August 14, 2023 • 41 mins
Discover the captivating story of Edward - a versatile video producer and digital nomad. Follow his journey filled with ups and downs - from experimenting in various niches to establishing a thriving career in the tech industry. Edward's tale is a testament to his tenacity and perseverance in the face of challenges.
His transition from nightlife to a career in tech brought him face-to-face with the importance of emotional intelligence, particularly in email communication. As he traverses through various European cities, leveraging platforms like Airbnb, Edward finds a change of scene and a plethora of opportunities outside of New York City. Along the way, he developed impressive SEO expertise and shared his journey on TikTok, paving the way for the 'Build in Public' movement. All this while emphasizing the importance of having fun and fostering a world filled with empathy.
Yet, the conversation doesn't end here. Edward talks about the value of sales skills, highlighting his experiences and struggles as he navigated the tech arena. He also shares his insights on the role of traditional education, the influence of books like 'How To Win Friends and Influence People,' and the power of networking. Finally, he opens up about the challenges and strengths of being neurodiverse, viewing it as a superpower. Tune in for a journey filled with insights, inspiration, and a raw look into the life of a digital nomad.
Let's enjoy his story.
To connect on IG: @edward.builds
To listen to his show: The Edward Show
- Share Your Thoughts and Shape the Show! Tell me what you love about the podcast and what you want to hear more about. Please email me at behas.podcats@gmail.com and be part of the conversation!
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Thank you for listening - Hasta Pronto!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniela (00:08):
Hi, I'm Daniela.
Welcome to my podcast, becauseeveryone has a story, the place
to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and
preserved.
Our stories become the languageof connections.
Let's enjoy it, connect andrelate, because everyone has a
story.
Welcome my guest, edward Storm,a video producer and digital
(00:36):
nomad.
I always ask my guests why theywant to share their story.
Edward's response may seempretentious and egotistic.
He admits that he's egotistic,which I find refreshing.
Don't dismiss his story forthat.
His honesty is priceless.
Who usually says that?
Right, he's seriously one of akind.
(00:58):
He's just so friendly andcreative, always coming up with
fresh ideas and looking for thenext big thing.
You know how I'm always curiousabout digital nomads, and so I
was captivated by his amazinglifestyle.
He was so pumped up andenthusiastic as he's traveled
around from city to city inEurope and describes how amazing
(01:21):
that experience was for him.
Chatting with someone whoactually living this kind of
super cool life was such a treat.
It was also cool to learnEdward, the influencer on TikTok
and Instagram, talking toDaniela at Behas it's pretty lit
.
At the end, he emphasized theimportance of having fun and
(01:42):
fostering a world filled withempathy.
So let's enjoy his story.
Welcome Edward to the show.
We have a digital nomad.
I am very happy that you'rehere.
We're here, wow, I'm hyped, I'mjust hyped.
Yes.
So, edward, why do you want toshare your story?
Edward Sturm (02:03):
Why do I want to share my story?
Well, as I told you, I liketalking and I love attention.
I am an attention seeker, sothere's a derogatory phrase that
I'm not going to say becausewe're on the air, but I love
attention.
Let me tell you how much I loveattention.
I don't really enjoy mostconcerts and my friends will go
(02:25):
to big music festivals with a DJon a stage and people treating
the DJ like the DJ's.
God, I can't go to those.
And my friends are like why Iget too jealous, You're not
serious, I'm, I am well okay, Iget.
I'm like 50% serious.
(02:45):
I'm half bored.
I don't really do drugs.
Some people can go to festivalsfor like eight hours and just
dance.
I'm not one of those people.
So I'm half bored, but I'm alsohalf jealous.
So actually, yeah, no, I'm kindof serious.
Daniela (02:57):
Okay, but you also said that you like to talk, and that
was the main reason why youlike to be at the podcast.
Edward Sturm (03:02):
That's true, and I can't talk at festivals.
Daniela (03:04):
All right.
So we know why you want toshare your story.
How did they go in so far?
Edward Sturm (03:08):
Today's a crazy day because I go viral a lot,
but I'm going viral at a muchfaster rate on Instagram than I
have before and I'm justincreasing followers really fast
.
It's crazy.
So on TikTok I have 32,000followers.
I made the most viewed video inthe world on the Silicon Valley
bank collapse, which was one ofthe biggest events in
technology and business.
Now, on Instagram, it's sostrange how the Instagram
(03:30):
algorithm worked and a videothat I put up two days ago did
nothing when it came out onInstagram, but it started going
viral this morning.
I started the account inNovember of last year and I post
videos every day.
I was trying to break 900followers.
So after six months I wasalmost at 900 followers and this
video starts going viral andthat video is only at 76,000
(03:53):
followers now, which is so manymore than I thought it would
have.
I just broke like 1,150followers.
It just keeps going and I don'tknow when it will stop.
I'm so inspired with the contentthat I'm making, with
everything that I'm doing.
I make it really easy forpeople to get in touch with me
and get on my calendar, becauseI like to talk and I like to
learn and I like to get involved.
I like to hear aboutopportunities, and so I make it
(04:15):
really easy for people to get intouch with me.
And people are getting in touchwith me and I had all these
calls today and I haven't evenhad time to work out yet.
And our AI startup well, it'svoice startup.
We started this company at theend of 2019.
We have thousands of dailyactive users, and so I am so
crazy excited.
So that's why I like to be onpodcasts.
I had fun.
Daniela (04:35):
I introduced you as a digital nomad, but I just missed
saying that you are also atInstagram and TikTok influencer.
Edward Sturm (04:43):
I mean 1,150 followers.
Instagram is not influentialjust yet.
No just say, 32,000 followers onTikTok, which doesn't sound
like that much because there arelike dancing accounts that have
like 5, 10 million followers.
But I talk specifically abouttechnology and business, the
followers that I have.
They're more valuable to mebecause I get to share my
(05:05):
startups with them.
I get to share my companieswith them.
I guess I'm somewhatinfluential sometimes.
I know how to make content thatdoes really well.
Some of the time, yeah, I'm aninfluencer, but like there's so
many more levels to howinfluential I can be, maybe it's
the humility in thisegotistical person coming out as
well.
(05:25):
I'm like I'm a weird contrastbecause I'm one hand, I actually
think I'm- quite humble.
Yes, I know, and I'm also quiteegotistical.
Daniela (05:35):
Yes, when I met you, I thought the second one, the
latter that you were, that youwere very modest, but now you're
presenting yourself in adifferent way.
Edward Sturm (05:45):
So well, I mean, I think I, I think I do think I
am modest, but I also just Ilike attention a lot, which I
can admit.
I think a lot of people wholike attention a lot and many of
them won't admit it, and Ithink it's actually modest to
admit it.
Some people could even see thatas a shortcoming.
Daniela (06:03):
All right, I think we got it clear that you like
attention.
You're here because of that andbecause you like to talk.
You were one of the early viralvideo producers.
When does your story starts mystory?
Edward Sturm (06:15):
starts.
When I was 19 in college, meand my friend we made a video
driving around New York City.
It's called Fastest LatmanHatton Put it out and then no
one cared.
No one watched it.
It was on YouTube.
No one watched.
It Kind of sat there on YouTube.
This was in 2009.
Maybe it was 2010.
And then the next year I took aclass in marketing and my
(06:38):
teacher was like if you dosomething that you think people
will care, that care about in aspecific niche, you need to send
it to the influencers in thatniche, and specifically
journalists and bloggers.
And so I took this drivingvideo that me and my friend made
and it's kind of like this bigstunt about us driving around
Manhattan in a certain styleSent it to just the biggest auto
(06:59):
blogs.
The number one biggest autoblog picked it up and put it on
their front page for two daysand then I was on New York One.
Our video was being shown onNew York One and all of a sudden
I was viral and people all overthe internet were talking about
me.
But it wasn't that viral.
I distinguished two types ofviral.
There's like niche viral andthen there's like viral that
(07:19):
transcends niches.
The first time I experiencedvirality that transcended niches
was when I was 22.
We did this video called FakeCelebrity Pranks NYC.
That one has gotten severalhundred million views across all
media and syndication TVsyndication and we went on the
biggest TV shows in the world.
(07:40):
So that was one of the craziest.
I mean I've had many insaneexperiences but that was one of
them.
And yeah, so I guess my storystarts like 10 years ago I was
making just making videos withmy friends that made us laugh.
You know, something will goviral.
If you really just want to makeit because it's so entertaining
that then it has a really goodchance of going viral.
(08:00):
Or if it's hopping on like abig trend.
It's the things that reallymake you smile and entertain you
.
The Silicon Valley Bank videothat I think I just spoke about
that one I read something thatwas really funny.
I shared what I read on aTikTok and it went hyper viral
and I'm like I have to sharethis.
I felt compelled to share itbecause it was so good, it was
(08:21):
so funny.
Daniela (08:21):
Have you always had a sense of humor?
Edward Sturm (08:23):
Yeah, I've always been pretty funny.
When I was in my early 20s, Iwas working at New York City
nightclubs.
My job was to get cool peopleto come to the clubs.
In order to do that, you needto be charismatic and you need
to be entertaining.
I was already, at that point,somewhat charismatic and
entertaining, but I did that forthree years and by the end of
(08:44):
it, I was like 100x the charismathat I had.
Actually, the video that'sgoing viral on Instagram now so
much similar.
I made a video two days agoabout what I learned doing
networking business and techevents in New York for several
years.
I tell a story in the video andthis is what's going viral now.
When I started going tonetworking events, this was
(09:06):
after New York City Nightlifeand I was trying to sell search
engine optimizations.
Right now, actually, I'mprobably one of the best SEO
search engine optimizers in theworld, though SEO will change
dramatically in the next severalyears because of AI.
I even wrote a leading articleon that, which is cool because I
can be involved in the changerather than get left behind.
This was back when I wasn't asgood and I was trying to sell
(09:29):
services and so I would go tobusiness and tech events and SEO
was really hot at that time.
People really wanted searchengine optimization.
If you don't know what searchengine optimization is, that
means to make your websiteappear high on Google for search
terms that are relevant to it,for things that are related to
what your business does.
So I'm like, yeah, I should beable to go to Meetups and just
say, hi, I'm Edward, I do searchengine optimization, and people
(09:52):
will just hire me right thereon the spot.
That was kind of how I thoughtit would work and that's not
what happened.
