HIBT Lab! Osmo Salt: Nick DiGiovanni

Hello and welcome to how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So I cook dinner for my family every night. It's my me time. Anyway, a few months ago, I noticed that my kids were hanging out in the kitchen with me a lot more while I was cooking. They were asking questions, even wanting to help out. And it turns out that my kids like apparently hundreds of thousands of other kids were watching videos from a YouTuber named Nick Di Giovanni.

His videos have been viewed over three billion times since he started posting them on TikTok and YouTube in 2019. Some of his videos are how-to's, how to make ramen, how to make beef wellington, how to grill a wagyu steak. He's even made the world's biggest chicken nugget. and Nick comes to his craft from a place of real expertise. Years before he became a YouTuber, he took courses at the Culinary Institute of America, he worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, He did his college thesis about food and climate change, and he even competed on the TV show MasterChef.

Today Nick's got about 15 million followers across his social media channels, and he's also started a food company called Osmo that sells salts and seasonings. And when it comes to his passion for cooking, it started when he was just eight or nine years old. Making pancakes. I think every kid at some point helps their parents make pancakes. But

For some reason, and I couldn't really tell you why, I started to play with the pancakes. So I'd put lemon zest in there and I'd put orange zest and, you know, orange and chocolate chips. And so I remember experimenting a lot with simple stuff at first, like pancakes. And then I was doing this in part I'm sure because I was watching my Grandmother. And my great grandmother and all of them cook.

So, you know, I was very impressionable, I guess, when it came to food and cooking, and I just soaked it all in and wanted to do it myself. Um, but from where I gather, you are actually an athlete, which takes a lot of time and commitment, right? Well Yeah, but

I will also say growing up with three younger brothers, you have to play every sport. So I think the only sport that I didn't get into is football, but I played lacrosse. I played hockey, yeah, ice hockey, I I I mean I literally

I can do any sport in the ocean. Mm. But you still were into cooking. Like you went to a cooking camp, I think, a freshman year of high school, right? Like of a summer camp at at the Culinary Institute of America. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was the only sort of younger kid there and the rest of the people were

I don't know, I wanna say in their fifties. Wow. So yeah, I wanted to go there and learn more formal training. Because the routes you can take when it comes to the food world are You know. You can either go to culinary school and take out a huge loan and do that, or you can go to restaurants and get paid right away and hope that it kind of pays off even more.

from the learning experience in restaurants, so I did that in part as a test. you know, do I want to go to culinary school or do I want to jump straight into restaurants and learn that way? Yeah. Clearly you were taking this seriously already in high school. What was it about cooking or like the idea of cooking that appealed to you?'Cause you're an athlete, a student athlete, a lot of times, you know, there's like a path, right? Like

kids who are really good at sports are really into sports, like that's what they do. Focus on that and You were on that path. As an athlete. But what was it about cooking that kept drawing me back?

I think my parents We're great in the sense that You know, they especially Encouraged us to be well rounded. try to be a student athlete or whether it was a you know an instrument or whatever.

But like you sort of hinted at, cooking was always there. No matter what was happening around me. Yeah. And In trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I think especially when when that crossroads came in college when you have to start deciding what do you want to be when you grow up?

The question becomes real and then That's when I looked at food and she said. Food's the thing that I love the most. Yeah. And I wanna do something in the food world. Alright, so you take this summer program

at the CIA, the Culner Institute of America in Hyde Park. And In that time at that camp. I mean, obviously you can't learn You know. what it takes to become a professional chef, but you can learn some knife skills or You can learn how to make a Hyundai's or

you know, brown butter sauce or presumably basic Techniques like that. Yeah, I mean It was a lot of the more sort of basic stuff. There.

But as I like to say in food, I mean you have to learn the foundations And the techniques before you can break the rules, which is what I think leads to good food. Yeah. I think

already in high school you got a a job in the kitchen. at an Italian restaurant in Providence. Wha what were you doing? Like why were you were you doing prep work in the kitchen? Yeah, so it's called, you know, when you stage, that's sort of the culinary world equivalent of an internship. And so You know, I I went in And I would spend the whole day

You know, every day throughout this whole summer I spent there. Uh doing prep work. I was Sort of taken under this one. Cook's wing.

And he helped me. You know, they let me do more and more as time went on. Uh It was Fun.

