Because, Patreon, every time you get, like,
a new subscriber sends you a mail,
if you have the option set up right now,
I have it removed.
But back then I had
it set up and I was just like,
getting mail after mail after mail of like, oh,
you got a new subscriber,
you got a new subscriber. And basically
I went from like $80 to, like, 800, I think.
So hold on.
This is a critical mass moment.
Yeah, yeah, it blew up.
Welcome to Nerdpreneur,
where we have fun conversations with people
making money with their nerdy passion.
My name is Chris, and as always,
I am joined by my co host, Frank.
Hello.
And today we have a very special guest,
and his name is Evan,
but he's much better known online
and in the D&D universe as MonkeyDM.
Welcome to the show.
Hello. Nice to meet you all.
Thanks for coming on.
I've been super excited to talk to you
because when I was thinking of people
for this podcast that would be kind of like,
perfect guests for this type of show,
you were right near the top of my list as
far as a Nerdpreneur. And so, Evan, MonkeyDM,
what is your nerdy passion?
I'll let you guess, but yeah, D&D.
I do a lot of that.
A lot of D&D. That's true. I mean,
you make tons of D&D content,
and it sounds like you have
kind of carved out a little niche
within the dungeons and Dragons universe.
How did you find this nerdy passion for D&D?
So actually role playing games,
I didn't start with D&D. I started.
So I was born in France and moved to Romania.
Later in France,
I met friends who were like,
I've always been into nerdy stuff. Like,
I was a big halo fan
played a ton of that in high school,
probably way more than my mother
would have wanted, but, you know. And anyway,
so I met some friends,
and they introduced me to the
thing called Donjon de Naalbek, which is, like,
nalbeck's dungeon.
I think it's a very french thing,
but it's basically D and D, but, like,
looney tuned version.
It's, like, very, like, comedy oriented.
The races are very,
very dumb and not serious. Like, they're, like,
all the stereotypes
that you can find about, like, ogres
and goblins and gremlins and whatever you want.
It was a blast. It was hilarious. I had,
and that was maybe 15 years ago,
so that's how I started.
We had a campaign on this, surprisingly,
that lasted about two years.
I moved to Romania,
and then in Romania,
I somehow ended up with another friend of mine
who I used to play that game with came with me.
So we kept playing.
We had, like, our little table,
and at some point, we had, like, a one year,
two years hiatus.
We're all focusing on our studies.
And then one day, I was like, damn,
I'm bored because I.
So I didn't have any consoles.
I didn't have any anything in my.
In my student apartment,
and my laptop could
not run a game for the life of it. Like,
I'm probably even playing
Tetris on it would crash it.
I've upgraded the hardware since.
Let's just say that.
So I was like, you know what?
I had a lot of fun back then with, like,
this tabletop game,
and that's how I discovered D&D.
I was just, like, looking some, like,
easy game that I could get into. It
was towards the beginning of five e, and so we.
We started playing that, and, boy, that was.
That was so fun.
I was the dungeon
master for a while. Like, we played, like,
weekly every week for maybe,
I don't know, like, two, three years,
something like that. Then there was, like,
another year break where I didn't touch it,
and then somehow, randomly,
YouTube knew what I wanted,
and it showed me critical role,
and I was like, hmm,
that seems interesting.
So I listened to, like, the episode,
and I'm like, oh, they're good.
Like, the voices, damn,
they're talented, right?
So I listened to, like, critical role,
and I'm like, damn, okay,
now I want to play d and d again, right?
It's like, the itch. It's like, oh, my God,
it's coming back.
And so I look up on. I don't
know if it was Google, Facebook, whatever.
I'm looking for, like,
basically a place where, like,
people gather to play board games.
That was the idea. Right.
And I found one which was, like,
really not far away from my place.
And I go there,
start playing d and d again,
having a ton of fun again, then, like,
met some new friends,
and then, like, basically, like,
a whole new d and d group that reformed.
And it's been on since then? Pretty much.
Whoa.
I guess I should segue into, like,
how I transitioned to
the whole Patreon thing at some point.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's where I was gonna go. Like,
how did this then become a business
from once you created this group together?
So I'm already impressed because
you were able to create a weekly
D and D group for two years. That's, like,
already a difficult
thing for people to have going on.
Just playing regularly is an accomplishment.
Yeah, I would agree with that one. So, like,
the advantage
was that we were younger, so, like,
less responsibilities,
less stuff in life,
so it was easier to schedule.
And most of the time, we just, like,
had school together,
and we would just, like,
gather at the end of, like,
one of the school days to someone's place.
I'm curious, did
you guys have a regular day that
you actually played every single week?
Was it just sort of, like,
in the schedule every week,
or did that shift at all?
Usually we played on Wednesdays. Right.
I was the DM, but sometimes,
because the players really
enjoyed the campaign, they're like, hey, man,
how do you feel
about we do another game tomorrow?
Nice. I love. I miss those days, man.
I remember what that felt like.
Do you still do that?
Sometimes? Sometimes it's more rare now.
That's okay. Well, that's great.
That still happens. For me,
it's just like, nope, next week. Like, guys,
I'm too busy.
I can't do any other night this week.
You're just gonna have to wait till next week.
Yeah. Becoming an idol, basically.
Was that the first time
you had been a dungeon master,
or did you start off right
off the bat being a dungeon master?
No, I started as a player in the
other game for about a year,
and then I transitioned to being
a dungeon master in that game
and then transitioned again in DND,
and then I was mostly a player,
and then I switched to being mostly a DM,
and now it's both. I would say, okay,
I'm one of those lucky DM's that
gets to be a player every now and then.
That's good.
Great thing. Yeah,
because it doesn't happen that often,
especially if you're good at it.
But I think being a player is so much fun.
It's just so much fun to mess around and screw
someone else's campaign instead of your own.
Oh, God. I do find sometimes people
are a little intimidated about, you know,
if you're a good DM, they're like, oh,
I don't feel like I could
measure up to that person. And, and, you know,
I feel like it's just best if
they just keep doing it and
they're scared to step into those shoes.
Yeah, fair enough. To be fair, none of
us is like Matthew Mercer or anything. So, I
mean, sure, there's, there's definitely, like,
people are better at dming than others
because there's more experience. You know,
they've done it for longer.
I don't feel like in our group,
we definitely have, like, I would say,
like three people who, like,
alternate the DM mental. So, like,
basically everybody gets to be a
player and everybody has their dming style.
That's a kind of cool.
And since that was established
from mostly the beginning, I would say,
I don't think there was ever that block.
So we got lucky on that point.
Nice.
Why do you love dungeons and dragons?
I can cast fireball
on the people that annoy me.
I saw that.
I saw that mentioned in
one of your recent YouTube videos.
Actually, I'm having a feud
with my neighbor at the moment.
Ah, yes.
I too have had that.
We can all if apartment living, right?
We actually go to the gym with the guy.
So we're actually very cool.
But it was just like a funny
coincidence because he knows I
go to bed early and he doesn't. And once, yeah,
he just vacuumed when I was, like,
trying to sleep.
He doesn't have a very quiet vacuum,
let's just say.
So I made a. I just,
I just had fun with it. Like,
I posted a poll on my instagram, right?
And I was like,
so my neighbor last
night woke me up with his vacuum.
Should I do the same this morning?
And it was like 430 in the morning,
right when I wake up and, like,
turns out everybody's an asshole because, like,
everybody voted yes.
I think the poll was like 90% yes.
So I was like, well,
guess I'm turning on the vacuum.
Yeah. And then, well, then
you have plausible deniability.
I had to do it.
All my fans said I had to do it.
This is for content, man.
And funny enough, actually,
the neighbor didn't hear it. Like,
I talked to them at the gym. I was like, hey,
do you hear something this morning?
I was like, nah, nothing.
I was like, oh, interesting.
Dang it.
Going back to the question Chris asked around,
what is it that you love about D and D?
It's that ability to kind of escape that I'm
hearing and just kind of tap into something
that we don't really get to do in the.
So there's definitely that, like,
for sure, because, like,
you get to be characters
that you can be in real life, right?
You get to be, like,
this epic hero that
can do so many things, which, in real life,
you just never could. So that's. That's
a very cool aspect of it. And I think, like,
a very big aspect,
at least for me, is, like,
the whole social aspect,
because I love playing in person,
because we're hanging out with friends, right.
And it's like this collective story that's.
That's the basis of D and D. You know,
you have laughs and cries,
and it's like this very
real story that it's like a movie,
but everybody's living through it, and it's.
