Earn Passive Income With YouTube, Chat With Lionel Battegay

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast.

Lionel Battegay: Thank you so much for having me.

Yasi: Very glad to have you here. And so eager to ask you more questions about YouTube creation, passive income, et cetera, all the topics that my audience is interested in.

Lionel Battegay: Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad to answer all your questions, and I’m sure I can talk about some interesting topics.

Yasi: Sure. So let’s start with the first question. Why did you start a YouTube channel?

Lionel Battegay: So I remember it was early 2015. I was in the second, last grade of high school, and I was looking online to find somebody doing like these street interviews in Swiss-German, and I couldn’t find anybody. And I was really looking for about a full month. And after about a month of really not finding anybody doing this kind of videos, I felt okay; then there is really nobody.

So let’s try this out. I think there might be some people interested in this kind of videos, so let’s give it a try.

Yasi: That try has become a try into a six-year-long video making, recording, uploading exercise.

Lionel Battegay: Yeah, well, I can’t believe it’s six years now. Time flies. However, there have been two years where I couldn’t make videos, once when I was in Taipei, Beijing.

And once, when my studies were just so time-consuming that I had to tell my audience, I’m sorry, I must take a break; otherwise, I’m going to have really bad grades. It’s amazing to think that too; as a 15, to me, it sounds like it was yesterday, but it was already six years ago. That’s kind of; it’s hard to grasp. I really have to tell you.

Yasi: Yeah. And you now run the biggest Swiss german YouTube channel. I think today I saw around 76,000 subscribers. Just to give everybody a perspective, Switzerland is a small country with a small population, and the Swiss German-speaking part is just one part of Switzerland. So having 76,000 followers is amazing.

We cannot compare to the scale as in China. I’m sure you know more about it.

Lionel Battegay: I know, I know. I know.

Yasi: How did you grow it over the years? Did you notice a natural demand for street interview videos? Or did you do some promotions, or what are the factors help you grow the channel?

Lionel Battegay: So I think that’s been a number of factors.

I definitely saw that once people saw that my street interviews were successful, they were copying it, sometimes even making funnier videos than me. However, luckily for me, they never really committed to it long-term as I did. And I also was approached by Ringier AG, which is the corporation that runs the Blick am abend, Blick TV, like the whole,

Yasi: The media world in Switzerland, yeah.

Lionel Battegay: And they said they were interested in my videos to show them on their platforms around their own a pre-roll, mid-roll ads, et cetera, et cetera, and just pay me for these videos as well, which made it incredibly easy for me to plan what expenses can I risk with the video because I knew there was somebody going to buy it to show it to their audience exclusively.

Anyways, this certainly helped because I didn’t need to find any other student job or something to if I was actually afloat, but I could rather just produce these videos and still make enough money to support myself and my studies.

Yasi: Well, is that by chance that someone liked your video, and then the company contacted you and sponsor you like that?

Lionel Battegay: It wasn’t that big of sponsorship, to be fair. It wasn’t, like I said, in every video, Hey, this video is sponsored by Ringier or something. It was not like that. It was, we just produced a video. This is the product, right. Sell them the product, but I can still use it on my platforms. For example, this is just one way of income stream, but there are also four different possibilities to make income through YouTube.

The most classic one is just the pre-roll ads or the mid-roll ads, which means that if somebody watches your YouTube video, they will see a little ad before the video actually plays. And then you will make a little bit of money through them seeing this ad. So I’m pretty open about financial details because this is a podcast about money. For example, at the moment, I produced four videos per month. And with the views on YouTube itself, I could make around almost $1000, so it’s like $250 per video, but then this is not really the main part of income. I really like outsourcing as much as possible. So I don’t edit my videos myself.

It’s somebody doing it for me, but because the cutter has to be Swiss because they have to understand what’s happening in the videos, they have to understand what’s my humor, they have to get it what’s the funny answer. So, for this reason, they must be Swiss. I can’t,

Yasi: You cannot outsource to other countries.

Lionel Battegay: As somebody in India or Pakistan or something to do that and pay maybe, you know, $25.

This is somebody from Switzerland who needs to be paid higher. So through the YouTube revenue, this mostly goes for my cutters. Not all of it, of course, but a big part of it goes for my cutters, but then there’s still the second and most, for me, most valuable income stream, which is product placement.