And I learned how the ins and outs of a restaurant worked. It was amazing. Yeah. Um, Nick, you obviously didn't did not go to Colinary School'cause you had a different offer, which was to go to Harvard. And um I know you created a major for yourself called Food and Climate. So while you were in college before your senior year, Did you have a sense of what you were gonna do? Like did you think, Oh, maybe I'll

I'll become a restaurateur or or you know, or maybe I'll like become a food consultant, or maybe like did you start to think about what you might do? Totally. So My master plan was to go to College, get a degree there.

And then Finish school and go get An MBA. To know the business side and then Also

work in more restaurants and perhaps go to culinary school after. And so my thought there was I'd worked in restaurants. And I mean Anytime I'd been in a restaurant, I noticed this one interesting thing, which was that Oftentimes there was a kind of a sharp divide between

the people actually running the restaurant day to day, and then the people on the business side of it. Yeah. Who just were investors and they had no idea you could probably ask any of them to go in and And fry an egg, and I'm sure some of them wouldn't know. Right. And to me that seemed crazy. So my thought was I will learn The side of business.

And then Learn how to be a good cook. And then be able to come in. from this totally different angle on it and And no.

The inner and outer workings of a restaurant. Uh, but obviously that didn't happen. Uh that didn't happen because you I guess you're senior, you had you had an opportunity to compete on MasterChef, which you did and you took a semester off. Tell me how that came about. Yeah, so I I just remember senior year.

was the time that I really started digging deep with food. I was working in this seafo restaurant. I was working multiple da nights a week. I show up at two o'clock, get all my prep work done. I remember chopping lots and lots of chives. That was always one of the big they loved using chives at this place.

And then I was a teaching fellow in this big food course at Harvard that a lot of kids took. I did everything I could with food senior gear. And then Master Chef. I just saw a flyer.

I saw a little flyer and I was already doing everything else with food, so I figured Let's go to the audition. It doesn't hurt to try. Yeah. And what did you prepare for the audition? I wanted to show something, you know, that highlighted my background. So I'm Persian and and I'm Italian, among other things, and so I

Took those two things and I made lamin and mint raviolo. Mm and I thought it was a nice representation of the family that I learned from and And just me as a person. Alright, so you're there. And you know, obviously now we're w with your YouTube videos, you are charismatic and funny and

But that takes time. to learn how to to be that persona on camera I'm imagining You know, you were a college student and and probably maybe a little nervous and maybe there were people there who were more charismatic than you. Obviously you knew to cook. Were you nervous in that audition? Yeah, I'm sure I was. I'm very shy.

Hm. And This was very far outside my comfort zone. Yeah. So you get there and had it go? I mean what what do you I mean, obviously they picked you, but was it based on your food? Was it based on an interview, on questions they asked you?

Well, funnily enough, I went to the audition expecting to be gone from school for maybe an hour and then I get back for my midday afternoon class. Yeah. And I never made it back for the class. I I was there till it got dark. 'Cause I kept moving on to another room and then another smaller room. And then you know, with with fewer and fewer people until you met the executives there.

Who sort of Hinted at the fact that you would be going further with the process. And it was the same mindset there that I had for the actual show. Where I thought You know, okay.

I got onto the show. Uh probably last a couple episodes. And then come home, and then I ended up being gone for three and a half months. So same sort of deal there. Three and a half months. That's that's that's how long the commitment was to be on Master Chef. Yeah, it's a long time. No technology, no contacting your family, your friends other than every Sunday get a couple of phone calls. And

You hear it at first and you think that's terrible, but it's actually amazing. You sleep better than you've ever slept before. You I mean, you wake up at four or five A. M. with the sun and you feel Fresh and new every morning. It's amazing. It was amazing, actually. How did you overcome that shine that sense of shyness? You know,'cause you would ha you had to answer questions and

Was it hard for you at the beginning? Yeah. I think Master Chef was A time in my life that helped me become

A little bit more confident and perhaps a little bit less shy, even though I'm still extremely shy. Yeah. But The other thing that I think I had to my advantage that I was very lucky to have was that I had a fallback plan of going back to college. Which I again I was lucky to have, but I could take all the risk I really wanted to. So

When I walked in the room with everybody. I think I had you know perhaps less nerves than anyone else did because I I was just gonna go back to school and finish up school. Right. Uh and some people were taking a much bigger risk being there.