I took my same nightlifementality, which is in nightlife
, you talk to a lot of differentpeople because you have a lot
of stakeholders and you need tokeep them entertained and you
need to bounce back and forthbetween all these different
people.
I would go to these tech andbusiness events and treat it
like a nightclub and use a lotof charisma and just talk, do
(10:14):
most of the talking and bouncearound a lot of other people and
create shallow connectionswhere it was mostly me doing the
talking.
I did that for several monthsto a year, 2015 to 2016.
I did that for that amount oftime.
It got me nothing, nothing.
It got me nothing, so then Islowly started changing my
approach.
Then, when I found outsomething that worked, I just
(10:35):
stuck to that.
So what I talked about on thisInstagram video that's going
viral now is, instead of talkingabout myself and saying, hi,
I'm Edward, I do SEO andbouncing around to all these
different people, I don't eventalk about myself until the
person asks, and all I do is Iask them questions and I stay
with them.
People can talk aboutthemselves for a long, long,
(10:56):
long, long time, kind of likeI'm doing right now.
Yes, exactly.
They will do that and you justask question after question.
You become very interested intheir story and you ask question
after question after questionafter question after question
and then you go down all theseconversation threads and
eventually what will happen isthe person will get bored just
talking about themselves or feelreciprocity, or it'll be a
(11:19):
combination of the two andthey'll be like, by the way,
I've never asked you about youand I'll be like, oh yeah, I do
search engine optimization.
And then that opens all thesedoors because they feel like
they trust me.
They're more likely to rememberwho I am because I ask them all
these questions.
If they do need SEO, they'lltalk to me about it.
They won't need SEO.
When someone comes to them andsays, hey, do you know anyone
(11:40):
who does search engineoptimization or something
similar, they would recommend meand I would get not just
referrals but friends likefriendship as well, people who I
talk to to this day because Ijust learned to go to tech
events and just ask people aboutthemselves.
Here's the crazy thing aboutlife is that even if someone is
not directly beneficial to yourlife if we want to look at it
(12:03):
just purely transactional evenif someone is not directly
beneficial to your life.
Everybody knows somebody who is.
By having extreme top of mindawareness, you will get referred
to all of these things.
And before I stop this crazyrant, I'll explain.
Top of mind awareness it's oneof the most important concepts
to understand.
Top of mind awareness is when Ithink of shoes, I think of Nike
(12:26):
.
When I think of fast food, Ithink of McDonald's.
When I think of a motivationalcoach, I think of Tony Robbins.
It used to be that when youthought podcasts, you thought of
Jorogin, and that's why Spotifyacquired Jorogin's brand for
$200 million.
That's the power of top of mindawareness by getting people to
trust you, then they think ofyou when opportunities come
(12:47):
their way that you would be agood fit for and you get yeah.
Daniela (12:51):
I used to be very good at networking as well, because I
always knew that you have toask other people questions.
How difficult was it for you togo from the previous job, where
you seem to be charismatic butyou always had to talk about
yourself, since you loveattention.
Now you have to actually holdyour story and listen to other
(13:11):
people.
How difficult was that?
Edward Sturm (13:13):
Yeah, very hard and it took practice and now
that I'm like influential, thankGod, I learned that then and
I'm really happy that I know howimportant it is.
I'm not doing it on thispodcast because I'm with the
guest and I guess the point isfor me to be interviewed, but
yeah, it was hard.
It's still hard.
Daniela (13:35):
So it's still hard.
You haven't gotten the balanceyet.
Edward Sturm (13:38):
Well, if I was at a networking event, you wouldn't
know anything about me untilyou asked.
Daniela (13:43):
What if you find somebody like you Like?
If you find me that I will beasking you all the questions.
How would you be able to switchit?
Edward Sturm (13:53):
Well, I would keep talking about myself and then
until I got bored talking.
Daniela (13:56):
Is it possible that you can get bored of talking about
yourself?
Edward Sturm (14:01):
It's hard, it's hard.
The thing about me is I'm veryempathetic and I also feel
strong reciprocity urges, like agood way to take advantage of
me is to give me free stuff,because then I feel like I need
to reciprocate somehow.
Daniela (14:15):
Oh, that's nice.
Yes, I noticed from sending youan email that hey, remember
recording these on the firstthat you reply, which usually
people don't do, and you saidI'm looking forward to it.
And I was like, wow, that'svery emotional intelligence,
because you make me feel alsoimportant that you are paying
attention and you are lookingforward to something, so it's
(14:37):
not just me.
Edward Sturm (14:38):
Wow, I was looking forward to it and I love doing
these.
I wanted you to know.
Yeah, I'm definitely going tobe there, because I was a host
and I'm like OK, the date isthen, and someone didn't respond
to me.
I'd be like, well, are theygoing to forget about it?
Daniela (14:51):
You will be surprised that very few people actually
respond back.
That's crazy.
Edward Sturm (14:55):
Yeah, that's so weird, honestly.
Daniela (14:58):
With your story.
People tend to judge peoplethat are said oh, I want
attention and I'm an influencer,people roll their eyes, but
here you are being an amazingguy who is having these
opportunities and know how toput videos that people actually
would like to watch, so that'spretty interesting.
Edward Sturm (15:19):
Yeah, thank you.
I want to bring joy to theworld.
I want to teach people thingsand also be nice to people.
I just have empathy for thestruggle.
If I can do a one-second thing,say yeah, I'm looking forward
to this podcast, and makesomeone feel less anxiety and
also be nicer, I'm going to dothat.
The type of person that I am.
Daniela (15:40):
Nice.
I like empathy for the struggle.
Good, OK, I want to go back toso you did a video when you were
19.
You went to school formarketing.
Edward Sturm (15:49):
I went to school for film.
Then I switched to TV.
So I studied film, tv and Iminored in marketing when I was
in college.
I went to college for fouryears.
I probably went to one of thebest schools for filmmaking and
for communication.
Actually, I talked to a lot ofyoung people.
Something people asked me isyou did OK, you went to college.
Should I be going to college?
(16:10):
And I'm like no, yeah, I thinkI would have learned way more
and way faster if I spent thetuition money and the four years
in college trying to marketdifferent businesses and trying
to make videos.
I would have learned way moreand way faster.
Daniela (16:33):
This is because the instructors perhaps are not as
knowledgeable because they'reoutdated.
Edward Sturm (16:39):
That's part of it, and teaching in a classroom to
a bunch of kids.
That's very different than theway that I teach on social media
.
But the other part is veryimportant, and that's when you
don't have anything on the line,when you don't actually have,
like a real stake in the game.
Tuition is not.
It's not the same type of stakewhen you're not actively out
there getting firsthandexperience.
(16:59):
The level that you learn is wayworse.
I learned the most from thethings that I did, not the
things that I studied.
So, yeah, I wouldn't recommendcollege actually unless you were
studying to be a doctor or alawyer, and lawyers even like
lawyers.
Now, with the way that AI isdisplacing a lot of attorneys is
crazy.
Daniela (17:17):
Yes.
So you said no college, but youdid want to college.
Edward Sturm (17:21):
and then I went to college and I think I've done
okay in spite of that.
My journey would have been waymore accelerated if I knew to
like start a business and go tonetworking events, read how to
win friends and influence peopleand learn taxes and do all that
sort of stuff when instead Iwas like partying and college.
So dumb yeah.
Daniela (17:40):
but you need that, you need to party, you need to have
fun.
If you start, you're young.
Edward Sturm (17:44):
I think going to tech and business events can be
a lot of fun.
You know what else is funMaking money.
Making money is really fun.
Being successful is really fun.
I'm actually prettyanti-college, with the exception
of, like I said, yes.
Daniela (17:57):
And you mentioned the book from Dale Carnegie.
You read it then.
Edward Sturm (18:01):
Oh, I've read it multiple times.
I read it in college for thefirst time.
I was a senior in college.
This guy he's actually now avery successful musician.
He didn't go to college.
Him and I were friends.
We met before he was successful.
He's like Edward.
You got to read this book.
It's going to like set you onfire, and it did.
It inspired me so much how towin friends, see.
Daniela (18:21):
I feel that that should be the Bible for everybody in
high school.
Just start from there.
Edward Sturm (18:26):
Yeah, it's true.
It's really true.
Everybody should read that book.
The world would be a betterplace.
Can you imagine if everyone hada win-win approach to
everything?
Yes, and they got indoctrinatedwith that when they were kids.
God.
Daniela (18:38):
That's the book that my dad gave me.
I've been always verysuccessful with networking and
sales.
I'd enjoy it.
When I saw the first situationcompliment people and so I was
in the boss and I complimentedthis lady really wrinkly, but
she was really cute.
She had such a smile that Ithought, oh my God, what a gift.
And I saw I want those gifts, Iwant those smiles, I want
(19:01):
people to feel amazing.
And that's how I started.
Even when I was a toast master,I made a speech.
I had to take compliments.
There was this guy who openedthe door for us and he has
really nice red shoes and I said, oh, what a nice red shoes.
And he said thank you.
And then he said I reallyappreciate it.
And I was like, oh no, it wasnot that he only said thank you,
(19:22):
but he also appreciated it.
And I was like, oh my God,that's the answer.
You just have to say somethingelse.
And so then I was at theSkytrain in the metro and this
lady complimented her on myboots and I said thank you.
And then I realized, oh shit, Iforgot the other bar and I was
following her when she came outof the train to tell her that I
(19:44):
really appreciate it, but Ithink she was looking from the
corner of her eyes.
Oh my God, this crazy woman isafter me and I was trying to go
really fast and I never foundher, wow, and I was not able to
find a second part.
So I was like, oh my God, Ididn't finish the process.
Oh no, so that was the point.
Yeah, yeah, but something more.
Edward Sturm (20:02):
Actually, that's great.
I don't even think I say thatmost of the time.
I was just saying thank youwhen I get a compliment.
I like that there's somethingmore.
Thank you, I really appreciatethat.
Daniela (20:11):
When I said I like your shirt, you say thank you, okay,
you pay back, right.
But when you say you reallyappreciate it, you actually
recognizing that what I did toyou, which was making me happy,
was even something that makesyou happy.
So it's like double happinessright there.
That's my theory.
Edward Sturm (20:27):
I feel like when I say I really appreciate it, I
don't sound genuine.
Daniela (20:30):
Well, it depends.
I mean, obviously you're notgoing to always use the same
sentence.