It's. I think that's what makes DND amazing,
is just this ability to, like,
gather people together and make them
live this collective experience, which, like,
you all, like,
you remember it that
I don't want to swear on the podcast,
but you remember that stuff, like,
five years later.
Yeah, we can swear if you want.
That's totally fine.
But if you don't want to swear,
you don't have to.
Okay, then I will probably a little bit.
Try not to do it too much.
In any language you want. It's all good.
The explicit sticker is universal.
We haven't had any french swearing yet, so
if you want to go hard into the french swear,
we could totally do that.
Yeah. I'll give you
a common one in French, which means. Which
is actually very specific. It means, like,
someone who gets
fucked in the ass. Like, it's like, okay, yeah.
The only one I know is merried. That's.
That's the only one I know.
Yeah. Yeah, that's basically right.
Yeah.
I'm in Quebec and Canada, they always, like,
use the religious ones,
like tabata neck and that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that one.
I find it very funny because, like, for me,
it's just like a church equipment and.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just like, I would go, like,
phone or pen or. Yeah, it's.
It's up there with sacred blue,
you know? Sacred blue. You know,
it's a blue of the flag.
Yeah, it's like, I feel like
it's like this to foreigners. Yes, because
they don't understand the language. Like,
I definitely felt
that when I came to Romania, for example,
because Romanian is not
like the language I grew up with.
I learned it and I speak it now just fine. But
when I say an insult in Romanian, for example,
I don't feel it as much as
if I would say an insult in French.
And I think it's because I didn't, like,
grow up with the taboo of the word,
so I don't integrate it as much. Right, right.
So there's, like,
words that I would just, like.
I'm not gonna say them because they're like,
really bad word in Romanian.
Okay.
They have, like, expression like,
I'm gonna go and have
sex with your grandmother's grave. Like, it's.
Oh, yeah, yeah, they're favorite. I would
say these things and I don't, you know, like,
now I kind of do, but, like,
I wouldn't get, like the, you know,
like always it so bad.
Say something like that. Right.
And I would just, like,
say it in front of other
romanian people and you would see, like,
the reaction they, like,
noticeably bothered. Right.
And I'm just not, because
I don't get why it's so bothersome to them.
When you grew up with the
taboo and when you didn't, and that's, like,
where the difference lies.
I have a couple friends that was,
it wasn't Romania.
Gosh.
It was a country over
there that starts with an Lithuania.
Lithuania, I think.
So a couple friends that were from there.
And they used to explain to me how
just the swearing over there was a
different level because their modern
history was so much more intense, you know,
what they had been through.
I mean, Europe,
everybody in Europe was
a slave basically until, like, 1700, something
like that. Like, Romania especially, like,
Romanian's history is, like,
amazing because it's.
They lost every war, right. So it's like, oh,
the Hungarian were
like their masters at some point,
and then you had the Russians at some point,
and then it's just like, it's, it's.
Yeah, well, and even right now,
you guys are in a,
you're so much closer to what's going
on in the world right now with Ukraine.
And it's crazy. Like, that's. I was, I know.
You even posted just about
something to do with the ukrainian
family just yesterday or this morning.
Yeah, I'll give some context on that for some,
if people are interested.
So Romania
shares a border with Ukraine. We have, like.
So basically you've got Romania here,
Ukraine is here. And you've got, like, Moldova,
which is like a very small country in between.
Moldova basically has no military power.
So if somebody were to come to Moldova,
they would probably conquer it. So, like,
and we share, like,
a bit of it is, like,
directly linked to Ukraine.
So at the beginning, when
the war started with Ukraine, we're like, okay,
that's going to come to Romania.
But we had hope because we were like,
we're in NATO, so maybe not.
Like, it was like, you know, at
the beginning was very chaotic.
We really had no idea.
So it turns out Romania is going to be fine.
So that's good,
at least for romanian people.
But we had a lot of
Ukrainians go through the border,
so the romanian government
didn't do much for them. Like,
they help organize a bit,
like the transport
system to help the refugees, like,
get to other countries, for example.
But romanian people, though, are, bless them,
they are like, they set up, like, food camps.
They set up whole support systems
to help the refugees gather everybody.
It was an incredible movement from everybody.
I have a lot of friends that I know that went
to the border just to set up food camps,
helping the hostels there.
So it was truly amazing
that really people came together.
So basically I have a very good friend,
and their family hosted, like,
an ukrainian family that passed through
the border and their car crashed. Not crashed,
but broke out.
I'm not very good with cars.
The alternators out.
Overheated. I don't know exactly what,
but basically the car was, like, fried.
And so it was like two parents,
their two daughters,
and they needed a place to crash because
otherwise they would sleep in the car.
And here in Romania,
it's like minus three degrees in fahrenheit. I
have no idea how many it is, but it's Celsius.
Celsius. I get that. Only
Frank will be translation.
Oh, please. I live
in Canada for ten years. I'm fine.
So, yeah, it's freezing temperatures, right?
It's like, it's
below freezing temperatures and they. So.
And it's like this, like,
four and seven year old daughter,
and so it's like, very, very
young child and their parents. And, like, it's.
It's like a crazy story
because both the parents are deafendae,
so they don't hear anything.
They speak sign language, and they have, like,
the mother had an auditory apparatus,
so she could, like, understand word,
but she only spoke Ukrainian. So, like,
the reason they managed to
get out of the country, because normally, like,
men are not allowed
to leave Ukraine at the moment.
Like, there's a martial law, basically,
that's in place. So, like, any man from, like,
age to 18 to 60, I believe,
has to stay and fight. Like,
they're not allowed to leave.
They have to stay behind. So that's why, like,
it's mostly women and children
that you see across the border,
because the men stay behind and fight,
even if they don't want to, they have to.
So this father,
in his unluckiness of being deaf, had
at least the luck of being able to cross the
border because he's not military fit, right?
So he can't, like, fight.
So he managed to cross with his
family and make it through the border.
Their car fries so this
is a family that left everything behind.
They have nothing left. They. So, like,
the reason they left is because
basically their house were getting bombed.
They were not hearing that right.
The kids were, like,
four and seven year old daughters,
and they were terrified of it.
They had no idea what was going on,
so they had to leave, right?
And they couldn't stay behind.
So they just, like, abandoned everything.
Their job, their house, like, their apartment,
which I believe they bought.
They bought, like, everything.
They're just restarting from zero,
and they're trying to make it to Germany,
because in Germany, they have, like,
they said they were going to
help the refugees as much as they can,
provide housing and all that stuff.
There are car crashes
in the city of my friend's house.
So they hear about this,
and they're like, yeah, sure,
come to our place, no problem.
So they host them.
I actually went and met the family,
and they were very, very sweet, very nice.
We talked with Google translate.
God bless technology,
because that could not happen.
It was impossible
to talk otherwise. And so, like, we met.
I wanted to introduce
them to D and D, actually, funnily enough,
but they were the jungle.
It was tough to explain. Of course,
the game about storytelling where
you can't talk is a bit tough, right?
Yeah, it's hard to explain D and d when
you speak the language to people, right?
Yeah, yeah. Right. So.
But I did get them, like, because they left,
and they didn't
have much toys with them. They had, like,
a little thing. But I. So I bought them, like,
a couple of barbies and.
And I brought that to the kids, and they were.
I think they were happy with them.
They definitely smiled, and they.
I saw them playing with it,
so I assumed liked it.
We took them to the park. You know,
I bought them, like,
barbara Papa. It's like, you know,
like this pink fluffy thing. It's like sugar,
and they just cotton candy.
Oh, cotton candy. That's why.
Yeah.
And it was so cute. Like, it was, like,
bigger than their head.
Yeah.
They were just, like, adorable, like,
solving a little thing, right. And so, like,
it really felt nice because we're, like, truly
helping these people, right? And so, like,
we helped them.
We got their car set back on and.
And put them back on their way,
and now they're in Germany.
They found a house,
and they're doing well.
They sent us a picture with the kids.
Everybody's doing fine,
and we're very happy.
And so the message that I posted on Instagram
was because this family, like, the mother,
her sister,
crossed the border with her son,
who was ten years old.
The father stayed behind,
from what I understood,
couldn't leave the country.
And they basically were in Germany in a camp.
And I'm not sure about this,
so don't quote me on this,
but from I understood,
the refugee camps are basically, like,
military camps, right?
So it's like, tents. They have, like,
maybe a little mattress to sleep on,
but it's not, like,
exactly ideal conditions
to raise a child, maybe. And, you know,
for a mother and her child,
I don't think it's the best.