I mean, people lose their jobs for going to these shows. Yeah. So all right, so you you're there, you do this, it's fun. And Spoiler alert, I think people probably know the suit know you. You end up third place, which is pretty awesome. Young man, you plate food with such

Maverickness. Mm Tonight the dish looks incredible, but young man, let me tell you. Your dream does not end tonight. I did.

I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into when I went to that audition. But I can't thank everyone enough. It's been amazing. Um, and you go back to college and you finish your degree at Harvard. And obviously I'm sure on campus people are like, Dude, I saw you on Master Chef and you know, but you're back in school. And at that point

When you're now Wrapping up your time at college. Were you starting to think, you know, maybe I should just get on YouTube and make videos? Or or were you still thinking, No, I'm gonna go to business school and Follow this path of learning the business of restaurants. So

My senior year of college, I applied to a couple business school programs where I could defer. So take a couple of years to work and then go. Yeah. And I applied to just a small handful. And I actually got rejected from all of them except for Harvard Business School.

Wow, you got rejected from all of them except Harvard Business School. Okay. Yeah, I did, I did. And And You know, that was the one side of my plan is maybe two years from now I'll go to Harvard Business School. And then on the other side of it, I was preparing to accept a job at McDonald's.

And it was actually a you know, it was a really cool job that I'd got and lined up with them. So it's a corporate job. And If you boil it down. Frankly, I was just gonna be an undercover food inspector for McDonalds.

Hm. But that didn't happen, obviously. What happened? What derailed that plan? I mean I figured I'd gotten this tiny little spark, this little jump start from Master Chef. Yeah. And Despite being such a shy person. All the cameras, all that kind of stuff didn't seem to bother me.

And I'd always love cooking and it just seemed like this really unique path that I might be able to take, so I started making some videos on TikTok when Covid hit. Which is, you know, about the time I finished school. And then a couple of them took off and I I look back. We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll have more from Chef Nick Di Giovanni on how he built internet fame after competing on MasterChef.

Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Nick Di Giovanni. Chef, internet personality, and founder of OsmoSalt. one of the videos on TikTok is like how to make chocolate from a cacao. Pod.

For example. Super cool. Did you have like a massive following on TikTok or were you just kind of a You know, a normal following, but then you'd post something and then It just somehow went viral. Yeah.

Tick tock. is fascinating in the sense that I always explain it to let's just say parents or my grandmother as You know, they ask how does it work and I say It's really cool. It essentially find the very best videos.

And no matter how many followers you have You know, you could make an account right now and post a video that's a really funny, silly video, and you have zero followers. And it can have ten million views in twenty minutes, and that's just a fact and a reality of a platform like TikTok.

That's totally kind of transformed the way that videos are shared. And found. I guess is a good word. And so I didn't have very many followers at the time, but just posting this very unique and interesting thing.

I guess there was never a video out there that was you know, widespread about chocolate. But there was a giant audience of people out there that eat chocolate all the time that were curious to see how it's made. So it worked out. Hm.

Um I wanna ask you I'm gonna put you on the spot here, but you You did Grill and A five Wagyu and butter.

And I think that's controversial. Now this might sound crazy, but Turn your heat to medium and add an entire stick of butter. Adding an entire stick, it sounds insane. But what this butter is gonna do is really toss a ton of flavor into this steak, and it's basically gonna allow us to kind of use this like hot foam. It's hard butter. That's a but that's a fat bomb right there. That is a self basted piece of meat. And based it in a whole stick of butter. I know it's a lot of butter, but trust me it's it's worth it. And now we're gonna keep this sound at around. That was your first video. That was your first YouTube video, I think. Oh I don't I've I don't doubt it for a second. It was an A five filet, and and you cooked it with a stick of butter. And basin butter, and I think that's controversial. You know, Guy, you got me on the spot here. What I'll say though If there's any defense for this.

Is This has all been a learning experience for me, too. Right. I mean, at the time I might not have known how to cook a piece of wagyu. I I don't know. But I have learned

So much over the last couple years just by cooking every single day. And I would go so far as to say that I spend a lot more time cooking now. than even I was back when I was working in those restaurants uh for full time jobs.