One more sentence.
People usually say, you know,you say nice shoes and they will
say, oh, they're so old.
Or they will say somethingnegative like, oh, I bought it
so cheap.
Oh, they're from my mother.
Oh, really, they're that nice.
You know that they kind ofdestroy the good thing about it,
Right?
Edward Sturm (20:48):
A lot of people do that.
Daniela (20:49):
Yeah, so I think we should do a TikTok video about
how to take compliments.
What do you think?
Edward Sturm (20:53):
I think that's a really good idea.
Actually, I might make thatafter this, yeah.
Daniela (20:58):
There you go See.
Edward Sturm (20:59):
I think that's a cool idea.
Daniela (21:00):
I think that it will be nice.
People will be a bit moregrateful.
But back to you, because you'rethe important person.
Edward Sturm (21:05):
No, come on.
Actually, I think it'sinteresting that you've always
been good at sales, because I'mmaking a bunch of TikToks.
I realized lately this isanother reason why you shouldn't
go to college.
You want to get good at salesas early as you can and the only
way to get good at sales iswith firsthand experience.
I'm making it really easy forpeople to get in touch with me
because I just want to get salesexperience.
(21:28):
Even if someone isn't likequalified or anything, I want to
try to sell them because I wantto get really good at sales.
So I realized very recent as inlike a month ago, being good at
sales is probably the mostimportant skill that somebody
can have.
I've always been good at itwhen there's no like transaction
involved or there's no likeoutcome for me.
(21:49):
When it's an outcome for me,I'm not that good at it when I
need to close, I need to want, Ineed to reframe it in my head
that I'm closing for somebodyelse and that, like, the
transaction is just part of it.
But yeah, I want to get reallygood at sales and I think it's
cool that you've always beengood.
Daniela (22:03):
I don't think it's only sales Negotiation is very
important.
That too, I want to be verygood at that as well.
You always have to think aboutthe other person's needs before
your needs and then see how itwill fit whatever you have.
I think negotiation with salesis all kind of like a good
combination of both.
Edward Sturm (22:21):
I can see you being very good at sales.
It's because you're so nice.
I'm really enjoying talking toyou.
You have a great smile andyou're a really nice person and
you're a genuine person.
Daniela (22:36):
Here you are doing your thing.
Edward Sturm (22:39):
No, no, no, no, I'm being, I'm being completely
serious.
Daniela (22:42):
And here.
Would you like to buy thesefrom me now?
Edward Sturm (22:48):
Like I could see you.
I could see you.
I think I'm pretty good ateverything.
Oh good, you're leading up tothe close and then, when it
comes time to really close,that's what I need to work on a
lot, and there's a lot that goesinto the close, like knowing
your exact offer.
I think that's a reallyimportant skill to have.
Daniela (23:09):
But here is the opportunity you have, that you
are an influencer.
You can talk to anybody youwant.
To teach you these skillsDaniel Pink.
Edward Sturm (23:17):
Oh no, I have a mentor.
Now I have one of my very closefriends Actually.
He's great at sales and he'smentoring me and helping me a
lot.
I always used to like listen tosales books and most of that
was wrong.
Now I'm like watching the samegood videos over and over again,
but I'm also trying to watchlike one sales video a day.
If you do something in a singleday, the retention is so low.
(23:39):
If you spread it out, thenactually the retention can be
quite high, and I think thereason for that is because you
think about it day after dayafter day after day and so it
kind of compounds.
It's like interest, it's just akind of compounds.
Daniela (23:53):
Okay, Edward, we need to get back to your story.
You know you're not pro college.
Then you did the second video,and then what happened?
Edward Sturm (24:02):
Oh right, okay, I made all these viral videos.
I was one of the first peopledoing it on YouTube and I didn't
stick with it.
I wish I did.
No one really knew at the timejust how big YouTube would get.
Can you imagine Like it'subiquitous now, but it wasn't,
and no one knew that like if youjust put out a video every day
on YouTube, you would be hyperfamous.
We made these viral videos.
(24:23):
We weren't doing like one amonth or something, we were
doing like one every couple ofmonths and we weren't making as
many videos as we should haveand I just should have been
focusing on myself and doing myown like daily vlog.
I didn't know that at the timeI was also doing the night life
thing.
A lot of my friends fromnightlife started getting
interested in technology.
I said, okay, I want to do, Iwant to get into tech.
(24:44):
I don't know anything abouttech.
I knowing about tech is veryimportant.
Yeah, what year is this?
This is 2014.
Okay, transition I startedtransitioning away from
nightlife.
I wasn't thinking about being anentertainer, which is kind of
what I am now.
Me and my friend we put out avideo information product.
It was about how to make viralvideos.
(25:05):
I didn't show up on Google.
When you Google the name of theproduct, it wasn't on Google.
And it wasn't on Google forother things.
And I said, how do I make thisappear on Google?
And so I started learning aboutthis thing called search engine
optimization.
I genuinely became reallyfascinated in it and I couldn't
stop reading about it andlearning about it.
I taught it to myself.
I started a blog.
Then I went to work at like oneof the top companies in the
(25:26):
world to do SEO at yeah, and soI was doing SEO, and I didn't
even really know it at the time,so I was learning on the job.
And when I started at thecompany, I was like the worst at
SEO.
I left in like six or sevenmonths because there wasn't
anything left for me to learn.
I was the best.
Everyone from the company wouldgo out to have drinks after
work and on weekends they wouldjust play with party.
(25:47):
I went home and I did more SEO.
I read more articles, I did iton my website and I did that on
weekends as well.
And so when he literally when Istarted, I was the worst.
Within three months I wassecond best and then at the end,
I was the best, and so I feltlike there wasn't anywhere for
me to grow and I have gotten myown clients at that time from
referrals, from doing thenetworking thing that I talked
(26:08):
about.
So I started my own SEO agency.
And then a mentor of mine cameto me and he's like Edward,
you're the best person atmarketing that I know I'd love
to like.
These things called this thingcalled blockchain is blowing up.
Can we do a project in it?
Can you do marketing for me?
I think, with you involved,we'll make so much money.
And I'm like, oh, I got thismarketing, I got this SEO agency
, the search engine optimizationagency.
(26:29):
I really can't.
He begged me and begged me andbegged me.
And then I found out that I hadan unfair advantage because a
friend of mine from New YorkCity Nightlife became a
co-founder of the second biggestcryptocurrency called Ethereum.
So I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, Ihave an unfair advantage.
I really should.
And yeah, these things aremaking these projects in the
space are making a lot of money.
And I was running the New YorkCity search engine optimization
meetup and I had my SEO agency,and so we started throwing
(26:52):
blockchain events with hismeetup, which was a really big
programming meetup.
When we turned that into thebiggest blockchain meetup group
in the world.
And then in January 2018, wemade the first video game in
crypto.
We invented the genre of playto earn and that did really well
financially.
So I was getting recognized atconferences, I was speaking.
(27:13):
We stopped the meetup becausethe project was taking up so
much of our time.
I was always a kid who neverleft New York City because I'm
like New York City has every,everyone and everything, so why
would I leave?
Then I was turning 30.
I had this success under mybelt with a blockchain company.
I'm like I should see the restof the world.
I really haven't done muchtraveling and so I thought I
(27:34):
would be gone for like three tosix months.
I was having fun.
So I extended it to a year and Iwas living in Kiev in Ukraine
when COVID happened and I had aflight home and COVID happened
and my flight was canceled and Ihad to make the decision Should
I stay in my comfortableapartment with my friends and
give Ukraine, or should I takean a cramped emergency flight
(27:54):
Back to New York to be therewith during lockdowns?
And I chose to stay in Kiev.
It took so long for the worldto recover.
I ended up living in Kiev, inUkraine, for two years.
I left only 10 days before thewar started.
Last year of 2022 was supposedto be like the year of stability
and it was like the mostunstable years of my life.
(28:16):
But out of that year, at theend of it, came this tiktok.
I have a bunch of startups, andthere's another one that
incentivizes people to do dailychallenges, daily
self-improvement challenges,through Social incentives and
cash incentives.
Daniela (28:30):
You said you went traveling and that's why you are
a digital nomad.
You weren't traveling, but younever stopped working.
Edward Sturm (28:36):
No, I can't stop working.
Daniela (28:37):
Okay, and how many countries you visit 25?
And why you decided to stay inKiev.
Edward Sturm (28:42):
I love Kiev.
I've missed that city death.
I miss, I miss it so much.
I'd lived there in summer of2019 for three months and then I
came back to live there for amonth and a half in early 2020.
I and then, by the time thatthe world did recover, I had a
big friend group, I was reallycomfortable and I had a
beautiful apartment and I had myroutines.
I was really happy there andthat's why I stayed for two
(29:06):
years living in Kiev, ukraine.
Daniela (29:07):
All right okay.
Edward Sturm (29:08):
I'm not there now that because there's a war there
.
If there wasn't a war there, Imight, I might still be there,
and where are you now?
I'm in Warsaw, in Poland.
Okay, and I'll be.
I'll be back in New York Cityin two weeks.
Daniela (29:18):
You seem to go to East European countries.
Edward Sturm (29:20):
I actually, before this, I was living in Barcelona
and Rome.
I have lived in many EasternEuropean countries, but I've
also lived in Berlin, I've livedin Prague, I've lived in Vienna
, but I love East Europe.
Daniela (29:30):
How many months do you stay in every place?
Edward Sturm (29:32):
as many as I can.
It's been limited becauseAmericans can only spend 90 out
of a hundred and eighty days ina certain place.
Daniela (29:38):
You always use Airbnb or what you do.
Edward Sturm (29:41):
I love Airbnb.
The most important thing for mewhen I travel is how
comfortable my apartment is andhow Responsive my host is.
It seems crazy, but if you'redoing a stay in a city for a
week and above, the mostimportant thing is the apartment
.
It's how comfortable you are.
I like Airbnb because it makesit very easy to find Good places
(30:02):
to live with reliable andresponsive hosts.
Maybe, like a week, you can getaway with having a crappy place
, but when I was in Vienna, thatwas the only time that I didn't
get a super host.
I had a bad place and it wascold.
I enjoyed being in Vienna, butmy apartment sucked.
Because I work a lot, I alsospend a decent amount of time in
my apartment working.
Daniela (30:20):
Do you spend most of your income then in the Airbnb,
because they're expensive.
