hill (00:24:48):
A hundred percent,
Roberto Blake (00:24:48):
Not just product.
Marissa Hill (00:24:49):
This was a guaranteed retainer deal. So I knew every month I had deliverables and I knew I was going to make X amount every month with the extension possibility at the end of that contract. I had that built in. But also because I come from the modeling industry, I understand contracts very well
Roberto Blake (00:25:09):
And
Marissa Hill (00:25:09):
Deliverables and deliverables and understanding the whole packaging of everything and what works best for the company and what works also best for me. And I think just coming to an agreement and working organically that way is where you find most success with companies, but also showcasing where you see yourself growing to and becoming. I think because it was such a new channel and I really had to paint them a picture of where I saw our channel going,
Roberto Blake (00:25:35):
You had to sell the dream.
Marissa Hill (00:25:37):
So I actually ran into the CEO EO in New York literally a couple weeks ago and I hugged him and I was like, listen Barney, you are a huge part of the foundation in my channel and I cannot thank you enough. You are the only one who bet on me.
(00:25:51):
Oh
(00:25:51):
My god of you. You opened up doors to every other brand. Once I was working with Kwi, all of a sudden, all of the brands, I'm very proactive, so I'm like a cold caller, you're a hustler.
Roberto Blake (00:26:01):
I know.
Marissa Hill (00:26:02):
I reach out to everyone. I do my research and I reach out to people. I was not getting any emails back, no one was responding back to my messages. And all of sudden people started responding back, Hey, let's jump on a call, want to speak to you, really interested in working with you. But I needed Kwi as backing. That brand was so essential to me actually expanding into working with other companies.
Roberto Blake (00:26:27):
That's incredible. And that's such a great story. And again, I think a lot of people who are small content creators don't think that they can do that, but I think there's some things that put you in a really good position for that one. You even started from early on with what you had. You went hard and went in on just higher than average production values. So you went with that. You didn't phone anything in just because you were small. You came with what I'm starting to call big creator energy. So you were a small channel, but you came with big creator energy. I think they respected that.
Marissa Hill (00:26:57):
What's funny, Roberto is somebody, I was at a dinner the other night and as somebody told me, I told them my subscriber count and they were like, there is no way The energy you're giving off is like you've got a diamond block. It didn't hit me. I was like, what does that mean?
Roberto Blake (00:27:14):
Big creator energy?
Marissa Hill (00:27:15):
It really hit home though when you said it just now because I'm like, it really is how you carry yourself and having that confidence. And the same as what I tell women with sneakers. It doesn't matter what you're wearing, as long as you're confident and comfortable in it, people aren't going to think twice or judge you in any way, but you have to hold yourself to a certain standard and carry yourself in a certain way. And that's what people will truly see. And going back to I guess the quality of the content, I can tell you a prime example of why I'm so thankful I decided to go that direction as opposed to shooting on my phone to start, I was actually approached by a company who was putting together a documentary or a docuseries, and they needed actual content to embed into their docuseries.
Roberto Blake (00:28:02):
So they needed supplemental content and it needed to pass the standards.
Marissa Hill (00:28:06):
It had to be shot in 4K, it had to look a certain way. And we basically submitted the content to them and they were like, this is incredible. This is exactly what we need to basically complete our docuseries. And then they decided, you know what? We need you to be a part of this as well. Can you jump on board? We want you to interview. And all of a sudden I started getting more tidbits and information on the docuseries. It was in partnership with Jordan brand.
Roberto Blake (00:28:31):
Nice.
Marissa Hill (00:28:31):
And I was like,
Roberto Blake (00:28:33):
And that got you some industry connects that got you some more credibility. That got you some love in the community.
Marissa Hill (00:28:37):
I had no idea that when the team went to meet with Jordan Brand, they knew who I was and they were like, we love her. Of course we'd love to have her as a personnel.
Roberto Blake (00:28:45):
So they were fans of the content. You never know who's watching.
Marissa Hill (00:28:49):
You never
Roberto Blake (00:28:50):
Know. And back then, how many views were you getting on average on a video?
Marissa Hill (00:28:54):
On average? On a video, I would say we were around like a thousand probably. But it depends on the product. It depends on the live.
Roberto Blake (00:29:02):
But with those 1000 to 5,000 views on a video, handful of them are people at Team Jordan.
Marissa Hill (00:29:09):
Yeah, it's one of those things where the community is so small and your name will get passed around, especially when everything is changing and potentially they're looking for more women and they can't find them. So one thing leads to another and maybe somebody came across my content and they're like, oh, I came across this girl. You should check her out. And that's when all of a sudden you find these brands really doing the research and seeing who's out there and when you're the only one really doing it, there's no other person. It kind of becomes this one case scenario of like, okay, she's the only one talking about sneakers. There's a lot of women out there taking photos, but not actually holding and talking about technicalities and wear on them and what's best for you, what's not best for you. And we really were kind of the first to jump into that.
(00:29:56):
I think women were always stereotyped is not being educated on sneakers. And it's really sad. People used to joke around at sneaker conventions with me and try and pull a fast one on me. Let's go up to her and try and ask her a question. It was on a Jordan five or something, and I went ham on them. The guy was like, holy shit. She gave us the whole backdrop on Tinker Hatfield. She knows the history of Japan and these airplanes and everything. And I was just like, I'm a history major. Don't mess with me. I love information. I love history.
(00:30:22):
That's
(00:30:23):
What makes this channel so much more fun because I get to really digest information and I just am so hungry for that information. I love,
Roberto Blake (00:30:30):
I get to do what's fun to you.
