SPI 489: The Niche That Exploded during the Pandemic and How Kevin Espiritu Is Owning It

SPI 489: The Niche That Exploded during the Pandemic and How Kevin Espiritu Is Owning It

Pat Flynn:
As we come out of the pandemic, as we get back to somewhat normal life, as we get our vaccines, as we start to explore the world again, I can’t help but remember business during the pandemic and the ups and downs that so many people had. We’ve interviewed so many people who’ve gone through so many of those downturns only to bounce back after rejigging their business after pivoting, and there’s been so many examples of that. I mean, it’s very similar to what happened with me in 2008, after getting laid off from my architecture job and seeing what was possible, exploring new areas and having it just incredibly… Take me on this incredible journey to where I am today as a business owner and entrepreneur and advisor.

But there are some businesses that during the pandemic did really well right off the bat. There were a number of industries and spaces and niches that because of the nature of the pandemic, just went crazy wild. And today I wanted to talk with one of those people who has taken ownership of one of those spaces. I mean, he’s not the only person in this space doing what he’s doing, but he’s definitely taken advantage of the opportunity in front of him. And we’re going to talk about how he’s done that, his incredible journey from even before the pandemic and how he started his business. He fell into it almost by accident if you will. But he definitely, again, similarly, sees the opportunity and we’re going to show you how you can too. So make sure you stick around, it’s going to be a good one.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast, where it’s all about working hard now so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host – he’s in a never ending battle with the pests that try to eat the food he’s growing in the backyard – Pat Flynn!

Pat:
Yo, what’s up and welcome to session 489 of the Smart Passive Income podcast. My name is Pat Flynn, here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. And this man here today, our special guest, Kevin Espiritu from Epic Gardening, has helped millions of people, including myself. In fact, I found him during the pandemic because my family and I were interested in learning how to garden. His face popped up on YouTube, and there hasn’t gone a day where I haven’t seen his face because he’s on my Instagram, I follow him, I am now friends with him, and I’m so grateful that Kevin, again, from Epic Gardening. You can find him at Epic Gardening, pretty much anywhere.

And he’s just taken this idea of gardening to a whole new level. And he’s taken advantage of a lot of the things that are in front of him right now. He’s making very, very smart business decisions and in the space of gardening. And it’s awesome. I’m so inspired and I know you’ll be too. So let’s not wait any further. Here he is, Kevin Espiritu from Epic Gardening.

Kevin, welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast. Thank you so, so much for joining us today.

Kevin Espiritu:
Hey, thanks Pat. It’s awesome to be on.

Pat:
I’m stoked and I want to just thank you up front here because you’ve helped me start my own garden. But not just me, you’ve helped my family and I together create these memories, especially during the pandemic. I found your channel and then we ended up meeting in person because you live in San Diego too. You gave me some dragon fruit. Actually, I remember that, which is a super Filipino thing to do, because we’re both Filipino. It’s like, “Oh, take some food.” I’m surprised it wasn’t wrapped in foil or something.

Kevin:
And some lumpia along with it. Yeah.

Pat:
Yeah. Oh dude, yes. But I’ve just gotten obsessed with your channel. And then even people on my team were like, “Oh yeah, Kevin from Epic Gardening, you got to meet him, that’s super cool.” It’s like, “Dude, you’re huge.” And just first of all, thank you for what it is you do because I’ve had some of the best tasting food I’ve ever had, the kids like vegetables now, all thanks to you.

Kevin:
Hey, it was surreal to see you say that and share that because little do you know probably that I’ve followed your stuff probably almost since you started, I want to say. I mean, back with the LEED exam stuff and way, way, way back. And so I knew you were Filipino, I knew you were in San Diego. And so, I guess I felt a connection as well. So it was cool to connect with you.

Pat:
Yeah, for sure. And you had said that you had heard the podcast a long time ago, and I know that was before Epic Gardening even started. Why don’t you take us back to what were you doing online and trying to find your way before you hit up Epic Gardening and the big thing it is now?

Kevin:
Let’s go all the way back then. I mean, I went to college, I went to UC Santa Barbara, and at that time I had found online poker. And so I was playing online poker and I was undeclared going into school, ended up with a business economics accounting degree, mostly because I was still undecided. So that was my way of declaring while still being undeclared, I guess. I was like, “This is a state major.” And what ended up happening in college is, poker went well. I got pretty good at the game. I wouldn’t say I was stellar compared to the people I was hanging around with, but I was doing well enough to pay for school. I could pay for school with that.

Pat:
Wow.

Kevin:
And so that sort of disillusioned me from being an accountant because it wasn’t some innate passion of mine to do that. And I was watching all friends go down the track and get the internships and work 80 hours a week. And I was just like, “I don’t know. I mean, it just doesn’t seem worth it when I’m paying for school and making more than an accountant in college.” And so, I would say that was my first breaking of the mold, where I was just like, “Oh, I guess you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.” Because I grew up just thinking, “Okay, you go to college, you get a job, and you just get the job that makes sense.” You know what I mean?

And so, when I came out of school, I kept playing for a while. And at that point I was investing in other poker players as well, because I read 4-Hour Work Week and realized I actually just had a high paying job back then, kind of like a lawyer salary, I guess. So I was like, “Oh, I have to do something businessy.” I didn’t really know much about business. And so I was like, “Well, what if I just invested in other players?” And that was my next step, I guess you could say.

But then I took a darker turn where I looked at all the poker players that were older than me. And I was like, “Dude, these guys are 26, 27, they’re still doing the same thing. It doesn’t seem really that fun that far down the line.” And so I ended up quitting poker on April 27th, 2014. I won a poker tournament and I was like, “Okay, I’m going out on top, I’m quitting right now.” So I quit, but I didn’t know what else to do, right? I didn’t have anything after that and I had already graduated college. And so I played video games. I started playing a lot, a lot, a lot of video games, like 10, 12 hours a day, every single day. You can ask my cousin. I was in our garage just playing StarCraft, whatever.

