YouTuber Danny Duncan joins Cheddar News' 'Celebrity Lemonade Stand' to discuss his social media success and other business ventures such as being CCO and co-owner of the frozen yogurt chain, 16 Handles.

YouTuber Danny Duncan joins Cheddar News' <i>Celebrity Lemonade Stand</i>&nbsp;to discuss his social media success and other business ventures such as being CCO and co-owner of the frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles.

Celebrity Lemonade Stand

Celebrity Lemonade Stand With Danny Duncan

today on Celebrity Lemonade stand. Youtuber prankster and skateboarder Danny Duncan since launching his channel eight years ago, he's become a true youtube star with more than 1.5 billion views on his channel. He has now taken his talents into the frozen yogurt business as CCO and co owner of 16 handles Danny Duncan, welcome to the Celebrity Lemonade stand. So, I mean you are one of the most successful Youtubers in the game, 6.8 million subscribers. 50 million and merchandise sales and now you're also the co owner and C. C. O of the frozen yogurt chain. 16 handles. Are you, are you busy enough? I'm staying busy. Yeah. Okay. So let's back up a little bit and go from the beginning. All right. So what was your very first job before youtube before everything? Your first job? Walgreens? No way. What you do at Walgreens? Like stock shelves, cashier. Okay. That teach you anything or maybe that you didn't want a real job. I do not want to be here. Okay, So then what made you go into Youtube ng, I actually started doing youtube basically to help like athletes? I mainly work with skateboarders. So I would give them tips like how to fix their ankles if they like spraying them or whatever. So when did you realize that this could be a moneymaker for you was probably 2014. I was like, I remember gaining like 10 subscribers a day and then it became like 100 a day and I was like, this could happen right? I was like, I think I can do this. okay. And so what made you go from skateboarding to now doing all the pranks on people, the, you know, tricks and well I basically, when I kind of converted from, you know, helping athletes to what I do now, I just basically did things I did as a kid and just make it sound easy, like I just did it, but a lot of people struggle with Youtube, you know, I have a lot of followers on Tiktok, but Youtube, I'm like, I don't get people watching my stuff so what is the key to having monetize double success on Youtube? I think staying like original helps a lot, being consistent, you know, you gotta post every, that's obviously very difficult for people, I think making, making something really, really great is like hard, you know to do. So you gotta like think outside the box and you gotta, you kinda gotta go big a lot. So I think that's important. Did you have any inspirations when you started out? Yeah, I mean, I looked up to bam Margera, um rob deer deck, 50 cent daniel Tosh those, those are probably my biggest inspirations and what kind of work goes into it because if you make it look fun, you know, you're doing skits and stunts but is it a lot of work to put these together, think of ideas. Yeah, that's the hardest thing for me is just constantly because if you, if it gets too like bland and boring, it's like people are gonna stop watching, so it's always coming up with new creative ideas because I'm like, that's probably going on my eighth or ninth year now, and we've been consistent every week since then, since then, so um yeah, that is definitely difficult to come up with new ideas all the time. Well, it looks like you're having a lot of fun doing it. How much money are you making doing it like this? It's like how much for a post? Because people say, oh yeah, you know, you may get views but you can monetize it in several ways, right? Um Yeah, I don't really make, I don't really do brand deals much, but like you said, the 50 million, that was for like 2020 2021 I mean we've made, we've done over 100 million pretty easily, I'd say, and I sell merch, so like, t shirts, hoodies, shoes, slides, stuff like that, so um I mean like 2000 retail stores, so that along with my website is where most of the money comes from now, where did that idea come from for you to start selling merch? Because a lot of people, they may think of views and partnership deals, but selling your own product is even a genius idea. Yeah, I just I started doing it and then um slowly started working and then when I was I was getting brand deals, let's say a 32nd ad a minute ad, I would then I was like, well if a brand is not gonna pay me for an ad, I'll just do my own ad for my merch. So I would be like, I would make my own 32nd one minute ad on my Youtube channel to promote my merch and I would just pretend as if I was getting paid and it seemed to, yeah, it seemed to work that worked and also seemed to work two by 16 handles what made you go into frozen yogurt. That again, it just happened naturally and I love when something naturally just happened. So I was visiting new york and uh, it was in january like 10 degrees, We had dinner, we got dessert, my friend took me there and then uh, I tried it, I remember it was really good and I did not think we'd ever buy it or anything like that. But uh Neal, he messaged me on Instagram cause he's seen that I was there and he said thanks for stopping by and then I just kept in touch with