Who are you and what kind of content do you create?

I’m Sune and I am based out of Copenhagen. I’m not a full time creator yet, but I aspire to be. I’ve gone from 5 days a week to 4 days recently to be able to focus more on my content.

I do food, and mainly sourdough on my channel and website, although I also love food from all over the world.

I’m still doing this all by myself, but I am sure that in time I’ll have a team.

A lot of people call themselves foodies, and I am one too, but I am so much more than a foodie. I want to figure out the hows, the whys, the whens when it comes to food. I am a geek. I even have a tattoo on my left arm that says ‘Foodgeek’.

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Let's go down memory lane, tell us your backstory! 

I started my food blog in 2014. From the start I knew I wanted to do it both in Danish and in English.

The reason I started my blog was because I wanted to share my passion about food with the world. It grew kind of slowly for a long time, both because there’d be months between posts and they would basically only consist of a two paragraph introduction and a recipe. 

In 2019 I got ‘downsized’ from a company that I was a co-founder of and after a day of being gobsmacked I realized that it was a blessing in disguise. I decided to make my brand bigger and make a YouTube channel. 

When I first started out on YouTube I thought that Joshua Weissman and Alex - French Guy cooking had some cool things that I really liked. I didn’t want to emulate them, but I used some of the basic ideas as a starting point.

My motivation early on was to become a full time content creator, and I chose a schedule of posting once a week, so that I wouldn’t be stressing about getting videos done every few days and that helped a lot.

How do you brainstorm ideas for your content and your advice in getting the creative juice flowing.

My inspiration comes from either things that interest me or that I find delicious. I spend some time researching it, seeing how it’s done traditionally, and then I usually come up with my own spin. A lot of input comes from the followers too. People ask for recipes or for me to experiment with certain things and if I feel like they have a broad interest within the niche I’ll go with them.

I don’t really brainstorm. My head is usually always full of ideas, so I can’t be much of an inspiration there.

What are the tools and platforms you use to help with your brand?

I use the Adobe Suite for my editing. Both my photos and videos. I’ve been photographing for over 20 years and started using Photoshop back then, but transitioned into Lightroom. Just learning by doing. I use Premiere Pro for video editing, and I got started with that through courses that I found on Skillshare.

When it comes to Social Media platforms, I use YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

For post scheduling I am using the relatively new Facebook Creator Studio, and the schedule feature on YouTube.

For planning I use a web based tool called Asana.

What were your fears starting out? How did you handle it? 

Throughout my childhood and youth I spent a lot of time worrying about what other people thought of me. It was a blocker in many ways, although not intellectually.

When I hit around 40 years old, I had just gotten to the point where it didn’t matter because I knew I was alright, I have people who love me for who I am and the faceless masses can think what they want. I think it’s a pretty natural process.

When it comes to negative comments at first I’d remove them, just because I didn’t want negativity across my channels. Now I just leave them alone and my trusty followers will take care of them. They are very nice people, so they’ll kill them with kindness.

How did you build your brand to where it is now, take us through your process.

To build my brand, centering around youtube, I decided early on that I would post at least once a week. I’ve kept that up for 14 months so far and it seems to have paid off.

At first I would just use a couple of iPhones and I had an older Canon camera that I used for B-roll and photographs. Later I found the money to upgrade all the equipment from my personal finances.

Growth seemed slow at first, but looking back it actually went pretty fast. In the first 3 months I had 1k subscribers, in 3 more I had 4k, then in 3 more I had 10k, and then it started to really take off.

For now it’s just me doing everything, which can be a bit work intensive at times. I’d say I spend 40-50 hours a week on my content.

I started my blog in 2014 and it didn’t really take off because I’d post maybe once a month and my posts would be a couple of lines and then the recipe, somewhere in the late summer of 2018 I decided to make it much more comprehensive, bigger and well-researched articles to go with my recipes, along with more posts. 

Around February 2019 I was laid off from the company I had co-founded and had 6 months with pay, so I decided to start my YouTube channel. My first really big video was one that I had been missing myself as I was learning to bake sourdough bread. It was how to score the bread, simple and down to the point, but also showing the bread after it was baked. I baked 12 breads and scored them with different designs and it is my biggest video to date and it’s still in my top 5 every month.

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For someone who wants to get into content creation, what is your advice?

I wouldn’t really change anything. I got the strategy right, and I was good at changing course when it was needed.

My best suggestion to someone getting into content creation is,

Make videos about what you are passionate about, it comes out through the screen, but also think about what will engage a viewer, what would be an interesting video if you were watching it.

Also, keep evaluating, look at the analytics, try out different things, figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Also, niche, niche, niche, too deep, not wide. Once you have a following you can start going wider little by little.

How did you finally commit to X platform rather than your regular day job?

I’ve changed it so that I only work 4 days a week. In the longer run, when finances allow it I plan to go full time.

Tell us your best milestones in being a content creator.

So far it my best milestone was being picked as youtube’s Creator on the Rise and being featured on the trending page for 24 hours.

What are your marketing strategies to grow your brand?

At first I’d share my content everywhere I could without being spammy. I’d join a bunch of food and bread related Facebook groups and be a resource in those groups. I’d be helpful and whenever I’d put out a new video, I’d post pictures of the food and the bake, and when people asked for the recipe, I’d link to my video.

Today my channel is big enough so I don’t need to post in groups, so I tease a video on YouTube Community tab, Facebook and Instagram and link people to the video when it’s being released.

How do you handle brand deals and sponsorships? 

I’ve reached out to some, but they mostly come by themselves.

I will only accept brands that fit my profile and I will not compromise and promote something that I don’t believe in. When it comes to deals, don’t be afraid to negotiate. There’s always a better rate or another brand. I’m just upfront about it. “It’s worth more to you than that.”