So if somebody wants to, let’s say I am producing a soft drink or something. I want people to buy this soft drink; I’ll ask a YouTuber or a content creator to show this soft drink in a video. And then I’ll pay these content creators for showing this product. And this is my main, you know, income stream. It’s very interesting because you had Thomas as a guest in your podcast.

I think his main income stream is affiliate links, which is for me, is really low, but it’s very interesting. So it means that you can rebase your income streams on different things, but I just want to say that you still can do affiliate links, and you can also be paid to just show up on some event and have a chat with some moderator.

Yasi: Right. And actually, nowadays, even more, your online presence or your social influence becomes a currency.

Lionel Battegay: Indeed, indeed. It’s interesting too. You know, a lot of my friends, a lot of people in the street, they are really curious if you can actually make money off of that. If you need, like way more subscribers and, you know, I can tell it the best month I’ve ever had, I made more than 10,000 Swiss francs in a month with the YouTube videos in Swiss German with a really, really small market. Which is amazing to think about, but it’s possible. I mean, I have to say this was a while ago, and then I had to make a breakthrough in my studies. So now I’m just relaunching the whole thing for about two months.

So this means at the moment I cannot make 10,000 per month, obviously. It’s just when people ask me about this, or it’s also an example, sometimes people think they want to do product placement. It would just give me something for free. For example, like a pillow, I’ve been asked for a pillow. It’s nice and appreciated, but the pillow is just not worth what I can return.

So, people that don’t really, there’s still a lot of people, I think in Switzerland, that haven’t really understood that this is serious business, and not just some guy just asking random stuff on the street, sacrificing his free time for that.

Yasi: Yeah. You mean people don’t understand, you mean the companies, the brands they don’t

Lionel Battegay: No, they do.

They are professionals. I would really say they’re really professional. As I said, I’ve seen a huge change between 2015 and 2021, I really would say, so this is so different. Now that approach than it was back then, so this, I cannot say anymore, but there’s a lot of, you know, I would say private individuals that have made some idea for a day or small side business. And I think what I do is just for free, it’s like, it’s my work, but they could somewhat profit from it for free, which is kind of depressing for me because I want people to understand that each video is 12 hours of work. Thankfully, I don’t have to do all 12 hours by myself.

I just do the recording and uploading; editing I’ve outsourced, but it’s still time that is being worked and being paid. So people don’t understand that. Some people don’t understand.

Yasi: I think for YouTubers, content creators, they are on your side. Like they get a taste of it, they know how much time does it take to plan your content, to create your content, to edit, to upload, and then to manage the channel is really time-consuming.

Lionel Battegay: A lot of work that goes into it, I don’t really feel it as being work, but technically I would have to, if I was writing down every minute that I was working, I would have to write this down as well. So an example is replying to comments. I don’t know; a lot of people don’t reply to comments anymore these days on YouTube. I still try to reply and read everything, which is sometimes difficult because my most viewed video has like 1 million views on YouTube and another one and a half million views on Facebook. Then a lot of comments come together. So this is a bit difficult with all of them. That’s impossible to reply to all of them.

But now, with my comeback, there are not that many videos, many people watching the first videos, I can send a reply to a lot of comments. So technically, I would need to write that. Every minute of spending time with that, but it just, this doesn’t really feel like work.

Yasi: Right. And how did you find time to create content and manage your channel as well?

Like, manage your own business and study at the same time?

Lionel Battegay: I am actually a bit surprised that I was able to do that, if I may be honest with you because it was not always that easy and I try to stay organized as much as possible, but I would say what I’m good at is, you know, the 80–20 rule. Yeah, exactly. That you spent the first 20% of your time doing 80% of the work.

Right. And that really, I think most of my projects. I would say, okay, I’ve reached 80% now, this is worth going further, or is this already a product that is good to put on the market, that to speak in terms of YouTube videos or at university, which I spend more time for than YouTube.

I feel like I go to class. I really, I always go to class. There’s a lot of students that only do something when the exam is coming. But I think because I always go to class, I always stay attentive through class, which makes it a bit easier to prepare for the exams, even though I must admit now the last exam period was, I didn’t really get good grades that time, but normally it works.

Yasi: And so funny because you talk about like some people skip classes. When I was in Business school, and one of my classmates did a calculation of how much does each lesson costs. Because the tuition feels so expensive, it’s a business school. And it was so expensive that people don’t want to skip classes.