Marissa Hill (00:30:31):
Yeah, exactly. But I think that I was the first one, I was maybe under 10,000 at this point to ever license my content on a Hulu a, b, C news docuseries. How insane is that?
Roberto Blake (00:30:48):
People think that they need to get to a hundred thousand, a million, a 10 million or they're irrelevant or these opportunities don't exist for them. It is a myth.
Marissa Hill (00:30:55):
It is a myth. I literally was on stage preaching this, and I think it is different depending on your niche. Some people will beg to differ and fight me to the death on this. They'll say that subscribers matter. I am the pure example.
Roberto Blake (00:31:09):
Again, it depends on your niche. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:31:10):
I mean you tell me, should I have signed with an agency around 8,000?
Roberto Blake (00:31:15):
See, I think that a big part of it, everyone thinks about reach, but they don't think about reputation and they don't think about what takes to build a good reputation.
(00:31:26):
If you start out with small creator energy, then you're always going to be obsessed with the insecurity of your views and all these things. But if you go with big Prader energy and you look at things like, oh, I'm doing TV production standards. I'm doing storyboards for my stuff. I'm sitting here and I'm doing aesthetics and style scapes and all this stuff and cinematography, mastering the lighting and audio sitting there looking at what are the production standards for Netflix and what the Netflix approved cameras are. When you're doing that, and then you're also going into something that's tied to e-commerce or product centric and consumerism. Why wouldn't you get looked at? There's people that have those gigs that make six figures doing the production and doing those things and doing story brand directing that don't have a single follower on social media. They have a resume and a portfolio.
Marissa Hill (00:32:12):
This is very true.
Roberto Blake (00:32:13):
Old school still works. It still matters in this industry.
Marissa Hill (00:32:16):
Old school still works. I mean the professionalism that you bring to the table. And it's crazy. If I look back and say, I did shoot poor quality, maybe they would've brought me on for my personality, but I would've made so much less. I got to license out and got paid per minute on that content and I was just like, oh my God, I am a hundred percent going to be focused on high quality continuing this journey because of how much I was able to make salary wise from that docuseries. I mean, it was incredible.
Roberto Blake (00:32:50):
How much do you think your modeling background informed a lot of your process? Because for me, it was my background, advertising, marketing, graphic design, photography. I worked in creative services. I worked in having to do visual production level work for billboards, commercial advertising in the entertainment. I was at a agency, it was in the entertainment space. It was doing print OOH for cable broadcast entertainment brands, so sports, usually HBO sports, some stuff with Madison Square Garden. And what it gave me was this perspective one on the contracts for the brand deals from an agency perspective, and then also the amount of advertising dollars that actually are available in budgets. A lot of creators don't realize how much money advertisers actually have or spend on a regular basis.
Marissa Hill (00:33:39):
Oh yeah.
Roberto Blake (00:33:40):
Those things inform me. How did the modeling background inform you in terms of understanding deals, contracts, and setting all this up and understanding the value of your professionalism, your reputation, and then that, oh, there's personality value, aesthetic value, just in representing a brand, having the right look, the right feel, but then the production value stuff. What role did that play?
Marissa Hill (00:34:00):
Wow. So I always tell people, I actually started modeling later. So I got my degree in broadcasting journalism and also a history degree in African history. And then after I graduated, I was just like all my friends had wanted me to really just try modeling. So I was like, you know what? Why not? This is going to give me the opportunity to travel the world. But there was really, at the time, there was no guidebook on a how to become a model. And I'll never forget, I actually ran into Tyra Banks nor mom at a restaurant, and I was going to be on her show. I ended up not doing
Roberto Blake (00:34:33):
It. You mean America's Next Top model? Back in the day, America, America
Marissa Hill (00:34:36):
Model. And I was in the finals to make the cut, but I was on a fluoride volleyball scholarship and I ended up choosing to continue, of course, my education instead of going on this reality show. Best decision honestly could have made smart, but come full circle. Tyra was like, we still doing out here in Washington. You need to get out there and go model. And she referred me to LA models, which is crazy because I actually ended up signing with 'em when I first moved to la. I decided one day I'm just going to ship my car out there. I didn't know anyone. I just literally engulfed myself into a new city and had to just really learn the ropes and it was a big learning curve. I came from a very small town where everyone is super helpful and you trust everyone, everyone's honest. So I definitely think that going back I would've told myself a lot more things to help me navigate that better. But contracts, I mean a hundred percent really reading your contracts and understanding rights of you as a person because you can lose those rights if you don't read.
Roberto Blake (00:35:42):
Oh yeah. And
Marissa Hill (00:35:43):
When I say rights, I'm talking about your image. People can
Roberto Blake (00:35:46):
Own your gut. Oh, image likeness. Yes. Yeah, no, it's like a lot of entertainers found out the hard way. We found out about the WWE with a lot of the wrestling personalities and everything that they didn't have a lot of the rights to their own name and their own likeness. I mean, it's insane.
Marissa Hill (00:36:00):
And just hidden fees, things that you get charged for that you're like, wait, what?
Roberto Blake (00:36:05):
I've known creators to not have the rights to their own content on their own YouTube channel.
Marissa Hill (00:36:09):
Listen, I can completely see that because I've seen it happen in the modeling industry and I think times have changed a lot and there's been a bit more transparency with that,
(00:36:19):
Thank God.
(00:36:19):
And also just a lot more mentorship with these models. There's a lot more information out there that kind of helps guide them a bit better. But I think I've always had my head on my shoulders and luckily I started later, so I think I was more of an adult to be able to navigate and understand these contracts. I need to have somebody else read these and make sure that this makes sense for me. And just the percentages you're giving them and where it's going and what's getting taken out of your checks. But also just I think the industry in itself, when I say I was working model, I'm a working model, so I think people have this personification of, oh, a model just does covers of vaccines and that's just not the case. Every model number one, you want to land an e-comm job, e-comm is essential. That's consistent work that's
Roberto Blake (00:37:03):
Like, can you explain a little bit more about that?