him, we kept talking and then eventually we made this partnership work and Neil Hirschmann is co owner because you guys literally, you didn't buy a franchise, you bought the entire company. Okay, so how many 16 locations does that include? There's over 30 right now and more opening. Um, but yeah, Neil Neil is the Ceo and he's great. I think it, it works really well because for me, like I would never sell out or promote something I don't like just for money. So 60 handles is amazing. The products really good. And then I'm able to promote a great product, but Neil is able to run it, you know what I mean? So you kind of need not only a good product, but someone who's very good at, you know, running a business. So it helps, you know, for me perfectly because you know, I have to have to just like, you know, help on my side of things and he gets to do that the day to day. So what are your side of the things and what does that look like for you? So like coming up with creative ideas like what I'm doing now, but obviously for that, you know, promoting on my channel because like for me it's not, I don't have to really sell it that much because it's, you know, everyone knows it's a great product, but there's a lot of my fans that don't know it exists yet. So I'm just like putting it out there so everyone can, you know, know what it is and come try and once they try it, they'll love it. What are some of your ideas for expanding the brand, especially taking it back home to florida. Yeah, I mean I'm gonna bring it to my hometown, we're gonna bring it to, you know, all over florida. I want to bring it to Los Angeles. Of course I live there as well. So I think right there alone texas, you know, Austin probably. And so are there any things that you maybe have learned from your social media platforms that you can bring to the company to help it be more successful? Yeah, I think, uh, I've learned a lot. I think on what people like, like how many times can you post a picture of ice cream or you know what I mean? You need like there needs to be more more to it than like a lot of brands miss that. So I think you can add personality in other ways and creative, like social media posts and branding and marketing. Whatever can we expect to see you behind the counter actually working. Like, let me understand how this company works Well, yeah, I plan to open my own in florida. So I do personally want to learn the ins and outs of everything because I think it's important and I like to just learn anything I can. So it's still fresh for you. So I'm sure you're gonna get more wet and you're gonna sell your merchandise in the stores as well. Probably not that, but maybe we'll get some 16 handles merchandise. So we're gonna play a game called cell eh, squeeze. Are you ready? I have a deck of high profile people in my hand. We're gonna ask you a rapid fire question. We're gonna answer using one of these people and tell us why. All right. So we have actor and performer johnny Knoxville. We have Youtuber marquees, Brownlee, we have another Youtuber and chef Rosanna Pansy. No, and we have the legend. Mr Beast. Alright, are you ready? All right. Your first question is, who would you want to partner with for the project? Video business venture. Oh, Johnny, Why? He's a legend and he's a goat. Okay. Alright. Who would you want to do your next YouTube video with Johnny Knoxville? And this is the easy one for you. Okay. Well who do you think would be the best ambassador for 16 handles? You said she's a chef. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with okay with the chef. Okay. What about skateboarding? Who would you like to skateboard with? I mean, yeah, definitely. Okay. I'm just gonna throw the rest of the cards out. We're just gonna stick with johnny Knoxville for all of those questions. I would like to meet this guy though. He seems awesome. Okay. And what about some merch? Would you like to, you know, start a merch with somebody? I mean, I hate to do it man, but definitely we actually have a giant. It's really funny. We tried, we tried to hit him up. We are going to talk to some kids because you know, a lot of the times these lemonade stands are run by kids. So we want to get some questions from our kid preneurs and have you answer them, are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. The first question we have comes from 11 year old Oliver the magic carpet can take you anywhere in the world, where would your business be located? Be? Tokyo? Tokyo Tokyo, I'd love to go there. Okay, it seems like a great place. Good enough reason for me. Alright, 12 year old Isabella is next. What is your best memory from your business? I think the overall, just the journey of you know the youtube succeeding and the merge succeeding and then now leading into 16 handles just that journey of it all is crazy to like experience, you know, are you taking the time to enjoy the journey? Are you too busy just working, working, working. I try to do both. I like to work nonstop but I do enjoy enjoy the journey. Alright, 12 year old alec, which superhero would you want to work with? Probably probably Spider man, you know we're already in new york city. So which Spider man? Spider man Tobey Maguire first one, the first one is the best. Alright, going number one. Alright, cool, cool. Alright thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you so much