Edward Sturm (30:25):
No well compared to New York City.
Actually, I think traveling isvery inexpensive.
My Airbnb in Barcelona was onethousand four hundred dollars
for one month, and that's howmuch I'm paying for my apartment
here in Warsaw one thousandfour hundred dollars.
This apartment in New York Citywould cost seven thousand
dollars a month.
Okay, I think Traveling isreally like.
(30:46):
It's a way to live really well.
A lot of countries have wayhigher standards of living than
Than New York City.
People out of outside of NewYork City don't really realize
it because New York City is seen.
I love New York City.
It's my home.
I'm not trying to trash talkNew York, but it seems as the
capital of world and it's reallya great place for Like.
It's the best place foropportunity and I'm really
(31:07):
excited to go back because nowI'm like going viral all the
time and I think I'm gonna havesuch crazy.
I'm gonna have crazyopportunities, like I did before
, and this time I'm not a bozo,whereas like before I didn't.
I was a bozo and I didn't knowhow to use these opportunities.
Now I'm not a bozo and so Ithink I'll do some great things
and it's the best place foropportunity.
(31:28):
It's like it's such a goodplace if you are, if you are
hard-working and you can getyourself into an upwards funnel,
but it's also crushinglydifficult.
Yes, and and yeah, so sostandard standard of living,
like you can spend Comparativelyless to have a great standard
of living if you leave New YorkCity, if you leave the big
(31:49):
American cities.
Daniela (31:51):
So, edward, you are going to go back to New York and
are you going to keep travelingor stay in New York for a long
time?
Edward Sturm (31:57):
I would like to live in a European city for like
at least a year, and now it'sstarting to really depress me
how I don't have time to developa community because I I bounce
around so much.
I had that community in Kia.
How long do you need to build a?
community years, years to builda community.
I say like I might return toEurope, but at the same time,
(32:17):
there's a chance that New YorkCity, my home, will be, just
because of what's happening withmy companies.
Reverbchat is the voice companythat I spoke of, and we're
putting in this crazy AI featurethat could make us one of the
fastest Growing companies in theworld, and my personal brand
now is doing so well.
It might make financial senseactually for me to stay in New
York, because the opportunitiesno more, no more, edward.
(32:40):
Let me tell you.
What's so funny is I just gotdual citizenship in Austria
because my grandmother had toflee because of the Holocaust
and that's where she's from.
She's from Vienna, and so shekept all her documentation.
My grandfather is from Breslau,which is now Wortswold in
Poland, and my friend said to meisn't it funny, like the guy
who's been traveling for thelast four years and has been
living in Europe, he gets this,this citizenship, and so he can
(33:02):
go live in Europe without havingto bounce around, and then he,
once he gets that, he goes andlives in New York where his home
.
It's possible that that couldhappen.
I have a lot of access in NewYork to like high value Places
and people.
I don't I don't know what willhappen.
I'm very excited to find out.
I talk about it and it makes meexcited, but then also what I
(33:23):
think about, like how stressfulthe city is, that makes me not
excited.
So it's just like weird balancebetween like excitement and
anxiety, and we'll find out.
Daniela (33:34):
I have a question to go back to the SEO, the seven
months that you were having.
How can you tell that you werenot good?
And then you were really good.
How can you tell that?
Edward Sturm (33:43):
Because I was so obsessed with SEO that all I
would talk about with otherpeople was SEO.
I knew everyone's skill levelat the company because I would
try to have conversations withthem about SEO.
We would talk about it and Iwould very quickly realize who
was apathetic to it differentlevels of apathy and engagement
(34:04):
and then like people's knowledgelevels because I wanted someone
to teach me stuff.
I wanted to learn from otherpeople.
Okay, after three months therewas only one person at the
company that I was reallylearning from.
This is a guy.
He's a friend of mine today andstill a mentor.
He's head of SEO for thebiggest agency in the world.
I can't trash talk that guy.
(34:25):
And then by the end of thecompany, I kind of felt like him
and I were on the same level orI was better.
Daniela (34:30):
To be very good at SEOs .
I mean, besides that you werereading so much, I mean, what
other skills you need to have?
I don't think anybody can comeand start reading a lot about it
and understanding.
No, there has to be some skillsthat you have.
Edward Sturm (34:42):
Well, I was lucky because I had technical mentors
so I could understand the testtechnical aspects of it, because
there was a lot that I didn'tunderstand.
That was one of the things thatI was trying to understand a
lot while I was at this companywas the technical aspects.
The people who taught it to mewere my developer friends, who I
made by going to tech andbusiness events and doing
networking.
I was lucky in that regard.
(35:03):
But you also need to understandhuman language and I think you
also need to like writing.
It was about crafting contenton a page to satisfy search
engines.
Daniela (35:12):
Okay, Wow, so you're a good writer too.
Edward Sturm (35:14):
I think so.
I have a newsletter that I juststarted.
I'm going to edwardstermcomforward slash newsletter.
I recommend anyone sign up forit.
I share the biggest marketingsecrets that I've learned in the
last like 10 years and thingsthat I'm trying now and then.
I also have a bunch of articleson my site because I like to
write.
Daniela (35:32):
Okay, so we're going to not be an omat anymore.
We're going to go back to NewYork, or maybe not.
And now you discover TikTok.
And then what happened?
Edward Sturm (35:41):
Oh yeah, so I started this TikTok to get users
.
Well, first I was doing thisthing on Twitter called Build in
Public, which is when you justyou're completely open about
everything that you're doing foryour company, all the changes
that you're making, failuresthat you have, the successes
that you have and the movementscalled Build in Public.
I was trying to do that onTwitter, which is where it's
really popular on, but it wasjust too saturated and it took
(36:04):
way too much time and work forme to stand out.
I was living in Rome at thetime.
I tried this Build in Publicthing for like two, three weeks
and I was spending two and ahalf hours every day on Twitter
trying to do this.
It was too much work and Iwasn't enjoying it.
And then I had this theory Abunch of people had been telling
me to get on a TikTok, but Ihadn't done it.
But I had this theory.
(36:25):
I said I bet you Build inPublic isn't as saturated on
TikTok.
So I started learning theTikTok platform and as I learned
TikTok, I realized that I justenjoyed making videos.
I was having fun making videosand some of my videos would do
like not even super well, butjust get a few hundred views.
And the way that I did it is Ifirst just created a test
(36:47):
account, which I had for likefor two weeks, and I was putting
up like several videos a day,just trying to learn how to make
videos and get okay at makingvideos.
And I started this Build inPublic account on November 1st,
a few days after I had gotten toBarcelona from Rome.
After I talked about my app onad nauseam, I just started
talking about other thingsslowly because I needed more
(37:07):
content and occasionally I wouldhave hits.
I know how practice compoundsand I know how, like effort over
time compounds, and so I saidI'm just going to do this every
day for like three months andsee what happens.
Putting out several videos aday Took me 85 days.
I write my follower accountevery morning at 6am because I
(37:29):
want to see how I'm improvingover time.
By day 85, I had like 1300followers, so almost three
months after starting theaccount.
And then I learned howimportant hooks are.
I started trying to put focuson to the hooks of the video,
the beginning of the video, andby day 90, I had 9000 followers,
(37:51):
so in five days.
Daniela (37:53):
Then you discovered that that was your platform.
Edward Sturm (37:56):
Yeah, I did at that time.
Now there's like no going back.
I mean I guess I should haveknown this sooner.
Like I've been making viralvideos my whole life but I keep
taking breaks and that's thestupid thing is the breaks that
I've taken, and I'm kind of donetaking breaks and jumping
around different things.
I'm not going to do thatanymore.
That's what creates failure inmy opinion.
(38:17):
It's not being consistent.
Yeah, I'm going to be veryconsistent now.
Daniela (38:21):
You have tried different things that you have
seen, that you like or don't, soI feel like it's not a failure.
You needed to try differentthings, and now you're more
diverse than many things thatyou didn't know before.
Edward Sturm (38:34):
Yeah, that's true, but I also could have just
stuck with like YouTube from thebeginning, when I was going
viral on YouTube and I couldhave literally just like made a
vlog every day.
I'm a naturally curious person.
I would have learned a lotanyway.
I just would have gotten towhere I'm going to be faster had
I done that.
Let's just stick with somethingfor like at least two years and
go hard.
Daniela (38:53):
So where is here?
What does?
Edward Sturm (38:55):
that mean as in, like I'm pretty happy, like with
where I am in my life and Ifeel like really confident now.
I actually think you can createa monetizable audience in six
months if you just go hard withsomething Okay.
Daniela (39:08):
So a lot of lessons learned, a lot of trouble.
Could you say that you areneurodiverse?
You have ADD.
Edward Sturm (39:15):
Yeah, I totally have it.
I was diagnosed with it when Iwas a boy.
I think it's a superpower.
Daniela (39:19):
It is a superpower, right See?
People didn't say that beforeNow.
Edward Sturm (39:24):
I like it's like so funny how it was seen as a
disability, lol, Like no,actually the most successful
people on the planet have that.
My friend who's a mentor to me,very successful and actually
this is mean because a lot ofpeople don't have this
superpower.
If you don't have ADD, you canstill be successful.
Daniela (39:40):
I am so happy that you said that.
I agree 100%.
We're the current moment and weare excited for you and I'm
really happy that I got to meetyou, because you are really an
amazing guy and the fact thatyou read the same book as me be
an influencer for everybody toread that book.
The world will be so muchbetter.
Edward Sturm (39:57):
That's a great book, I agree.
I agree, yeah.
Daniela (40:00):
They just need to write a book in a bigger letters
because it's so small.
Edward Sturm (40:04):
The next time I read the book I think the second
time I also read it, and thenafter that I just started doing
the audiobook version of it,which is also really good and
inspiring.
Daniela (40:11):
It's the first self-help book that I think
there was.
Edward Sturm (40:14):
The truth of the book is it's a book that will
inspire you to love other people, and if you can genuinely love
other people, then people willlove you back.
Daniela (40:24):
Yeah, exactly Exactly so, Edward, who likes attention
and likes to talk a lot, are youhappy with your story here?
Edward Sturm (40:33):
This was great.
Daniela (40:34):
All right.
Thank you so much for being inmy podcast.
Thank you, I really appreciateit.
Edward Sturm (40:41):
Oh yeah, thank you , I really appreciate you having
me.