Marissa Hill (00:37:05):
Yeah, so e-comm, my biggest e-comm client for decades has been Nordstrom's, Amazon, Zappos, target, Walmart. Those are companies that need to produce large amounts of images
Roberto Blake (00:37:20):
Every
Marissa Hill (00:37:20):
Single day in volume in bulk. So that means you're booking with these clients at least two to five days a week, and you're doing that for years with a day rate. With a day rate, of course. And they're typically larger day rates, but you know that you're guaranteed basically to get that rate every week. And depending of course on your market, I mean it's different living in LA, which is a more commercial market.
(00:37:45):
So
(00:37:45):
In LA you want to book commercial jobs because those are also the highest paying. So I would say between commercials, car commercials are on the higher end, big pharma tech, those are on the higher end. So every model's dream really is to land at least one of those a month. You could be making 25 to a hundred k depending on the buyout. I was understanding terminology early on, what is a buyout? Are they buying out my image for one year, two year? Is it in perpetuity? In
Roberto Blake (00:38:14):
Perpetuity? Yeah.
Marissa Hill (00:38:16):
These are terms that I'm lucky because a lot of creators are running into these same terms.
Roberto Blake (00:38:21):
Oh, I right here at VidCon, a creator was licensing their library, I won't name the creator, but over a thousand videos in their back catalog for a mid six figure deal. And I told him, you better go back over that contract and you better know the expiration date of this licensing agreement and it better not say the words in perpetuity or screwed. You want it to be maybe two to three years of licensing this. And then you need to keep growing and blowing yourself up so that when you come back to renegotiate that to again, you can eat and get another bigger deal, that's six to seven figures and eat again, because otherwise they're buying you too cheap. If it's forever, you don't want to give them the licenses forever. You want to also look for the word exclusivity here because I'm like, you should consider syndicating your back catalog on X and a couple other of these platforms to make some money off of that oh percent before this thing ever gets inked. So you can still make money in perpetuity and exclusivity.
Marissa Hill (00:39:19):
Prime example, red flags, exclusivity, where you learn about that in modeling. Typically that would happen with maybe a haircare brand. So say I shoot for a specific haircare line, they don't want you competing with other haircare lines because maybe they want to use you on campaigns everywhere, and this is a specific product they want to pitch to the consumer that's working for your hair. Well, if all of a sudden you're popping up on five different other brands, people are going to be confused and they'll be like, alright, so is she a Kio girl or is she a Garnet fruit tea girl?
Roberto Blake (00:39:49):
It used to mean something like to be the new Neutrogena girl, right?
Marissa Hill (00:39:52):
Yeah. Like Kristen,
Roberto Blake (00:39:53):
You're
Marissa Hill (00:39:53):
A Maybelline girl. It wouldn't make sense then if you're an Estee Lauder, a Mac girl, I mean, they're going to be like, what's going on here?
Roberto Blake (00:39:59):
So you need to also have exclusivity per category and say, okay, here are the categories I can compete in, and if I'm doing exclusivity in it, I can't have crossover or conflicts and I need to know which brands are going to be okay with each other. Which ones are compatible? Same thing happens in tech, by the way.
Marissa Hill (00:40:16):
Well, you don't want to lie about that stuff either because they will find out and they will pull all of those funds back from you, potentially you. So these are things that for creator's sake as well, always read the fine lining because the fine lines, if it says, have you shot for a company like this in the past six months to a year? And you decide, I want the money over being transparent with them
Roberto Blake (00:40:38):
Having any integrity. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:40:40):
Yeah. You never know where they're going to find that image of you. Or you could pop up in a fricking grocery store and they're like, wait a second, is that her eating a burrito? And I was like, oh, I guess I forgot to mention I did model for Costco Hot Dogs one time.
Roberto Blake (00:40:56):
Did you really?
Marissa Hill (00:40:57):
No, no, no. I've actually modeled a lot for Costco magazines, so you probably definitely seen me in a Costco catalog before.
Roberto Blake (00:41:04):
Yeah, no, I'm a big Costco.
Marissa Hill (00:41:05):
I've not go to hot dogs now. I haven't
Roberto Blake (00:41:06):
Done that big. I love those hot dogs. Never change that bloody price. You're keeping it one 50. I don't care what you have to do.
Marissa Hill (00:41:14):
But yeah, so also different types of modeling as well. So the other type of opportunity in New York, it's more editorial and showroom. So I was a showroom model, and showroom is amazing because you're usually booked out per season. So whenever it's fall, winter or spring summer releasing, you want a showroom
(00:41:33):
And
(00:41:33):
Showroom clients mean that's guaranteed booking for about three months.
Roberto Blake (00:41:37):
Nice.