Because I'm here in my kitchen every single day. even on weekends a lot of the time just cooking and experimenting. So Uh I mean I can't come back from what you just said, but I learned so much. No judgment. I'm sure it was delicious. It just added more

More deliciousness, maybe. But I'm looking at that A five wagon, I'm I'm looking at that hundred dollar stake and I'm thinking A lot of butter. Mm-hmm.

It's the age old question and issue of when you try to make videos that are supposed to go viral online. How far do you take it and how how far can you skew from the true techniques um before being ridiculous? Right. Um

Alright, so you start making videos. And presumably the the first earliest videos you're making is just you, right? I mean how are you or did you have a friend that filmed you or Or or what? So to this day, because I'm very shy. I film all my TikToks by myself. The TikToks. Just you you're holding the you or you set it up on a tripod or something? No, yeah. No one's allowed in the room. I got a camera on a tripod. Yep. Uh my camera guy

Manny taught me how to use it all and and run it. So I I can use a camera really well now to the extent of Again, I'm I'm certainly not a camera professional, but I can use a camera. I know how to turn it on. I know the settings. I know how to work it. And I think that's important, anyways. But I'm too shy to have people in the room for TikTok. Alright, so you start making

And Tell me, d I mean. This obviously this is a show. High Belt is a show about business, about building a business. And and one of the things we do here on High Belt this lab is we're talking to creators about how they built being creators. Most of the time there's an intentionality. Like the person's like, Yeah, I want to become a YouTube creator

And so I had this strategy or like I just started making videos and people liked them. And with you. It Like it doesn't sound like you went into the saying You know

business school, all that stuff, like I wanna be a YouTube creator. I wanna be a content creator. But I mean that essentially is what happened very quickly. I like to say to people that you can't really one day wake up and say You know, I wanna be a T V star, I wanna be a you know But there's a lot of people I know now that just said from day one, I want to be a YouTuber, and they work so hard at it and they make it work. But at the same time

Honestly, I've just taken this journey Day after day and and week after week. And I've been taken on this wild ride. And I work really, really hard, you know, with every Every opportunity that comes my way.

But I never know what's gonna happen a week from now or a month from now. And I kinda like it that way. Mm. So all right, so let's talk about the about the business side for a moment, because you wanted to learn the business side of restaurants, but turns out that you you you've been having a crash course on the business side of content creation. Um

At what point And maybe you haven't done it yet. Did you at a certain point say, All right, let me s form a production company and a team around me Or have you not done that yet? So w I have a nice

Yeah, really. Well thought out team around me now. Initially it was just sort of And I'm still figuring it out as I go, truthfully. But initially it was Just you know.

We'll work with whatever people we need to when the you know, when the time comes and just deal with things on a case by case basis. Right. And now It has to be much more sort of Plan and figured out. You know, I've got three editors, I've got Still the same camera guy.

Manny that I work with. Yeah. But also we're Always getting extra contractors now to kinda come help on videos. So it's just sort of It's changed a lot over time. But

You know, we've got a nice large team now. How many people are working around, you know? I would say when you account for Like My age and and people like the lawyer and this and the CPA people that we talk to a lot. Sure. I would say twelve to fifteen people. Mm-hmm. Um, it's constantly. And then there are You know.

There are now video shoots where we have We've had up to thirty five, forty people working with us for some of them. So how many videos do you make a week? Well, I film pretty much every day. But I would say on a day of filming

If I'm just doing TikToks, I probably do Five. But I I made a rule for us that we will never spend We will never do more than one YouTube video in a day because

I don't want the quality to suffer. Yeah. And some of the videos are straight up cooking videos like how to's But some of them are

More like let's break a world record or let's make the biggest this or let's like Do something kinda crazy, right? So it's a combination of the two. Yeah. It started out with more tutorial cooking type stuff where I might be a little bit goofy in them and and make a few jokes and Try to keep it light hearted and fun.

And through Covid. To now. It shifted more to these sort of challenges And honestly just whatever comes to mind.

There is no set formula to the ideas that we pursue. Yeah. How do you um I mean let's talk about the economics of YouTube for for a moment.

Um I mean You know, we and we've talked about this with other creators that You know, to just make money off the ads. You know, and the Rev share that YouTube provides is You know, there's some people who can make

Sig hugely significant amount of money from that because there are Tens or hundreds of millions of views. But can you walk me through the economics of it? Could you run your business sustainably with just the revenue share from YouTube alone? I don't think so anymore.