Lionel Battegay: Oh, that’s so smart.

Unfortunately, at my university, it just doesn’t work because the most university in Switzerland is state-subsidized. So one semester at my university is only 1,200 Swiss francs, which is about the same amount of dollars.

Yasi: Yeah.

Lionel Battegay: I don’t know,

Yasi: around 1,100.

Lionel Battegay: Yeah. Yeah. Like mostly the same. So this is not that much then maybe like the fees for the products and stuff, but all in all, it’s pretty, you know, education in Switzerland, I would say it’s pretty cheap.

Yasi: Yeah.

Lionel Battegay: At least if it’s state-subsidized and it’s good education.

Yasi: Exactly. Yeah. Next, I want to talk about content creation because now we talk about time management for content creation. How did you think about what kind of content you want to produce? Do you have a plan, and what’s your workflow?

Lionel Battegay: I cannot stress this enough. Trial and error really work. I’m such a big fan of that now. I started the videos with serious questions and serious answers. By coincidence, there was somebody with a really, really dumb answer. And that’s how I figured out; the dumber the answer, the more people are going to watch my videos.

And since then, I’ve been chasing, you know, dumb answers mostly. So like for example, I would go to the street and ask, what’s the square root of 49 or so. You don’t think how difficult it is for some people to answer, like, what other countries share borders with Switzerland or who’s the federal council of Switzerland, which is like,

Yasi: Well, it’s just so funny because the reason why I watched your video, you ask what is the capital city of Japan, which the Olympics game just finished. And you said the place where they have these Olympic games, and then people are like, huh? I don’t know.

Lionel Battegay: It’s incredible. But it is exactly what people want to see it.

Like I would say, I ran 2017 to 19. There has been a really big hype from a lot of content creators that were doing the same, but I have started it a bit earlier. I’m still doing it. So the people watching my videos now review a long-term it like people that are interested in these kinds of videos long-term. The only difficulty for me right now is that I have to come up with new questions all the time. And I’ve made more than 200 videos on YouTube. I think it’s 300 or something because I read weekly. So imagine each video has like seven, eight questions times 300. It’s really, I must come up with new stuff all the time.

Sometimes I can repeat questions that I haven’t used in a very long time, but all in all, I have to constantly come up with new questions, and it’s difficult. That’s for me right now it’s the most difficult thing. For example, I’m going to Winterthur just this afternoon to do a round of interviews. And then if there’s enough time, I try to do Winterthur and St.Gallen, which is two Swiss cities in the Eastern part of Switzerland, in one on the same day.

So I have to come up with around 18 questions. Now I haven’t thought of a single one yet. This is really going to be work after this podcast.

Yasi: Besides the questions, do you plan which day you are filming? Like how do you plan the backlogs of your videos?

Lionel Battegay: Yes. So when I’m filming, it is mostly weather-related because I’m filming outside.

And if it’s raining, which is why this summer was particularly difficult. If it is raining, I cannot go filming because people don’t like rain, so people tend to be a bit more unfriendly. They won’t have the time for an interview. They won’t be ready. Plus, it’s also difficult because I have to cover my equipment the whole time, and I have to blur out a raining sound on the video.

So, it’s so annoying that I just don’t go when it’s raining. So for that reason, when it’s sunshine, I try to produce two videos in one day. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes I have to, you know, I finished in one place, and I see it’s just so late already. I cannot produce another place on the same day.

I think one of the things you underestimate is that in these videos, Even though it looks like a normal conversation to the viewer, but I constantly have to be present. I have to be in the lead. I have to be kind of like, it sounds kind of weird, but I have to be somewhat dominant to keep the talking flow going.

And this takes a lot of, you know, I need to drink a lot of coffee or Coke.

Yasi: Yeah. And is it difficult to get people talking? We are like, we are talking about Swiss people.

Lionel Battegay: Yes. So yes, it is. It was very difficult at the beginning, but I mean, look at me. I don’t look like somebody who is particularly dangerous to other people.

So I think now somewhat I use psychology a little bit to get them to answer my questions or be more willing to answer my questions. In the past, I used to ask, excuse me, sir, would you have five minutes for an interview? And this sounds so boring. This doesn’t work. I was like, maybe two out of 10 people are saying yes.