Marissa Hill (00:41:37):
And so that's typically during market week. So that also runs along the same time as fashion week, which when I first moved to New York, I was like, I want to be in fashion shows. I'm going to do runway. And then you realize runway doesn't pay anything and it takes all day. And so I was like, you know what? I would much prefer to do showroom remodeling, but you actually get to meet buyers of these stores. So you're
Roberto Blake (00:41:59):
Meeting the decision makers,
Marissa Hill (00:42:00):
The decision makers who are deciding I want to buy XX and X, this is my demographic. So I was really learning what companies were really interested in buying and per store. I started to know, okay, Neiman Marcus is coming in, they're going to want to buy something like this, so we're going to probably put these pieces on because this is their clientele. If it's a client or a boutique from Miami, I'm like, they're going to want something a little bit sexier,
(00:42:23):
So
(00:42:24):
We're probably going to pitch to them these pieces. And you start understanding the different markets and the stores and what they really cater to and what's a safe play for them. So those are things
Roberto Blake (00:42:34):
Makes total sense
Marissa Hill (00:42:35):
Too, where you can be a sponge as a model or some models just don't care. And they're like
Roberto Blake (00:42:39):
Of being aloof. They're
Marissa Hill (00:42:40):
Just there for the job. And I think too, editorial is kind of like the dream for everybody. You think that this is okay, going to pay thousands of dollars, no editorial, there's no money in
Roberto Blake (00:42:52):
It. I can tell you as a photographer, there's no money in it
Marissa Hill (00:42:54):
There. And I would say though, for your book, it's great. So not to say that it's not good,
Roberto Blake (00:42:59):
No, it's leverage. It's reputation building. So yeah, some things you do for reach, some things you do for revenue, ak the money part, something you do for reputation sake, and then some things you do because of the relationships that you get to build off of it.
Marissa Hill (00:43:12):
Exactly. And also just running around the city and casting castings are just the grind of the job that most people don't really enjoy because you're having to wait with about 50 girls that look exactly like you. It's so funny when you're like, hi, what am my casting is? I'm like,
Roberto Blake (00:43:30):
All these girls look like me. These went on top model. They called the S.
Marissa Hill (00:43:33):
Yeah. It's like, all right, I'm in the right place because everybody here looks like me.
Roberto Blake (00:43:36):
And
Marissa Hill (00:43:37):
It's one of those things in modeling, which is quite interesting. You don't get to have a voice really. You're an object essentially. And you just have to,
Roberto Blake (00:43:44):
Well, you're a product.
Marissa Hill (00:43:45):
You're a product. And so in saying that there's nothing you can do. You just have to be the right look at the right time for the right person, for the right product.
Roberto Blake (00:43:58):
But that's actually sometimes can work to your advantage. I tell people that that's the advantage even when you're small in getting brand deals is like, okay, you think it's all about reach? No, you could be the right representation and the right relatability to sell the dream to the customer and that will matter more because having a million subscribers doesn't matter if you're the wrong person to sell the dream, it doesn't matter. So you could be smaller, you could be an unknown, you could be a first timer. And so there is something to that.
Marissa Hill (00:44:27):
Well, and going into these castings, I realized that I have a personality, I need to use this personality. And if they're saying 50 girls
Roberto Blake (00:44:35):
Stand out, be memorable.
Marissa Hill (00:44:36):
Exactly. And I started booking jobs where my agents would be like, Mars, did you meet the casting director? They're raving about you and your story and you guys both came from the same town or something like that. And it just started to click, wow, I need to engage with these people and showcase more than just this photo and this book that I'm presenting to them. So much more than that. And I realized that that was my true success in modeling. And I translate that still to this day when I'm talking to brands. But because I've modeled for Nike and Adidas and I've been on that side of the camera, I understand it full circle now. And so I'm not just playing this guessing game of what does this brand look for? How do I talk to them? And I always am looking to reach out to c-level entities. I'm not looking to start at the bottom. I always want to start at the top and I want pitch with
Roberto Blake (00:45:33):
The decision maker.
Marissa Hill (00:45:33):
With the decision maker, exactly. And I want to cut to the chase, basically. It's very New Yorker of me.
Roberto Blake (00:45:39):
Yeah. Facts. No, I'm very similar in that regard. I think that it's a dynamic of, as much as people hate hustle culture,
(00:45:48):
They refuse to learn any lessons from it as a result of the fear of the exhaustion, the burnout and everything like that. It's like if your worst fear is burning out, maybe this isn't for you because it's something you have to be willing to confront. Is it worth having that experience and overcoming it if your dream is big enough, if your vision is big enough, again, that big creator energy, it's not to say that burnout isn't real and that's not bad, but it's like are you willing to go through some bad times and bad things to get where you want to be and what you want to go?
Marissa Hill (00:46:14):
A hundred percent.
Roberto Blake (00:46:15):
So that New Yorker thing, we have that in common. Flatbush. I mean
Marissa Hill (00:46:18):
It's basically like a thick layer of skin that we felt thick G skin. I've had a hard upbringing. I've had to work for every little thing growing up in my life. I used to use this analogy where I didn't have enough money to pay for my lunches really. When I was in school, we were that broke. And I would wash dishes while everyone was at recess. And I used to say, well, everybody was at school at play. I was working washing dishes. And I still use that analogy because it's that grind. I'm trying to survive and I was trying to survive. It's
Roberto Blake (00:46:52):
That situation where it's like that, hey, when other people are playing, when other people are sleeping, when other people are coasting, when other people are on vacation, I'm still getting at it because, and you can say the world should be a better place, boohoo, but alright, I'm not going to say die. I am not going to surrender. I'm not going to take that for an answer. And that's the difference of why someone like you makes it. Someone like me makes it. Yes, success is
(00:47:17):
Rare,
(00:47:18):
But not because of luck. It's rare because most people won't pay the price that's demanded.
Marissa Hill (00:47:23):
Exactly. I mean I learned a lot of lessons early on and it wasn't pretty, but it shaped who I am and it made me a more prepared individual to go up against any type of obstacle put in front of me and not giving up. And also I played sports my whole life. So we're team players. Exactly. And teamwork makes the dream work the stronger your team and this as well. I started very small with my team and now it's expanded. But I know that you are as strong as your weakest link on your
Roberto Blake (00:47:51):
Team. Yes. Every time.