Doing what I'm doing now, I think, has has forced me In a good way to put on a lot of different hats and kinda learn, you know, to be In the managerial role and then in the actual creator role. Yeah. And I try to pay everyone on my team Really, really well and really generously. Yeah.

Also at one point I had this person that I put a lot of time into and then they ended up getting some job that was paying way more somewhere else. And yeah that was the first time that it happened to me. And I I didn't really know what to do about it. I couldn't pay them what this place was paying them. Yeah. And I'd spent so much time And so there's been so many crazy

things like that. But I've built this to Not rely on getting extra advertisements outside of the YouTube ad revenue? But I I do think that I need to take them on once in a while. To be able to keep everything moving and sustain everything.

Yeah. Um Okay, so now you've got I think today you've got about twenty million followers across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Yeah. And so that's a huge audience and then you have this content that you create.

And there's advertising that comes in. What are other ways that you can bring in revenue? So The way I look at it is I have this kind of one bucket of YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.

And those those all make their their ad revenue. And also brand partnerships through those. So there's that one area. Yeah. And then I have Osmo, the the salt seasoning company. This is a company that you founded, co founded, at C. Mm-hmm. sells salt and seasonings and it's on it's d direct to consumer company, right? Yeah, it's direct to consumer and I mean it's doing quite well. And and we have wholesale you know, we're selling wholesale now.

It's it's getting crazy, crazy eyeballs just online because There's so many different creators that love it and use it. So That's another area which Um again, we're trying to let it run itself. Um I haven't ever taken a dime from it. And have you raised money for it, or did you self fund it?

Yeah, we raise we raise some money. Pretty early on to just you know, go crazy on the advertisements, um and that kind of thing. And so that's I mean again, that's another area where For me, it's amazing because I've learned a ton.

It's what I like to do. I get to taste This food, this salt. Make these really creative, unique flavors. I mean I was working on a Pizza's flavored salt today, just fun stuff like that. Yeah. And

And then I get to see all the numbers in the business side of it. So We've got Osmo, the salt company. And then on the other side of it as well. I mean I'm now Launching my first ever cookbook.

So Uh and what's the name of the book? It's called knife drop. 'cause I do that little knife throwing in some of the videos. So That makes sense. Yeah, it'll it'll be great. I'm excited.

And so that's a whole new area where It'll be really interesting to see how that all works out. And just a totally new area of, you know, getting Getting my name out there, getting my food out there. Which I'm excited for.

Yeah. I'm just just curious. From a business standpoint, right? 'Cause this is

What you're doing, right, creating a media your own media business. This is something that a lot of particularly younger people are looking at. Like could this be a model? Could I build my own media company around what I do around content. So at this point, you know, you're still early days. You've got the salt business and

brand partnerships and advertising revenue. Um and so there's lots more that Presumably you could do. Um But in terms of just like overall revenue, can you give us a sense of like

How much revenue Roughly all this generates a year. I mean To be honest with you, I'd have to even just kinda look more carefully to get a really great sense of it. But what I will say is that

Our revenue it's higher than I perhaps could have ever imagined going into a space like this. And especially Especially higher than I thought something could be for For a

career where I didn't set out to make money. I just was doing what I what I enjoyed doing. Yeah. But At the same time. I don't even think about the money. I just don't because as long as I have enough to do these crazy projects, then I'm happy. Right. Well, we hear about YouTubers who are making like fifty million dollars a year and I think that's very rare and unusual. But I and imagine Probably somewhere between one and ten million dollars of revenue a year.

Something like that. Yeah, I'm certainly not at fifty million. But yes, I'm in that range and it gives me more than enough money to do Whatever I want to do. Which is great.

Yeah. So let's talk about building out the business, right? Um presumably the biggest expense is the business is Osmo Salt, right? Or is the biggest expense actually making the content, making the YouTube videos? Osmo funds itself. It's amazing. Got it. It's the content. I mean.

We spend a lot of money on some of these videos. I mean You know, we made the Guinness World Record largest sushi roll. Just take a look at how truly massive this is. Yeah, I saw that. With all that salmon. Today you guys have just completed an official Guinness World Records attempt for the largest sushi roll by whips. I was very impressed with your salmon butchering skills. Oh, thank you. Amazing Nori. Sushi great salmon, too. Extensive sushi grade salmon. Um kind of my company buying that stuff. And we donated everything.