Now I will ask, I’m sorry, can I, I think it doesn’t really work in English, but I’m going to try to really translate it as best as possible, it kind of “get you for five minutes.” Like, “can I grab you for five minutes?” And it’s somewhat, it’s like a little bit, not unfriendly, but a bit more offensive than just being so polite and easy to reject.

And then they’re also as likely to nod. It’s interesting as mine, and I do slightly nodding. And actually, this has really increased the amount like I would say the percentage of people that say, okay, I have time for that. So I would say now it’s maybe four to five out of 10, so I’m pretty happy with that.

Yasi: Yeah. And, at the beginning of the question, I was talking that, oh, now we are talking about Swiss people because it’s kind of more reserved and other nationalities, let’s say Latin Americans or the styles of Europe.

Yeah. It’s very interesting. Where did you get this courage just to go there and talk to random people?

Lionel Battegay: I mean, what do I have to lose? Right. I think if you can, it’s a skill that I can use in the future as well. Having something that’s I must sell to somebody completely random. I mean, I’m not selling it, right.

It does not cost them anything other than their time, but still, I need to convince them to do something for me. Right. In the beginning, of course, it was awkward because I had never done it before, I was afraid of being rejected. But being rejected, it’s the worst thing that can happen to me.

It’s not like there are no atomic power plants exploding behind me or something. That’s literally the worst thing that can happen. And is this something bad? Is it really that big of a disaster? I really don’t think so anymore. I’m pretty cool with that. If people don’t have time for that, then that’s just their life.

I don’t want to interfere with that.

Yasi: Awesome. Amazing. And I want to ask anyone who wants to start their own YouTube channel or be it a hobby or be it a way to create an additional channel, passive income, where can they start? What are the mistakes they should avoid? What are the best practices they should adopt?

Lionel Battegay: I think I have some good best practices, but just because you mentioned the word passive income, I just would like to tell you a little story, then I’ll go to the best practices. It’s actually very interesting to have YouTube in the perspective of passive income because sometimes the video gets viral after two or three years of not being watched that much.

And then you still make money through it, even though you haven’t really don’t need to do any work for it. For example, in October 2019, I was in Italy in Torino, and I asked the Italians what they think about Switzerland. And it was quite funny, but back then, it was very normal, not nothing extraordinary. From January to February 2021, so that’s two years later, suddenly this video received so much attention that I made another $500 to it, but I did not have to work for that. It was just being on the internet and existing. I welcome this money coming into my pocket, of course. So that’s the story I wanted to tell as well, if you produce videos and it doesn’t work out right away, just maybe give it some time.

But for me, the most important best practice is that people have the wrong approach when starting YouTube. They have the approach artists, which means they think I’m going to produce a video and I’m going to make it enormously good. And then I’m going to wait until I feel like making another one.

And then maybe the next time they feel like making the new one is three months later. And then the next time with six months later, and it just, it’s not regular. On YouTube, there’s so much content. Think of yourself being a restaurant. If you close for three months, people are just going to go to another restaurant and forget about your food.

So you must constantly produce a new product. So if you make the approach of an artist, you better have a good manager in your back. If you are just on yourself, better think as if you were a company or that you just it’s as if you were a restaurant, people sometimes just come to you because they are hungry.

It doesn’t have to be like a deep Michelin meal. It doesn’t have to be the best meal on YouTube. It just has to be a good meal that people will come back again. That’s my approach. And it has worked for me. I see a lot of very talented people starting YouTube because the first video, you know, has cost them a lot of effort but isn’t watched by anybody.

They will give up or maybe make a new video about half a year later. It just doesn’t. It used to work like this in like 2010, but now it’s 2021. The platform has changed so dramatically that you should think of a restaurant.

Yasi: I like this analogy. And so, if people run a YouTube channel like a restaurant, and is there any way that to get more traffic besides relying on, you know, YouTube algorithm itself, is there any way that they can do themselves proactively?

Lionel Battegay: I think that at the beginning it might, You know, make sense to show the contents to your friends and ask them for what they think is good about you think should be made better. Don’t be hesitant to receive critic because with critic you can make your videos better, be more enjoyable to watch. As for me, for example, I liked, you know, because I’m making the street interview, it’s just an example.

