I didn’t think that it would blow up this much.
Because two years ago, you were just teaching English, right?
And now I’ve had like half a billion views. So it’s pretty cool.
I’m hanging out with Drew Binsky in Hong Kong
and yes, in less than two years he’s gone from an English teacher with a blog
to becoming a popular video maker reaching more than 500 million views across Facebook and YouTube.
In 2018 he made more than $150,000 through ad revenue and brand deals.
I’m even meeting his parents who were originally skeptical
about their son ditching the traditional career path.
A double-degree from a major university and he’s running off to teach English?
Drew’s already visited 163 countries, but he wants to visit every single one on the planet.
And just like any parent, his too can worry.
So the last couples ones that he wants to hit, we’ll have a debate on I’m sure.
But I’m here to find out how this guy escaped a traditional job
to get paid six figures, travel and inspire millions in the process.
Drew’s strategy is to make one video per day for his several million fans that he’s racked up.
Today he's doing an entire video on one of the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurants
and everything he’s doing is on the fly, nothing is pre-planned.
So, you’re not doing a meet-up in Hong Kong with your fans?
No, I decided against it, we just did a huge one in Manilla.
250 people came on a rooftop with the city around us, with live food, live music.
He sometimes takes his work offline to do fan meet- ups, like this one he did recently in the Philippines.
Throughout my afternoon with him, I’m amazed to see how many times he gets recognized
by people on the streets and the way people light up when they meet him.
What is it like to see that many people show up to see you?
It's cool, I don't really think of it in that context. I'm just doing my thing every day,
but it's special when you have hundreds of people coming to see you.
It's like a musician is going to play a show in whatever city and people come because they like their music,
so it's something similar to that, I guess. But I don't know, I just ride the wave.
So right now I'm shooting a video about the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant
and if you want to make a cameo, man, we just ordered a bunch of food.
And sure enough I make a cameo.
Drew’s originally from Arizona and he’s quite outgoing.
At lunch, he talks to the people next to us and I even learn he speaks some Korean.
You can’t just overnight become a successful video maker, or anything, with any profession.
If you're a golfer you can't just wake up tomorrow and be on a PGA tour.
To be in front of the camera all the time, it takes a certain person
because you always have to be showing a personality.
This is the money shot, dude.
Drew started doing short videos on his SnapChat accounts before he transitioned to more professional,
longer-form videos after his girlfriend bought him a video camera as a surprise.
Oh man, this is the life, this is the good life, hanging out of a tram in Hong Kong.
Things really took off for him though after he was able to take an organized trip to North Korea.
His videos from that trip would rack up 10 million views.
And that’s when he pivoted to being a full-time video maker.
So every month is different. One month I can make $1,000, one month I can make $30,000,
and both of those months have happened before.
You made $30,000 before?
Yeah, yeah, through ads.
So if a video goes crazy viral on Facebook, I can make five figures on one video, and I make 30 videos a month.
So it's all like gambling right? But I never look at the money as a motivation or drive to do what I do.
He also makes money through brand partnerships with companies like Booking.com and tourism boards
including Germany, Jordan and Fiji that are looking to use bloggers and influencers to promote tourism.
Visiting every country in the world isn’t easy.
It costs a lot of money, but Drew has figured out ways to budget.
And the U.S. State Department has a number of countries listed as “Do Not Travel” for U.S. citizens.
But Drew is on a mission to visit every country in the world and that inevitably means some big risks.
He posted videos from a trip he took to Iran,
collectively, they gained more than 20 million views on his social media channels.
At first it was hard to convince my mom and my parents that I’m going to do this full time.
My mom was like, "When are you coming back to get a corporate job?"
Because I studied economics, so they think I should get a corporate background, corporate job.
But I think I've proven to her now, she watches all my videos
and I think she knows that this is what I want to do.
We’re very traditional, so we sent our kids to college, they got a degree, you expect them to work
and hopefully come back to Arizona or wherever they end up, but never to live out of the country.
But while he’s convinced them that this is a sustainable career path, now he just needs to convince them that
he’s going to finish his list of the remaining 40 countries he has left.
How do you feel when he travels to places like North Korea or Central Africa, Lebanon?
There’s times as a parent that you’re very nervous about where he’s going.
So the last couple ones he wants to hit, we’ll have a debate on I’m sure.
I don't know who will win the debate because Drew usually does.
That's the problem, Drew usually goes anyways.
Drew tells me that one of the most rewarding parts of his experience is exposing his parents
to traveling outside of the U.S., which they didn’t used to do before.
We’re starting to travel, which we've never done before, outside the United States.
So it has opened up our lives to different cultures, different foods and different areas.
And now, his parents accept the fact that his career path is anything but traditional.
It's amazing that the millennial generation will figure it out - Five, six, 10 years ago
this didn’t exist and he has millions of followers.
I actually wake up every morning and the first thing I do is
look for a Facebook video or Instagram post, it's my favorite thing to do.
If it doesn't happen, I go, "What's going on?" And I give him grief. But it's really cool.
It’s kind of a validation when I take them around and they see what I’m doing as a real thing and a real job.
Definitely there's like an a-ha moment where I'm like, "I’m happy that they're seeing what I’m doing is real."