Marissa Hill (00:47:52):
Every single time. And this is something sometimes you can't even just teach. You have to go through it. You have to experience it.
Roberto Blake (00:47:59):
I would agree. There are some things where I've learned this as a teacher that you do have to recognize a lesson that has to be and can only be learned through experience, which actually is heartbreaking as a teacher when you know that, oh wow, if I could save you from this pain, I would. And knowing deep down that you can't. So that's rough. As a teacher I would say that. But there are some things that can only be learned through experience and it's part of the price that has to face the iron price. It's the iron price. It
Marissa Hill (00:48:25):
Really is
Roberto Blake (00:48:26):
To get that thick skin.
Marissa Hill (00:48:27):
It's funny, when I started playing volleyball in middle school, I was so little,
Roberto Blake (00:48:31):
It
Marissa Hill (00:48:31):
Was tiny. I looked like I was going to break. And I remember my middle school coach not having any faith in me and saying, I don't know if I can put you on varsity. You're kind of like a twig. You might break. And fast forward to my senior year, I got so many scholarship offers.
Roberto Blake (00:48:44):
Nice.
Marissa Hill (00:48:44):
And she tells my story all the time to the younger girls and says, don't give up on your passion because I knew a girl once who I didn't believe in, and fast forward, she was given every opportunity possible to succeed and get higher education because she worked her butt off and did everything she could to be successful in that sport.
Roberto Blake (00:49:07):
Talent without work is nothing.
Marissa Hill (00:49:08):
I didn't have a ride. I found the best team. We traveled an hour and a half to get one way to practice, an hour and a half back. My parents couldn't take me. I had to convince one of my friends to join the team so we could ride together.
Roberto Blake (00:49:21):
Wow.
Marissa Hill (00:49:21):
I did everything because I wanted to play volleyball so bad.
Roberto Blake (00:49:26):
That's called wanting it enough. And I know a lot of people resent this idea and everything, but sometimes you just don't want it enough. I want to go back to something you said about teamwork and about the early days and starting small. What'd your team look like in the beginning? Was it look like today? And then in terms of, can we talk about cost and expenses per production and some of those things? Because actually everyone loves to talk about, oh, well, we're grossing this much in revenue, but no one talks about expenses and I would love to know kind of the inside baseball on high production.
Marissa Hill (00:49:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think at the very start I had to become a part of a lot of different underground sneaker communities. I really wanted to be in the loop all the time, all day long, every second of the day. And I gained a lot of friendships in this community and I actually would put in this community when I needed help and people started helping me. Maybe I couldn't get a sneaker so someone would send me the sneaker so it wasn't coming out of my pocket. I would pay for of course, for them to ship it to me and I would ship it back. But that support early on, just explaining to people, Hey, I am having a struggle with this and that. And people would just respond
Roberto Blake (00:50:37):
To. So not being too proud to ask for help.
Marissa Hill (00:50:39):
I mean, I was so stubborn early on in life, I think I was always trying to do too many things, trying to
Roberto Blake (00:50:44):
Learn too story my
Marissa Hill (00:50:45):
Life. And I always felt bad asking for help. And when I started, I convinced someone to basically learn how to edit and he was like really came from the business side of things. He's like, you really want me to learn how to edit? And I was like, yes, you're going to be amazing at it. And we both had cameras already just that we had used. It wasn't the highest quality cameras, but they were good enough to
Roberto Blake (00:51:10):
Shoot. What were your early cameras?
Marissa Hill (00:51:11):
I mean, Sony A seven. Okay, that's nice. That's good. So it was just sitting around. Alright, I know that's not normal.
Roberto Blake (00:51:19):
Oh, hey, I was on a Bobo Nikon D 3,200. So for me here in Sony 87, I'm like,
Marissa Hill (00:51:25):
Nice. Oh yeah, okay. So that's not your typical, but yeah,
Roberto Blake (00:51:28):
No, but I get it too.
Marissa Hill (00:51:30):
It had dust on it to say the least, so we had to dut it, but
Roberto Blake (00:51:34):
That was clean, that sensor. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:51:36):
We didn't have the dual camera you have right now, but yeah, so also with audio, it was so echoy. I lived in a loft space, so it was just like my audience was actually saying to me, Hey Mar, you're a little echoy and pitchy. So I started getting these clothing racks and using clothes to go all over and surrounding me in my kitchen.
Roberto Blake (00:51:56):
So you're using clothes as the sound dampening?
Marissa Hill (00:51:58):
Yeah.
Roberto Blake (00:51:58):
Oh man, that is so ghetto. I love it.
Marissa Hill (00:52:01):
Yeah, it was unique. I wish I would've taken more photos of my first setup. It was very humorous. I didn't have lights. We were using phones to really shine lights on me on the setup. It was just amazing. Was such a mom and pop workshop.
Roberto Blake (00:52:17):
I love it
Marissa Hill (00:52:18):
To start. But also my fans, when I would go live, I would tell 'em these things and they would donate and it just means the world to me to look back and see that support system that I had from the start of me being just so vulnerable and saying like, I'm so sorry. My sound's not great. Or my light's a little dark. I am trying to work my way up to better my quality of my content, and I want to really increase the budget on
Roberto Blake (00:52:44):
It. Are those videos still up and around?
Marissa Hill (00:52:46):
Oh yeah. I mean, I don't ever want to take them down just because I look back, I'm like, man, I've come a long ways. I really have. But I had no budget at the start. Again, I was out of work during Covid. No one was
Roberto Blake (00:53:01):
Wanting a lot of people,
Marissa Hill (00:53:03):
And so I had to be really savvy and efficient with what I was spending my money on. But anytime I would get donations, that always went back to the channel every single time I was putting that towards new equipment, even just investing in a tripod instead of balancing a camera on your books and
Roberto Blake (00:53:20):
Books,
Marissa Hill (00:53:21):
Holding it up in between like a pasta sauce,
Roberto Blake (00:53:23):
Oh my Lord.