Pat:
Geez.

Kevin:
And I was like, “Okay, I need to stop this.” And I started building websites for people just because I was into the internet, into tech. And from there, that’s when gardening hit me because my brother had come home from college and I was like, “I need to do something to get out of the house because I’m just stuck behind the computer.” I quit poker to not do this and now I’m doing this and not even making very much money. So what was the point of quitting? I should have just kept playing the poker.

And so I started gardening with my brother, got hooked on it, and at the time, the reason for starting up a gardening was to start a gardening blog to show the people that I was building websites for that I knew how to build a website. And so it was almost like a digital business card. And then at the same time, once I started realizing that, okay, building websites, you get a contract for a local plumber or a dentist, and then they’re gone and you have to get another one. I was like, “Well, I should help them with marketing because I know the internet really well.” And so then I started growing the blog again to show them that I could market something online and that’s how Epic Gardening started in a weird way. It was just a hobby at the start

Pat:
That is crazy to go from poker – and was it online poker? Or offline poker?

Kevin:
Yeah. Only online, yeah.

Pat:
All online. That’s so interesting because my roommate from college is a poker player and he’s still doing it. He’s in his 30s now and he’s still grinding. And now he’s just like, “It’s the same thing over and over and over again.” How did you get to the point where – you just won. That would normally make people go, “I’m great at this. I need to keep doing it.” What was the drive so much to quit? That’s a very disciplined thing to do at that time. And I think a lot of people… I mean, I would’ve probably just tripled down on that if I had won. How did you know to stop?

Kevin:
I think for me, I get bored of things that I think I’ve solved, whether it’s true or not that I’ve solved it. I think, for me in poker, I knew just temperament-wise, there was a level I would never reach because I could never fully disconnect from the money. Whereas my friends, I had friends who were buying in with 40 grand on four different tables at a time and they’d swing six figures in a couple hours. I knew that would never be me. And I also knew just, if you really think about what you’re doing when you’re playing poker, is you’re playing a game, actually a fantastic training game for the real world, I think. And that’s another conversation, but it is just a game and it’s a game where you’re playing other people, and it’s zero-sum and you’re taking their money or they’re taking your money.

So if you really look at the net benefit of what you’re doing with your life, it’s really not doing a whole lot. You know what I mean? It’s just moving stuff around. And so I played that out and there’s nothing against it. I mean, if someone wants to do that, it’s completely fine. But I knew for me, if I was 80, I would have been like, “Why did I spend my entire 20s just taking money from other people who were slightly worse than me at this game?”

Pat:
And then giving it back and then taking it back.

Kevin:
And then giving it back, yeah. Exactly.

Pat:
That’s really interesting. So what about gardening made you obsessed with it? I’m curious. Because that’s such a dramatic change it seems. But you’re not in front of a computer anymore. I know you said you needed to get outside, but what is it about gardening specifically that gets you to have the same obsession that you did with these other things that were in front of a computer?

Kevin:
It doesn’t seem like it would connect very much, does it? I think what it is for me is you can’t become a master of it. There’s no real way. I mean, there’s thousands of plants, there’s different methods to grow plants, different climates, different goals. So there’s no real way to beat it, I suppose, at least in one human lifetime. I mean, you have people who are developing new types of trees or crops that the cycle on that’s 10 years. So no human is going to master the world of gardening, that’s for sure.

But also it is almost like a study of just how the universe works, I guess, to me. Where you’re cultivating life, right, is what you’re doing. And you can take a lot from that and bring it to almost any other field and you can learn, I’m pretty science-minded so you can learn a lot about physics or chemistry or biology or ecology all through that. And so to me it’s like this endless font of inspiration.

Pat:
That’s really cool. So you started with this blog and it was essentially just a front for helping your business with building websites, but when did you click and go, “Whoa, this gardening thing is something other people actually want.” And what did you do from there?

Kevin:
I think what I was trying to do at the start was after the point where I was helping people market their websites and build websites and it did have a little bit of legs on it, I was focused on hydroponics because I was growing indoors. And so I found a small audience with people who are into hydroponics and that’s just… Especially eight years ago, not a lot of people were doing that online. Well, maybe they were, but they were growing a specific crop that I wasn’t growing if you know what I’m saying.

Pat:
Right. And we’re not going to talk about it.

Kevin:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I found a little bit of a community there and then I said, “You know what? I feel like this could be something, maybe a little side income or something like that.” And at the time, I don’t think many people know this, but it wasn’t called Epic Gardening. It was called Xponics because I was only into hydroponics. And so I said, “Okay, well that’s a pretty bad name, even if I just talked about hydroponics, but I want to talk about more than that.” And so I rebranded it to Epic Gardening, which I chose just because it was very opposite to the classic garden names, like Rolling Hills Nurseries or things like that. And from there, my goal was really just to build the blog. I mean, that was the first many years was trying to get the blog and a couple of YouTube videos here and there. And that was it.

Pat:
How did you approach the content? I know that you lived in a certain place and you used a lot of just your own home as the experimental ground for this, versus I know a lot of people who create blogs and then essentially they’re just regurgitating a lot of what other people have said. What was the crux or the origin of the content for you that eventually put you on the map?

Kevin:
I think for me, I got really deep into SEO back in the day. And so the blog was very, very solid. I would say maybe after a couple of years, again, you got to learn SEO, but after a while I got pretty solid at SEO, which surprisingly is less complex than most SEO people would have you believe. So that really helped because that became – I would say the blog became the hub and every other platform became the spokes, right?