And so she told her sister about it,
and she let us know.
And so I was like, well, I have, like,
a bit of a following on Instagram.
You know, maybe
I can try to find
someone who would agree to help. Right?
And we did. So now, like,
this family set up, they've
got a home that took damn and everything.
So it's amazing.
I couldn't be happier about it for them. Yeah.
So it's like,
we definitely feel the war a bit more,
I would say.
Yeah. I mean, over here in North America,
we don't deal with actually having. Well,
we choose not to, I should say.
We choose not to deal with that as much
on our day to day, you know, helping strangers.
The times I've been to Europe,
the number of times people have welcomed
me into their homes and just been like, hey,
you're a tourist. Like,
and you're by yourself.
Would you like a meal?
And.
And you don't
feel the sense of, oh, my gosh, they could.
They could try to drug me. Like,
there isn't that. That we. That's
the kind of fear that we might have over here,
but over there was just. Yeah,
that's so kind. You know, there's much
more of that in the european culture, perhaps.
Yeah, that, like,
I went to America briefly for, like, a week,
so I'm not that familiar with american culture.
I'm very familiar with, like,
eastern european culture,
and I would central
european friends, but, yeah, I'm american.
I'm nothing that familiar with.
Well, I think it's interesting that you
were able to use your spread, right? Like,
you have a fairly sizable instagram, right.
And it is fairly international. And, like,
how cool is it that just because
you have this nerdy passion that was
able to build into a business and really
build up to a significant following,
that you were able to use that not
just for making money and not for that,
but also to do good
and spread good stuff into the world.
And that's just
a really cool thing about technology.
It's a really thing about
the world we live in right now.
The fact that we can actually
make a difference in some way,
even though it's maybe small or
maybe have a little bit of impact,
I think that is a really
cool thing that the Internet has brought,
is that these senses of community that you get
to create become meaningful and have impact
outside of just the niche that you're in.
Yeah, for sure. I definitely felt it
that day because
I had multiple people text me like, hey,
I can try to help and stuff. And thank
you to everyone that came forward, by the way,
if you listen to this. And, like,
one person was just like, yeah,
I can go pick him up.
It's all right. I got, like,
my wife and my two kids,
and we can host them as well. And I was like,
that would be amazing. Like, wow. Fantastic.
Wow. Yeah, I love that story. I mean,
it's so heartwarming and especially.
Yeah, it's like, it's in all the
craziness of the world
where you feel like everything's going, like,
too trash and. But no, people
are actually good most of the time, I think.
And it really showcases that, I think.
Yeah, I really think that is, like, I mean,
so many people. I don't know.
I used to work in sales,
and so you always dealt with the public,
and when you're in front of people over
and over and over again and they have no
reason to help or no reason to do that,
but they still do,
you start to realize that so many
people out there are just good people,
and the vast majority of people are,
and there really are just
a few assholes in the world,
and they move around a lot, you know, like,
you run into them,
but it's just like,
there are not
that many people that are, like, minority.
Like, usually, like, it's just like,
on Reddit or any,
any social platform for that matter, is like,
if you it's just like, it's like, people
who hate who are the loudest for some reason,
I don't think, to prove, I guess. I'm not sure,
but I agree.
I think most people are extremely good,
and I think this was, like,
a truly good example of that. Like,
most people were like, hey, you know, like, I
even got people who are like, yeah, dude. Like,
that's why I posted the story that
we found them at home, because I got, like,
messages from people that were like, hey,
did you manage to find them a home?
Like, did. Are they okay? Like,
I want to know. You know, like,
I really think
most people are good. I really, really do.
Yeah.
And that was at least
a very good example of that, I would say.
Yeah, I think this is a great way to transition
into more of your business side of what you do,
because we haven't even really touched on that.
I love the discussion we're having,
but I want to ask you, like,
when did the start of, say,
you making this into an
instagram and turning this into
a business and started posting content?
How did that transition really
happen from you just playing
dungeons and dragons with your friends?
So I'll give you the story on this one.
So I was a medical student,
so I started medicine.
I finished my.
I don't know if you can see, like,
I still have my medical books right here.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, they're pretty big.
So I did med school for, like,
six years here in Romania.
Wow.
Oh, I need to put some context on that.
I'll do as the story progresses, I guess.
Finished med school, I was still, like,
playing d and d with
my friend every now and then, you know,
and then the pandemic hit, as I finished, like,
finished my 6th year pandemic hit.
So my goal was,
I finish med school in Romania,
and then I go to Germany. Why Romania?
The salary back then of a doctor now,
it increased a bit,
was about €900, which is, like, maybe $1,000.
It's not a lot.
It's good for Romania,
but it's not a lot of money.
Keep in mind, Romania, like,
the minimum wage, I believe,
is 400 or $450.
It's very small.
So I was like, okay, so I'll
do it in Germany because residenciat, like,
residency in Germany is closer
to, like, €3000, right? So, like, $3,200,
something along those lines. So, like,
I'll do it there.
And the advantage of Germany is,
usually at the end of med school,
you have a big examined
residency exam where basically,
according to your placement,
you get to choose which specialty you take
and in which city of the country, right?
So I was a fairly ambitious kid.
So my aim was cardio, right?
And I realized cardio and Romania,
I don't know if that's going
to be possible because it's really,
really tough competition.
I didn't know if I was prepared enough, right?
So I was like,
I'll try it in Germany
because Germany works different.
Germany doesn't have an examined.
Germany takes you on a case by case basis.
It's just like a job application, right?
You just need to prove
that you speak German well enough.
And by that time,
I had like a year and
something of like intense german lessons.
So my German was pretty good.
So I applied, I sent, I don't know, 5000 males,
maybe more to get a residency.
No reply
or only negative replies, basically, right?
That was as the pandemic hit and not,
and I learned they were not accepting, like,
because at the beginning of the pandemic,
nobody knew what was going on.
So I don't think they were ready to take on
the responsibility of like a foreign student.
But to be fair,
maybe my file
was just not good enough. Like, who knows?
But it was,
it all came back negative basically, right?
So I was like, fuck. I was like,
I did six years of med school and I'm not gonna
do anything with my life that is not good.
So that kept me up at night. I slept.
I couldn't manage to, like,
sleep 3 hours a night.
I was just like, the panic, the sheer
panic of having wasted my life was, was bad.
I don't know if anyone can relate to that.
Yeah, pandemic.
So we do that. So I'm like, like, it's, it's,
it's over, you know, like,
I fucking wasted education.
Not gonna do anything.
Oh, man.
I was like, okay, okay, calm down, Evan. Like,
you'll find something.
And at the time,
I was frequenting quite a bit Reddit, and
I was usually a lot on like, unearthed piano,
which is Reddit for homebrew content.
And there I saw like a couple of dudes.
I saw Kibble's tasty
and I saw a spectre creation. The arena guy,
his name is,
and they were making like a grand a month.
And I think in the case of Kibble,
it was like two grands.
And I was like, that's,
that's good money, man. I was like, like,
especially for me in Romania,
I was like, oh, dude, that's pretty decent.
Like, maybe I could like, you know, like
make maybe 100 or two and that would be like,
a nice supplemental
income in case of something, right?
So I started doing that. Well, first month,
I didn't make any money,
so that was that. But, you know, like,
at some point, I
started it also because I enjoyed
it and it distracted me from my thoughts.
So I was just like, you know, I'll do that.
And then in the meantime, I'll
prepare for the romanian exam for medicine.
So I got myself busy, basically.
I was studying medicine,
and I was producing homebrew content
in the hopes of maybe monetizing it.
I set up the Patreon and
everything, blah, blah, blah. And then, like,
second month throws around,
and I'm like, $20, I think, or something.
Not very much money,
let's just say. But I remember, like,
it's so funny how things change,
because now I make $20. I'm like, oh,
that's nice. You know? But, like, back then,
I was just, like, so ecstatic.
I remember it's like,
going to my friends, like, look, man, like,
I got a subscriber. Like, somebody
agreed to pay me $1 a month. That's insane.
It's also
from your passion, right? It's like, wow,
I can actually make
money doing this thing I like doing.
Yeah, exactly like that. Like,
the first dollar, it's like, right? It's like,
people are actually
willing to pay money for this.
People want this. Yeah, yeah.
And I was like, okay, man,
I got something there, you know?
And I remember. I remember, like,
telling my dad about it,
and he was like, son,
what are you doing? And you're like.
Yeah.
Parents aren't always on board
with our initial plans to make money.
I mean, to be fair,
I don't blame them, because, like,
when they made, like,
$20 in a month, they're like, you know, maybe.
