- Hey, guys.
My name is Grant Thompson,
known around the internet as The King of Random.
For the last eight years,
I've been very passionate about figuring out
how the world works and really taking time
to figure out the mechanics of our society,
everything from pyrotechnics to napkin folding,
and from welding to making bread.
Everything that I've learned so far,
I've turned into videos and put on my YouTube channel
so that all the knowledge and experience
I've been gaining through my personal experiences
could be shared with the rest of the world.
Our YouTube channel has over 10 million subscribers now
and 2 billion video views.
And I'm gonna show you how it all started,
because this is my creator journey.
- [Man] vidIQ.
- [Woman] vidIQ.
- [Man] vidIQ.com.
- Here's the super fast version
of my life story before YouTube.
I was born in Canada to some amazing parents
who tried their best to raise a kid like me.
And probably like a lot of kids out there,
I struggled in school and grew up with low self-esteem.
I also got bullied and became a trouble-maker
to get attention and that ended up
getting me in trouble with the law.
But, at age 14, I decided to take ownership for my life.
I started finding joy in things like extreme sports,
cliff jumping, whitewater rafting, repelling,
and even skydiving.
And by age 19, I left Canada to go to England
for two years to serve a voluntary church mission.
And then I came home, bought an airplane,
and decided to work on the oil rigs as a roughneck,
blowing up dynamite and drilling for oil
in the Northwest Territories.
It was dangerous work, but the money that I made
was enough to help me pay for my airplane
and the fuel for all the time I spent flying it.
I got licensed as long-haul tanker
truck driver at age 22.
Then I moved to Oahu, Hawaii to fly airplanes
and drive motor coaches for Hawaiian tourists.
While I was out there, I became a commercial airline pilot,
and moved back to the mainland to work
for SkyWest Airlines by age 23.
And with that stable career,
I got married at age 26, bought 11 houses,
and semi-retired at age 29.
My wife and I have four kids, all boys.
And during that time, that's when we decided
to buckle down, learn how the world works,
and start making videos on YouTube.
A lot of people ask me how the King of Random got started.
And it was really back in 2009 when the economy
was struggling, there were rumors
of another great depression.
I had a wife and kids to take care of
and I took that responsibility seriously.
So, I started on a personal journey
to intimately understand how the important things
in our society work, like light bulbs,
electricity, filtered water.
I wanted to know how they were produced
and I wanted to know how to make them
at home if I needed to.
So, I spent the next year tinkering and experimenting
with anything I could get for free off the classified ads.
And in the process, I was making discoveries
about things that were blowing my mind.
I made an arc welder out of microwave parts.
I build rocket rocket motors from sugar.
I played with high voltage electricity
that I made from glass bottles and saltwater.
And what was really fun about that time,
was as I'd share these random experiments with friends,
people began asking like, who is this guy?
Why does he know these kinds of things?
And quite often, I'd share my newest passions
with my brother and he always seemed to have
this friend hanging around just listening
in the background to all these random projects going on.
And one day, he just stepped up and said,
"Dude, you're like the King of Random."
And that's pretty much where the name came from.
I could feel that the things I was
experimenting with were kind of peculiar.
And people in general seemed unusually
interested to know more.
So, that's when I decided to learn how to
make videos and start sharing these ideas on YouTube.
In 2010, I created my first YouTube channel.
And since I wasn't really planning on becoming
a famous YouTuber, I just enter the date and time,
which was 01032010814.
It was just this random number,
but it gave me a place where I could upload stuff.
And so, I started using my handicam to make fun
little videos about how to start fires using water bottles
or how to build rockets and random things like that
because I thought it was cool to share.
And it seems like the internet agreed
because hundreds of thousands of people
started watching them.
Now, right about the end of 2011,
that's when I started getting really serious.
I thought, I could probably make this a business
because nobody else was making the kind of content
I was sharing and there seemed to be a need for it.
YouTube had just offered monetization to creators,
so I got my channel monetized and I said,
I'll do this as an experiment.
The idea was if I made 100 videos that were good enough
to get 100,000 views, then it would probably be worth it.
And in the process, I'd have a great excuse
to learn more about the things
I was passionate about anyway.