Huge filets of sushi grade salmon just piled into this giant sushi roll. Seven feet one inch, congratulations, you're officially amazing. H how much should all the salmon Ca cucumbers aren't expensive, but how much of the salmon, for example, cost in that?

Uh All in all, all in I can say this is about a thirty grand video. Wow. The whole video is thirty grand and that and it includes all the food and all the the editing and all the people involved to make it.

Yes, and if you sit down and you look at the numbers Then I won't make my money back on that, nor did I expect to. Yeah. But I would also argue to you that I absolutely Well in the bigger picture of just You know. We got so many eyeballs on it. It did some amazing things and we got a lot of press out of it. And so

I look at it as a win, but if you actually look at all the numbers and you go granular then technically we're not gonna make that money back. Alright, in that video you're with another YouTuber named Linja and people who know your videos know who Linja is. And you've collaborated with Linja on several videos, the biggest cake pop, the biggest

Chicken nugget. Um you both went to Almost seventy fast food restaurants in twenty four hours. She broke a a world record there. How did you come across Linja? She's a I think in her late sixties Um she's Yeah. How did you guys connect?

She's amazing. So I DM'd her on Instagram And It's funny, I thought I was DMing Linja.

I thought I was DMing that, you know, sixty something year old. year old woman. Yeah. And it was really her son that I was talking to who runs all of her All of her content. She's had cancer four plus times now. And She's run eight marathons. She she puts me to shame, honestly.

And she's got kind of a a potty mouth too. So She actually doesn't. She won't swear. We just we just bleep it. But before we get started, we have a little bit of measuring and weighing to do. Guinness World Records doesn't So she she won't even swear, but it's hilarious because she's just Oh, you you put the big links in there. I go. So she's not really saying those words. She refuses to. And so and we bleep it anyway. And and she she she's totally good with it. And would you you connect with them and you were like, Hey, I wanna do something with her.

Yeah, it w it was actually really early on where I sort of figured, let me reach out to a bunch of people and collaborate on videos and just i keep things fresh and and make it fun. And now you guys are breaking world records. Yeah, I mean we just got our seventh the other day, I think, and it's just been it's been a roller coaster. We're gonna take a short break, but when we come back, more from Nick about how he's creating food videos with millions of views and turning that into a successful business. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Lab. Welcome back, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this lab. And my guest today is Nick DiGiovanni, chef, YouTuber, and founder of OsmoSalt. So I mean how do you kinda manage your time'cause you're still young and you're

Learning how to do this has the face of this thing. And also I guess the CEO of the company? Yeah. It's something that I have a difficult time doing still. There's plenty of areas with all this where I just realize

That I need help. And I also need to figure out how to do it better. So I would say Time management is still something that I need to work on because I I work pretty much from let's say

nine AM to nine or ten PM every single night. Consistently and then I don't take the weekends off ever anymore, which is just and I'm not saying that to brag. I'm actually saying it is a bad thing. And something that I want to work on and change. Yeah. you know, you might look at that from the outside and sort of say, That doesn't even sound possible. But if it's something that you really enjoy doing and you love it.

It doesn't feel as painful as it might sound. But it's it's a problem. It's definitely not sustainable. And it's what I've been doing for well over a year now into all this, and it's not good. So how do you unwind? If you're working from nine to nine How are you able to stay mentally

Pelly. And physically healthy. Well, so the reason I say I'm work from about nine to nine is'cause I'm super serious about my sleep. So I will get eight hours every night. Uh, I can't run on no sleep and I learned that a long time ago. So that is one giant chunk where right away

That's it. And I mean outside of that I don't know. I mean To be honest, I don't really unwind that that often anymore.

'Cause it's just hard to get my brain thinking about anything You know, other than YouTube and and You know, what's the next big idea? It's really, really hard once you get stuck in that

ecosystem to think. Outside of that. Yeah, I mean it's interesting'cause you I I get that you're super grateful for this this audience you have and the fans my kids told me about you. That's I found out about you. I'm not a big YouTuber'cause I'm I'm kind of

Aged out of it a little bit. A lot of kids. like nine, ten, eleven year old kids are watching your videos. Yeah. And it it must be incredibly gratifying, but at the same time, like I hear you. It's a lot. It's a lot to

And probably e more and more you get recognized on the streets and you've gotta be on all the time and You know? You've got a twenty four seven. The best version of yourself.