And so when I wanted to launch the YouTube channel, the most logical thing to do was, of course, to look at the top blog posts that I had written and just make videos on those blog posts and put the videos on the blog posts. And then it became the same with the podcast. When I did the podcast, it was top 50 articles, make podcasts about them with the idea that just everyone wants content in slightly different ways. I’d rather hear it when I’m in the garden or I want to watch it when I’m relaxing at home. I don’t want to read the blog article. And so it was just stacking these different content models, but also leveraging the prior ones I’d built to help me get it off to a good start.

Pat:
Give us an understanding of, what were some of those first pieces that did really well? What were the names of those blog posts and videos that seem to really take off?

Kevin:
The first ones that did really well, because like I said, I started in hydroponics and so I was writing guides on different styles of hydroponic systems. So a Deep Water Culture system is a really classic one. There’s one called a Kratky, the Kratky method, which is a passive hydroponic system. Nutrient film technique, which is just running a very small film of water with nutrients down a channel and having the plant grow in that. And so those articles did really well mostly because there just wasn’t a lot of good info out there on them that wasn’t stuck in either a PDF, on a university website, or a forum for growing that crop we aren’t talking about.

And so, just putting it in plain English on the internet, in an open format. And then what I did is I made videos about those systems and I actually remember what I did. I made an Adobe Photoshop document and I had layers. And instead of using a Canva presentation, like you might do these days with slides or something, I just clicked and unclicked the layers to show the change of the system. You’re like, “Oh, this is the material you need. And then you need this.”

From a YouTube perspective, and I know you’ve got a lot going on for YouTube as well and you studied it deeply, it was atrocious because it’s literally, think about maybe 12 pictures so to speak and seconds or minutes between any change on the screen and I’m just talking. But back then it’s 2013, and if there’s no video on it, your video is defacto the best video on it. So that’s what happened back then.

Pat:
And then I know where you are now, tell us, fast forward, how big is the brand? Tell us any numbers that you can just to give us a perspective of just how big this has grown since then, and then we’ll fill in the gaps.

Kevin:
Yeah, sure. I mean, the big thing that changed it, I would say, that coalesced everything obviously was the pandemic and we rocketed up just like everyone else in the gardening community and many other communities online. But we’re at about 1.12 million on YouTube, TikTok’s probably 800K, Insta’s over 300 now. Pinterest is difficult because it’s a monthly viewership that you translate into organic traffic, but it’s quite a bit. The website’s getting over a million uniques a month right now, maybe 1.5 in the spring. And the books have sold… I think we’ve sold maybe 25,000 copies of the first book and the second book just launched. So not that many, but maybe 1500 so far. I mean, it’s wild to see it all come together like that.

Pat:
And you have fans now. And I remember when I went to your garage sale because you were unloading some stuff because you were moving from the home that you were in, which is this super urbany kind of place with a very tiny plot, and a lot of the videos that you did were actually about how to grow on that plot and just the little containers that you were using and the tricks that you were doing. I mean, videos with hundreds of thousands of views. And I went there, but it took 20 minutes to get to because I saw you, but there was a whole line of people who were wanting you to sign stuff and just wanted to chat with you. When did you start to notice that fans were coming about from the work that you’re doing in the gardening space?

Kevin:
Actually, that’s a really good question because you see online with all these creators and they have their squad or their named fan base. And I never really had that because I think up until again, the pandemic, I was just putting out information, but I wasn’t really sharing a lot about my own life and I wasn’t really doing all those things that a creator would do to make a tribe, I guess. It just didn’t really seem interesting to me, I guess. I was like, “Well, the goal of the company, our goal is to teach the world to grow food.” And so that doesn’t really mean have people be fans of me, right?

But I think during the pandemic, everyone got stuck inside, I did seize the opportunity, so to speak, and increase my videos and improved my production and improved all these little things that I’m sure you and I could talk for ages about on YouTube and other platforms. And that did start to have some fans. And I think for me what’s interesting is I don’t really want fans. I would much rather just have someone who is appreciative that what I put out was helpful to them. And that’s what it turns out I have. The people that want me to sign something or something like that, it’s generally because I’ve helped them in the garden, which is what I want to do. And not because they’re obsessed with me or something, which I feel would be weird.

Pat:
Yeah, it can be a little weird sometimes but it also is a reflection of just how, like you said, how much value you’re providing to them already. That’s the by-product of it sometimes. It was just really cool to witness it from a gardening channel perspective. It was just so cool. And it just shows you that it can happen in any niche. I mean, I had fans from my LEED exam website, which is strange. But we have gotten to know you. Through your videos, we get a sense of your style, you have this super laid back personality, but you’re so knowledgeable, you’re so scientific with your approach and you’re doing a lot on social media now to bring us into your life a little bit more. You recently purchased a new property as you’ve been upgrading. Tell us, this new property, what is it? How are you forming content around this purchase? And what are your plans with it?

Kevin:
Again, that was born of the pandemic, I guess. I was looking around, I had feelers out for buying property, but it’s San Diego, I’m sure as you know it’s not a cheap place. And I was like, “Is this even possible?” I never thought I’d own a home in San Diego. And so I was looking around on the MLS, I saw something pop up, I drove down immediately, I saw the land, it’s 13,000 square feet of basically empty land and a 1,000 square foot home in the corner of the lot. And I said, “100 percent, I’m going to get this house. I don’t really care what’s…”

I didn’t actually look in the house before I put an offer out because it was the location that I wanted and I knew for a fact just going raw business metrics, I knew for a fact that I could pay the house off simply with the increased opportunity that the house would provide. Being able to grow more crops, more guides, maybe some sort of working with brands that are more house related rather than garden related. So on a raw financials decision, I was like, “100 percent, I can pull it off.” But really more than that, it was the ability to express the mission of the company more.

Like you said, you saw that first garden, 15 by 30 feet in the urban front yard. I couldn’t grow any perennials, couldn’t grow any trees. I would have to almost not even grow some classic crops like big squashes or melons because it would take up 30 percent of the garden. And I couldn’t really afford to do that to show variety.

