For our first Career Bites session of 2025, we were excited to offer students something a bit different. Ben, Nic and Tim Sudmann are three Kiwi brothers who have taken a big swing at YouTube success with their channel, ‘The Cheeky Golf Club’. They kindly gave up some golfing time to meet our students and offer aspiring content creators some helpful hints.
Their first tip was to find something you’re passionate about because passion brings motivation. It’s much easier to wake up in the morning and film if you’re doing something you love – even if you have to get up at 5am to shoot a daily video before fitting in a full day’s work at your ‘normal’ job – as Tim was doing in London when the channel first started.
Students also learned about the hard work involved. The brothers reminded us that what viewers see is the fun part. Behind the scenes, there is about a week’s worth of editing for every video, as well as directing and other production-related tasks. While this may sound daunting, Ben was keen to emphasise that all of this hard work helps to develop a wide range of marketable skills: “You are building a huge skill set. These skills are only going to up in value as the creator economy grows.”
Getting the format right also involves a lot of trial and error and reflection – the brothers have learned from the responses to every video. Finding their niche meant testing out different ideas and monitoring viewer numbers and retention closely to see what worked and what didn’t. Eventually, they realised that they needed (and wanted) to appeal to golfers and non-golfers alike, and the importance of storytelling (i.e. skilful editing) in attracting this broad audience.
The presentation finished on an encouraging note for students. Though not every content creator will be able to make a living (through brand partnerships, advertising space, and merchandising), the pathway is open for people who want to try. You can shoot and edit on an iPhone, and there is plenty of content-creation expertise on YouTube itself that you can tap into. Nic’s advice? “Be brave and start posting – see if you like it.”