Three years ago,
I taught myself how to code because someone said I couldn't and I'm very petty.
Like I'm very,
like why I got to latte art is cuz someone said it's too hard for me to grab so
I'm like, hmm okay. Now I'm 46 time champion. So last year,
I started trying to redefine myself cuz I don't like to get stagnant.
I think once you're comfortable,
it leads to failure and I never wanna get comfortable.
So I want to teach myself and keep on reinventing myself.
So last year we started doing metaverses,
and I never thought we were gonna make like a dollar. Cause I'm like,
maybe it's just for me. Maybe I'll do these for me. Man,
it took off in a crazy way that I had no expectations for.
So today we are here with Dee, but Dee what's your other name on Twitch?
Neon Sniper Panda.
Okay. So we wanna understand Twitch.
So tell me about how you got on Twitch.
Like why did you get on there originally?
How many people do you have following you on Twitch?
About 1.53 million. And originally when I got on there,
I wanted to play John Madden Football and wanted to play it in front of my
friends. I had about two friends. Unfortunately they didn't wanna watch.
So it just, me and myself, I couldn't even get my mom to watch at first.
Alright, and then I switched over to Fortnite. Oh, that was negative viewership.
Right.
People just wanted to hear me talk, talk about life, started talking,
just chatting and talking about like my past and how we came up from the
struggle and everything and people vibe with that and the numbers just start
shooting up.
So what,
like how long were you on before you switched over to that kind of format?
I was on for a year.
And then, and then you decided to switch the format?
Yeah. I met a couple of rappers,
and I was always good at doing production design. I have dreams.
And then with these dreams come like something crazy like this. So.
Wait, wait. But before, before we move on, you started talking about your life.
Give us, give us a few beats of what it was to suddenly get millions of follows.
Like if I talked about my life, like people would drop off my,
I have a hundred followers, they would be like, it's boring.
So I was, I used to be homeless.
My biological mom and my biological grandmother died,
within 10 months of each other and I had where to go.
So for almost a year, I was homeless.
I was sleeping at a train station in cars and then St. Patrick's Day,
these people were giving bottles of water and free hugs.
I could care less about the free hug,
but it seemed like I needed to do the free hug for the bottle of water.
I was very thirsty that day, so I did it. That's where I met my parents.
Like the best thing that ever happened to me, they saved my life for so much.
And no one knew I was homeless. I kept it a secret.
I was a really resourceful homeless guy. Like if I needed to take a shower,
I would get like a seven day pass at a gym. I would go to the library,
print it out, boom, that's your shower. I would go to the mall and get samples,
boom, I'm eating, right? Keep on getting samples,
try covering my face and be like, "oh, I haven't got a sample yet,
can I have another?" You know, so, you know,
weeks and weeks of them taking me home,
they had a suspicion after they never seen me go into this house,
they always took me to, and then they, you know,
pulled up on me when I was sleeping at a train station.
So they found out I was homeless and my mom was like, "Hey,
I'm not sure if you'll find this weird,
but I'm willing to be your mom." And I'm like, "oh snap. Yeah." You know,
from there, my dad told me to get passionate about something.
And I remember we going to Starbucks after. Starbucks,
the people were like really like nice.
The businessman and the barista seemed like they were equals at that point.
And I'm like, dang, I really like that. So I fell in love with coffee.
Then did coffee for 16 years. Like at Starbucks for one year.
Then I did Texas Coffee School.
Then I just started becoming like a champion in latte art.
I have won 46 latte art championships.
No, you mean like when you pour-Jesse doesn't drink coffee,
but for the rest of us,
billions of people watching this podcast-you mean like the little art that comes
on, like when you pour.
Yeah. Like when you're pouring, the art that comes with that,
it's called a tulip, rosetta, or a heart. Unless you do stenciling. I stencil
pandas, but I don't compete with that. You, when you're competing,
you're only free pouring. And I'm one of the best at it. I won 46, you know,
championships.
All right. You, so you're a champion barista.
And then you go to New York and then what happens?
From New York, partnered up with like five people, terrible idea.
Five may be too many, alright? But from there I'm like, dang,
I'm gonna have to go back to Dallas. You know, I tried something, I failed it.
I never rode the subway, by the way, it freaked me out, like smell,
the dog size rats. You know, I was like, nah, I'm not riding the subway,
but I rode the subway today. Cause I didn't have enough money for Uber.