Marissa Hill (00:53:26):
There's things that everyone didn't get to see on the backside of things, but also adding a video that took maybe four days to do because we're learning how to use Premiere and things like that. And my intern loaning us his names so we could get a discount off of Premiere because I couldn't afford it. Just things like that, cutting
(00:53:46):
Costs
(00:53:47):
And just really being savvy got us a long way. A really long way.
Roberto Blake (00:53:52):
So what do you shoot on and what's the stuff today and what's the expense for having a team?
Marissa Hill (00:53:57):
I mean, we have the same exact equipment,
Roberto Blake (00:54:01):
So we're seeing professional full frame Sony cameras.
Marissa Hill (00:54:04):
I'm just looking, I'm like Roberta, this could just be my exact same setup right here with
Roberto Blake (00:54:09):
These are my field cameras. Back at the house. We got the FX 30, sorry, not FX three and the A seven S3. These are two a seven mark fours right now.
Marissa Hill (00:54:20):
So we have the A seven mark fours as well. Two of them we were shooting with some Fuji equipment, but again, as you know, when you're shooting with different companies and the quality and coloring scheme
Roberto Blake (00:54:34):
Is inconsistent. Oh my
Marissa Hill (00:54:35):
Gosh. Color matching. And
Roberto Blake (00:54:38):
I used to have a Fuji, I loved it for photography. I loved it for B roll, but it just was not, the color matching wasn't there and everything. It was a fun toy to have and I loved them. The
Marissa Hill (00:54:48):
Fuji cameras look great. They look like antiques.
Roberto Blake (00:54:53):
Got to be a Sony. It was really
Marissa Hill (00:54:54):
Sad. It was really sad, honestly, to have to not mix and match equipment. But then in the editing room, you realize you really got to stick with one team
Roberto Blake (00:55:03):
Ecosystem, man. Yeah,
Marissa Hill (00:55:05):
Yeah. So also we have the DGI And
Roberto Blake (00:55:10):
For the microphones or the drone?
Marissa Hill (00:55:12):
No. Well, some of our team, they're working on their drone licenses, so stay tuned. You may see some drone footage at some point in time, but lights as well. Mics. We use Sennheiser mics now, which I mean I,
Roberto Blake (00:55:29):
I use the wireless Sennheiser mics. I'm experimenting with the DGI wireless mics.
Marissa Hill (00:55:33):
We do have the DGI wireless mics, and those are easier to pack and travel
Roberto Blake (00:55:38):
With. Travel. The version two, the mark twos are good.
Marissa Hill (00:55:41):
Okay. Yeah, so red carpets are kind of like a new extension of what we've been doing. And just for interviews, the Sennheiser sounds like butter and it
Roberto Blake (00:55:50):
Does.
Marissa Hill (00:55:50):
I just can't go back.
Roberto Blake (00:55:51):
It's so expensive though.
Marissa Hill (00:55:54):
I have done a lot of work to earn my Sennheiser. Mike. Shout out to be an H. You are the dream team. Yes. I owe it to them for making just the sound quality.
Roberto Blake (00:56:04):
Is that the wireless Sennheiser or
Marissa Hill (00:56:06):
No, it's not.
Roberto Blake (00:56:07):
So it's kind of like this, yeah, interview style
Marissa Hill (00:56:09):
One day. I do have a shore, Mike, that's actually a Supreme Shore Mike, so I'm pretty hyped with some of my equipment as well.
Roberto Blake (00:56:15):
Nice.
Marissa Hill (00:56:16):
One of a hundred Roberta. I got to be really out there with pay What?
Roberto Blake (00:56:20):
You got to be extra. You got to be extra.
Marissa Hill (00:56:21):
Oh, these sold out within 30 seconds. Sorry. It's also connected to my karaoke machine that's also Supreme. So yeah.
Roberto Blake (00:56:30):
Hey,
Marissa Hill (00:56:31):
I know we do it all on the Shade Channel. I just haven't sang that much for everybody yet. But I think with equipment though, it was really one of those things that it became almost like a reward at the end of the year where
Roberto Blake (00:56:43):
Yes, I agree with that.
Marissa Hill (00:56:44):
I looked at it as, okay, we earn this. I know this costs this or this, but also we had friends who would help us with discounts and things like that.
(00:56:51):
So
(00:56:51):
I always say, ask around if you can't afford an upgrade with your camera equipment. Just see if you know anybody who maybe works for a company
Roberto Blake (00:56:59):
Used Gear. I sell every time I upgrade. I bless somebody with a really big discount on my used gear. Now, Roberta, why wouldn't you just donate or give it away? It's like I want somebody who's worked for it that respects what it is, because I want them to love and care for it the same way as me. And I know if they sacrificed for it, then they had to pay something for it. I know that they'll honor it the same way I did. When you get my gear, you get it. It was out of the box. You sometimes even actually get the box.
Marissa Hill (00:57:23):
Yeah, I mean, my Sennheiser Mike was not brand new. I don't care. That is my child. I cradle that thing now. It's so expensive. But
Roberto Blake (00:57:32):
You see, sometimes I take better care of my gear than I take care of myself. But I travel,
Marissa Hill (00:57:36):
And especially if it's used, I mean, usually people take care of their equipment because it is so expensive. So I don't mind getting used gear, honestly, it's no big deal to me. But yeah, again, you don't need crazy intense equipment at the start. Just work your way up. And it is a dark hole though. When we all go down it. It
Roberto Blake (00:57:56):
Does. Yeah.