The whole purpose of buying it was, number one, I wanted to own a home just because I wanted it. But number two, it was to express the mission of the company more, which is what I’m trying to do now. And go a little deeper where not just gardening, but also how do you take the best of ancient life, like the primal things that seem to just make us happy innately like growing and consuming food with our family and friends, toiling in the soil, these sorts of things and the best of technology, right? And so how do you leverage tech in a way where it’s almost disappears into the background and you live this high-tech natural life that’s as sustainable as you can make it. So that was the goal of what I’m calling the Epic Homestead now.

Pat:
And you are a very prolific content creator. Give us a sense of, now that you have this plot of land, the different kinds of content that you are planning to have come out of this. I know you’re in the middle of a bunch of experiments, you’ve already shared a bunch of things. What does this now give you access to? I want to know what your brain is like in terms of, “Ooh, here’s what we can do here. Here’s the…” What are the videos that are going to come out of this? I know you’re stoked on it, I am, but what are your plans? I’d love to know.

Kevin:
Well, that’s the thing is, in my perfect world, which I’m not near, what I would like to do is have a seed to harvest guide on every plant possible to grow in my climate for people. So how to grow peas from start to finish, how to grow tomatoes from start to finish. But of course around that, I can integrate chickens, which I’ll be doing soon. I’ve been doing videos on the second channel about solar power, rainwater capture, do all of the things that we typically pull from a resource like SDG&E our electric company or the water company. I’m trying to say, how low can I pull from external sources and how much can I actually do in my own property? Hopefully soon we can even do things like cooking, preserving, and stuff like that.

Really, the sky’s the limit. I mean, the hardest part for me right now is organizing all of that because if I’m growing wheat, which I’m about to do, I’m going to grow my own bread. That’s a 90-day video. And so how do I remember to film the segments of every plant that I’m growing over the course of an entire year? And then you got to think about it. I can’t actually release those videos this year. I have to release them next year, because if I harvest, let’s say corn, seed to harvest, well, I’m harvesting it at the end of the season, and then I drop the video, no one cares. So I have to wait a year to drop all those seeds to harvest videos. So that’s the goal.

And then it’s also how do I… Because that’s the longest form content, YouTube. How do I then take all of that and make it palatable in all these different little bites for different platforms, because even the same person is in a different mentality on a different platform. And so you don’t want the same thing and even small little details should be changed to make it more palatable for that platform and that person. So that’s the hardest part really is how to manage it all.

Pat:
How are you managing it all?

Kevin:
I mean, not very well, I would say. I mean, I’m very organized in a chaotic way, I guess is the best way to put it where I do know the videos I want to make. And like I said, those seed to harvest videos, I am tracking them in some way, but for the short form content like an Instagram reel or a TikTok, I don’t know, an Instagram feed or something that, I pretty much just take them as I go about my day. I don’t plan those out too much. I think I could gain a lot actually, if I did. And besides that, I mean, I use a tool called Notion to track my videos and I use a decent amount of little automations here and there. But there’s a lot of little details of the process I think could be dramatically improved.

Pat:
That’s so cool. And Notion again is just an amazing tool. I started using it for video planning and whatnot. It’s a great note taking tool. That’s really cool. That sounds like me: chaotic organization actually. When you approach a YouTube video, you just suck us in so well. I would love to know your approach to a specific video. Maybe you can even take us into a video that you’re going to plan very soon and how you structure it in a way, because they’re all structured in a very similar way, but they all work so, so well, and I highly recommend everybody check out Epic Gardening on YouTube if you want to see Kevin and everything that he’s doing there. But take us through your methodology for the actual planning of the script and how a video is going to be structured.

Kevin:
Yeah, sure. So why don’t we do one that I’m going to do?

Pat:
Okay, sure.

Kevin:
Let’s do worm composting. So I’m going to do a worm composting guide from A to Z using my favorite worm composter. And so I don’t really script anything, which probably that’s a mistake, I’m not sure. I’ve tried it in the past. I’ll have bullet points of details of a plant that I just can’t get it to stick into my brain. So where it’s native to, or the exact amount of water it might require, things like that. I will write those down and reference them sometimes. But let’s say this worm composting A to Z video.

The way my basic videos are structured, which I did change during the pandemic because actually, that was the first moment where I was like, “Maybe I should structure my videos.” And I never had before. Anyways, let’s go with this one. So we’re going to say worm composting from A to Z. So this in my world is a breakdown video. It’s a full breakdown. So I have little categories of videos. You could do a breakdown, I could do a reaction video, a list video, a full plant guide, a DIY, a tour, an unboxing, a vlog review, that sort of thing, right?

Pat:
If containers or buckets of types of videos and you just have a similar structure for each of them.

Kevin:
Yes, exactly. So a breakdown video has a different internal structure, let’s say than a list video, than a plant guide video. So worm composting A to Z, it’s a breakdown or a method style video. And so the intro, I want to keep it to about five seconds. So I would say maybe something like, “Hey, in this video, we’re going to use one of the most simple composting methods of all time, especially if you’re in small spaces, worm composting.” Boom, that’s it. And then-

Pat:
It’s so easy for you.

Kevin:
Yeah, it’s really easy because it’s direct. It’s like, in gardening, it’s really nice. They just want to know what the thing is about. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to do something crazy. And so then I will do my little intro thing. So I’ll say, “Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening, where it’s my goal to help you grow a greener thumb.” And then I’ll segue that into the topics. So I’ll say, “With greener thumbs, I mean, you need to be generating some of your compost on your property, and worm composting is a fantastic and actually quite simple way to do that. And so in this video, we’re going to go over a couple of…” And then I do my… This is another thing I came up with in the pandemic was a little call to action. And people will be like, “Smash the like button,” or “dominate the like.” So I said, “Gently cultivate the like button and I’ll bless you with 10 pounds of worm compost.” Or just something silly like that. And then, “Let’s get into the video.”