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. There's a lot of there's a lot of things to get adjusted to. And I also want to set A good example and be a good role model for all those kids. Our audience It has a nice sort of range between, you know

Young kids and then and then eighteen to twenty four and twenty five to thirty six, that kinda whole Area. I I've traveled around the world and had kids come up um from all over the place and and And asked for a picture'cause they enjoy the the videos. And I'm still to this day almost sort of

Unsure of why or how so many kids Think that food and cooking is interesting. But I love it. And yeah, it's stressful, like you said. It's stressful and there's a lot of things to get used to. And for somebody so shy It makes it even more difficult.

This is an interesting point here that you raised. You know, we uh Hank and John Green are our guests on how I built this. Um They talk a lot about burnout, uh, especially that they've seen among younger And I mean You are making so much content and

you are incentivized to make more to grow your audience so then you can expand your reach and maybe build new products and extensions and I'm sure there are a lot of people coming through the door who want to work with you, you know, brand consultants and business consultants and all kinds of people who have ideas for what you could do and You know, probably some of those meetings are certainly worth taking, but It's like a ping pong match. You're just like looking all around. Like what do I do? Which direction do I go in? Meantime You're making all this content working all the time.

And burnout is a real thing. Right? It's a real thing that certainly Could happen. Yeah. Definitely.

There's days now where I come in and this didn't used to happen. Where I just don't feel like filming. A bunch of TikToks getting the kitchen dis a disaster and and getting all Like oily and and I I just don't feel like it some days anymore. Yeah. And what I try to do now is just say, you know what? That's fine. Just turn around.

Take your computer and go do computer work or go do something else. Go think of ideas instead. Right. But it's hard. You're being pulled in a lot of directions. Yeah. I guess my question for you is, you know, there are different things you could do.

Right, and you know that. Like Mr. Beast just opened a burger joint and uh I you know, I don't know him, but I I would venture to say you're a better cook than he is. You could maybe open a restaurant, right? There are lots of things you could do or or a takeout place, or whatever. Like you can just Decide.

I don't wanna do this TikTok stuff and YouTube stuff anymore. I'm gonna go to business school and pursue the path and actually be a restaurant group owner or m whatever. Like do you think that there's a world where You might decide to do that. You might say, You know what, this was fun. I'm done. Or do you think that now

This what you do now as a content creator is what you should continue to do'cause you have an audience that Wants more content from you? You know, one large area of my audience is kids, and for me the mere fact that I could inspire Even a single kid or

Just to to want to cook. Especially in a time where it's easier than ever to just go get You know, food delivery or Or go to a quick, fast casual place. Like Chipotle and get a quick lunch. Yeah. For me, that's one of the biggest drivers that just keeps me going on it.

And makes me think. that no, I don't think a time will ever come where I wanna where I wanna stop. I do think I need to sort of shift the direction of everything anyways and just sort of keep You know, keep it sustainable, however that might look. But no, I

I know that I want to do this. In fact I just recently literally a couple of days ago, finally told Harvard Business School that I'm not gonna go. And that was a door that I never thought I would close. Yeah. It it was weird sending that email, to be honest with you. Yeah, I'm sure. It just it was my dream forever to go there. I mean That's a dream come true. You know, I sent off that email and I said, All right.

I'm in it now. I mean there's no There's no fallback anymore. Yeah. But it sounds to me like what you're trying to figure out now is as you say, how to make it sustainable, right? Because you cannot make

all that content yourself and Um you know. and not burn out for the next ten years. And Then at some point you're gonna wanna figure out how to maybe have other people make videos under your

you know, your umbrella or you know Maybe you just make one video a week and there are other people who are making different kinds of content around you, stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know what it's gonna look like, to tell you the truth. It's funny. In a way, all it would really take is me just taking a couple days to slow down

And think bigger picture for a second. Yeah. And to an extent, it almost feels like right now that's even that is not even possible because I have this to do and I have this to do. And I've never gotten the time to actually go and do that. But it's been this thing that I just keep pushing away because I have This brand deal to get done, or I have this video to make and I have this new idea. And so at some point I know the time's gonna come where it just hits me and I have to s

Low down and stop and say, Okay. Enough is enough. You know, where are we taking all this? So I I need to slow down. It's just a matter of when. Do you actually uh

Like when you're done at nine at night. Are you actually going home and eating takeout? Oh yeah, every single night. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Do you get to cook for people a like ever for fun, like friends, or are you just so busy that there'sn't any time for that? Yeah, I used to, but at this point I'd so much rather go and meet friends out at a restaurant or Yeah. It's sort of it's sort of sad in a way, if you think about it, because It used to be this thing that I

And I'm not saying all that I've done has made cooking not fun. 'Cause that's definitely not the case. Yeah. It's more Leisurely cooking is just not a thing in my life anymore.'Cause Why why would I you know?