Maybe consider other options.
Just saying you didn't.
Yeah, keep going on the medicine path, son.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm not be a doctor.
I am going to go do D and D content.
That would have been.
But, like, it was never my goal to be, like,
full time DNA content. Like, at first,
it was always, like, side income and, like,
I'll do medicine, right?
That was the idea.
Because medicine is
a lot more reliable than d and e, or should be.
And so I was like, okay, well, $20.
I'm happy with that. Nice. Like,
I'm pumped about it.
Then next month rolls around,
and I think I go to, like,
$80 or something. So, like,
quadruple my income. And I'm like, oh, God,
it's good money, man.
So I was really, really
thrilled because like, basically, till then,
what I had been doing was just, like,
giving people free shit and having that
same stuff on my Patreon and with, like,
a little bit of, like,
additional extra content, like,
exclusives that people would pay for.
But that was, like, the main idea. But
all of this was, like, working towards, like,
a compendium where I would, like,
amalgamate everything together
and shove it to the people.
And so I did that. And so I, like, you know,
get my content together,
and I released my first compendium,
the northern light compendium.
And it worked. It bloody worked.
I remember I was in a field. It was, like,
a slovak village, basically, right?
It was, like, a whole event. It was, like,
really nice in nature. Whatever. I was, like,
glued to. To my phone, because, Patreon,
every time you get, like,
a new subscriber sends you a mail,
if you have the option set up right now,
I have it removed, but back then,
I had it set up, and I was just, like, getting
mail after mail after mail of, like, oh,
you got a new subscriber.
You got a new subscriber.
You got a new subscriber. And basically,
I went from, like, $80 to, like, 800, I think.
So hold on.
This is a critical mass moment.
Yeah, yeah. It blew up. Yeah.
You put together a compendium, which.
And looking at your patreon,
it looks like these compendiums are everything
that you had created for that month.
So back then, it was, like,
three months of work. Like, the first.
Okay, gotcha.
Even now, I have, like,
two different compendiums types.
I have ones that I make in one month,
which are called compendiums, and
I have ones we take usually, like, two months,
two months and a half to make,
which are called tomes, which are, like,
larger books for, like,
the adept tier. Right? Like,
the highest tier I have on my.
So it sounds like people were drawn to
the convenience that you offered with this,
because at first,
people were getting
the content that you were making,
and they appreciated it, and.
But it would be all over the Internet,
all over your patreon.
But then you started
to compile it into these compendiums,
and it sounds like.
And I love to hear what your thoughts are.
It sounds like people loved
that convenience and that ease of access.
What do you think that that was part of it,
or is there something else that
you think really created that skyrocket?
I think there's more to it.
I'll tell you what I think happened,
so I can tell you.
I think there's more to it. Why? Because now,
so to be fair,
now there's more people doing it,
so the market is more saturated,
so it's harder to stand out, of course.
But there's people doing companions, right?
But they don't.
It doesn't work that well. Why? So me,
I'm a big believer in the thank you economy.
I don't know if you ever heard this concept.
Gary V. Can you elaborate?
Okay. The idea is like, you just, like,
flood people with free stuff for a long time,
and then they're like, oh, my God,
this is so much free stuff. Like,
how can I repay you
for all this stuff you've given me? Right?
And that's the moment where you're like, boom,
I sell you something. And
I think the companion was that because, like,
back until then, I basically, like,
I just had, like, a
little link at the
bottom of my Reddit posts were like, hey,
I have a Patreon, by the way,
but it was not a hard sell, right?
At all, right?
But then the companion
came around and then it was like, boom,
hard sell, right? I just, like, I
gave you all this free stuff for, like, a very,
very long time.
Hopefully by now you're thankful.
If you're not,
that's fine as well.
I'll keep doing free stuff anyway.
And he was like, there you go. Here's, like,
a thing that you can actually give me money
for if you want to thank me for all the
free stuff that you've been enjoying so far.
That's, like, paraphrasing, right? Like,
it's also convenient for people,
and it's like a good.
And basically that worked.
And that was like, boom, 700, right?
Interesting.
That makes a lot of sense from the standpoint
of what coming from my area of expertise,
which is sales.
And one of
the big sales triggers that works. I mean,
this is written in
Robert Cialdini's book influence.
The first chapter, I believe,
is called reciprocation.
It's like an inevitable thing that if you give
something away to people for free for a while,
they do start to feel an obligation to
find a way to pay it back back in some way,
whether that be in dollars or giving
you other free stuff or support or
service or following or whatever it is.
So. But I think that's so interesting.
Cause a lot of people don't think
that way when they're starting a business.
The idea of, like,
doing this for free,
that's why I always say,
if you're gonna start a business,
you should be doing a
business that you would do for free,
because if you aren't willing
to do it for free for a while,
or if you're not willing to
give away what you're doing for
free and just do it for the process,
you're probably not gonna get to that
tipping point that you're talking about,
where you've created enough goodwill,
where people wanna come in and support you.
I would say yes and no.
Cause I'm a proponent of doing free work.
To get your bearings together,
give people the.
Give them a solid reason to trust you.
Cause it's like, oh, okay.
I've seen free stuff.
Free stuff is good.
Probably paid stuff is good as well.
But I also don't like working for free.
And not as in, like,
I have people who've worked for me, just, like,
freelance stuff here and there.
And a lot of
times it's been fans, right? Like. Or, I mean,
I'm saying fans.
I don't know if they're fans,
but they at least follow me on Instagram,
let's just say.
And they're like, yeah, man,
I can do this for you, no problem. You know,
I can do this for you. I'll do it.
No charge. You know, like, at some point,
I was looking for a video editor,
and right now I'm editing my videos myself.
I came back to myself because
I freed myself more time for it.
But back then, I was like, you know,
could use a video editor.
So I posted a story, and, like,
a lot of people came forward, and I took,
liked it three or four,
and I was like, okay, like, here's a video.
You can edit it. And they had, like,
three different videos, right? So, like,
I would have, like,
three different edits, and I would, like,
pick the best one. And I was.
And they're like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll do it.
And they finished, like, editing the video,
and I was like, okay, how
much do I owe you? And they're like, no, no,
don't worry, man. I understand. Like,
if you want to. If you want to.
If you want to do it for free. Like,
they finished the work before I, like,
even paid them. And I was like, dude,
I'm not letting you, like,
edit a full freaking video and, you know,
not pay you, right.
So on some level, like, yes,
do stuff free. Cause, like,
it gets exposure. And, I mean,
I hate the term exposure because, like, artists
who are listening to this are gonna, like,
rip off their
hair. Cause, like, oh, yeah, exposure. But.
But I don't know.
I don't like not paying people for working.
Let's just say that,
of course I agree with that.
Yeah.
There is a tendency for
artists to undervalue their work, too, because
they're willing to do it for free, 100%.
Don't. Like, if you ever open a Patreon,
do not have a $1 tier.
Just letting you know your work,
you've put work in it.
Your work is not worth $1.
It's worth more than that.
Do not have a $1 tier.
And think of it mathematically.
If your lowest tier is, like, $3, like mine,
for example,
it's already three times the value. And, like,
the difficulty of entry between
one and $3 is the same for people.
So don't have a $1 tier.
Just don't do it. Okay.
If they're willing to pay a buck,
they're probably fine with three.
Yeah, exactly. That's. That's the thing.
Even my $3 here, I'm, like,
considering removing it because now
I have so much content on my Patreon,
it doesn't make sense to have it for $3.
You just get, like,
so much more value.
But now I have, like, you know, hindsight.
Hindsight, exactly. Thank you. To, like,
see this and be like, yeah, okay,
it's not worth $3. But back then, even for me,
because I had a $1 cheer at some point,
and then I had, like, other
friends who were doing Patreon who are like,
you remove that thing,
it's hurting you in the long term.
And I was like,
they're making more money than me,
so probably they know a thing I don't.
I'll listen to them. But, yeah, don't.
Don't have a $1 chair. Don't do it.
That's really good advice, actually.
That's something that, you know,
where we are right now in this project,
this nerdpreneur podcast, is.
That's advice that we probably needed to hear.
Yeah. No, like, just think about it. Like,
you really think, like,
something you worked maybe hours
on is worth $1. Really? Like, probably nothing.
I want to talk.
I have so many questions along the
lines of that story and building it.
You're talking about the day where you
all of a sudden went from zero to, say, 800,
and that was an important day, right?
Yeah.
You still had a day job, right?
Or a thing that
you were doing for money regularly?