Pat:
I love that. I got inspiration for that for my Pokemon video. Like, “Quick attack the like button,” or something.

Kevin:
I saw that.

Pat:
Just something that resonates with the crowd. Thank you for that. I think that’s just so brilliant. That’s one of those things, it’s like those little touches, those personality moments. I make sure to like the button-

Kevin:
It’s so funny.

Pat:
Because I don’t want to not be blessed by the worm gods, right?

Kevin:
Exactly. Yeah. Because in the comments people will say like, “I don’t even like gardening, but I’m actually too afraid that I won’t be blessed by the botanical gods or something. So I’m going to like it anyways.” And actually that’s a meta note there is, to achieve scale, which I don’t think it needs to be your goal, but if it is, you actually have to get people who will never do what you’re talking about to consume your content, technically. Because that’s the only way that you get to numbers I guess that are quite high, I would say.

Pat:
Well, if you could do that, then definitely the people who the content’s for they’re going to stick around, right?

Kevin:
Exactly. Yeah. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you can make a worm composting video inherently interesting to someone who will never do it, then 100 percent of the people who will do it will get extreme value from it.

Pat:
That’s so true. I mean, I’ve noticed similar comments again on my Pokemon channel. People who are like, “I’m not even into Pokemon, but I was interested in what the grades of these cards were going to be and I’ll play along.”

Kevin:
That’s how I am. I mean, I am interested in Pokemon, but I probably won’t be a collector like you. However, I watch every video. And so I think you have achieved it on Deep Pocket Monster, for sure.

Pat:
Now doing this in the business world on SPI, it’s a little bit harder, because with gardening and Pokemon, we do have the advantage of things being mysterious and interesting and having a result of something, versus sometimes with business advice, it’s going to be a lot harder to get that same climax of the video, which is a fun challenge. And there have been videos where I’ve nailed that and I see the results. It’s a little bit harder and we got to be a little bit more creative. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you, but cultivated the like button to bless worm . . . poop.

Kevin:
Yeah. Then after that, I really just get into the meat of the video. For example, in this worm composting one, I would set up the bin that I’m using, which actually is a bin that I now sell because it’s my favorite one. And so I would set it up, explain it, and then I would go through the filling of it. How do you fill it up? When do you add the worms? What do you need to do to keep the worms happy? How do you layer the compost? What problems might you run into? And then how do you harvest it? And then how do you use it? And that would be a complete guide to go from nothing to actually generating and using it in your garden.

And at the end, what I’ve tried to do is wrap the videos quite quickly. And so when the video is over, you don’t really know the end is coming. I’ll just say, “And that’s it. Just sprinkle some in the garden, let me know how it goes down in the comments. If you want another video, check it out, good luck in the garden, keep on growing.” Boom, I’m done. The video’s out and that’s all there is really to it.

Pat:
I think that’s really smart to not let people know the ending is coming. I’ve done that in videos for years and you start to notice a trickle off versus if you just wait till the very, very end, chances are they’re going to click into another video because you have that end card in there. And the more videos you can get people to watch, the more YouTube is going to reward you for sure.

In terms of your production, how are you filming this video? I know you have B-roll, I know you do other things like that. Take me through that process.

Kevin:
Sure. So I would say up to 70,000 subscribers, I was on a phone. And so those videos, we talked about those hydro videos back in the day. You can actually see little hints of a couch that it’s propped up on, or the notifications were on while I was filming. And so people’s comments are like, “My eardrums are bleeding, but this video was awesome.”

Pat:
No way.

Kevin:
I was on a phone for a while. I would say in 2017, I switched to a Canon 80D because I was doing a collab, my first bigger collab. And that’s where I was like, “Maybe I should have a real camera.” I got that and a RODE VideoMic Pro. And now I’m on a Sony A7III with a Tamron lens and I’ve still got that shotgun mic, but I also have a Sennheiser Lav, which has really improved the audio quality, which for me is actually really important because I’m almost never filming indoors and I’m almost never filming in clean audio environments.

So my garden will be in the front yard, cars drive by all the time. There’s a helicopter path, there’s an ambulance, there’s people, dogs barking. And so the lav removes most of that. And actually I leave it kind of loose. If there’s a little noise in the background, it’s a natural noise, I guess you would call it like cinema verite or whatever and film class. It’s in scene, right? So it makes sense. That’s how I do it.

And then afterwards I’ll just shoot the B-roll of the things that I think would be helpful. A weakness of mine, I should shoot a lot more than I do, but inherently I actually don’t like making a video. I like the information dissemination, like talking on the video, but I don’t actually enjoy very much the production of a video. And so if I could snap my fingers and have B-roll just appear, that would be great. But I don’t so…

Pat:
And do you have an editor helping you with a lot of the videos?

Kevin:
Yeah. I have an editor. I’ve had the same editor for maybe two years now. And so we’ve built up a really good flow. He’s fantastic. He keeps it simple, but he gives it the vibe I want it to have, which is modern. Cool, modern, it’s a normal thing to do. It’s not super, I would say, old school gardening where it, I would say it would block off people I want to attract.

Pat:
When it comes to the business side of things, I mean, you had mentioned in your worm composting video – which by the way, I watched one of yours from back in the day to start my own worm composting videos. I’m looking forward to the next guide. We heard you say you now sell these things. Do you partner with a company? Are you just an affiliate? What does that deal look like for a particular product? And then we’ll extrapolate some other business related things after that.

Kevin:
Sure. So for that particular product, for a while, I just met the guy, he was in San Diego and he said, “Hey, can I come by and drop this off?” And I had looked at it before and I was like, “That’s interesting.” So just for someone who doesn’t know worm composting, you have two systems. You have one that’s a stackable system, where you can stack totes on top of one another and the worms will migrate upwards. And that’s how you do it. And you just harvest the bottom of the tote. There’s also one called a continuous flow-through where everything’s in one contained thing, which to me just seems strictly better. And this is what this guy was offering. And so he came by, I checked it out, I grew in it for maybe a month or two, two months, three months. And I said, “For sure, this is the best one I’ve used.” And I’ve used 10.