And the one of the guys that I served coffee to, he was like, "Hey,
you that coffee guy." I'm like, yeah. He was like,
would you like to come do coffee for Trunk Club? Yes.
Yes. He was like, we'll let you build a program.
We'll give you free rent and we'll pay your employees.
So no overhead? Yes please. Yes, please. They're like just, you know,
just do exactly what you did at your coffee shop here.
That literally save my coffee ownership career.
And from there it just went crazy.
But at some point you start to think about the metaverse.
Yeah. So three years ago,
I taught myself how to code because someone said I couldn't and I'm very petty.
Like I'm very like,
why I got into latte art is cuz someone said it's too hard for me to grab.
So I'm like, hmm, okay. Now I'm a 46 time champion.
So last year I started trying to redefine myself cuz I don't like to get
stagnant. I think once you're comfortable,
it leads to failure and I never wanna get comfortable.
So I want to teach myself and keep on reinventing myself.
So last year we started doing metaverses,
and I never thought we were gonna make like a dollar. Cause I'm like,
maybe it's just for me. Maybe I'll do these for me. Man,
it took off in a crazy way that I had no expectations for.
Then I found someone who can match my wits and coding and also match
my like skill. His name is Cha. I love him. Like that's,
that's my right hand man. He's in the Philippines and he's just really good.
Like he's actually better than me. I just can't let him know that.
But can I ask you a question when you said, "okay, I'm gonna learn,
teach myself how to code," was there something about coding that was gonna lead
you, cuz you're an artist as well, like what were you excited about that got,
you know, once you got into this coding world, what were you creating?
And then what was going on? Cause you also were the artist with the latte.
I'm gonna go back to the coffee. You were making art with the milk, right?
Or the foam.
Yeah. So I think I love art, right? I can't draw to save my life,
but I love paintings, I love language, right?
I love just the art of meeting people and the art of coffee and the art of
coding is not super different. You're doing it in two different vessels,
but you're creating, right? There we go. I love to create.
And when I create code, I'm creating metaverses, worlds. Multi-metaverses
is what I'm trying to call one. I love to be the guy that creates,
and I like to be behind the scenes sometimes.
Just to create and make stuff that is impossible, possible. Possimpible.
So let's talk about Twitch. So how do you get onto Twitch?
So I get onto Twitch cause I was feeling stagnant with coffee cause I won so
much. It was like, what else do I need to do? You know,
should I just get the 50 and stop?
Or so I'm getting bored because I'm not feeling challenged no more. So Twitch,
my viewers were like one, two,
and sometimes that could be disheartening. But for me I used it as fuel, right?
Like, oh you guys don't wanna watch me now, but wait a minute.
And I always had, I always tell my friends don't dress for the job you have,
dress for the job you want. So I take that with this. Like,
so when I do setups like this, I dress for the job that I want.
I wanna be a really big streamer.
So I started doing really cool setups for famous people.
That's how I kind of got pretty popular on Twitch is by
doing setups for people like the rapper Tee Grizzley, some FaZe Clan guys,
soon to be Anthony Davis.
What do you do?
You go on Twitch and you start looking around at other people and you say, well,
their setups are bad, I need to do this?
Most famous people are notorious for having terrible setups. They're like,
"I'm famous, I don't need anything." But I'm like "Anthony Davis,
would you play basketball with a flat basketball?
So why would you go on Twitch with a terrible mic?".
Right.
So I want them to understand like, it's a craft. Like I love craft.
I love bettering my craft and Twitch is a craft and you have to put your best
foot forward.
And is that the thing about it that people don't understand is that there's a
bunch of rules to it but if you don't know the rules,
you're just not gonna make it?
Yes. And sometimes even if you know the rules, sometimes you just, it's not,
it's not for you. I know a lot of creators that have the potential,
but they don't know how to craft that potential into something that people wanna
watch.
So like a person who doesn't know anything about Twitch and they're just gonna
get onto it. Like, let's say Priscilla wanted to have a Twitch account.
Like what would be the proper way for Priscilla to think about it before she got
the account?
What are you passionate about?
She's passionate about yoga.
I'm passionate about yoga and social justice, dogs.
Any of this stuff line up on Twitch?
Yeah. There is yoga. A lot of yoga is on Twitch.
