My Story - How I Became A "professional Unboxer"

[LinusTech]

Sorry for the re-post. This forum section kinda died when we migrated and this post was lost, but I link people here a lot when they ask me this question.

 

I get a lot of questions on YouTube, but some of the ones that come up a lot are

"How do I get companies to sponsor me with products?"
"How do I get more subscribers on YouTube like you?"
"What do I need to study in school to do a job like yours?"

Hopefully this story of my journey serves as both an encouraging and cautionary one.

I was in high school when I really got into computer hardware. In Grade 11/12 and in my first couple of years at the University of British Columbia I spent most of my time tinkering with my computer, hanging out on hardware forums and playing video games. Honestly that's a big part of why school didn't really go well for me at the post-secondary level. I didn't devote enough time to my studies and I was on academic probation after having failed first year calculus twice when I made the decision to drop out and switch from working part time at my local computer store to a full time position.

I started at NCIX by working just weekends, then I moved my school schedule to Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and I was working Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday at NCIX. When I left school I switched to being a full time sales representative at the Langley store. I worked like that for a few months, then I had to leave NCIX due to a contractual obligation that I had to work for a different employer during the summer that year. I went to the President of NCIX with a request that once I was finished my other contract that I be allowed to have my job back, and instead of giving me my job back he explained that I was selling more high end gaming systems than any other sales person in the company and offered me a position at head office taking care of the system configurations on the website. I was thrilled.

I finished my other job and went back to NCIX to build high end systems and make sure that the computers on the website were compatible and up to date. I wanted to do more than just buckets of parts for our systems though and at that point one of the best ways to differentiate was liquid cooling. In order to achieve my goal of building liquid cooled systems, I had to have access to the right components. That was when I asked my boss why the heck NCIX didn't have any selection of custom water cooling parts. He basically said "I dunno. If you want them, you source them." So I did.

In a span of about a year NCIX went from selling no water cooling components at all to being #1 in Canada with every significant water cooling manufacturer (Swiftech, CoolIt, Thermochill, EK Water Blocks, D-TEK, Danger Den, Koolance, you name it). Once I'd demonstrated that success it was time for me to graduate to managing some real lines. I went from taking care of random widgets to core business components like SSDs, RAM, motherboards, and networking. Over time my responsibilities shifted and instead of being the one placing orders daily for everything, I was given support from other team members to focus on marketing and promotional campaigns.

Times changed, people changed... I glanced at the calendar and realized a few years had passed me by and all of a sudden I was a Category Manager rather than a Product Manager, with a team of Product Managers reporting to me, and I was heavily involved in strategy and marketing for key categories like CPUs, notebooks, video cards, SSDs. I was also still product managing some lines, and I was still overseeing the PC system configurations & marketing as well. I was overloaded and it was time to delegate and step back a bit. I also knew that my baby was coming soon.

When the baby was born, my pace didn't really slow down. That's what happens at a vibrant, fast-growing company. There is always some exciting new project to work on, or a new stretch target that you're motivated to hit.

That long story (hopefully not TLDR) leads me to the answer to all of those questions above: GET A REAL JOB. What you may or may not have noticed is that nowhere in the blurb above did I say anything about making videos. YouTube videos are not a real job unless you are incredibly talented, incredibly hard working, or incredibly lucky (usually some combination of the three) and honestly it's not that lucrative.

If you have fun making videos and you're passionate about it, do it as a hobby, but don't expect to get any free products or money for doing it. That way if you break out and gather a huge following, then that's awesome, but if you don't then you hopefully enjoyed every minute of that too. The audience isn't stupid. They know who is doing it for $$ and who is doing it out of passion, so ask yourself if you have the passion to make videos even if no one watched them. If the answer is no, then it's like that no one will be passionate about watching your videos either.

I don't have any relevant pictures or videos to link to, so instead I'll post a link to the first video I ever uploaded to YouTube about the Sunbeam Tuniq Tower. It should give you some inspiration because if THAT guy can build one of the largest tech channels on the YouTubez by working hard, being passionate, and having some good luck, then maybe you can too!

 

[Ethnod]

Wow Linus, things have improved from those days :P

[Jimbo]

Perhaps you meant vibrant? ;)

 

 

Thanks for sharing, it's nice to have the background story.

 That's what happens at a vibrate, fast-growing company.

[joelthezombie15]

its almost like your voice has gotten deeper i guess thats what aging does to you i enjoyed your story linus even though i still dont know your babies name you just call it the baby did you not name it?

[pcman2000]

Can we put the Sunbeam Tuniq tower on the wall? Pleaseeee....

 

Also, retro unboxings!

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Great read, and I truly hope that everyone who's making threads like "Do you think x business would be viable" etc will read it. :)

[Treyu]

Oh Yeah. The sunbeam tuniq tower review... adorable! :D

[Matthias2556]

Wow, Very inspiring story Linus.

truly good info, definitly enjoyable to read

 

make a post in a few years....how Linus media group became the leading hardware commuinty :)

 

Linus looked so nervous in that first NCIX Video

[pzt]

looks like a vhs :D hahah!

[Preston]

You had transition back then.

[killerx525]

Totally agreed on getting a actual job and treating video making as a hobby.

[Whiskers]

Agreed with Matthias. Very inspiring read. :)

[brownninja97]

he looks the i must admit. Linus has superpowers 

[lieudusty]

Where did you get the professional unboxer shirt? :D

[Denoxx]

You are just awesome

[vrb747]

Thanks for sharing your story Linus. Really enjoyed reading it :)

 

Would be great if other members of your team followed suit. :)

[Whiskers]

^ Yup, would be interesting to hear Slick and Diesel's stories too.

[DLM_012]

This was an awesome read. It inspires me to do more content for my channel. It's really easy to get discouraged when you see other youtubers who have similar circumstances as you doing really well. But like you mentioned, if you do it for fun, that will come across to people.

[Fumundachz]

I am not a very active user on this forum, although I do  lurk quite a bit. But I do remember watching that video when I was getting ready to buy the tuniq tower. It was just as bad as I remember lol

[giantdad]

Cool I never knew this story. I'm already glad I joined the forums.

 

Do you ever regret dropping college?

[LinusTech]

Cool I never knew this story. I'm already glad I joined the forums.

 

Do you ever regret dropping college?

 

Honestly some days yeah.

 

With that said, I'm running my own business these days (and we haven't shut down yet...) and that's exciting, and I've had job offers from tier 1 computer companies for marketing or PR positions, so I don't think my future will be affected by it in any way... But I do wish I had the piece of paper sometimes.

[Esivo]

Great story Linus. You have come a long way since then and I think it shows on every single video you upload.

[giantdad]

Honestly some days yeah.

With that said, I'm running my own business these days (and we haven't shut down yet...) and that's exciting, and I've had job offers from tier 1 computer companies for marketing or PR positions, so I don't think my future will be affected by it in any way... But I do wish I had the piece of paper sometimes.

Yeah well like you said it's just a piece of paper maybe someday you can come back for it.

But a chance to be successful doing what you love probably wont appear twice so I think you made the right choice.

Thanks for the honest reply.

[Dieman566]

Honestly some days yeah.

 

With that said, I'm running my own business these days (and we haven't shut down yet...) and that's exciting, and I've had job offers from tier 1 computer companies for marketing or PR positions, so I don't think my future will be affected by it in any way... But I do wish I had the piece of paper sometimes.

 

Its a piece of paper to hang on your wall.  You don't need it and if you really did just want it for novelty you can always get it later.  Could always do an online course, not necessarily worth it though.

[vlad1500]

Great read linus.