Hey everyone, it's Lucie Fink! Welcome back to my YouTube channel. If you're new here
be sure to click on the little "subscribe" button down below, and also find the
little bell that's in the description box and click on it so that you're
notified every time a new video goes live. Okay, first things first,
if you are here because you are really in the mood to watch one of those WHY I LEFT
(insert digital media company names here) videos that's filled with gossip
and drama and juicy information... this is not the video for you. This story is not dramatic at all.
There were no fights or hard feelings had. I am still actually creating content
for refinery29, I am just no longer a full-time employee. I've noticed that
every single time I've posted on Instagram and mentioned in the caption
that I'm no longer full-time at refinery29, that people are constantly
commenting asking "When did you leave r29?" So I figured instead of responding to
everyone and continually saying the same thing, I can just make this one video
where I can send everyone to who's curious about why I left my full-time
role and what I'm up to now. This video is sponsored by care/of which is a
wellness brand that makes amazing vitamins and supplements and protein
powders. They are exactly the type of brand that I personally align with so
I'm really excited to be working with them and sharing them with you, so stay
tuned because a little bit later in the video I'm gonna share with you their
chocolate vegan plant protein and also give you a discount code. So let me
rewind back to 2015 which is when I first got my full-time job
at refinery29. I joined their video team in September 2015 as a full-time
employee... My job title was Associate Producer and On-Camera Talent. I was a
standard full-time employee, so salary, benefits, working full-time, going to the
office every day... that was my job. Pretty much immediately I started creating
YouTube content for them. So you're probably most familiar with my five day
challenge series, Try Living With Lucie, and you also might know Lucy for Hire...
the series where I try different people's jobs. And essentially my
full-time job was going into their office every single day from about 9:00
a.m. until sometimes 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. creating YouTube content for their
channel... and also being a full-time employee meant that I was responsible
for other types of videos like snapchat videos or Facebook live... For a brief
period of time we had a You Now account, and I was doing You Now live videos...
Basically, I was a standard full-time employee going
to a job and doing my job. Alongside all of that, as I was creating
content for them regularly, my personal channels started to grow on their own. So
my Instagram account was just growing and growing from all the new content I
was creating off-platform... and then my own YouTube channel was growing because
occasionally on the weekends I would shoot my own YouTube content outside of
r29. Pretty soon I realized that my personal platforms were building and
growing to a point where, aside from the salary I was making at refinery29, I was
able to do side projects like Instagram partnerships, sponsorships, events, and so
much more. I never wanted to leave refinery29 and just stop making content
for them, but it was becoming increasingly tempting to devote more and
more time to creating content for myself and my own platforms... And here are a
couple of reasons why it's a little bit more enticing for a creator to produce
content for their own platform versus another platform. Number one: Ad revenue.
Any single piece of content that you produce or host for any other platform
if it lives on their YouTube channel then that channel is collecting all of
the back end ad revenue for it. So before you went to watch this video, you probably saw
a little ad pop up... maybe you skipped it, maybe you didn't, but either way, that is contributing to me
being able to monetize off of YouTube as a platform. And when all the content I'm creating is
living on another platform, I'm not seeing any of that ad revenue.
I actually think though that the YouTube ad revenue is the least important factor here.
What's more important to me as a creator is actually having ownership
over the subscribers on my channel, and being able to own my own content. So
what I mean by this is it's great to work for a channel where you're helping them
build and grow, and actually, in my time at refinery29,
along with all the other people who I was working with, we were able to build
the channel to over 2 million subscribers... But those subscribers don't
belong to me, Lucie. They belong to refinery29, the company.
And don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful that those subscribers are there because
I continue to produce content for r29's channels, but those subscribers are
not Lucie Fink subscribers, and that doesn't really do much for my personal
business. And same thing with the content ownership. It is really great to be able
to produce content that you personally own and can do whatever you want with. So
those were all reasons that contributed to me really wanting to devote
more time and attention to my own personal brand, but, at the same time, I
didn't want to leave refinery29. I love the series that I was producing. I
have so many friends that still work there. The company has been nothing but
great to me, and I have an amazing relationship with all the executives. And
on top of all of that, my audience out there is still really interested in both
series, and I get constant questions about when the next episode is coming
out... So I didn't want to stop creating content for them altogether. So, now if we
fast-forward to the end of 2018, I saw that 2019 was rapidly approaching and I
made the decision that starting January of 2019 I no longer wanted to be full
time at refinery29. So I'm not an employee with salary and
benefits, and I don't go into the office every day. I came to the
conclusion that if I wanted to start investing more time into building up the
Lucie Fink brand, I was no longer gonna have time to be a full-time employee at
Refinery. But, I wanted to be able to work on my own with a talent manager and an
agency, create my own content, build my own brand, and at the same time create
content for Refinery29 on the side... Almost like a contractor or a part-time
employee. It just wasn't gonna work for me to have to create weekly videos for
this other platform while I was trying to create weekly videos for my own
platform and doing all of my side projects through Instagram. I just didn't
have enough hours in the day. So the conclusion I came to was how about I
officially leave... I start building up the Lucie Fink brand... but on the side of that
I'll create a new contract with Refinery29 so that I can still create
content for them, just not full-time... Instead, I have a specific number of
videos that I'm creating for them in the year, and whenever those videos are in
motion I'm sometimes in the office, and I'm sometimes on the phone with Refinery
employees... but I'm mostly handling it on my own time, on my own schedule. So in
terms of the Lucie Fink brand, you might be asking: What do you want to do with