Marissa Hill (00:57:57):
It keeps going and it never ends. And Sony, your
Roberto Blake (00:57:59):
Acqua syndrome is a sickness.
Marissa Hill (00:58:01):
I hate going to electronic events because then Sony's like, oh, this is our new upgrade.
Roberto Blake (00:58:05):
Take my money.
Marissa Hill (00:58:06):
I was just like, what do you mean you're upgrading this? And yeah, it is like, take my money. Whatever you want, I'll take it. But the quality of your equipment later on, looking back, I am really happy that we started with that Sony equipment, and even though
Roberto Blake (00:58:21):
It makes a huge difference for the brand deals, I keep telling people, your production value really, really helps a long way in your negotiations with brands. And no one talks about that.
Marissa Hill (00:58:30):
And also with modeling, I was lucky. I always was asking the videographer and photographers about their equipment and lighting, and I learned a lot. But again, that's me being a sponge and going out of my way. They're like, what's this model doing asking this? I'm like, what kind of gimbal you got over there? Just always just learning and seeing what's the hottest piece of equipment or what can make our team's life easier. That's all I want, is to cut my time in half and work more efficiently because time really is the thing I'm always needing more of.
Roberto Blake (00:59:02):
A hundred percent. I think that's true for every creator. I always tell people that there's an acronym called Time, and it's a time freedom, investment, capital, manpower, and then your experience and expertise, and that's the acronym for time. But those are the bottlenecks for being a successful creator. A lot of the time when you're starting out, you don't time, oh, I don't have the money to invest in this stuff. I don't have extra people to help me. We
Marissa Hill (00:59:25):
Call it the excuse makers, right, Roberto?
Roberto Blake (00:59:28):
True
Marissa Hill (00:59:29):
Sometimes, but sometimes it is excuse. And so now we're like, how do we fix those excuses?
Roberto Blake (00:59:34):
Yeah. I mean, I can say that those are all real things, but you should know that going in with your eyes open and just do the work to overcome them. You went and you asked for help. You knew you needed more manpower, you needed more people. So you said to do the vision of what you wanted. So you asked for help. You was like, okay, I'm not going to be too prideful. I'm going to do that. Oh, I don't have experience. I'll ask questions,
Marissa Hill (00:59:52):
Learning things. I don't want to be in the editing room. And here I am on an airplane in a turbulence situation like editing a video. I'm like, oh God, I just deleted to have my video on accident.
Roberto Blake (01:00:02):
How many hours is the average editing turnaround for something as high production as yours?
Marissa Hill (01:00:06):
I mean, it depends. We're pretty efficient with how we do our sneaker unboxing videos. Just we've got our whole system going. I would say longer videos for vlogs. I need to come up with my storyline and how I want to piece together all that information. So that can take a solid week for me to just be like, okay, this is the order. This is how I want it to look. And really making the music match the feeling.
Roberto Blake (01:00:32):
How many hours a day during those weeks?
Marissa Hill (01:00:35):
Oh my gosh. The editing room is a time warp. Roberto. I'm a late nighter too, so I could start editing something at eight. Next thing I know, it's four in the morning and I'm still not done. I was starting a vlog actually coming here, and I was working on it for about four and a half hours. So I got probably 45% of it done in four and a half hours.
Roberto Blake (01:00:55):
So somewhere between 10 and 20 hours round trip of editing alone. And that's not,
Marissa Hill (01:01:00):
Depending on the type of video
Roberto Blake (01:01:01):
And not counting production on top of that.
Marissa Hill (01:01:03):
Exactly. And fixing the sound, fixing the lighting. Just when you're cutting everything down and really focusing on every element, that's where the time starts adding up.
Roberto Blake (01:01:15):
But that's for the higher quality, harder to compete on high effort
Marissa Hill (01:01:20):
Content and looking through hours of footage. That's also the hardest part is you're looking through all the footage. And
Roberto Blake (01:01:25):
So even the pre, yeah, I
Marissa Hill (01:01:28):
Chop up. I have to look through the hours and hours of film that I've done, and then I have to plop it over and kind of cut out what I don't want to use. And I have a time range of how long I want the video to be. So it's really just, I think the most work goes into watching it all to see what I have.
Roberto Blake (01:01:46):
So pre-production, then production selects, and then post-production and finishing probably a 50 hour round trip per
Marissa Hill (01:01:56):
Video,
Roberto Blake (01:01:59):
At least at the top range
Marissa Hill (01:02:00):
For the top range videos for more of the longer, I would say 30 minute videos that we have. It could be around that timeframe.
Roberto Blake (01:02:07):
And then a shorter minimum one is somewhere in a 10. A low lift video is we could do that. 10 to 20,
Marissa Hill (01:02:13):
No, no. Low lift video. We could probably do in an hour and a half.
Roberto Blake (01:02:16):
I'm talking including pre-production and production.
Marissa Hill (01:02:18):
Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I would say around we've gotten to shooting in bulk, which I think is a saving grace.
Roberto Blake (01:02:25):
Smart.
Marissa Hill (01:02:25):
So now instead of shooting a sneaker a day, it's like, we'll shoot 10 to 15 sneakers a day.
Roberto Blake (01:02:30):
Smart. That's what I'd like time to to do. Yes.
Marissa Hill (01:02:32):
Yeah. So I think when we do it that way and cut it up, I would say it's on average probably four hours a video.
Roberto Blake (01:02:40):
If you didn't do that, it would extend that
Marissa Hill (01:02:43):
A little more. I'd probably say seven hours,
Roberto Blake (01:02:44):
About seven or eight hours
Marissa Hill (01:02:45):
Probably because you're doing each one in pieces, styling it in pieces and going to another location in pieces.
