"The digital and physical worlds I bring together"

What kind of childhood did you have?

"My parents divorced when I was two. I lived mostly with my mother, only Tuesdays and every other weekend I was with my father. All my life I lived in Amsterdam East, on KNSM Island and Borneo Island. My mother still lives there, my father has since passed away. I had a playful childhood and was gaming from an early age. When I was four, I started playing Pokemon, on the GameBoy Color. At after-school care I played on the Nintendo 64, at home I did chess games and all kinds of things on the computer."

And your mother thought that was okay?

"She also wanted me to play outside every now and then. But as long as I got good grades in school, she was fine with it all."

What gave you the idea to start an English-language YouTube channel in 2008 where you play a video game and comment on it?

"I had created a YouTube account because I wanted to see videos that required an account. As a username, I entered Kwebbelkop, the name of a stuffed toy from my childhood. That was a combination of Kabouter Kwebbel, one of the regular characters in the television series and movies of Kabouter Plop, and my sister's username: Okikop. When I had watched a lot of movies, I thought: I'm going to make one too. That I did everything in English is because I had a lot of international friends through gaming. Two more advantages of gaming: it's good for your languages and you make lots of friends. I initially made those videos for my friends too: look what I made!"

How did you make the content so appealing that people would subscribe?

"Good ideas, that's my strength. Anyone can play a game, that's not exciting. It's about what you do in a game. For example gaming with a blindfold in front of you. Or playing many levels in a row and only briefly showing the best moments. What I grew up with were races with friends in which we sought out the craziest challenges, such as driving over a very thin rope or mega ramps: racing down a brick wall and launching yourself into the air. So within a game I came up with my own game, my own challenge."

At the time, you mostly played Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft and Fortnite. Was that out of cleverness because those games were the biggest market or did you just enjoy them the most?

"Combination of. What can we entertain most people with and what do we like ourselves? If you do something you don't like, people notice right away."

Starting in 2012, you focused on daily shootings of video games. Was that the beginning of a business model?

"I had a hunch: I'm going to be a YouTuber! No idea how I was going to do that. But if I made a video every day, it had to work out. Every day practicing, practicing, practicing. Every day make at least one thing in the video better than in the previous one. Then it couldn't go wrong."

What else does the revenue model of having your own YouTube channel consist of?

"First, revenue from ads that play right before or during your videos. You get a fraction of a penny for that. Second, subscription fees. Third, merchandise sales - T-shirts, photos, you name it. Fourth, collaboration with brands. But at all times, content comes first. Viewers have to be entertained, which is essential in a collaboration. Otherwise, I say no."

You can be dressed, driven ... Where are the boundaries for you to enter into a collaboration?

"I've never promoted eighteen-plus items like booze, gambling and sex toys. And I don't do it for the money. I look purely at: what suits me, what I stand behind and what helps me do my job even better. Like good hardware to make videos, games, sportswear... I've also gotten a lot of offers from watch and car brands, but haven't found a match yet. Once I promoted a wallet. I thought it was a cool thing: metal, cool. That went like crazy, the fans liked it completely, suddenly lots of those wallets were sold. Everyone happy. What also makes me happy: when I am invited as a speaker. I've really become a teacher within the YouTube profession."

Have you not yet partnered with a car brand?

"I only got my driver's license two years ago. I bought my very first car, a Fiat Abarth 595, to learn to drive, to get miles. In addition, I wanted a roaring mobile to make that too once. That became a Mercedes G 63 AMG, really a super cool car. Because I always play with an orange car in my video games, I had it wrapped in that color. I enjoyed that immensely. But it doesn't really suit me, especially in terms of cost, pollution and lack of gadgets. That's why I recently sold both cars and traded them in for an Audi e-tron Sportback. That one suits me much better: electric, lots of gadgets and nice and easy on the pennies."