And if anyone wants to get intouch, instagram at edwardbuilds
like build a house,edwardbuilds.
My TikTok is build in public.
Daniela (40:54):
Yes, thank you, and we will put that in the show notes
so that people know how to findyou.
Edward Sturm (40:59):
Yeah, awesome.
Thank you so much, I reallyappreciate it.
Daniela (41:02):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode I am Daniela and
you were listening to, becauseEveryone has a Story.
Please take five seconds rightnow and think of somebody in
your life that may enjoy whatyou just heard, or someone that
has a story to be shared andpreserved.
When you think of that person,shoot them a text with the link
of this podcast.
(41:22):
This would allow the ordinarymagic to go further.
Join me next time for anotherstory conversation.
Thank you for listening.
Hasta pronto.
Hi, I'm Daniela.
Welcome to my podcast, becauseeveryone has a story, the place
to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and
preserved.
Our stories become the languageof connections.
Let's enjoy it, connect andrelate, because everyone has a
story.
Welcome my guest, edward Storm,a video producer and digital
(00:36):
nomad.
I always ask my guests why theywant to share their story.
Edward's response may seempretentious and egotistic.
He admits that he's egotistic,which I find refreshing.
Don't dismiss his story forthat.
His honesty is priceless.
Who usually says that?
Right, he's seriously one of akind.
(00:58):
He's just so friendly andcreative, always coming up with
fresh ideas and looking for thenext big thing.
You know how I'm always curiousabout digital nomads, and so I
was captivated by his amazinglifestyle.
He was so pumped up andenthusiastic as he's traveled
around from city to city inEurope and describes how amazing
(01:21):
that experience was for him.
Chatting with someone whoactually living this kind of
super cool life was such a treat.
It was also cool to learnEdward, the influencer on TikTok
and Instagram, talking toDaniela at Behas it's pretty lit
.
At the end, he emphasized theimportance of having fun and
(01:42):
fostering a world filled withempathy.
So let's enjoy his story.
Welcome Edward to the show.
We have a digital nomad.
I am very happy that you'rehere.
We're here, wow, I'm hyped, I'mjust hyped.
Yes.
So, edward, why do you want toshare your story?
Edward Sturm (02:03):
Why do I want to share my story?
Well, as I told you, I liketalking and I love attention.
I am an attention seeker, sothere's a derogatory phrase that
I'm not going to say becausewe're on the air, but I love
attention.
Let me tell you how much I loveattention.
I don't really enjoy mostconcerts and my friends will go
(02:25):
to big music festivals with a DJon a stage and people treating
the DJ like the DJ's.
God, I can't go to those.
And my friends are like why Iget too jealous, You're not
serious, I'm, I am well okay, Iget.
I'm like 50% serious.
(02:45):
I'm half bored.
I don't really do drugs.
Some people can go to festivalsfor like eight hours and just
dance.
I'm not one of those people.
So I'm half bored, but I'm alsohalf jealous.
So actually, yeah, no, I'm kindof serious.
Daniela (02:57):
Okay, but you also said that you like to talk, and that
was the main reason why youlike to be at the podcast.
Edward Sturm (03:02):
That's true, and I can't talk at festivals.
Daniela (03:04):
All right.
So we know why you want toshare your story.
How did they go in so far?
Edward Sturm (03:08):
Today's a crazy day because I go viral a lot,
but I'm going viral at a muchfaster rate on Instagram than I
have before and I'm justincreasing followers really fast
.
It's crazy.
So on TikTok I have 32,000followers.
I made the most viewed video inthe world on the Silicon Valley
bank collapse, which was one ofthe biggest events in
technology and business.
Now, on Instagram, it's sostrange how the Instagram
(03:30):
algorithm worked and a videothat I put up two days ago did
nothing when it came out onInstagram, but it started going
viral this morning.
I started the account inNovember of last year and I post
videos every day.
I was trying to break 900followers.
So after six months I wasalmost at 900 followers and this
video starts going viral andthat video is only at 76,000
(03:53):
followers now, which is so manymore than I thought it would
have.
I just broke like 1,150followers.
It just keeps going and I don'tknow when it will stop.
I'm so inspired with the contentthat I'm making, with
everything that I'm doing.
I make it really easy forpeople to get in touch with me
and get on my calendar, becauseI like to talk and I like to
learn and I like to get involved.
I like to hear aboutopportunities, and so I make it
(04:15):
really easy for people to get intouch with me.
And people are getting in touchwith me and I had all these
calls today and I haven't evenhad time to work out yet.
And our AI startup well, it'svoice startup.
We started this company at theend of 2019.
We have thousands of dailyactive users, and so I am so
crazy excited.
So that's why I like to be onpodcasts.
I had fun.
Daniela (04:35):
I introduced you as a digital nomad, but I just missed
saying that you are also atInstagram and TikTok influencer.
Edward Sturm (04:43):
I mean 1,150 followers.
Instagram is not influentialjust yet.
No just say, 32,000 followers onTikTok, which doesn't sound
like that much because there arelike dancing accounts that have
like 5, 10 million followers.
But I talk specifically abouttechnology and business, the
followers that I have.
They're more valuable to mebecause I get to share my
(05:05):
startups with them.
I get to share my companieswith them.
I guess I'm somewhatinfluential sometimes.
I know how to make content thatdoes really well.
Some of the time, yeah, I'm aninfluencer, but like there's so
many more levels to howinfluential I can be, maybe it's
the humility in thisegotistical person coming out as
well.
(05:25):
I'm like I'm a weird contrastbecause I'm one hand, I actually
think I'm- quite humble.
Yes, I know, and I'm also quiteegotistical.
Daniela (05:35):
Yes, when I met you, I thought the second one, the
latter that you were, that youwere very modest, but now you're
presenting yourself in adifferent way.
Edward Sturm (05:45):
So well, I mean, I think I, I think I do think I
am modest, but I also just Ilike attention a lot, which I
can admit.
I think a lot of people wholike attention a lot and many of
them won't admit it, and Ithink it's actually modest to
admit it.
Some people could even see thatas a shortcoming.
Daniela (06:03):
All right, I think we got it clear that you like
attention.
You're here because of that andbecause you like to talk.
You were one of the early viralvideo producers.
When does your story starts mystory?
Edward Sturm (06:15):
starts.
When I was 19 in college, meand my friend we made a video
driving around New York City.
It's called Fastest LatmanHatton Put it out and then no
one cared.
No one watched it.
It was on YouTube.
No one watched.
It Kind of sat there on YouTube.
This was in 2009.
Maybe it was 2010.
And then the next year I took aclass in marketing and my
(06:38):
teacher was like if you dosomething that you think people
will care, that care about in aspecific niche, you need to send
it to the influencers in thatniche, and specifically
journalists and bloggers.
And so I took this drivingvideo that me and my friend made
and it's kind of like this bigstunt about us driving around
Manhattan in a certain styleSent it to just the biggest auto
(06:59):
blogs.
The number one biggest autoblog picked it up and put it on
their front page for two daysand then I was on New York One.
Our video was being shown onNew York One and all of a sudden
I was viral and people all overthe internet were talking about
me.
But it wasn't that viral.
I distinguished two types ofviral.
There's like niche viral andthen there's like viral that
(07:19):
transcends niches.
The first time I experiencedvirality that transcended niches
was when I was 22.
We did this video called FakeCelebrity Pranks NYC.
That one has gotten severalhundred million views across all
media and syndication TVsyndication and we went on the
biggest TV shows in the world.
(07:40):
So that was one of the craziest.
I mean I've had many insaneexperiences but that was one of
them.
And yeah, so I guess my storystarts like 10 years ago I was
making just making videos withmy friends that made us laugh.
You know, something will goviral.
If you really just want to makeit because it's so entertaining
that then it has a really goodchance of going viral.
(08:00):
Or if it's hopping on like abig trend.
It's the things that reallymake you smile and entertain you
.
The Silicon Valley Bank videothat I think I just spoke about
that one I read something thatwas really funny.
I shared what I read on aTikTok and it went hyper viral
and I'm like I have to sharethis.
I felt compelled to share itbecause it was so good, it was
(08:21):
so funny.
Daniela (08:21):
Have you always had a sense of humor?
Edward Sturm (08:23):
Yeah, I've always been pretty funny.
When I was in my early 20s, Iwas working at New York City
nightclubs.
My job was to get cool peopleto come to the clubs.
In order to do that, you needto be charismatic and you need
to be entertaining.
I was already, at that point,somewhat charismatic and
entertaining, but I did that forthree years and by the end of
(08:44):
it, I was like 100x the charismathat I had.
Actually, the video that'sgoing viral on Instagram now so
much similar.
I made a video two days agoabout what I learned doing
networking business and techevents in New York for several
years.
I tell a story in the video andthis is what's going viral now.
When I started going tonetworking events, this was
(09:06):
after New York City Nightlifeand I was trying to sell search
engine optimizations.
Right now, actually, I'mprobably one of the best SEO
search engine optimizers in theworld, though SEO will change
dramatically in the next severalyears because of AI.
I even wrote a leading articleon that, which is cool because I
can be involved in the changerather than get left behind.
This was back when I wasn't asgood and I was trying to sell
(09:29):
services and so I would go tobusiness and tech events and SEO
was really hot at that time.
People really wanted searchengine optimization.
If you don't know what searchengine optimization is, that
means to make your websiteappear high on Google for search
terms that are relevant to it,for things that are related to
what your business does.
So I'm like, yeah, I should beable to go to Meetups and just
say, hi, I'm Edward, I do searchengine optimization, and people
(09:52):
will just hire me right thereon the spot.
That was kind of how I thoughtit would work and that's not
what happened.
I took my same nightlifementality, which is in nightlife
, you talk to a lot of differentpeople because you have a lot
of stakeholders and you need tokeep them entertained and you
need to bounce back and forthbetween all these different
people.
I would go to these tech andbusiness events and treat it
like a nightclub and use a lotof charisma and just talk, do
(10:14):
most of the talking and bouncearound a lot of other people and
create shallow connectionswhere it was mostly me doing the
talking.
I did that for several monthsto a year, 2015 to 2016.
I did that for that amount oftime.
It got me nothing, nothing.
It got me nothing, so then Islowly started changing my
approach.
Then, when I found outsomething that worked, I just
(10:35):
stuck to that.
