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Pound for pound, Marquest Brownlee is the best tech reviewer on the planet.

He doesn’t clickbait, he’s articulate, soft-spoken and wholeheartedly genuine. Moreover, his videos are so silky smooth that the framerate feels better than real life.

Marques, known online as MKBHD, is one in a million. It’s why his channel has grown from 23 subscribers after three years on YouTube to 14 million as of last month.

That’s a 600,000x growth. Pretty impressive for a guy who started off doing low-budget Windows 7 tutorials while in high school.

When it comes to content creation — or just being better human beings in general — we could all learn something from Marques Brownlee. Here’s why MKBHD is winning.

Creating Hype Waves From Orbit

It’s 2009 — and technology sucks.

Farmville is the most popular game in the world, Microsoft just released Bing, and this is what smartphones look like:MKBHD reviewed tech before it was cool to do so. He gained what we call in the fancy pants business world as a ‘first-mover advantage.’ These are the Amazons, PewDiePies, and Bitcoiners of the world.

As Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal (another first-mover) once said, it’s best to ride a hype wave before it even starts. If possible, create a hype wave. If impossible, then be sure to ride one before the mainstream gets their slimy hands on it.

By that time it’s already dead.

Marques didn’t get into tech because it was the hot new thing. He did it because he liked exploring tech. It just so happened he picked one of the best times to broadcast this passion.

Lessons from MKBHD: Find trends before they blow up. My money, for instance, is on Medium becoming the YouTube of writing and Ethereum reengineering the internet as we know it.

Spinning Straw Into Gold

MKBHD had a big problem back in 09'.

He was too young.

Nobody wanted tech advice from a 15-year-old. No one thought they needed tech advice in the first place. Calculators were more fun to use than smartphones. No one thought smartphones would one day become a cybernetic-like extension of our arms.

Marques was just this inexperienced tech nerd operating within a niche that hadn’t fully materialized yet. What set him apart, however, wasn’t chasing hype or trends.

“When I did these computer tutorial videos [early on] I was obsessed with getting the highest framerate possible, and the smoothest motion blur of my cursor on the screen. It’s so stupid but I’ve always wanted that production to facilitate the story as best as possible.” — Marques Brownlee

Marques focused on himself. Not the metrics. Not how much money he was making. Not the hype nor trends. And despite having less than 100 subscribers for his first three years on YouTube he still made out on top.

Lessons from MKBHD: Find something you’re naturally inclined with. Make it your mission. Chasing trends won’t always work. Put your head down and focus on yourself. Focus and improve upon the things you enjoy or are naturally inclined to.

Mastered the Art of Collaborating

All it takes is one good partnership to change your life forever.

Success is a combination of discipline and networking. Humans are social creatures (even introverted types like me). This means you won’t achieve your most ambitious goals by solely relying on yourself.

MKBHD is evidence of this.

Marques went stupid viral after collaborating with big YouTubers like Linus Tech Tips and Casey Neistat; as well as going completely out of his wheelhouse to interview

Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kobe Bryant, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.

This isn’t easy. I’m a journalist and still get butterflies in my stomach when reaching out to new people or sparking up conversations out of the blue.

However, as one of my good friends from high school once said in regards to dating advice, all it takes is ten seconds of courage to approach anyone. It’s that easy, and that hard. It’s also that worth it.

Lessons From MKBHD: Try reaching out to someone new at least once a week. You don’t have to immediately hit it off. At the very least make a conscious effort to cultivate connections — especially among those you admire.

The Takeaway

Marques Brownlee is the perfect underdog story:

1) Started off as a kid with crappy equipment and little professional experience.

2) Minority in a sector that doesn’t see too many people who look like him.

3) Took a prolonged break from YouTube and came back after many months.

It wasn’t enough to stop him. And today he makes between $2.06 — $2.58 million per year from all his online business activities. That works out to $193K per month.

And guess what? After all that success he treats every single video like it's his first.

“I’m still on that quest of production. I know my videos can be better,” said Brownlee. “There’s still a gap between a YouTube video and a movie. Ideally, that seamless production where I can tell the story I want, show what I want to show, and not have any barriers in the way as far as production is probably my biggest challenge.”

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