And so I started sharing about it a little bit on IG and on YouTube, people seemed to like it. Initially, I did have a 10 percent discount or something like that. And I got a percentage of that. And so just a classic affiliate deal. And then when I had my store set up — which there’s actually another reason we’ll probably get to on why that got set up — I talked to him and I said, “Instead of me offering this coupon where they can go to your store, why don’t I just offer it on my store? And when I take the order, you fulfill it.” So that’s what’s called a classic drop shipping agreement. “And then I’ll just pay you the cost of goods for doing that.” And so that’s how that particular product and that suite of products works. But there’s a couple of different things that I’m doing now.

Pat:
So you are in fact selling that as if it were your own product. I mean, you’re not pretending like it’s your own product, but it behaves like it’s your own product. You sell it, people get a receipt for it. And then every, so often you go to this guy and you’re like, “Hey, here are the orders, here are the addresses. It might even happen automatically, I don’t know.”

Kevin:
It’s automatic. Yeah.

Pat:
How is that automated? Is that ShipStation or something like that, or?

Kevin:
We’re both on Shopify because he obviously sells his own product via his own marketing channels. And so we use an app on Shopify called Syncio, and basically what happens is the order is taken on my store, they pay for it to me, I collect the sales tax, the shipping, et cetera, all that sort of stuff. So it truly is like I’m selling the product. For all intents and purposes, I am. And actually in reality, I truly am selling the product. The order pushes from mine to his store. He gets it as if he just made a sale. He fulfills it, the fulfillment pushes back to my store, and the customer gets the tracking number.

And so really let’s imagine that I just had a warehouse and that’s where I stored the product. That’s exactly what’s happening, it’s just that I’m not the literal one shipping it out because it makes more economic sense for both of us, for him to do both my orders and his orders at his own place.

Pat:
That’s insane and awesome and very passive or as passive as that situation could be. Are you doing that with any other products too?

Kevin:
Yeah. So I’ve done a Bokashi composting system. My favorite one again. The whole ethos of my store is, if it’s not the best thing I’ve ever used in the category, it just won’t be on the store. And so that keeps the trust high and the quality high.

Pat:
That one actually breaks down fish and stuff, right? And bone and-

Kevin:
Mm-hmm. Bokashi can break down the things that other composting systems can’t, like meats, dairy, leftovers, bones, things like that. So that’s another one that I have that system on. I’ve developed an apron in partnership with a company that does typically chefs aprons, but we did a gardening apron. And so again, I’m not going to be the person sewing the apron, but I did design it. We went through four or five design revisions. And so same idea, when someone orders the apron, it pushes to their store, their guys sew the apron up and ship it out and then that pushes back. So there’s a couple of things I do that with.

Pat:
Now, I know there’s a product that you promote that is maybe the center of all this or your most successful one. I’m assuming it is. I bought three of them and we have them in the garden now. These are our Birdies raised bed gardens. Tell me the story behind that partnership because that thing seems to be selling like hotcakes. And I’m just curious about the structure of that particular deal if it’s not similar to this one. And I know there’s a little bit of an interesting thing here because this company is not even from the US, which I know makes it complicated. So tell us a little bit about Birdies.

Kevin:
Sure. So what’s really crazy, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this as well is, when you have a platform of people that are interested in whatever you’re talking about, gardening, woodworking, whatever, they tell you what they like the most about what you’re doing, right? Whether it’s the content or the things that are in the video. So three, four years ago, I got my hands on some of these Birdies raised beds, which if you’re unfamiliar, it’s just a metal galvanized steel raised bed that’s panelized. So you can actually change the dimensions of it. And they’re a little taller than normal.

There’s a lot of different benefits to them, but they look cool too. I mean, sometimes it’s as simple as that. And anytime I ever posted about my garden, which had all Birdies beds, everyone was like, “What are those things? I want those, I want those.” And so I knew they were from Australia and I messaged them and I said, “Hey guys, do you have someone here selling these because everyone wants these things.” They said, “Oh, we have someone, it’s just not… they just have some here and there,” it wasn’t something serious.

So every quarter I would just email them again and I’d be like, “Are you sure? I feel like this could do well.” And they were like, “Oh, well, we have someone for the end of the year.” And then in 2019 I had emailed them January 2nd, I think, ad I was like, “Hey, it’s a new year. Do you want to do anything?” And they were like, “Actually our distributor decided to stop working with us. Would you like to do a test order?”

And so this was my first big thing because I had to buy the whole container of product. I owned the product before I sold it, right? So it wasn’t a drop shipping thing where, when I sold it, I collected the money and then they made it, right? Like we were talking with the work worm bin or the apron. This one I bought a 20-foot shipping container of the raised beds, sent them to America, and was like, “Okay, well, I’m going to have to sell these now and see how that goes.”

What I ended up doing is, that’s when I started the Shopify store. So that was the impetus for that. And I said, “Okay, well, spring’s coming, I’ll just offer these for pre-sale. Because I know the date they’re going to land in America. So I’ll offer them for presale and say we’re going to ship them out on the 15th of March. Any orders will be shipped out then, but you can order from January until then.” It takes about 45 days to get from Australia to Los Angeles. And so on day 22, I had none left.

Pat:
You sold out.

Kevin:
Yeah. Everything in that container was spoken for.

Pat:
Oh my god.

Kevin:
And so I messaged Birdies and I said, “Send another.” And I bought another one and then that sold out. And so I said, “Let’s keep going.” And that year, I think maybe I did five containers or something. And that was the start of it and that really was the, like you said, that quickly became the core, at least from a revenue perspective, of the business. And it has allowed me to do a lot more, which I would never have been able to do otherwise. And so it was just a crazy thing that I think a lot of creators don’t think about. Because I hear a lot of creators talking about brand deals, brand deals, brand deals, and it’s like, well, you could actually be your own brand as well and capture a lot more of the value and disseminate that value back to your audience.