No, no. That's why I was terrified.
You didn't.
I was a med student. I had nothing. Right.
And that's why.
That's why I couldn't sleep at night.
That's why I was, like,
studying or working and doing nothing.
Else because my thoughts wouldn't allow me.
So it was like, this very,
very stressful time because I was like,
I don't have a job beside medicine.
I don't know how to do jack shit.
And I was like,
I need to do something in my life, man.
And when I had that 700, like, that just, like,
popped up over a month, I was, like, the
relief I felt because I was like, oh, my God,
I have a salary.
I can pay rent. I can pay food.
I can pay everything now. It's fine.
And this was around lockdown time, too, right?
So you're not really allowed to leave.
There's that added stress.
No, I was very lucky because
I don't have family in Romania.
My family is in France. I
couldn't go back to France because locked down.
So I was not allowed to do.
France was very closed off. Yeah.
Yeah. And. And on top of that, I.
Even if I wanted to,
I probably shouldn't have,
because as it was, like, this whole, like,
shit storm that just, like,
kind of came my way,
so it was like. So medicine, like,
didn't work out. Like,
I couldn't find a job.
I got an appendicitis.
As the pandemic hit,
as they were putting the measures,
the restriction measures.
Oh, my gosh.
I.
So I was gonna have to go back at, like,
an empty apartment alone after a surgery
where I could, like, barely walk. I was, like,
so messed up. But, like, luckily for me, like,
a friend took me
in their house with their family,
and that's the family, actually,
that also helped
the ukrainian family. They're like, the. Wow.
They're tremendously good people.
Like angels. They are. They are.
They are some of the nicest people I've
ever met in my life. They are amazing. Yeah.
Those people in life that are just, you know,
you look back, and it's like, wow,
these people really were the
grace of the universe coming to you.
Yeah.
You know, and that's so. That's so great.
And that they were like that I was blown away.
I still am to this day, especially
when I saw what they did with the refugees,
and they're helping,
and they don't have a lot of money saved up,
and I offered to help them
because they had a car accident, and not.
Nobody was injured, just a car.
Right.
And I was like, if you want, I
can pay for reparation of the car or something.
And they're like, no, no, we're fine.
Don't worry about it. Go.
Go do your thing. It's all right.
And I'm like, dude, like, ah, you're.
Just looking for that chance to.
Yeah, not giving it to me, man.
Interesting. Those.
Those are some good lessons, I find. I mean,
it's those moments.
It was a learning moment for me to realize,
you know what?
This is the universe saying,
money is not the way to pay it back.
The way to pay it back to people
like this are to actually give, like,
your love and your attention and
your time and your energy and
quality time with these people is, you know,
and that's really hard for
some people to wrap their heads around.
It was hard for me to wrap my head around that.
I want to pay it back,
and they don't seem to want money.
What do they want?
What are they giving me? Oh,
what they're giving me is
their idea of love and kindness.
They probably want that in return.
The grace of some humans, like,
it really makes a difference in,
in people's lives. Right?
I remember being in my,
my business the first year, running it ever,
and being so broke and, like,
three months behind rent in my home rent.
And then I had an office.
I was paying for that.
I basically struggled
to pay every single month,
bouncing a check and then finding money
24 hours later to pay it back and, like,
finding ways to do that.
And I was doing that for, like, six months.
And finally I just had reached
the edge of my rope in March.
Similar, like, yeah, this, this month,
actually, but many, many, many years ago,
and I had no money left
except for the cash I had on me.
And I remember the landlord having to
call him and just being like, oh, can we meet?
And I sat down with him and he said, well,
you're a good tenant.
I like that. You're young, you're hustling.
You're trying to get everything done.
What's it going to take to
get you through this rough patch? And I said,
I don't know.
What can you give?
I didn't give them an answer.
It's important when you're in sales.
Just ask them to give the first
offer because I expected him maybe,
maybe to let me slide this month a little bit,
but he actually was like, well, you got, like,
six months left in your lease.
What if I knock your rent down from $1,400
a month to $800
a month for the next six months?
How much are you paying?
Yeah, yeah. Don't get us started on rent, man.
Don't get us started on that.
This was my landlord
for my commercial business, right?
So this was a business rent. So, so this is.
And I was, like, 22 at the time, too.
I really didn't know about what
I was getting into or what I was doing,
and I was making a lot of mistakes.
I've never heard this.
So I just.
But he said to me,
I'll never forget him.
His name was Aldo de Felice.
And he was like a saint in that moment to me,
because he not only knocked
down my rent for dollar 600 less,
he did it for six months just to kind
of let me get through this rough patch.
And I'll tell you, like, two months later,
I turned the whole thing around. We went out,
and our sales organization
had our best sales month in May.
And it's a seasonal business.
And then I went from there,
and I wound up working
in that company as a successful, like,
franchise owner, essentially,
for the next ten years.
And if that guy had not
given me that little moment
of grace and that little bit of. Of a chance,
that breath in that moment,
I wouldn't have been the person I am today.
I wouldn't have gone in that path, and
so much of my life would have been different.
I really. A hundred percent, because I. It was
exactly my experience with these people. Like,
they gave me a roof,
they gave me food, and I could, like,
focus on percent on medicine and the business,
and that ended up working out amazingly.
If they weren't there, I
don't know if I could have made it. Who knows?
But I did.
And mostly thanks to them. So.
Definitely owe them on this one.
Yeah. So Chris and I don't really.
This is not our full time job,
as I understand it is for you,
which is. Congratulations, by the way.
Thank you.
That is so cool that you
get to do this for your full time job.
To be fair,
it's easier to do in Romania because, like,
the average money that you need for
a living is a lot lower than in the US.
So at 500 a month,
it's enough to make a living and, like,
a pretty decent thing.
But you're above that, too, so.
Oh, right.
I was gonna say, I mean,
$500 a month, that's our. Our first milestone.
We got to get to.
And then. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, you're
definitely come a long way since then, I guess.
So just. What's
on your patreon? Like, I mean, because that.
That's pretty transparent.
I don't get all of it.
I wish I did.
There's expenses and there's taxes, of course.
What Patreon tight takes a.
So basically, like,
they have three tiers, right?
As they say, they have, like,
first tier where they just basically, like,
let you use the platform
to collect money and that's it.
So I don't think you can, like,
customize the kind
of posts that you do like. You have very,
very limited options, basically. Right.
And that's. So they,
they say they take 5%,
but there's actually more.
I can detail more on my tier
because that's the one I know best. Of course,
then there's the tiram,
which they say is 8%,
which allows you to make. So custom posts,
you get access to
your analytics and all of that, that's 8%.
And then they have like another
tier where they say it's 12%.
And what it allows you to do is
if you have associates and other
people working with you on the Patreon,
that allows you to basically connect multiple
people to handle the account, I'm assuming.
So not everybody has access to the finances.
I'm not exactly sure, not
interested in it since I work mainly loan. So.
Solopreneur. Yeah, yeah.
It started like this.
Now I have people helping me on various stuff,
but not on the Patreon, let's say.
And so on that 8% tier,
they take another, I believe,
like six or 7% or
just like payment processing fees. And plus me,
I get also screwed over because
I'm in Romania and I work in the US,
and PayPal is like, oh,
that's two different countries.
And your currency isn't the
US dollar in Romania, right. So they're like,
if you want to access your money,
you're gonna pay a nice conversion rate.
It's not like the, you know,
like the market conversion rate,
it's like the one that PayPal decides it is.
So PayPal is not great for anyone.
No, no. So for that reason,
I switched to payoneer. But even them, like,
if I want to withdraw any money,
it's like a 2% commission.
So like, there's like, you know, like
it's like little percentages here. Yeah, yeah.
Everyone takes a piece, right, exactly.
Everybody take piece.
And then it's like, you know, website as well,
which I need to maintain.
There's like people that I.
That help me, which I pay. So
I don't like all of that money isn't mine, but.
But I definitely make certainly
more than enough to live comfortably.
But that's.
But that's really good
to know for anyone who is. Who is, you know,
wanting to reach the level that
you're at and you know that
there are these costs associated with,
especially in a different country,
you know, PayPal. It's true.
PayPal is optimized for Americans.
And it has some, you know,
wiggle room for certain countries,
but there's a.
Lot a little bit better for Canada. Recently,
I work for Americans,
and I'm a Canadian.
And so they used to pay me through PayPal,
but it was costing me, like, two to 300,
$400 of my paycheck
a month or something. It was like, it was,
it was a big conversion. Like, not a, I mean,
relative to my paycheck.