Some people have asked how I know so much
about so many different things
and the truth is, I really don't.
When I began, I wasn't an expert at all.
I just looked at the kind of people I'd like to be,
even though most of them were fictional,
like MacGyver, James Bond.
But the Mythbusters were a great
real-life inspiration to me.
I wondered how do you go from knowing absolutely nothing,
to being just like one of those guys.
So, this became my own personal journey,
one step at a time, learning how different things work
to become like MacGyver or more like a Mythbuster myself.
Sometimes, I'm interested in welding
and do a bunch of welding projects.
Sometimes, it's pyrotechnics.
Sometimes, I'll just be folding napkins
'cause I was on a cruise and I thought that was cool.
Or I could be making apple swans.
It's just whatever I'm interested in.
I typically spend a little bit of time
in a few videos exploring those topics,
and then once I was satisfied,
move onto something else.
Like most internet content creators,
almost all day, every day, I spent working on new videos,
concepts, and ideas to the point where
it was almost an obsession.
And I think this happens for a lot of creators.
It go to the point where I felt like I was actually
limiting my own personal progression so that
I could keep making videos and content for the internet.
It was a real battle because what I really wanna do
is just play and explore the world,
but then nobody knows about it.
But if I take the time to create videos,
then I don't have as much time to play and tinker.
So, it's been this constant struggle
to juggle the best of both worlds.
But it's really been worth 'cause
it stretched me and made me grow.
The success of our YouTube channel
has helped build me as a person,
it's helped build my self-confidence.
You know, back before I'd made any projects myself,
I did feel a little insecure in this society,
because I didn't know how anything worked.
And when you don't know something,
you're kind of dependent on the system.
But now things are completely different.
I've learned so much and feel like I've broken through
to the point where I could be okay supporting my family
whether or not there's any kind of apocalyptic collapse.
And not only that, but in the process,
people have looked to me as an inspiration
and people are actually willing to try
a few things for themselves because I've left
a trail for them to follow.
These videos aren't just about showing
cool things that we've made.
It's really about empowering people,
showing you that you can try something new
and do something you thought was difficult.
So many people have stopped me in the streets
and told me how they've sat down as a family
and done some of the projects together from our channel.
And that's something I could have never predicted
when I started making these videos eight years ago.
I think one of the hardest things for creators these days
is experiencing massive success.
When you make something that does really well
and attracts an audience, that audience expects you
to make more, which is really awesome.
But it kinda ties you into this cycle
where you have to constantly be making more.
And if you're the one doing it,
then it has to be you.
It's your face, your mind, your projects.
And it really is stressful and it's a constant grind.
I think that's why we see so many creators today
suffering from mental health issues
and needing to take breaks.
I was at that point myself two years ago,
ready to quit YouTube for the third time
when I read a book called The E Myth,
and that changed my life.
I started building systems instead of building videos.
I hired my first employee,
started putting together training programs,
and started to become more of a leader,
and started treating the YouTube production
more like a business as well,
one that was gonna stick around longer than I would.
And now here we are today with 14 employees
making five videos a week.
We're finally at a place now,
where we've built a really good machine
that I think looks really promising.
We've got the platform,
we've got the content that we produce every day,
and now I'm bringing in the employees
that can spend all day tinkering and prototyping
and playing in a sustainable way
that's not gonna burn them out.
So, looking forward, The King of Random movement
has a very bright future.
We're starting to roll out project kits
that people can do at home.
We're thinking about putting together a King of Random camp,
where people can get together and build things.
We're writing books, we're selling merchandise.
We'd might even find a way to put project kits
in schools so that teacher and kids
could do these things in class.
The only real guarantee in life is change.
So, whatever the future holds for me
and The King of Random, one thing's for sure.
I'm sure we're all gonna learn a lot.
And the journey, no doubt, will be random.
Stay random my friends and we'll see you in the next video.
- Hey Folks, it's the animated version
of Rob here at vidIQ.
Who's video creator journey do you want us to animate next?
Suggestions welcome in the comments below.
If you're thirsty for more already,
check out this video creator's animated journey over here
and watch our full series down here.