Pat:
Geez, what was going through your head when you were like, “This is big boy business moves right now. I’m buying a whole container.”

Kevin:
It was scary man.

Pat:
First of all, where did they go?

Kevin:
That was the first thing. So what I initially was going to do, because I didn’t know anything about shipping, import, export, international trade, anything like that. And I was like, “Okay.” And so the 20-foot container, the first one, I was like, “Oh crap, it’s sold out. So I guess I don’t have to store it, but I have to ship it, right? As soon as it gets here.” And so it’s going to land in the port of Long Beach or Los Angeles and then some truck is going to take it, and where are they going to take it? Right? Because someone’s got to ship it.

And so what I was going to do is I had a contract signed at a self storage place and I was going to bring it into a self storage place in San Diego and then just ship it out of the self storage place because I didn’t know what I was doing. It was really dumb if you look back on it.

Pat:
I mean, that’s a solution. But, I mean-

Kevin:
I mean, it’s a solution from a newbs perspective for sure. Then I was like, “Maybe I should just talk to people who’ve done this because this is clearly not a novel thing.” People have been shipping for decades. And so I talked to someone and they introduced me to a logistics company, very close to Los Angeles that has experience with this type of thing. And so I said, “Okay, well, what I’ll do is I’ll send it to their warehouse and we’ll ship from there until I figure out a better solution.” And actually, for some people that’s the ultimate solution is to just use a logistics company to deal with all that and they’re fantastic. And they can do a lot that I can’t do, but there’s been some moves recently that are going to probably end up changing that pretty significantly.

Pat:
Wow. Thank you for the insight on that. That’s crazy. The other business stuff that I know you’ve been doing is a lot of, I know you’ve been writing books, your recent book, Grow Bag Gardening, a grow bag is this, I don’t know if it’s new or not, but I’ve never really seen it before. It’s almost like a sack or something with handles that you can grow in. And you’ve written a book about this and I have your other book. And tell me about the book writing process. It makes sense when you have a platform to publish something like this, but it’s not always easy and most don’t do it. How did you actually get it done?

Kevin:
Yeah, man. I mean, I’m sure as you know, you’ve written quite a few and they’ve done quite well. It’s a weird process to write a book and before… A part of the story we didn’t really get to is before I went full-time on Epic Gardening, which was June of 2016, a year and a half prior to that, I joined as employee number two of what was called Book in a Box at the time, but is now called Scribe Media. And so that is Tucker Max’s company. So I was employee two there. So I learned a lot about number one, how to run a company. And number two, I learned a lot about writing and launching books, because that’s a publishing company that’s a hybrid between traditional and self where they can get you an extremely professional, effectively traditionally published book from a design perspective, but you actually own the upside of it much more than you would a traditional book.

So I learned a lot about that from there. And then lo and behold with Epic Gardening started to do well, I got a traditional book deal to do a book. And so I went backwards I suppose, on the business model. But the book is really interesting because it’s way easier to do anything besides write a book in the world of content, to me. A blog post is easy, YouTube is easy, in comparison to a book, it’s so much harder. Everything has to be well organized and the photos and then the layout and man it just takes forever.

I mean, the first book took me six, seven months. Second book about the same time. It’s sort of stressful. I got to be honest, the process of writing a book inherently, I really don’t enjoy, but there is something about books that nothing else seems to be able to touch from like a helpfulness perspective. People really connect with them. And also, there’s something about being an author that people give respect to, rightly or wrongly.

Pat:
For sure. I mean, I remember taking your first book and taking it out in the garden with me, and I was measuring the 12 by 12 grids on my raised beds and just following along. You’re right. It was super helpful. I mean, I could have done that with the video, but it was just nice to have the manual, essentially.

Kevin:
A guide, yeah.

Pat:
Right in front of me. And then your recent book just came out. How have the books been helping you in terms of the business, if at all?

Kevin:
One thing I think that books will do that other types of media won’t do, is if you’re trying to do an interview on a TV show or be covered by a paper or anything in the world of traditional media, obviously traditional media respects traditional media, right? And so a book is traditional media. And so just having a book out again, like I said, rightly or wrongly, gives you an undue level of respect that those types of people will come to you for, because now for some reason – I had millions and millions of views on the videos and the blog was getting millions of hits a month or whatever. They don’t care. I write one book, they have no idea how much it sells, and now they care, right?

And so that’s something that is very interesting about books that I think a lot of people don’t know. But the cool part about it for me is, now it’s like a forever piece of media. Once I wrote it, I wrote it unless I updated at some point in the time. But it’s helped a lot with the business. I mean, I can give them out as gifts, I can send them as a thank you to our customers who have bought a lot of raised beds or products from us, sign it, write a nice note. There’s a lot of different things you can do with it. And honestly, it’s cool to have.

Pat:
That’s awesome. And the final business thing before we wrap here, and I know you’ve done a lot of collaborations as well. In the world of YouTube, especially, that’s really helpful, but just in general in business, collaborations are helpful. What’s your approach to collaboration? Is it well, when it happens, it happens. We’ll cross paths and we’ll just make up a deal there. Or do you strategically go out and pinpoint certain people and try to work with them? How do you approach working with others in the same space with you?

Kevin:
In the same space, I will have people on the podcast a lot. I will, if I’m in the area, I used to do more tours of other people’s gardens than I do now. Obviously the pandemic shut that down a little bit but general philosophy on collaborations is, usually I don’t actively try to get one. I usually just see who’s interested in general and then see if it makes sense. And that has really served me really well, but maybe it’s a personality thing because that’s how I am in a lot of different areas where, for example, the Birdies beds, a lot of people in the ecom world, I guess would say, “Do the research, do all the analytics, look at Amazon bestseller rank and stuff.” I just don’t want to do that. I just want to wait until the universe basically tells me what is going to work so loudly that it’s obvious.