It was like, all right,
but the actual, the actual, like,
process of, like, well, that's,
that adds up. You know, like,
over a whole year, you got $2,400 to.
Or so that could be invested or it could
be saved or could be done something with.
And.
Exactly right.
And all they're doing is sending
me money that I already own. Right? Like,
that's what's so crazy about the business.
It's my money. You know, that's.
I feel,
I feel you on that one, because, like,
every time I take from payoneer, I'm like,
so you're just telling me that I have to pay
money to access my money. Ah, nice. Thank you.
Yeah, the biggest scam ever. Geez,
how do I get business?
Oh, man.
But, yeah, start your
own online banking platform.
Yeah, that's not hard.
Yeah, I feel like I may not have
the confidence to do that.
I feel like other banks are like, gangdeh, too.
They'll just come around and be like, no, no,
we're not letting that happen.
Give us your money. Come on.
Banks are also an issue. Like, I mean,
if we're on topic of bank, why not?
When I opened my firm in. So, in Romania,
because that's where I live.
My nationality is french, right?
But I live in Romania.
I've been living here for, like,
the past eight years.
It's basically my home now. Like,
I have all my friends here. Like, it's.
I'm just so used to being here, and
I wanted to open a business account, right?
Because I'm like, oh, you know, it's, it's,
I'm making a bit of money.
I probably should open the
business and make that thing legal
so I don't go to jail or something.
So I go to, like, a notar.
Like a notary.
It's a notary.
So helps me open the firm and everything.
And then I need a business account, right? The
bank account for the business. I'm like, okay,
I'll go to, like,
the main bank of Romania,
which is Bancatlan Sylvania. And I'm like,
so I just show up. And I'm like, hey,
because that was my bank at the time,
because that's when I first arrived to Romania.
That was like the bank I use, right, for, like,
a personal account. I go. And I'm like, hey,
I'd like to open a business.
And they're like, well,
if you want to open a business,
you need to be romanian.
I'm like, well,
that's an issue because I'm not. Like,
my nationality says I'm not romanian. Like,
I have a residency permit,
but I'm not nationality.
I'm not romanian. They're like, well,
you can't open an account. Like,
you'll need a romanian associate then.
And I'm like, well,
that's also an issue because I work loan.
You need a romanian associate?
Yeah. So basically they put all
of those barriers in the way.
And then so I went to another bank,
which is called in j,
and I was like, hey,
I'd like to open a business account.
And he's like, what's your name?
And I'm like this.
And I just explained, like,
the whole situation that I just went through.
And it's like, yeah, it's no worries, man.
Just come back in an hour.
I'll do the papers.
And I was like, okay,
guess I'm with this bank now. So.
Whoa. So, so, yeah, for, for people.
Was it that simple, really?
Just, like,
filled out some paperwork, and, like,
30 minutes later,
I was out and I had a business. Wow.
So very few people change their
bank account in their lifetime, though. Like,
that's what's so interesting. Like,
I read a stat about how basically,
if you set up account when you're a kid,
90 or 80% of people never switch banks.
And banks is one of those weird
businesses where there's
not a lot of, like, conscious competition.
People just kind of surrender to the
fact that they have their money somewhere
and they stick with it forever
until there is such a huge issue. Like, oh,
I'm starting a business or this.
And they start to get
into actually using bank services,
and then that's where they.
They can lose people like that.
That's like the main, like,
if you want to run a business,
like any business,
usually customer acquisition
is the most expensive
part compared to customer maintenance.
Because if you have, like, a decent product,
and I mean, like this, for any business,
be it d and d, be it, like, shirts,
be whatever you want to sell.
If people buy from you and they
trust you enough to buy from you and
you give them something that they like,
that they enjoy and of decent quality,
the chances that they come back
to you because they had a good
experience with you is very high. So, like,
the cost to maintain them
as a customer is fairly low, whereas, like,
the cost to get someone to trust
you enough that they're like, you know what?
Sure, I'll give you some of my hard
earned money is a lot higher.
And that's why, like, banks and, like,
many other companies, like,
spend so much money,
and they give you, like,
you know, like, even banks, like,
make an account with us,
and we'll give you, like, two, $300
for free, right? They, like, you know, like,
make a new account. Like,
PayPal does that as well.
They're like, yeah, you get, like,
a $50 bonus if you make
an account with us or something, because
customer acquisition is just that valuable,
because they know that on the long run,
they'll make 20 times, 30 times,
100 times what they invested in the beginning.
Hey, nerdpreneurs, we'll get back to
this episode in just a second,
but I wanted to let you know
Evan was super generous with his time.
He actually spent another 50 minutes with
us sharing effective business strategies,
and we just couldn't fit it all
into this public version of the episode.
During that 50 minutes with Evan, we
go over how he got so many Patreon subscribers,
how he grew his Instagram
and YouTube channel from scratch,
the principles of creating D and d
content that people will actually pay for.
A bit on email marketing,
he shared with us his daily routine,
and I asked him what advice he
would give if he had million followers.
There's so much gold in here.
If you're looking to be a nerdpreneur,
this is by far one of most valuable episodes.
If you want to get access to
the uncut version of this and
hear everything monkey DM has to share,
go to patreon.com nerdpreneur.
Sign up to be a board member.
You'll get a private RSS feed link that you
can add to your Spotify or Apple playlist,
and that way,
you'll be able to get not only Evan's episode,
but every other future
interview and past interview
that we've done. Uncut, uninterrupted, no ads.
All for being a board member and supporting
the one and only nerdy business podcast.
Thanks again for listening.
Now let's finish
off this episode with Monkey DM. So,
are you nerdy about anything
else outside your core business?
So I have a couple nerdy passions,
so I waste my time.
Sometimes I watch Pokemon Nuzlockes.
What?
Pokemon? Like Pokemon? Nuzlockes. So, like,
it's basically like you
play Pokemon as you regularly would, but, like,
if your Pokemon faints, you know,
when it falls to zero hit points,
it doesn't faint, it just dies.
So you can never use that Pokemon again,
and you can never catch another
one of the same species. Right. So, like,
if you caught a Pikachu and it died,
you're never getting Pikachu again.
This is like Pokemon on Nightmare mode.
Yeah, it's exactly, it's like Pokemon, but.
But it's not for kids anymore. Yeah,
it's just like,
it's kind of the idea. And.
And those readers are like,
there's like some very good creators
out there on YouTube who do that.
And those readers, like 30, 40
minutes long. And, like, sometimes, you know,
when I'm eating or when
I don't want to work or something,
I watch those a bit.
Those would be one of the things I,
my nerdy interests.
26 years old and still watching Pokemon.
But that's all right.
I have plenty of friends that got back into
playing the Game Boy version of Pokemon.
Well, I mean, to be fair, we live in an
amazing world because nowadays there's
people who are professional Pokemon players,
trainers. Whoa. So, you know, like, yeah,
like the fucking youtubers
who make living out of playing Pokemon.
As far as I'm concerned, you're
a Pokemon trainer and you make a living out.
We'll definitely call them up for another
nerd perenna episode because I'm serious.
I want to talk to more, like,
I want to talk to pro video
gamers or this weird niche of, like, all right,
you're a legitimate
Pokemon trainer in this real, like, fake world.
There are so many niches that you can do now.
Yeah, yeah. Now with, like, the fact
that you can document everything, basically,
as long as you can
make an entertaining video or, you know, audio,
whatever about the thing that you're doing,
people will tune in, listen,
and maybe throw a couple bucks your
way and maybe that's enough couple of
bucks that you can make a living out of it,
and that's kind of cool.
So other nerdy hobby. So there's like, pokemon.
I like it out.
And I'm a big fan of dark souls. I. So. Whoa.
So I haven't ordered Elden ring.
Okay. Okay.
That's one question so bad. But I'm not.
And the reason why,
because if I play it,
I'm not gonna have a life.
Yeah.
And I'm not gonna do anything else.
I know myself.
I feel played video games before.
What happens is I get the game. I play, like,
60 hours in, like, two days. Even
though it's not possible, I play, like, every.
Every waking hour
of my time needs to be played.
So because I know I have this. This.
This fault in me.
That's why I have a Mac, because
I can't play video games on a bloody Mac.
They're not powerful enough. That's, like,
that's why I don't have
a console, because, you know, I can't.
Can play video games this way.
So this way, like, don't, like,
waste my time and, like, die. Just, like, play
video games because I would fucking love it.
Yeah.
Productivity tool right there.