I hope people can learn through this example. I like to go to small places in Switzerland because when I interview somebody there, and all his friends see this video, they will share it in some WhatsApp group and then everybody in this WhatsApp group sees this and maybe some of them are going to watch my video as well, subscribe to me as well and continue watching my videos, even in other places, because this is why a place like Basel or Zurich, which are like the biggest and the third biggest city in Switzerland. They are nice if I go to some smaller city where literally, you know, everybody knows each other to say it simply, sometimes the effect is bigger than if I go to a very dense populated area.

Yasi: Oh, so I see it as you leverage on their own networks to cross-promote the video.

Lionel Battegay: Exactly. So you not only have your own network, but there are also other people with their own network.

And if you can get other people to promote your video to their network, if you can add some, some value, if you, let’s say you, you are a person A, and you want person B to help you, introduce your video into the metric B, then maybe talk about person B in your video, make it about person B. If the video has some value, that person B will really appreciate it, and they will share it.

Yasi: Yeah.

Lionel Battegay: You know, there’s a saying, I mean, this sounds kind of morbid, but I’m not sure if this works in English, but I’m trying it anyway. Okay. Don’t laugh at me if it sounds. If you want to get milk from a cow, you must have bent down. So would you like me to say, Swiss German?

Yasi: Yeah.

Lionel Battegay: „Wer e chue mälke will, muess sich bücke“. Yeah. So you kind of a must, don’t be shy too, you know, kind of serve other people if you want something from them.

Yasi: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I’m very glad to have you here sharing your insights, and really I’m sure the audience also learned so much from you. I think my only last question, very last question to you as a person, like do you plan to continue this career long term?

Or how did you envision yourself in a future with this content and with your law studies?

Lionel Battegay: So as long as my studies allow me to do this, I will because it’s really a lot of fun. I enjoy having a challenge. I have to say I neglected the work on my Chinese channel a little bit in the last couple of months. So I am trying to build this, you know, a bit more than before, because I feel that there might be a bigger audience that could watch that than with Swiss German, who knows.

And I’ll see what the future brings. What I want to say is that because I speak Chinese, I think once I become a lawyer, there might be some gates opening that I don’t know about yet. However, you know, it’s difficult to say, I’m trying to live the moment, but then there’s also aspects of mine that are long plans.

You know, long-term investing, for example. But with, you know, my present everyday life, I really try to live in the right now. I can just say, as long as this works, as long as the videos are fun to make, which they are, and as long as they, you know, offer me a perspective to see growth with them. They never continue to make them, you know, I will not abandon the track of being a law student and eventually becoming a lawyer.

Yasi: Yeah. So many years of study.

Lionel Battegay: Yeah. I just completed the third out of seven years now.

Yasi: Wow. So you have four more years to go.

Lionel Battegay: Exactly.

Yasi: Wow.

Lionel Battegay: Life is hard.

Yasi: But then you interview people in the street. It’s fun.

Lionel Battegay: I actually have people that when I interviewed them when I’m done with the interview, they say you’re a law student, right?

I said, yes, they ask me, you know, I have this and that problem, what can I do? And it’s really unfortunate because I’m not really allowed to help them because I’m not a lawyer. It’s like, I don’t want to go into details with the regulation. And it’s also, you know, kind of like a question of liability, which I do not want to take.

I’m sure you know more or less what I’m talking about. So for that reason, I have always had to say, you know, you must wait four years, but then they say, okay, I’m going to wait for you. I already have some clients.

Yasi: Amazing, I think you will have so many opportunities in the future with content creation, sponsorship, advertisement or additional income stream or your studies, you know, the profession being a lawyer in the future, it’s going to be interesting. And I’m also looking forward to more videos, practice my Swiss German with you in the video. And watch your Chinese channel. And I’m going to put links in the show notes. So if the audience is interested, check out Lionel. Do you have any other words for our audience who wants to, you know, interest in studying YouTube channels, create passive income, any last advice or?

Lionel Battegay: Hello, Fast Track podcast audience. Nice to hear you all. Not hear you, but nice you hear me. I would say if you want to make YouTube videos, just do trial and error.

If it doesn’t work out, try something new. But, don’t think too much about it. Just try it, and then be consistent. I had to wait one and a half years until, you know, people really started watching my videos.

Yasi: Nice. Thank you so much for being here.

Lionel Battegay: Thank you so much for having me.