Well, she also loves rap. So is it, would it be, you know.
Hey, if you want to go spit a couple of bars. I think it's perfect.
I think it would be perfect.
Okay. Let's let's switch it around.
Cause I think the personnel really needs some help is Jesse. Look at his,
look at his background. Okay. He's talking to people all day long.
I'd be perfect on Twitch.
But I mean, when you say you're helping people, I'm confused.
Are you helping them virtually with a virtual setup? Or like, what are we doing?
So we'll go to their house and I'll tell them, give me a week.
And I make them leave me alone in their house for two days. So I can like,
think about how I'm, you know, gonna do it.
We draw it up on 3D and I just go for it. Right?
Takes me two days to get that process though. For this process,
I was dreaming about it for like a week.
Wait, will you pull back and show us the view again? Cuz your place is awesome.
Yeah.
Is that what it takes to have a set up that extensive?
Or can you do it smaller than that and it work, Dee?
No, no, no, no. A lot of people are smaller.
I can work in a shoebox because I lived in a shoebox in New York.
So I'm really good at adjusting.
I just need to sit in the room for like two days.
Sometimes the ideas come faster, but it just depends.
But I tell people like two days, we off to the races.
What's happening in your ceiling? It's spectacular.
Those are clouds. In the clouds, I'm not sure you can see, there's birds,
there's doves. And then,
these two right here are pandas riding doves.
That's what I thought. There's something Panda going on.
So, you go on there, you have one listener, you know,
now then you just start talking to people. What happens like the first week,
do you have 10 listeners then 50? Like how does it go?
No, you gotta build your audience. And I have a little strategy.
What I like to do, I like to go to other people's channel and like, man,
I think you got potential. Let's, you know, let's fly you out. You know?
And a lot of these people never been flown out before in their life. So.
That's the, but that's to build a business, Dee.
What about to just build your channel? Is it the same thing?
That's how I build my channel as well.
Like collaborate with people that their audience will have probably never met
you or never clicked on your name, collaborate with them.
Now their audience knows about me. They're like, man,
that Panda guy is a cool guy. Let's see what he's been doing.
Well now, how did you get onto this concept? Did you know it from the beginning?
So people used to invite me over to different podcasts.
And I noticed my viewership would go up every time I collaborated. You know,
I was like, ding, how I do it on a massive scale?
Let me try collaborate with this person in England, Australia, New Zealand,
like bring their audience to American audience,
which they'll probably never would've found me otherwise and try to keep on
exposing myself to them.
But were you finding them, you were going after them for passion, right?
It wasn't the numbers. It wasn't like-.
No, no, no, no. It was potential. Like,
cause I also want to help the person I'm inviting over.
I want to invite them to come, you know, do this project with me.
And hopefully they grow as well. Cuz my audience don't know anything about them.
My audience sometimes, sometimes they're the same.
There's only three creators that have been over here that are bigger than me.
So it works a little differently, but it's pretty amazing.
And how do you collaborate? Because these shows overlap, right?
Like if you can get on other people's shows and then you give them your audience
and then they give you their audience?
Yes. They'll tweet out, I'll tweet out,
yo I'm live and at this person is with me and they'll also do
the same thing.
But when your show ends,
one of your friend's show gets picked up and put right into the feed.
I raid them so you can raid them with your audience.
So when you're offline, it'll show their channels.
Right. Can I just ask you a question though? What your,
the Panda is so significant. What is the significance? Why the Panda?
So my little sister, she was about three at the time. Her name is Caroline.
She's 10 now. And she used to call me her coffee Panda and I just took it.
She's the master at branding at three years old. So I just, I ran with it.
I'm like deal. I'll be the Panda. Yeah.
Okay. Just for everyone who might be watching this or listening,
how many people are on Twitch, Dee? Like how many,
do you know how many people are on Twitch?
Billions with a B.
B, Right? And it's global. International.
Mhmm.
What do you think the appeal is? Cuz people are just hanging out on there.
You know?
I think especially during COVID I think instead of, cuz you know,
I believe Twitch is like taking over TV, right? To an extent.
There's still amazing TV shows.
I personally love a lot of TV shows that are on right now.
It feels like it's personal. Like you're in this person's living room,
hanging out with them. It's just, it's that personal outlet.
Like a lot of my viewers, like we're also, we watch movies together in Discord.