You may be a city boy, but your business goes all over the world. For example, you have now managed to gain a foothold in America and recorded videos with YouTube greats like Pewdiepie and MrBeast and stars like Kevin Hart and Zac Efron. What is it like to work with such luminaries?

"It's crazy to meet your heroes, have a beer with them and make plans for a collaboration. From Kevin Hart, I've been a huge fan. The funny thing is that MrBeast used to have me as a hero - he watched all my videos. We even had a business together for a while. We discontinued that because we were both too busy."

As a YouTuber, maybe you are a bit of a loner after all: your own channel, your own content, your own thing?

"No way. It's precisely because I've always been a team player and open to doing crazy things with other people that I've managed to make it this far. I learned a lot from a MrBeast and Jelle. Basically, you all play the same game, but everyone does it in their own way. For example, MrBeast puts every dollar he earns into his business. He has been a great inspiration for me to reinvest very aggressively in my business."

In the world of YouTube, it's all about numbers. You now have just under 15 million subscribers. MrBeast has about 100 million. What does he do differently?

"He is the king of viral content. Like no other, he can create a very viral product. Every day we analyze the outliers with our company and see if we can do the same ourselves. Eventually we also want to move towards that 100 million subscribers. That is a challenge, though. To do that, we need to consistently produce videos that explode and get shared. And we have to keep innovating. If you do a trick once, everyone says "wow! If you do it again, everyone says 'I've already seen it.' And you really need a team for that. That's been the biggest lesson for me throughout my career: that I didn't approach it as a business right from the start. I only started doing that a couple of years ago. At first I did a lot myself. Anyone who is exploding I recommend building a team as soon as possible."

You grew from YouTuber/influencer to entrepreneur and CEO. How do you like that role?

"Delightful! This position is right up my alley, this is what I am here for. Wonderful to be able to inspire people, give them a platform where they can grow, offer opportunities for a career."

Because of your passion for gaming, you have also developed an interest in the digital world and all the technical developments within it, such as crypto currency. Tell.

"When I was introduced to it in 2013, I bought my first coin, the dogecoin. Then I studied crypto currency for three years. I started getting my bearings in Space, researching, trying to understand it, seeing where this could possibly go. I had the capital and actually wanted to invest 10 times as much in crypto as I did. My financial advisor at the time advised me against it. 'Crypto is a bubble,' he knew. I still got into Ethereum and bitcoin fairly large, but instead of just crypto I bought real estate, including my penthouse. Had I listened to my own little voice, I could have bought the whole building! That has been a great life lesson. I've long thought that older people know better, but that's not always true. It's better to make your own choices and take responsibility."

If you ever propose to your girlfriend Sophie Duijn, will you do it in the physical or the digital world?

"I'm not going to. Getting married I think is old-fashioned, it doesn't suit me. Love should be felt and shown. Not that hassle with a marriage certificate and notification at the municipality. She can have a ring, she can have the party, but I'm not going to put on paper that we're getting married."

Perhaps you should slip an NFT on her finger....

"Then she kills me."

MASTERS MAGAZINE

Read the entire interview with Jordi van den Bussche? The winter issue of MASTERS was created in collaboration with Jordi van den Bussche. Many will know him as YouTuber Kwebbelkop, yet he has been working hard as an entrepreneur for some time, as he reveals in the Big Interview. What's new is that his company JVDB Studios is offering to do social media marketing and short-format content marketing for other companies. "They can also go and figure it out themselves, but we cracked the code." Jordi gives a stage to like-minded entrepreneurs such as Jay-Jay Boske, Demy de Zeeuw, Chahid Charrak and Marcella de Bie, and discusses developments around games, crypto and NFT: "Just as bitcoin turned the financial system upside down, the same will happen with gaming." This extra-thick winter issue also features Lengers' first own ship, an interview with Corendon chief Atilay Uslu, specials on the new BMW 7 Series and Samsung foldables, and - exclusively for MASTERS! - an interview with Max Verstappen.

MASTERS #52 with guest editor Jordi van den Bussche