Just don't have the system
powerful enough to play the games,
and you won't waste your time.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's like, that's
literally how I built it. It's like,
because I knew, like,
last time I had a computer
I could play video games on,
I can tell you that was
not a product of time at all.
So I got that out of my life,
and that's why I'm on Mac. That's, like,
one of the main reasons I'm on Mac.
It's not because I like
the hardware so much or something.
It's just I can't play video games on it.
I feel the same way with snack food.
I can control my wallet.
I can't control my cravings. So if I.
If I buy any of the
snack food and it's in my house,
I will eat it.
So I stop myself at the grocery store.
So when I'm hungry,
I'm looking around, I'm like, yeah,
all I got is celery.
That's all I can eat right now. Celery. Fine,
I'll just eat some freaking celery.
And that happens to be
enough to get me through the night. Yeah,
you can control certain areas.
You have to know yourself well enough to know
where you can and can't control those cravings.
But, like, it's like, the same with, like.
Like I mentioned earlier, TikTok, right? Like,
it's just like, you
turn on the app, and then, like,
an hour is gone.
Yes.
And then you feel like hell,
and you're like, okay,
I don't like this.
I spent way too much time.
Delete the fucking app. Yeah, there you go.
Fix the problem.
This is.
This is actually a
really interesting point. There's.
There's two trains,
two schools of
thought here that we're touching on. One
is when you get to know yourself well enough,
you understand which
of these schools is best for you,
whether you just completely
obliterate the thing from your life,
which I have done. Like you're saying.
When I was in school,
I totally made sure I had a poor, like,
a bad computer that just could do school,
because I knew I was the same way.
If I gamed at all,
if I could game, school would suffer.
So I didn't want that.
And then the other way of thinking is, oh,
I will find the balance.
That is hard work. That is hard. But that is.
That is what I pursue,
is to find that balance,
because I do love to game.
I love to play those great games,
but I also know that
it's such a trap, and it's. It's. You know,
I don't think one is
right more than the other, necessarily.
I just think
that for individual people, it might.
Some people are good at, like, my brother.
Yeah, my brother, also a nerd. We, like,
we grew up playing Zelda together. Like,
we would say it in the same room.
He would play Zelda, I would watch,
and then we would alternate.
That's how we bond. Right? Like,
I love my brother to death.
He has very good self control. He's
able to turn on the console, play 30 minutes,
and then that's it.
He played his 30 minutes. Whoa.
Just 30 minutes? That's it.
Or, like, maybe an hour, you know, like,
whatever time he's
deemed is appropriate for playing games.
Uh huh.
I cannot do that.
I am a. This. I can't pronounce,
like the opposite of a Jedi.
Yeah. Sith. There you go.
Idea in absolutes,
meaning it's like
it's either all in or all out. I cannot.
There's no regulation.
It's not possible. It's just like,
with my business now, I work, like,
1012 hours a day on the business,
and I don't mind it. I like it. It's cool.
I like doing that. It's probably.
I go to the gym six times a week.
It's like it's either all in or nothing.
And it's just like, my
personality always been like this. It's like.
So I set up my life around that,
let's just say.
But that's the dream, you know,
working 12 hours on something that you like,
and that is going in that direction.
So I will say this. On work,
when I'm working, I'm not like, when, you know,
when you're in the state. State of, like,
deep work, you know, like, when you've
been editing for a while and you're, like,
in the state of flow where it's just, like,
coming out of you.
You're not even thinking, really.
You're just. It's like, time is passing,
but you're not, like, putting any value,
judgmental value on it. It's just happening.
And I think that's, like,
the best state to be in. It's like,
a lot of people, like, have this, like,
you know, like, internal judgment, oh,
I should be doing this,
should be doing that.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When I'm
at the gym lifting, for example, that's, like,
the easiest way
for me to get in the zone is, like,
I'm just lifting. I'm not, like,
thinking of anything else.
I'm not thinking. I'm
not putting a value judgment on the lifting.
I'm just doing the thing. And same with, like,
I managed to get in a state of, like,
good work. I just work. That's it.
There's no judgments. Not good. It's not bad.
But at the end of the day,
when I finished my day,
I feel like it was meaningful.
And I think enjoy is not the right term,
is what I would say. You know,
because it's like,
I don't not enjoy it. It's
not like I enjoy it either. It just happens.
It's like this very flowing kind
of thing where you just. There's no judgment.
There's no thinking happening.
It's just the work.
And I think that's
where I'm at my most satisfied, I would say.
I love that.
So this next section is called random rolls.
So these are less serious,
more fun kind of questions.
So we're going to do three rolls,
and then we'll ask you the questions,
depending on what those numbers are. Go for it.
72.
Oh.
Oh, this is perfect for you. What is
your stance on min maxing your characters?
Does it take away or add to the fun?
It depends on your d. No min maxing.
No optimizing, I would say, adds the fun. Min
maxing probably detracts from it because, like,
there's only so
many min Max characters. You know? Like,
there's only so many, like, broken characters.
Like, it's like, a very, like, few, like,
specific combos of characters
which are actually broken, and, like,
the other ones can be fun,
can become strong, and, like,
making them more strong is probably more fun.
But there's, like, definitely, like,
a breaking point, I would say,
where it's just like, yeah,
we've all seen, like, a Sherlock or, like,
a Hexblade paladin or, you know, like,
we've all seen those.
It's. Yeah, you can get creative,
but we've all seen the build, so, you know,
it's get something else going, I guess,
is my thinking on this one.
Go ahead and roll again.
100.
Oh, that's my choice. How about this?
If you had all of Jeff Bezos money,
what would you do with it?
If I had all of Jeff,
there's so much money that's, like, more than
an ancient gold dragon, man. Like, legit, like,
by the math, like,
what's written in the book, it's more.
I can't even fathom
that much money. Probably, like, take, like,
20 million for myself
and give the rest to charities,
which I know are doing good because, I mean,
I guess that's my
experience with the romanian government.
But a lot of charities do a lot of very
good things and are very transparent
with how they spend money. In Romania,
the government doesn't even
have a sheet where the money goes.
So, like, for all we know, it may be
going in the politicians pocket. So, you know,
give it to, like,
some nice charities who are doing
good work around the world. Probably my answer.
And keep a big chunk of it
for me because I'm selfish like that.
Hey, if it's your money,
it's so much money, man.
Like, I don't even know if 20 million is. Like,
he would even realize
it's gone from his account.
If you had all the money in JBL, Jeff Bezos,
you could take a billion dollars
and just put it in an account,
and that would be it.
And then literally spend all
the other money to do whatever you want,
and you probably would still have, like,
4 billion left over after
you've given everyone in the world money.
Or there is something to be said. I've had.
I was a broke student.
I've been a broke student before. You know,
it's like you. It's like,
do I get a coffee with my friends
or do I have dinner tonight? It's, you know,
this is the question. I've been there.
I didn't give much back then
because I didn't have the money to give.
And now that I have more money, I do
donate to charities and stuff, and I do, like,
helping with the extra money I have.
So I would say, like,
if you're struggling with money,
get your life in order,
and then you can start helping people.
Just like, you know, if a plane crashes,
get yourself first and
then help the person next to you.
I love that topic,
but we're not going to dive into it.
But I very
much agree on many levels. Okay, last roll.
I love rolling myself.
It's been so long since I rolled some d 125.
Huh. This, um. We haven't
asked this one before,
and I'm curious if this will apply,
but what was your best science fair project?
Did you have science fairs in your schools?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did a Faraday cage.
What?
Faraday cage. So, basically, it's like,
it's a funny thing.
It's like a cage where basically,
if you shoot lightning
into it and you're inside the cage,
you're actually protected from the lightning,
even though the cage is made of metal.
Yeah, yeah. It's like, because of, like,
I can't remember exactly the formula.
I was young lad, and
we didn't actually put someone in it. It was.
It was like a.
It was a probe, basically, that was, like,
put inside to
record if it get any electricity. Right.
And then we had, like,
the thing that was, like,
blew the lightning, and.
And we built the cage,
and basically, like, it worked. Like,
the probe didn't get any lightning
or maybe contact with him. Just.
I don't know. It worked.
It's gonna be worked, but, yeah, so, basically,
you build this cage, which is, like,
made of iron.
So you put that basically,
around the probe, and you make, like,
a small cage out of it.
Put the probe in the middle with the lightning,
and the probe is protected, and basically,
you can expand that to, actually,
humans put them in that cage, and
it protects them from lightning. For example,
the Faraday cage
that we all know is an airplane,
meaning that the lightning
touches the plane is exited at, like,
the other end of the plane.