Roberto Blake (01:02:52):
So batching is the efficiency there. A lot of female content creators I've talked to say they don't want to batch because worried about being judged on repeating the same clothing or same nails or hair and stuff, and they feel they'll get called out for that. Do you ever worry about that?
Marissa Hill (01:03:06):
No one can remember. Honestly, I don't really,
Roberto Blake (01:03:09):
And no one's consuming the content in order anyway.
Marissa Hill (01:03:11):
So I think usually our videos don't go out in order. So if you are doing batch recording, maybe just using the same clothing is fine. But typically we're not posting those videos back to back to back. So right now we've shot three months of content already. So before we came out here, we shot about 45 sneakers. So now I can go kind of on autopilot at least for that content. And for instance, we're going to animate Expo next week. So now I can focus just on that so I'm not overwhelming myself. That would be a lot to think about where, oh my God, I have 25 sneakers I still have to shoot, but I also have to shoot this live content. And also the editing for that type of content. That's where we're getting into the 50 hour kind of.
Roberto Blake (01:03:51):
Gotcha.
Marissa Hill (01:03:52):
Yeah,
Roberto Blake (01:03:52):
So that makes sense. So I think we've covered a lot of ground. We've talked about brand deals, we've talked about production editing. We've talked a little bit about your journey and the importance. I guess my last few things for you here are what would you say today to somebody just starting out as a content creator? You've now literally kind of done it all, seen it all. You've worked with some of the biggest brands in your niche. You've achieved the dream, the silver play button, the 100th, and YouTube presented to you here at VidCon of All Things.
Marissa Hill (01:04:20):
It was one of the most special moments, honestly, Roberto. I mean, I feel so privileged and just so thankful every day for the opportunities I've been given. And I know that a lot of people don't get these opportunities, so you have to be grateful for everything
Roberto Blake (01:04:38):
Absolutely.
Marissa Hill (01:04:39):
That you get in life. And it was such a special moment to receive that here.
Roberto Blake (01:04:43):
What would be advice if you were going to give maybe three or three or five tips to a brand new content creator that's starting out today in a post pandemic world?
Marissa Hill (01:04:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think don't settle for less of anything in any direction you're going. And I think that also, I created this as a tree almost. So YouTube was just the foundation and door opener to thousands, millions of limitless things I wanted to accomplish and do. And looking back now, I have my own production team. I have my own media outlet that I've created with 15 staff writers. I've now gotten to a point where I'm releasing my own sock line this year. I now have my own consulting business that I started this year. And we're now creating unscripted video content on things that I've dreamt of creating content around where I'm getting other roles, not just being a host, but executive producing. So everything I've ever wanted to do, I have accomplish because I've had interest in it. And I feel like as a creator, you can do anything you want to do if you set your mind to it. And so if I want to be a freaking astronaut and I want to go interview nasa, don't let anyone stop you. I think in media, for instance, people were interviewing me and they weren't actually posting my interviews. They were wasting my time, and I wasn't getting invited to things because I wasn't a media source. But media sources also didn't want to hire me. So I got to the point where I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going to create my own media outlet.
(01:06:27):
I'm going to do it online. Gatekeepers.
Roberto Blake (01:06:28):
Yeah,
Marissa Hill (01:06:28):
Exactly. And because I did that, I'm getting invited to the things that people turn their shoulder on me for and topics I was basically getting interviewed for. I'm now writing on, but I'm the writer. I'm not the interviewee. So it's, I've learned that if somebody stands in your way, figure out a way on your own to do it yourself. And what's amazing is it's my own media outlet. Whatcha are going to do fire me.
Roberto Blake (01:06:54):
I love this. I love that energy. I love this big creator energy right here.
Marissa Hill (01:06:58):
These are my socks. My first exclusive sock was actually in partnership with YouTube.
Roberto Blake (01:07:04):
With YouTube. Isn't that amazing? That is wild. As wild. I definitely going to need a pair of those. Yeah.
Marissa Hill (01:07:09):
Yes. We are going to get you a
Roberto Blake (01:07:11):
Pair. Yes. It's like, actually, I'm going to need two. I'm going to need 'em to wear to YouTube events like this when I'm showing a little ankle and I'm going to need a pair to just keep for the collection with all my anime socks.
Marissa Hill (01:07:21):
That's amazing. We are going to get Roberto a couple pairs, and we're going to have some different color variations too. Nice. So we'll send you those as well.
Roberto Blake (01:07:27):
Yeah, appreciate it. Well, thank you so much, Marissa, for taking the time. Congrats. Again, I'm 100,000 subscribers. Thank you. Your own media outlet, your own sock brand, your own consultancy, just everything you're doing, just all around crushing it. And just thank you for always hanging out with me whenever I'm in New York. It's always been a great time and at these events and everything, and I'm sure we'll see you again soon. We will, as my friend Palpatine would say, we will watch your career with great interest.
Marissa Hill (01:07:55):
It was always a pleasure chatting with you, Roberto. Roberto, and I can honestly talk for half a day and not realize where the time's gone. So I can't wait for the next adventure and to see all your success as well.
Roberto Blake (01:08:06):
All right. Thanks so much.
Marissa Hill (01:08:07):
Thank you.
Announcer (01:08:10):
Thank you for listening to the Create Something Awesome Today, podcast hungry for more creative and practical ideas, why not visit create something awesome today.com and access all resources and links mentioned in today's show, as well as special bonus content that Roberto regularly crafts for you. Now go create something awesome today. Create something awesome today.