So what I talked about on thisInstagram video that's going
viral now is, instead of talkingabout myself and saying, hi,
I'm Edward, I do SEO andbouncing around to all these
different people, I don't eventalk about myself until the
person asks, and all I do is Iask them questions and I stay
with them.
People can talk aboutthemselves for a long, long,
(10:56):
long, long time, kind of likeI'm doing right now.
Yes, exactly.
They will do that and you justask question after question.
You become very interested intheir story and you ask question
after question after questionafter question after question
and then you go down all theseconversation threads and
eventually what will happen isthe person will get bored just
talking about themselves or feelreciprocity, or it'll be a
(11:19):
combination of the two andthey'll be like, by the way,
I've never asked you about youand I'll be like, oh yeah, I do
search engine optimization.
And then that opens all thesedoors because they feel like
they trust me.
They're more likely to rememberwho I am because I ask them all
these questions.
If they do need SEO, they'lltalk to me about it.
They won't need SEO.
When someone comes to them andsays, hey, do you know anyone
(11:40):
who does search engineoptimization or something
similar, they would recommend meand I would get not just
referrals but friends likefriendship as well, people who I
talk to to this day because Ijust learned to go to tech
events and just ask people aboutthemselves.
Here's the crazy thing aboutlife is that even if someone is
not directly beneficial to yourlife if we want to look at it
(12:03):
just purely transactional evenif someone is not directly
beneficial to your life.
Everybody knows somebody who is.
By having extreme top of mindawareness, you will get referred
to all of these things.
And before I stop this crazyrant, I'll explain.
Top of mind awareness it's oneof the most important concepts
to understand.
Top of mind awareness is when Ithink of shoes, I think of Nike
(12:26):
.
When I think of fast food, Ithink of McDonald's.
When I think of a motivationalcoach, I think of Tony Robbins.
It used to be that when youthought podcasts, you thought of
Jorogin, and that's why Spotifyacquired Jorogin's brand for
$200 million.
That's the power of top of mindawareness by getting people to
trust you, then they think ofyou when opportunities come
(12:47):
their way that you would be agood fit for and you get yeah.
Daniela (12:51):
I used to be very good at networking as well, because I
always knew that you have toask other people questions.
How difficult was it for you togo from the previous job, where
you seem to be charismatic butyou always had to talk about
yourself, since you loveattention.
Now you have to actually holdyour story and listen to other
(13:11):
people.
How difficult was that?
Edward Sturm (13:13):
Yeah, very hard and it took practice and now
that I'm like influential, thankGod, I learned that then and
I'm really happy that I know howimportant it is.
I'm not doing it on thispodcast because I'm with the
guest and I guess the point isfor me to be interviewed, but
yeah, it was hard.
It's still hard.
Daniela (13:35):
So it's still hard.
You haven't gotten the balanceyet.
Edward Sturm (13:38):
Well, if I was at a networking event, you wouldn't
know anything about me untilyou asked.
Daniela (13:43):
What if you find somebody like you Like?
If you find me that I will beasking you all the questions.
How would you be able to switchit?
Edward Sturm (13:53):
Well, I would keep talking about myself and then
until I got bored talking.
Daniela (13:56):
Is it possible that you can get bored of talking about
yourself?
Edward Sturm (14:01):
It's hard, it's hard.
The thing about me is I'm veryempathetic and I also feel
strong reciprocity urges, like agood way to take advantage of
me is to give me free stuff,because then I feel like I need
to reciprocate somehow.
Daniela (14:15):
Oh, that's nice.
Yes, I noticed from sending youan email that hey, remember
recording these on the firstthat you reply, which usually
people don't do, and you saidI'm looking forward to it.
And I was like, wow, that'svery emotional intelligence,
because you make me feel alsoimportant that you are paying
attention and you are lookingforward to something, so it's
(14:37):
not just me.
Edward Sturm (14:38):
Wow, I was looking forward to it and I love doing
these.
I wanted you to know.
Yeah, I'm definitely going tobe there, because I was a host
and I'm like OK, the date isthen, and someone didn't respond
to me.
I'd be like, well, are theygoing to forget about it?
Daniela (14:51):
You will be surprised that very few people actually
respond back.
That's crazy.
Edward Sturm (14:55):
Yeah, that's so weird, honestly.
Daniela (14:58):
With your story.
People tend to judge peoplethat are said oh, I want
attention and I'm an influencer,people roll their eyes, but
here you are being an amazingguy who is having these
opportunities and know how toput videos that people actually
would like to watch, so that'spretty interesting.
Edward Sturm (15:19):
Yeah, thank you.
I want to bring joy to theworld.
I want to teach people thingsand also be nice to people.
I just have empathy for thestruggle.
If I can do a one-second thing,say yeah, I'm looking forward
to this podcast, and makesomeone feel less anxiety and
also be nicer, I'm going to dothat.
The type of person that I am.
Daniela (15:40):
Nice.
I like empathy for the struggle.
Good, OK, I want to go back toso you did a video when you were
19.
You went to school formarketing.
Edward Sturm (15:49):
I went to school for film.
Then I switched to TV.
So I studied film, tv and Iminored in marketing when I was
in college.
I went to college for fouryears.
I probably went to one of thebest schools for filmmaking and
for communication.
Actually, I talked to a lot ofyoung people.
Something people asked me isyou did OK, you went to college.
Should I be going to college?
(16:10):
And I'm like no, yeah, I thinkI would have learned way more
and way faster if I spent thetuition money and the four years
in college trying to marketdifferent businesses and trying
to make videos.
I would have learned way moreand way faster.
Daniela (16:33):
This is because the instructors perhaps are not as
knowledgeable because they'reoutdated.
Edward Sturm (16:39):
That's part of it, and teaching in a classroom to
a bunch of kids.
That's very different than theway that I teach on social media
.
But the other part is veryimportant, and that's when you
don't have anything on the line,when you don't actually have,
like a real stake in the game.
Tuition is not.
It's not the same type of stakewhen you're not actively out
there getting firsthandexperience.
(16:59):
The level that you learn is wayworse.
I learned the most from thethings that I did, not the
things that I studied.
So, yeah, I wouldn't recommendcollege actually unless you were
studying to be a doctor or alawyer, and lawyers even like
lawyers.
Now, with the way that AI isdisplacing a lot of attorneys is
crazy.
Daniela (17:17):
Yes.
So you said no college, but youdid want to college.
Edward Sturm (17:21):
and then I went to college and I think I've done
okay in spite of that.
My journey would have been waymore accelerated if I knew to
like start a business and go tonetworking events, read how to
win friends and influence peopleand learn taxes and do all that
sort of stuff when instead Iwas like partying and college.
So dumb yeah.
Daniela (17:40):
but you need that, you need to party, you need to have
fun.
If you start, you're young.
Edward Sturm (17:44):
I think going to tech and business events can be
a lot of fun.
You know what else is funMaking money.
Making money is really fun.
Being successful is really fun.
I'm actually prettyanti-college, with the exception
of, like I said, yes.
Daniela (17:57):
And you mentioned the book from Dale Carnegie.
You read it then.
Edward Sturm (18:01):
Oh, I've read it multiple times.
I read it in college for thefirst time.
I was a senior in college.
This guy he's actually now avery successful musician.
He didn't go to college.
Him and I were friends.
We met before he was successful.
He's like Edward.
You got to read this book.
It's going to like set you onfire, and it did.
It inspired me so much how towin friends, see.
Daniela (18:21):
I feel that that should be the Bible for everybody in
high school.
Just start from there.
Edward Sturm (18:26):
Yeah, it's true.
It's really true.
Everybody should read that book.
The world would be a betterplace.
Can you imagine if everyone hada win-win approach to
everything?
Yes, and they got indoctrinatedwith that when they were kids.
God.
Daniela (18:38):
That's the book that my dad gave me.
I've been always verysuccessful with networking and
sales.
I'd enjoy it.
When I saw the first situationcompliment people and so I was
in the boss and I complimentedthis lady really wrinkly, but
she was really cute.
She had such a smile that Ithought, oh my God, what a gift.
And I saw I want those gifts, Iwant those smiles, I want
(19:01):
people to feel amazing.
And that's how I started.
Even when I was a toast master,I made a speech.
I had to take compliments.
There was this guy who openedthe door for us and he has
really nice red shoes and I said, oh, what a nice red shoes.
And he said thank you.
And then he said I reallyappreciate it.
And I was like, oh no, it wasnot that he only said thank you,
(19:22):
but he also appreciated it.
And I was like, oh my God,that's the answer.
You just have to say somethingelse.
And so then I was at theSkytrain in the metro and this
lady complimented her on myboots and I said thank you.
And then I realized, oh shit, Iforgot the other bar and I was
following her when she came outof the train to tell her that I
(19:44):
really appreciate it, but Ithink she was looking from the
corner of her eyes.
Oh my God, this crazy woman isafter me and I was trying to go
really fast and I never foundher, wow, and I was not able to
find a second part.
So I was like, oh my God, Ididn't finish the process.
Oh no, so that was the point.
Yeah, yeah, but something more.
Edward Sturm (20:02):
Actually, that's great.
I don't even think I say thatmost of the time.
I was just saying thank youwhen I get a compliment.
I like that there's somethingmore.
Thank you, I really appreciatethat.
Daniela (20:11):
When I said I like your shirt, you say thank you, okay,
you pay back, right.
But when you say you reallyappreciate it, you actually
recognizing that what I did toyou, which was making me happy,
was even something that makesyou happy.
So it's like double happinessright there.
That's my theory.
Edward Sturm (20:27):
I feel like when I say I really appreciate it, I
don't sound genuine.
Daniela (20:30):
Well, it depends.
I mean, obviously you're notgoing to always use the same
sentence.
One more sentence.
People usually say, you know,you say nice shoes and they will
say, oh, they're so old.
Or they will say somethingnegative like, oh, I bought it
so cheap.
Oh, they're from my mother.
Oh, really, they're that nice.
You know that they kind ofdestroy the good thing about it,
Right?
Edward Sturm (20:48):
A lot of people do that.
Daniela (20:49):
Yeah, so I think we should do a TikTok video about
how to take compliments.
What do you think?
Edward Sturm (20:53):
I think that's a really good idea.
Actually, I might make thatafter this, yeah.
Daniela (20:58):
There you go See.
Edward Sturm (20:59):
I think that's a cool idea.
Daniela (21:00):
I think that it will be nice.
People will be a bit moregrateful.