this brand? Well, I want to do a lot of things. I want to host TV shows. I want to
host a lot of digital video content. I would love to do speaking engagements,
sell merchandise, go on tour, write a book... I have a million
ideas swirling through my head, and I think that my career is basically going
to be an explosion of a lot of different types of things... but that's exactly what
I'm working with my talent agent and my talent manager on. And basically I'm just
hoping to turn Lucie Fink into a full lifestyle media brand. So when I say i'm
"starting my own brand" I do technically mean that I started a company. And just
to give you some background on that, because I did post on Instagram saying I
started my own company... and then everyone was asking me where the store was, and
where they could buy stuff... and I just want to explain to you what I mean by
"I started a company." I don't have a shop in New York City. There's not a place that
you can actually go to see this company in action. It was mostly a back-end thing
that I became a corporation instead of being an individual sole proprietor. So,
now I'm technically a business in New York State, and there was actually a lot
of back-end stuff that went into becoming a business that nobody told me
about... Things like I now, Lucie Fink as the individual, have to become an employee of
Lucie Fink Media... so I'm now on payroll for my own company. That's another thing,
I had to set up a payroll system to begin with. I had to get unemployment
insurance... There's a lot of different aspects to building--and actually
creating and setting up--a legitimate business that I had never thought of
before. So this was my first year as a business. This year when I go to my
accountant to do my taxes I'm going to be taxed as a business... so it is very
exciting! But it has been a slow and steady process. So for people out there
who loved Lucie for Hire and Try Living with Lucie, I still created a lot of that
content in 2019 and I have more episodes coming out before the year is up... and then
in terms of my own Instagram account and YouTube channel, I'm still doing what I
was doing last year which is just creating content every day and every
week... but I'm doing it more full-time and on a bigger scale, and because of my
talent agency and my manager I'm able to get some better partnerships and
longer-lasting brand deals... and my youtube channel in particular has grown
really quickly. So, I believe in January 2019 I only had about 60 or 70 thousand
subscribers... and today we are almost at 150. And in terms of the brands that I
work with all the time, I actually made an entire YouTube video all about how
brand deals and sponsorships work for influencers... so if you're interested in
that, up here somewhere there should be a
little tab for you to click to watch it... but just to give you a clear example of
a brand integration or a sponsorship in a video, I can now tell you about care/of
because they sponsored this video right here. So, first and foremost, I only
partner with brands that I actually use and really like. And not only that, but
whose company values align with my personal values, because otherwise I find
it's just entirely inauthentic and your YouTube audience can spot that from a
mile away. I love that care/of is all about helping people develop healthy habits,
and if you've watched any of my content you know that that's really what I talk
about every single day... and especially this time of year when it's winter time
and it's starting to get colder out there, it's really important for me to be
taking care of my health... so here's how it works. When you go to their website
you're directed to a short and easy quiz to see what supplements they recommend
for you specifically, and then the products are shipped to you monthly... and
they are personalized. One thing I wanted to do was build muscle, because I had a
personal goal to feel stronger in 2019. And I love chocolate, so I got their
vegan chocolate plant protein which is so delicious. You just put a couple
scoops in a cup of water. But you can also mix it with a milk, or put it into a
smoothie. I usually put it in a mason jar and then I screw the cap on, shake it
up, and it tastes like I'm drinking a straight-up chocolate milkshake. I'm
obsessed with the ingredients. It's things like organic cocoa powder, and
Himalayan sea salt... everything about it is so delicious, and to top it all off,
the tub came with my name printed on the label. They're really conscious about the
environment and sustainability, and so a lot of their products come in
compostable packs, and then they have a whole section on their website about how
to compost properly. The link below in my description box will take you to the
quiz, so go and take it, see what vitamins and supplements they recommend for you...
and for 25% off your first order, use my promo code LUCIE. So as you probably know
already from watching YouTubers, sponsorships and partnerships like this
are really how we sustain ourselves and do this as a living... and it's a great way
to make it so that we can provide this content to our audience for free... so I'm
really grateful to be able to make a living while partnering with brands I
love, and also offering you discount codes along the way to
save your money. So I'm hoping that this video ultimately cleared up all of your
questions about when I left refinery29, why I left refinery29, if I'm
still working with refinery 29, and what I'm doing on my own for my personal
brand. If you have any more questions or are unclear about anything else, just
comment below. Let me know, and I'll try to respond. And I also want to let you
know how much your support means to me, and tell you thank you so much for
watching my content. Even just clicking into this video is helpful and
meaningful for me, and I want you to know that I love each and every one of you. I
read your comments and I feel so connected to you, even if it's just
online. Every single subscriber on YouTube, every like on Instagram, every
view on an Instagram story, and every person who joins my mailing list is
helpful for my business growth. By the way, if you want to join that mailing
list, I send out a lot of freebies and fun behind-the-scenes content that I
don't share elsewhere, so I'm putting the link in my description box too for how
you can join up for the Fink Fam mailing list... But I just hope you know
that my goal with all this content that I'm creating is to be entertaining, to be
educational, to be informative, to be a positive role model... I know there's a lot
of crap on the internet and a lot of people who are making content that's
just not adding anything good to the world, and every single time I sit down
to record a video, I'm asking myself How is this going to help someone out there?
How can somebody find something positive about this and make a positive change?
I'm hoping everything I share with you is inspiring and informative... and I just
love you, really. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true. Thank you so much for
coming back to my channel. Comment below and let me know what else you want to
see here. I have a lot of fun videos coming up for you, and I'll see you next time.
Bye!