As a Chinese, really love your documentary. Your perspective is more like a Chinese perspective. You are trying to understand the culture from the root that probably most Chinese people probably don’t know. Hope you have more seasons about the food, culture and their people.
3 weeks ago | 7
You guys are doing some tremendous things with great freedom and style. Good stuff!
3 weeks ago | 14
Someone mentioned starting a patreon which could be a good place to start. You can put behind the scenes there or just upload to YouTube for free a week later. Seriously wish you guys the best and hope you can continue to sharing your stories!
3 weeks ago | 9
The idea of your video and the work you guys have done is wonderful! Also subscribed bilibili. Hopefully more and more subscribers and views for the channel!
3 weeks ago | 6
Your documentaries have so much human touch, depth, and respect for the visiting chefs and the local culture, I wish you nothing but success and hope investors come knocking on your door soon! ❤
3 weeks ago | 0
I stumbled upon your channel around 10 days ago , night prior to my flight to Shanghai. I felt super happy watching them and I even got to visit a few places that were in your videos and try the delicious food. I wish you nothing less than the best and continued success on your journey,all the best and keep going! 💜
3 weeks ago | 5
I’m a 3rd gen Malaysian Chinese. Missed out on an opportunity to visit China while my grandpa was alive. Your videos encourage me to visit and fulfil this unaccomplished dream. You guys are rockstars! Please continue and your videos bring me and I’m sure others a lot of joy! Thank you!
3 weeks ago | 1
Thank you for making these videos! I'm a Chinese person living abroad, and your videos make me miss the food at home.
3 weeks ago | 0
awesome transparency! love your work - looking forward to many more in the future
3 weeks ago | 1
Love what you're doing. Well shot, interesting stories. Rooting for ya in your growing and scaling phase.
3 weeks ago | 0
when i watched the first episode of your videos, i was surprised by the quality of the content and filming techniques, well done!
3 weeks ago | 0
deserve to make money, as you make by far some of the best content on Youtube. Unfortunately, sometimes quality and $ often do not coincide. Keep up the great work. And thank you
2 weeks ago | 0
We (the fans) are more than willing (I guess) to support the progress of the channel.
1 week ago | 1
Personally I’m not too bothered if some provincial government pays you to see the sights. What are you going to say. “Ningxia food good! Shanghai bad”? (Gratuitous shot at Shanghai.) Look at all the travel vloggers mooching around courtesy of tourism boards. Pretty sure it’s possible to thread the needle by simply ensuring the content maintains its integrity, whoever picks up the tab. It’s a choice.
3 weeks ago (edited) | 12
i definitely think having a Patreon would help with some of the burden. On the flip side, as long as you guys made it clear you were 1. being sponsored by certain companies/local governments for a certain video but 2. trying to keep your opinions about things shown in the video as unbiased as possible I wouldn't have a problem with you guys taking bigger sponsorships to keep your project afloat. It might actually help with regional cuisine research since you'd be able to ask governments directly what they would consider cultural heritage food
3 weeks ago | 6
Bilibili and Douyin would be also nice to have, definitely more Ads revenue. Why not also sell some trustworthy food? Your fans will trust your recommendations. (But it is also a fine line to involve the right amount of monetization for your content.)
3 weeks ago | 0
Kudos to you. I’m a founder so I understand. I don’t have money to help out atm, but why not a Patreon? Also it’s always a good idea to keep government out I feel. Just so that you are freely to criticize the culture or the food if you don’t like it(I think it will be rare, but losing that choice loses that authenticity) Cheers
3 weeks ago | 1
saintcavish
A year ago this week, Graeme Kennedy and I launched this documentary series about Chinese food. We’ve gotten a lot of views and a lot of followers – and a lot of questions about who pays for all this. So for our first anniversary, I’m going to explain.
We are not:
1. Rich
2. Government-sponsored in any way
3. Soft advertising for our subjects
Our funding comes from:
1. Five private investors who contributed seed money to cover our travel expenses
2. YouTube’s AdSense program, which has paid us about $10k USD total over the course of Season 1’s 13 episodes (or roughly 10% of our costs)
In fact, we’re just a couple of guys who believe strongly in telling food stories from China, where we have lived for a combined 30+ years. Neither of us have the kind of money to allow us to do this privately, and it’s only through the generosity of our first investors (our friends) and our team of researchers that we’re able to do this at all, without having to complicate things by involving government or advertising interests.
So how do we make money?
The simple reality is, we don’t, at least not yet.
Graeme, myself and our team donate our time to the project. We stay in cheap hotels, fly economy and pay for all our own meals, even when we are filming a business. We keep costs low and guard our investment. No one gets a salary. We don’t have an office.
Of course, we are not monks. We have a blast making these videos and believe there is some reward in the bigger picture, both in terms of karma and finances. We can’t and won’t do this for free, forever.
That’s not to say we don’t have a business plan. We do. Corporate partnerships, sponsorship, AdSense, long-tail video revenue – all of that. We’re working towards it.
If you’re in a position to talk about sponsorship or interested in supporting our mission by becoming an investor, by all means, get in touch. We are fully legal, with registered entities in both China and the US. We’d like to keep making these documentaries.
But for now, at least, we are trying to build something good first and worry about the money second.
And at this stage, we’ll just as happily take a like, a subscribe and a second of your time to tell someone what we’re doing over here in China.
Thanks YouTube!
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 617