But back to you, because you'rethe important person.
Edward Sturm (21:05):
No, come on.
Actually, I think it'sinteresting that you've always
been good at sales, because I'mmaking a bunch of TikToks.
I realized lately this isanother reason why you shouldn't
go to college.
You want to get good at salesas early as you can and the only
way to get good at sales iswith firsthand experience.
I'm making it really easy forpeople to get in touch with me
because I just want to get salesexperience.
(21:28):
Even if someone isn't likequalified or anything, I want to
try to sell them because I wantto get really good at sales.
So I realized very recent as inlike a month ago, being good at
sales is probably the mostimportant skill that somebody
can have.
I've always been good at itwhen there's no like transaction
involved or there's no likeoutcome for me.
(21:49):
When it's an outcome for me,I'm not that good at it when I
need to close, I need to want, Ineed to reframe it in my head
that I'm closing for somebodyelse and that, like, the
transaction is just part of it.
But yeah, I want to get reallygood at sales and I think it's
cool that you've always beengood.
Daniela (22:03):
I don't think it's only sales Negotiation is very
important.
That too, I want to be verygood at that as well.
You always have to think aboutthe other person's needs before
your needs and then see how itwill fit whatever you have.
I think negotiation with salesis all kind of like a good
combination of both.
Edward Sturm (22:21):
I can see you being very good at sales.
It's because you're so nice.
I'm really enjoying talking toyou.
You have a great smile andyou're a really nice person and
you're a genuine person.
Daniela (22:36):
Here you are doing your thing.
Edward Sturm (22:39):
No, no, no, no, I'm being, I'm being completely
serious.
Daniela (22:42):
And here.
Would you like to buy thesefrom me now?
Edward Sturm (22:48):
Like I could see you.
I could see you.
I think I'm pretty good ateverything.
Oh good, you're leading up tothe close and then, when it
comes time to really close,that's what I need to work on a
lot, and there's a lot that goesinto the close, like knowing
your exact offer.
I think that's a reallyimportant skill to have.
Daniela (23:09):
But here is the opportunity you have, that you
are an influencer.
You can talk to anybody youwant.
To teach you these skillsDaniel Pink.
Edward Sturm (23:17):
Oh no, I have a mentor.
Now I have one of my very closefriends Actually.
He's great at sales and he'smentoring me and helping me a
lot.
I always used to like listen tosales books and most of that
was wrong.
Now I'm like watching the samegood videos over and over again,
but I'm also trying to watchlike one sales video a day.
If you do something in a singleday, the retention is so low.
(23:39):
If you spread it out, thenactually the retention can be
quite high, and I think thereason for that is because you
think about it day after dayafter day after day and so it
kind of compounds.
It's like interest, it's just akind of compounds.
Daniela (23:53):
Okay, Edward, we need to get back to your story.
You know you're not pro college.
Then you did the second video,and then what happened?
Edward Sturm (24:02):
Oh right, okay, I made all these viral videos.
I was one of the first peopledoing it on YouTube and I didn't
stick with it.
I wish I did.
No one really knew at the timejust how big YouTube would get.
Can you imagine Like it'subiquitous now, but it wasn't,
and no one knew that like if youjust put out a video every day
on YouTube, you would be hyperfamous.
We made these viral videos.
(24:23):
We weren't doing like one amonth or something, we were
doing like one every couple ofmonths and we weren't making as
many videos as we should haveand I just should have been
focusing on myself and doing myown like daily vlog.
I didn't know that at the timeI was also doing the night life
thing.
A lot of my friends fromnightlife started getting
interested in technology.
I said, okay, I want to do, Iwant to get into tech.
(24:44):
I don't know anything abouttech.
I knowing about tech is veryimportant.
Yeah, what year is this?
This is 2014.
Okay, transition I startedtransitioning away from
nightlife.
I wasn't thinking about being anentertainer, which is kind of
what I am now.
Me and my friend we put out avideo information product.
It was about how to make viralvideos.
(25:05):
I didn't show up on Google.
When you Google the name of theproduct, it wasn't on Google.
And it wasn't on Google forother things.
And I said, how do I make thisappear on Google?
And so I started learning aboutthis thing called search engine
optimization.
I genuinely became reallyfascinated in it and I couldn't
stop reading about it andlearning about it.
I taught it to myself.
I started a blog.
Then I went to work at like oneof the top companies in the
(25:26):
world to do SEO at yeah, and soI was doing SEO, and I didn't
even really know it at the time,so I was learning on the job.
And when I started at thecompany, I was like the worst at
SEO.
I left in like six or sevenmonths because there wasn't
anything left for me to learn.
I was the best.
Everyone from the company wouldgo out to have drinks after
work and on weekends they wouldjust play with party.
(25:47):
I went home and I did more SEO.
I read more articles, I did iton my website and I did that on
weekends as well.
And so when he literally when Istarted, I was the worst.
Within three months I wassecond best and then at the end,
I was the best, and so I feltlike there wasn't anywhere for
me to grow and I have gotten myown clients at that time from
referrals, from doing thenetworking thing that I talked
(26:08):
about.
So I started my own SEO agency.
And then a mentor of mine cameto me and he's like Edward,
you're the best person atmarketing that I know I'd love
to like.
These things called this thingcalled blockchain is blowing up.
Can we do a project in it?
Can you do marketing for me?
I think, with you involved,we'll make so much money.
And I'm like, oh, I got thismarketing, I got this SEO agency
, the search engine optimizationagency.
(26:29):
I really can't.
He begged me and begged me andbegged me.
And then I found out that I hadan unfair advantage because a
friend of mine from New YorkCity Nightlife became a
co-founder of the second biggestcryptocurrency called Ethereum.
So I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, Ihave an unfair advantage.
I really should.
And yeah, these things aremaking these projects in the
space are making a lot of money.
And I was running the New YorkCity search engine optimization
meetup and I had my SEO agency,and so we started throwing
(26:52):
blockchain events with hismeetup, which was a really big
programming meetup.
When we turned that into thebiggest blockchain meetup group
in the world.
And then in January 2018, wemade the first video game in
crypto.
We invented the genre of playto earn and that did really well
financially.
So I was getting recognized atconferences, I was speaking.
(27:13):
We stopped the meetup becausethe project was taking up so
much of our time.
I was always a kid who neverleft New York City because I'm
like New York City has every,everyone and everything, so why
would I leave?
Then I was turning 30.
I had this success under mybelt with a blockchain company.
I'm like I should see the restof the world.
I really haven't done muchtraveling and so I thought I
(27:34):
would be gone for like three tosix months.
I was having fun.
So I extended it to a year and Iwas living in Kiev in Ukraine
when COVID happened and I had aflight home and COVID happened
and my flight was canceled and Ihad to make the decision Should
I stay in my comfortableapartment with my friends and
give Ukraine, or should I takean a cramped emergency flight
(27:54):
Back to New York to be therewith during lockdowns?
And I chose to stay in Kiev.
It took so long for the worldto recover.
I ended up living in Kiev, inUkraine, for two years.
I left only 10 days before thewar started.
Last year of 2022 was supposedto be like the year of stability
and it was like the mostunstable years of my life.
(28:16):
But out of that year, at theend of it, came this tiktok.
I have a bunch of startups, andthere's another one that
incentivizes people to do dailychallenges, daily
self-improvement challenges,through Social incentives and
cash incentives.
Daniela (28:30):
You said you went traveling and that's why you are
a digital nomad.
You weren't traveling, but younever stopped working.
Edward Sturm (28:36):
No, I can't stop working.
Daniela (28:37):
Okay, and how many countries you visit 25?
And why you decided to stay inKiev.
Edward Sturm (28:42):
I love Kiev.
I've missed that city death.
I miss, I miss it so much.
I'd lived there in summer of2019 for three months and then I
came back to live there for amonth and a half in early 2020.
I and then, by the time thatthe world did recover, I had a
big friend group, I was reallycomfortable and I had a
beautiful apartment and I had myroutines.
I was really happy there andthat's why I stayed for two
(29:06):
years living in Kiev, ukraine.
Daniela (29:07):
All right okay.
Edward Sturm (29:08):
I'm not there now that because there's a war there
.
If there wasn't a war there, Imight, I might still be there,
and where are you now?
I'm in Warsaw, in Poland.
Okay, and I'll be.
I'll be back in New York Cityin two weeks.
Daniela (29:18):
You seem to go to East European countries.
Edward Sturm (29:20):
I actually, before this, I was living in Barcelona
and Rome.
I have lived in many EasternEuropean countries, but I've
also lived in Berlin, I've livedin Prague, I've lived in Vienna
, but I love East Europe.
Daniela (29:30):
How many months do you stay in every place?
Edward Sturm (29:32):
as many as I can.
It's been limited becauseAmericans can only spend 90 out
of a hundred and eighty days ina certain place.
Daniela (29:38):
You always use Airbnb or what you do.
Edward Sturm (29:41):
I love Airbnb.
The most important thing for mewhen I travel is how
comfortable my apartment is andhow Responsive my host is.
It seems crazy, but if you'redoing a stay in a city for a
week and above, the mostimportant thing is the apartment
.
It's how comfortable you are.
I like Airbnb because it makesit very easy to find Good places
(30:02):
to live with reliable andresponsive hosts.
Maybe, like a week, you can getaway with having a crappy place
, but when I was in Vienna, thatwas the only time that I didn't
get a super host.
I had a bad place and it wascold.
I enjoyed being in Vienna, butmy apartment sucked.
Because I work a lot, I alsospend a decent amount of time in
my apartment working.
Daniela (30:20):
Do you spend most of your income then in the Airbnb,
because they're expensive.
Edward Sturm (30:25):
No well compared to New York City.
Actually, I think traveling isvery inexpensive.
My Airbnb in Barcelona was onethousand four hundred dollars
for one month, and that's howmuch I'm paying for my apartment
here in Warsaw one thousandfour hundred dollars.
This apartment in New York Citywould cost seven thousand
dollars a month.
Okay, I think Traveling isreally like.
(30:46):
It's a way to live really well.
A lot of countries have wayhigher standards of living than
Than New York City.
People out of outside of NewYork City don't really realize
it because New York City is seen.
I love New York City.
It's my home.
I'm not trying to trash talkNew York, but it seems as the
capital of world and it's reallya great place for Like.
It's the best place foropportunity and I'm really
(31:07):
excited to go back because nowI'm like going viral all the
time and I think I'm gonna havesuch crazy.