Like we have movie nights, we just hang out. We like a family.
People like that closeness. And they like to watch you go on adventures.
Interesting. You have a house now. It seems like you have a lot of guests now.
Do you have more guests than before?
Yes. Yes. Because when you have a hot tub, Twitch,
especially the females love to come over and just be in the hot tub because,
I'm not sure if you ever seen Twitch in their hot tubs,
but they have kiddie pools in their living room. Since we have a hot tub,
they love to be over here more so the collaborations are happening faster.
Much faster pace.
Yeah. So when they come,
a collaboration can just be you sitting down and talking to them, yeah?
Interviewing them, talking to 'em, asking them questions, and just being funny,
making sure everybody has good vibes.
And it, and it goes on, these conversations can go on for hours.
They're not like a 10 minute interview.
Like how long does some of these things last?
Yesterday we streamed for probably the shortest we've done for a little bit.
And it was nine hours and 12 minutes.
And then what do you do during, what do you do during that time? Do you just,
do you, you.
Just talk.
Yeah.
Just talking, hanging.
And it's live streamed? Is that.
Live streamed and you can see the recordings.
So the VODs get saved unless I delete them because you know,
my rapping was really, really bad or something.
Yeah. You might wanna delete that one considering...
Okay.
Yeah.
Besides Twitch though,
you do all these amazing things and you create worlds in the metaverse,
right? For different, we don't have to say who,
but for pretty big companies and corporations, et cetera, but you know,
what is that work like? And how do you think about it?
And when you were growing up, were you always looking at designing things?
I mean, you are an artist,
so where do you get your inspiration from and how do you think of those worlds?
When you're.
I get my inspiration from like, I know what nothing feels like, right?
And I never want to go back to nothing,
but I like to start with nothing and then build it up and create it, Right?
And a lot of people ask me, they're like, man, you streaming for a long time,
how do you find the time? Well, my good thing,
my developers are in the Philippines currently. So when I get off stream,
they're kind of waking up and it's, I don't know how,
and I actually don't drink a lot of coffee. I only drink for the taste,
not for the energy.
I don't know how I can work on two hours of sleep and be fully refreshed.
Like I'm working on an hour and 50 minutes of sleep. I'm like not tired.
I'm fully refreshed. I'm up. I'm perfect. Everything is, everything is good.
So the metaverse, because it has discord and Twitter,
it's sort of close to the same things that you use on Twitch, isn't it?
Same tools, a lot of the same tools. A lot of crossing,
I believe most people on Twitch will be streaming metaverses really soon.
You know, when you think about the metaverse,
do you think NFTs will be a sort of a way that we exchange things in the
metaverse?
A thousand percent, I think NFTs are gonna be keys and the accessibility, right?
The metaverse will be the planet. NFTs will be the structures.
When we think about the metaverse right now we see the connections are on
Instagram and Twitter and Facebook.
Is Twitch also a place where we're gonna use some of that identity stuff?
A thousand percent. Just because most people, when they stream,
they're always streaming for eight hours. So I believe for Twitch,
it makes sense to integrate that. And I doubt they wouldn't. Like,
that's a huge opportunity for them.
I think people,
not everyone understands when we're talking about building something in the
metaverse, what that even means. It's a world, it's a look.
What would you like to be building in the metaverse?
Like what are some things that you are working on or wanna be doing?
My favorite we already done was hyper realism. We did a concert hall.
So there was a, the artist did a live concert.
There's a lot of COVID restrictions. He cannot tour right now.
So that was probably doing the set that he had before. Same set,
like every, the light positioning, everything was like to his specs.
That was really, really fun.
That is making the impossible possible, I guess, right? Because you can't do it,
Yeah, exactly.
You know, Dee, if people wanna understand Twitch,
what's the easiest way to do it?
YouTube. A lot of YouTube videos, but watching other people.
Like getting a sense, like, okay, I like this content.
Let me put my own spin on it, right? Because a lot of content on Twitch,
the content that people love is not original.
It's like just kind of recycled from someone else. Right.
But when you put your own take on it, it's original to you.
Thank you, Dee. It's a lot to think about. Appreciate you sharing with us.
Yes. Got you.
Okay.
Alright, well, you're gonna,
we're gonna have to have you come back at some point so we can get.
Whenever you let me know I'm here.
Okay. Okay. See you.
Later, guys.