It just doesn't make any sense for me to do. I just need to take a break from it sometimes. Yeah. Do you think that you'll ever Uh one day Pursue the idea of opening or owning restaurants? We certainly had conversations about it.

Already. I just I don't know enough about it still. But what I do know is that you need to find the right people for it. And I also think that you need to dedicate a lot of time. And just working on this cookbook took

way more time than I ever could have imagined because Any time I take on a project. I wanna be a part of it. And I wanna make sure that I do it right. If I'm gonna put my weight behind something I I wanna make sure that it's done right.

Yeah. I mean it is amazing how You know A lot of the kids.

who you graduate college with would have gone into finance. Probably still a lot of them do. And there's a well worn you know, path down that road. But You ask most kids to say what they want to be and most of them say. or significant chunk say they want to be YouTubers. Kids you know that kids now say they want to be YouTubers.

There are millions and millions of YouTube channels and YouTubers in the world. And just a small tiny number of them can build a sustainable business. Um and you are you know, you've a massive following and and even you struggle to kind of stay on top of it. Because it's a heart. It's a lot of lot of moving parts.

Yeah. I have this feeling now, everyone's looking to me. And sort of saying. That I've got a lot of

A lot of it figured out, right? Or all of it figured out. Right. And I think when you look closely at a lot of different people and businesses and That's probably not the case. And for me, I mean I mean I'm totally transparent in the sense that I still need a lot of help. I mean I think I am not alone in saying that A lot of YouTubers probably

Work. Way too much. 'Cause it's just a space where it's so uber competitive now. Yeah. And it's easier than ever every single day to post a video online. And It is a stressful, stressful, stressful job.

Yeah. Um tell me what you know, what's on the horizon for you. What what do you kind of What what's twenty twenty three gonna be for the Nicti Giovanni Empire? Mm-hmm.

I'll be honest, I've thought about a lot of stuff. I've thought about a restaurant. And if I could find the right people to do it. I would love to have a restaurant. By the end of twenty twenty three.

Although I know that's ambitious. I think I could also see myself looking into some sort of T V show. I've looked into that uh with a bunch of different people now and and that could be something But I I think twenty twenty three should be you know the year for me to slow down and look bigger picture instead of just taking things so day by day and say, Okay, how could the what could this whole business of what we're doing right now look like in five, ten years? And try to really build something that's

More sustainable. And that's Much, much bigger than just me. And so I would be very happy if I had

An answer for that. In twenty twenty three. Mm. Nicty Giovanni. Founder of Osmalt and YouTuber

Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Kai. I will Think of you next time I'm about to baste a hole. Piece of argument butter.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at how I built this, and mine is at guy, and on Instagram, I'm at guy.Roz. If you want to contact the team, our email address is hibt at id.wondery.com. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez and Susanna Brown, with editing by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Raptine Arablui.

Our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Liz Metzger, Sam Paulson, and Carrie Thompson. Niva Grant is our supervising editor. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

How I built this. So like in the last I don't know, five or six months my kids They tried. be more interested in when I was cooking. And then I discovered that they were watching your videos.

And they kept asking me to to buy wagyu beef. They're like Daddy Can you get A five waggy beef? Mm-hmm. Anyway.

Sorry. Go ahead. Um How did you get all that chicken from the World's Largest Chicken I with Lynja video? Oh, that's a good question.

We bought it. We just bought it. Was there like a specific manufacturer or something? For all that chicken? Oh man, that's a good question. I don't know actually. I have to look back and see. I don't even know where we got it.

But it was in these really big industrial bags. So It was fun. But even harder was getting all the sushi for the world's largest sushi roll. That was hard. All the sushi rice? All the sushi rice, yeah. We had probably

Five Five or six restaurants. Making rice nonstop all day for a whole day. To get us enough race for that. Isn't that crazy?

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