I'm gonna have crazyopportunities, like I did before
, and this time I'm not a bozo,whereas like before I didn't.
I was a bozo and I didn't knowhow to use these opportunities.
Now I'm not a bozo and so Ithink I'll do some great things
and it's the best place foropportunity.
(31:28):
It's like it's such a goodplace if you are, if you are
hard-working and you can getyourself into an upwards funnel,
but it's also crushinglydifficult.
Yes, and and yeah, so sostandard standard of living,
like you can spend Comparativelyless to have a great standard
of living if you leave New YorkCity, if you leave the big
(31:49):
American cities.
Daniela (31:51):
So, edward, you are going to go back to New York and
are you going to keep travelingor stay in New York for a long
time?
Edward Sturm (31:57):
I would like to live in a European city for like
at least a year, and now it'sstarting to really depress me
how I don't have time to developa community because I I bounce
around so much.
I had that community in Kia.
How long do you need to build a?
community years, years to builda community.
I say like I might return toEurope, but at the same time,
(32:17):
there's a chance that New YorkCity, my home, will be, just
because of what's happening withmy companies.
Reverbchat is the voice companythat I spoke of, and we're
putting in this crazy AI featurethat could make us one of the
fastest Growing companies in theworld, and my personal brand
now is doing so well.
It might make financial senseactually for me to stay in New
York, because the opportunitiesno more, no more, edward.
(32:40):
Let me tell you.
What's so funny is I just gotdual citizenship in Austria
because my grandmother had toflee because of the Holocaust
and that's where she's from.
She's from Vienna, and so shekept all her documentation.
My grandfather is from Breslau,which is now Wortswold in
Poland, and my friend said to meisn't it funny, like the guy
who's been traveling for thelast four years and has been
living in Europe, he gets this,this citizenship, and so he can
(33:02):
go live in Europe without havingto bounce around, and then he,
once he gets that, he goes andlives in New York where his home
.
It's possible that that couldhappen.
I have a lot of access in NewYork to like high value Places
and people.
I don't I don't know what willhappen.
I'm very excited to find out.
I talk about it and it makes meexcited, but then also what I
(33:23):
think about, like how stressfulthe city is, that makes me not
excited.
So it's just like weird balancebetween like excitement and
anxiety, and we'll find out.
Daniela (33:34):
I have a question to go back to the SEO, the seven
months that you were having.
How can you tell that you werenot good?
And then you were really good.
How can you tell that?
Edward Sturm (33:43):
Because I was so obsessed with SEO that all I
would talk about with otherpeople was SEO.
I knew everyone's skill levelat the company because I would
try to have conversations withthem about SEO.
We would talk about it and Iwould very quickly realize who
was apathetic to it differentlevels of apathy and engagement
(34:04):
and then like people's knowledgelevels because I wanted someone
to teach me stuff.
I wanted to learn from otherpeople.
Okay, after three months therewas only one person at the
company that I was reallylearning from.
This is a guy.
He's a friend of mine today andstill a mentor.
He's head of SEO for thebiggest agency in the world.
I can't trash talk that guy.
(34:25):
And then by the end of thecompany, I kind of felt like him
and I were on the same level orI was better.
Daniela (34:30):
To be very good at SEOs .
I mean, besides that you werereading so much, I mean, what
other skills you need to have?
I don't think anybody can comeand start reading a lot about it
and understanding.
No, there has to be some skillsthat you have.
Edward Sturm (34:42):
Well, I was lucky because I had technical mentors
so I could understand the testtechnical aspects of it, because
there was a lot that I didn'tunderstand.
That was one of the things thatI was trying to understand a
lot while I was at this companywas the technical aspects.
The people who taught it to mewere my developer friends, who I
made by going to tech andbusiness events and doing
networking.
I was lucky in that regard.
(35:03):
But you also need to understandhuman language and I think you
also need to like writing.
It was about crafting contenton a page to satisfy search
engines.
Daniela (35:12):
Okay, Wow, so you're a good writer too.
Edward Sturm (35:14):
I think so.
I have a newsletter that I juststarted.
I'm going to edwardstermcomforward slash newsletter.
I recommend anyone sign up forit.
I share the biggest marketingsecrets that I've learned in the
last like 10 years and thingsthat I'm trying now and then.
I also have a bunch of articleson my site because I like to
write.
Daniela (35:32):
Okay, so we're going to not be an omat anymore.
We're going to go back to NewYork, or maybe not.
And now you discover TikTok.
And then what happened?
Edward Sturm (35:41):
Oh yeah, so I started this TikTok to get users
.
Well, first I was doing thisthing on Twitter called Build in
Public, which is when you justyou're completely open about
everything that you're doing foryour company, all the changes
that you're making, failuresthat you have, the successes
that you have and the movementscalled Build in Public.
I was trying to do that onTwitter, which is where it's
really popular on, but it wasjust too saturated and it took
(36:04):
way too much time and work forme to stand out.
I was living in Rome at thetime.
I tried this Build in Publicthing for like two, three weeks
and I was spending two and ahalf hours every day on Twitter
trying to do this.
It was too much work and Iwasn't enjoying it.
And then I had this theory Abunch of people had been telling
me to get on a TikTok, but Ihadn't done it.
But I had this theory.
(36:25):
I said I bet you Build inPublic isn't as saturated on
TikTok.
So I started learning theTikTok platform and as I learned
TikTok, I realized that I justenjoyed making videos.
I was having fun making videosand some of my videos would do
like not even super well, butjust get a few hundred views.
And the way that I did it is Ifirst just created a test
(36:47):
account, which I had for likefor two weeks, and I was putting
up like several videos a day,just trying to learn how to make
videos and get okay at makingvideos.
And I started this Build inPublic account on November 1st,
a few days after I had gotten toBarcelona from Rome.
After I talked about my app onad nauseam, I just started
talking about other thingsslowly because I needed more
(37:07):
content and occasionally I wouldhave hits.
I know how practice compoundsand I know how, like effort over
time compounds, and so I saidI'm just going to do this every
day for like three months andsee what happens.
Putting out several videos aday Took me 85 days.
I write my follower accountevery morning at 6am because I
(37:29):
want to see how I'm improvingover time.
By day 85, I had like 1300followers, so almost three
months after starting theaccount.
And then I learned howimportant hooks are.
I started trying to put focuson to the hooks of the video,
the beginning of the video, andby day 90, I had 9000 followers,
(37:51):
so in five days.
Daniela (37:53):
Then you discovered that that was your platform.
Edward Sturm (37:56):
Yeah, I did at that time.
Now there's like no going back.
I mean I guess I should haveknown this sooner.
Like I've been making viralvideos my whole life but I keep
taking breaks and that's thestupid thing is the breaks that
I've taken, and I'm kind of donetaking breaks and jumping
around different things.
I'm not going to do thatanymore.
That's what creates failure inmy opinion.
(38:17):
It's not being consistent.
Yeah, I'm going to be veryconsistent now.
Daniela (38:21):
You have tried different things that you have
seen, that you like or don't, soI feel like it's not a failure.
You needed to try differentthings, and now you're more
diverse than many things thatyou didn't know before.
Edward Sturm (38:34):
Yeah, that's true, but I also could have just
stuck with like YouTube from thebeginning, when I was going
viral on YouTube and I couldhave literally just like made a
vlog every day.
I'm a naturally curious person.
I would have learned a lotanyway.
I just would have gotten towhere I'm going to be faster had
I done that.
Let's just stick with somethingfor like at least two years and
go hard.
Daniela (38:53):
So where is here?
What does?
Edward Sturm (38:55):
that mean as in, like I'm pretty happy, like with
where I am in my life and Ifeel like really confident now.
I actually think you can createa monetizable audience in six
months if you just go hard withsomething Okay.
Daniela (39:08):
So a lot of lessons learned, a lot of trouble.
Could you say that you areneurodiverse?
You have ADD.
Edward Sturm (39:15):
Yeah, I totally have it.
I was diagnosed with it when Iwas a boy.
I think it's a superpower.
Daniela (39:19):
It is a superpower, right See?
People didn't say that beforeNow.
Edward Sturm (39:24):
I like it's like so funny how it was seen as a
disability, lol, Like no,actually the most successful
people on the planet have that.
My friend who's a mentor to me,very successful and actually
this is mean because a lot ofpeople don't have this
superpower.
If you don't have ADD, you canstill be successful.
Daniela (39:40):
I am so happy that you said that.
I agree 100%.
We're the current moment and weare excited for you and I'm
really happy that I got to meetyou, because you are really an
amazing guy and the fact thatyou read the same book as me be
an influencer for everybody toread that book.
The world will be so muchbetter.
Edward Sturm (39:57):
That's a great book, I agree.
I agree, yeah.
Daniela (40:00):
They just need to write a book in a bigger letters
because it's so small.
Edward Sturm (40:04):
The next time I read the book I think the second
time I also read it, and thenafter that I just started doing
the audiobook version of it,which is also really good and
inspiring.
Daniela (40:11):
It's the first self-help book that I think
there was.
Edward Sturm (40:14):
The truth of the book is it's a book that will
inspire you to love other people, and if you can genuinely love
other people, then people willlove you back.
Daniela (40:24):
Yeah, exactly Exactly so, Edward, who likes attention
and likes to talk a lot, are youhappy with your story here?
Edward Sturm (40:33):
This was great.
Daniela (40:34):
All right.
Thank you so much for being inmy podcast.
Thank you, I really appreciateit.
Edward Sturm (40:41):
Oh yeah, thank you , I really appreciate you having
me.
And if anyone wants to get intouch, instagram at edwardbuilds
like build a house,edwardbuilds.
My TikTok is build in public.
Daniela (40:54):
Yes, thank you, and we will put that in the show notes
so that people know how to findyou.
Edward Sturm (40:59):
Yeah, awesome.
Thank you so much, I reallyappreciate it.
Daniela (41:02):
I hope you enjoyed today's episode I am Daniela and
you were listening to, becauseEveryone has a Story.
Please take five seconds rightnow and think of somebody in
your life that may enjoy whatyou just heard, or someone that
has a story to be shared andpreserved.
When you think of that person,shoot them a text with the link
of this podcast.
(41:22):
This would allow the ordinarymagic to go further.
Join me next time for anotherstory conversation.
Thank you for listening.
Hasta pronto.
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