People inside
the plane are not affected by it. So, like,
that's the idea behind a Faraday cage.
Oh, that's really cool.
I didn't know about this.
I just learned something new. Thank you.
Yeah, there you go. No, I was.
Because I know, like,
a lot of people have, like,
the business story of I was bad in school,
and school wasn't for me, and, you know, I.
So I made the business. I was like,
I was great in school. I did medicine,
so I liked school.
I was pretty good at it.
But you didn't have that problem.
Stumbled into this business
thing despite all that education.
Yeah.
So let's do our rapid fires, because I.
Yes. So the rapid fires, quick questions.
They're just a couple words,
and your answers can be just a couple words,
unless they sound wrong or weird.
Then we'll make you go into more detail.
Sure.
All right, first one.
Star Trek or Star Wars?
Star wars.
Not the new series, though.
That's so consistent. Like, we keep.
So many people say, yeah, it's.
Do you not like
Star Trek or Star Trek still? Okay.
The new Star Trek is absolutely horrendous.
Now, new Star Trek tv shows or movies?
I like.
I tried to watch the shows.
I couldn't get them.
One episode in. I just, like, cringed.
And the movies, well, I stuck.
I was in the cinema,
so I was stuck in there.
But it was not that bad. The movies, I guess,
but it was not that great either, compared
to the old ones. That's my opinion. But, yeah.
Okay, well, I think you're wrong.
And discovery has gotten really good. So. Yeah.
That's all I'll say.
Sure, sure. I'll take it.
Who was the best Spider man actor?
I really like the latest one. What's his name?
Holland.
Holland. I like him. I feel
like he's young spider man. Like,
he definitely gets the vibe.
I didn't watch the latest one,
like the multiverse,
like the three.
And I want to watch it.
I haven't had the opportunity yet.
What are your three favorite pizza toppings?
I like chorizo
olives. Go great on pizza. And then mushrooms.
Let's just go with mushrooms.
Mushrooms are a great topic.
I am curious about one thing,
because we talked to someone
and they said that in Romania,
corn on pizza is a thing.
Yeah, it is. I.
Okay.
All right.
I just wanted to.
You want to know?
So I'll tell you a little
quick tangent on romanian pizza.
So tomato sauce is expensive.
So usually they don't use tomato sauce.
They use ketchup.
First of all, big red flag, right?
Or they put a bit of tomato sauce,
but then they use, like,
sauces next to the pizza,
which they dip the pizza in. Instead of, like,
just eating, like, regular pizza,
they dip the pizza in sauce.
I don't like doing that.
I hate that they do that,
but they don't put enough sauce in the pizza.
So sometimes you have to do it.
I'm not a particularly big fan of it,
but now I found
an appalachian pizza in town. It's great.
I only take pizza from there, and
they sometimes put corn because, I don't know,
they're the spawns of Satan or something.
I'm glad to hear that was real.
But, yeah, I. Yeah, they fall
on the chaotic evil spectrum. In that vein,
would you prefer to use
orcs or gnolls in your adventure?
I prefer orcs because
there are more humans like gnolls.
If you use gnolls,
they're purely monsters. With orcs.
You can more fun
messed up stuff to your players, because
I'm a big fan of dark fantasy and making
people think twice on their action. So orcs.
Nice.
Yeah.
How many cats is too many cats?
One.
Cool.
Okay.
Laser tag or paintball?
Never tried paintball,
so I'll go laser tag.
But I heard it's awesome,
so I really want to try it.
One day I'm in that boat
and then the last one on my end.
Are you a fan of hot weather or cold weather?
I like both, actually,
as a matter of fact, cold
weather because sometimes it's nice and cozy.
It's snuggle inside.
So I'll say cold weather when
you have an inside to go to because, you know,
obviously warm weather is nice,
but I sweat, so, you know,
that's not so nice, I guess.
Yeah.
I like warm weather, though,
because you can go to the beach.
And I like cold weather because skiing
is something I did when I was growing up.
I was very lucky to have the chance to do that.
And I can even do backflips now. Hey.
But I love skiing, so, like,
I like cold weather for the snow and because,
let's be honest,
romanian cities are not very pretty.
It's like all soviet bloc.
They look ugly as hell.
And when everything is covered in snow,
it looks a lot nicer.
And we have a lot of snow here,
so that's something I like about it.
My last one,
I think will be what would be
your zombie apocalypse weapon of choice.
I did not think that
went through before the interview.
I'll let you know that much.
So I remember watching a video
a long time ago that it was better to
have an axe than a gun because
it was a lot harder to find. Especially here,
we don't have guns to find ammo and stuff,
so I guess an axe is
nice or otherwise I'll just take, like,
a couple of tactical nukes and just, like,
wipe the planet out, maybe. Don't stop. Yes.
I feel like those are hanging
around a lot more in the eastern
Europe than they are in Canada. Yeah.
Yeah, we have. We have
a couple around here. Yeah, we definitely do.
We do too.
Yeah. In the US you have maybe a couple more,
I would say, actually, I.
Always thought Canada
would be awful for an apocalypse.
We have no guns.
We'd just be taking our hockey
sticks and hockey skates and trying
to kill people with that or knock off.
Like, the zombies
would be like, extremely, like,
especially if it's winter. Like,
the zombie would be, like,
very slow in the snow and stuff.
That is the benefit, actually. We
think that we should a canadian zombie movie,
because it would very different
circumstances as soon as winter hits,
because there'd be, like,
zombies wandering through snow. But also,
if you're wandering through the snow,
might step on a zombie,
which would be a totally other
terrifying side to it is just like, I don't.
Know, it's like, like the whole, like,
the physiology behind
zombies is very strange because, like,
if it's that cold outside and, like, zombies
are barely ever closed, right? So, like,
they would just freeze.
They don't have internal heat to produce.
They would just, like, freeze. There's no way.
Yeah. Also the prairies, like, the vast
tracks of land in Canada where there's a.
That's true.
Just set yourself up there
and if they see, if they come, I don't know,
just ride a moose into the distance.
Nice one.
That's a good canadian stereotype.
View from a very ignorant perspective.
You could love that kind of stereotype.
Isn't that how you guys go to work, like that?
That's what I heard.
Well, yeah. Once I get outside of my igloo,
I wind up.
I have to tie my mousse up. Well,
where can people find you, monkey DM?
How could we,
how can we support you?
Where can people find you
and potentially even support you?
Okay, so I'm getting
plenty of support at the moment, but
if you want some cooled in stuff that's free,
you can go on r Monkey Dm. It's on Reddit,
Reddit r monkey dm.
All my free stuff is there. It's very
easy to sort go on my website, monkeydm.com,
you'll get. There's like, free adventures,
free homebrew Monsters.
Right now we're having an encounter Generator
that's been created where you can, like,
Generate Encounters by, like,
the Generated specifically
for your party level and
everything with all the free stuff. So, like,
it's quite helpful. Wow.
If you want to introduce someone,
like a loved one or a friend or family member,
we've got one on one adventures all for free.
So, like, feel free to go get those stuff.
And I have a Patreon, but, you know,
get the free stuff first
and get a touch for yourself.
See if you like it.
I actually need
those one on one adventures. My girlfriend,
she wants to learn so she can interact with the
kids that she teaches that are fans of it.
That's.
I didn't know that was a thing.
Yeah, it's free on my website. It's called
workshop of wondrous war machines, I believe.
Oh, nice. I love alliteration.
It's a bit Eberron ish, but
it's a one on one adventure. It's very nice.
You get little robot buddy, and it's.
I like it. It's a fun adventure.
Perfect.
So cool.
Oh, and your social media handles.
Oh, right, right, right.
I have YouTube monkey DM,
and I have Instagram monkey DM. Yeah.
And I have TikTok monkey dM.
But delete TikTok from your phone,
probably do yourself some good.
I just did that in our conversation.
I was like, oh, my God,
I need to get rid of this right now.
I don't even use it anymore.
Yeah.
How did you come up with monkey DM? Is that.
It's actually. There's, like.
So it's a double layer thing.
So had a partner
who called me monkey a lot. So that was.
That was one of the reasons.
Another one is my family name is Moscato,
and I'm an MD. Like,
a medical doctor. Right. So mdm, monkey DM.
Wow. Layers. Love that.
Oh, my gosh.
And also, you know, like, DM's in.
Dodge Master,
so it was like, it's totally synchronous.
It works together. That's awesome.
Yeah, and people like monkeys,
so that's a good.
I love that.
Well, thanks so much, Evan. We appreciate you.
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