And I’m not being woo-woo about it. I’m just saying literally, when you post about the beds and 10 percent of the comments every time is, “What is that?” Just make it available for sale. It’s not that complicated. And with collabs, I think it’s the same where, if it seems to make sense, if the personalities match, then yeah. I’ll do it and we’ll figure out a way to make it work.

Pat:
To finish off before we go backstage and chat just a little bit more, I’d love to know what your advice would be for the content creators out there listening right now, who are still not quite at that level where they’re feeling like it’s worth their time yet. How do you speak to them to encourage them to continue to move forward? What would you say? You’ve gone through the tough times in the beginning and then here you are now.

Kevin:
There’s probably two things I would say. One of them is a selfish, inward look, right? And so you do have to know why you’re doing it, which sounds very, “Oh, of course, you have to know why you do something.” But actually really think selfishly, why am I making these videos or this content? What do I want out of it for my own life? And if it’s like, “I want to make five grand a month or something,” that’s fine. Just have it be that at the start. I mean, there’s a ton of people who are overweight, who want to get thin because they want to be super sexy, and that’s fine. It’s in an extrinsic thing. Maybe later on down the road, they want to do it for health, right?

For me, I know I could get healthier right now, but what’s going to motivate me this second is the idea that I could look better. Later on I’m sure I’ll be like, “Actually, it’s more about the health and it’s more about how I mentally feel.” Whatever. Who cares as long as you start, right? So you do have to know selfishly why you’re doing what you’re doing, but then on the tactics or strategy side, the best thing I could ever offer would – and again, it’s very simple, but it’s hard to do is you just have to think about who are you making it for and how high can you output that value to those people.

The worm composting guide, for example, I could make a video with the slides like I did five years ago, or I could spend three months going through the entire cycle of worm composting from A to Z and talking about everything that could go right in everything that could go wrong and every question I could ever conceive someone asking about it, and then that’s max value. And so why wouldn’t that video do well? Right? Why wouldn’t that video get them what they want: how to worm compost, but also get me what I want, which is a combination of course, of my own selfish desires, but also the mission of the company: how to teach people how to grow food. It gets all three of those in one.

And so that’s the hardest thing to do. I think you see, and I’m sure you probably Pat you see too, a lot of influencer-type people will post, “Today was kind of a tough day.” This and that. It’s like, “Honestly, kind of who cares?” Because if I’m watching it and I’m following you for fitness or something, I’d much rather hear about what helps me rather than what hurt you, so to speak. It sounds harsh, that’s just my personal philosophy. I always try to think about the person and not myself, I guess.

Pat:
No, that’s great. Thank you for that, Kevin. And it reminds me, I remember speaking to Mr. Beast once. I got to meet him in person a couple of years ago. And he was like, “People notice when you take that extra time. They don’t necessarily even know, but subconsciously they know that you’ve put an extra effort into it and you’re going to be rewarded for that over time. Maybe not by everybody, but people notice that kind of stuff.” And I’m thankful that you said that because there’s maybe a number of people listening who are like, “Yeah, I’ve just been trying to do maybe the minimum.” And in many cases, how do we add, like you said, maximum value. So thank you for that.

Where can people go to check out all the stuff that you have going on and follow you?

Kevin:
I mean, anywhere you want to consume gardening content, that’s where I will be. So just search Epic Gardening on podcasts, YouTube, whatever. The only things that aren’t called that are the second YouTube channel, Epic Homesteading, which it’s either more of a vlog, day in the life of how I’m building it, or it’ll be on energy systems or water or capture or stuff like that. And then the only other two things are the books. One is called Field Guide to Urban Gardening, and one is called Grow Back Gardening. But it’s probably easier if you just search my name on Amazon. Just Kevin Espiritu and you’ll find it there. So that’s it.

Pat:
Thanks man. We’ll have all the links in the show notes. I’ll mention where to get that in a minute, but dude, appreciate you so much. Congratulations on everything. Looking forward to connecting and maybe one day having you tour our garden and do a breakdown of all the things we’re doing wrong and right.

Kevin:
Yeah. Thinking of collabs, we got to do one for sure.

Pat:
Yeah. Exactly.

Kevin:
Thanks for having me on man. I really appreciate it.

Pat:
Thanks man.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. That was such an absolute pleasure to speak with Kevin. He and I talk nearly on the daily, at least through text messages and he’s so kind. He checks up on me every once in a while to see how my garden is doing. He knows it’s important to the kids and I just appreciate him so much for that. A true, genuine, good guy, and somebody who I know that I’m going to become even closer friends with now that I know he’s also in San Diego with me. So check him out at Epic Gardening on all the channels, especially on YouTube. And if you just pay attention to how he does his content, it is so great. I’m learning a lot from him and I definitely am following his lead on the YouTube front.

Again, Kevin, thank you so much for today. I appreciate you my friend. And make sure that you subscribe if you haven’t already, because I actually do a follow-up Friday episode. We have two episodes per week now, an interview on Wednesday, and then it’s just you and me on Friday. You, the listener. And I go a little bit deeper into these episodes and talk about a lot of lessons and things that are personal to me so that you can pull away these lessons, tie these pieces together, and hopefully move forward and become successful in your life and in your business too. So make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already. Thank you so, so much for all the reviews that have been coming in.

We are basically mid-year here now and I couldn’t be more grateful for how the first part of the year has started with the business and the team and you listening. And I hope to continue to provide value and serve you first here in the second half of the year. So can’t wait to chat with you on Friday.

Cheers, take care, peace out and as always, Team Flynn for the win. You rock.

Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound design and editing by Paul Grigoras. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess, our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income podcast is a production of SPI media. We’ll catch you in the next session.