Brandon van der Kolk on building New Money and Buffett-style investing

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**Owen Rask** (0:26)
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You've got like 1.1 million subscribers.
You would have to be the biggest in Australia, like an Australian-based finance creator.

**Brandon van der Kolk** (1:04)
Let's niche it down. Mail, presenter, value investing, Warren Buffett style, then I'm probably the biggest.

**Owen Rask** (1:14)
Hey there, here's a quick note. This podcast contains general financial advice only. That means it's not specific to you, but it will help you keep your needs, goals or objectives. So don't act on the information until you've spoken with your financial advisor. You'll find out full disclosure, disclaimer, and link to our financial services guide in the show notes.
For those that don't know Brandon from New Money on YouTube, you weren't always New Money, were you?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (1:38)
No, I was Aussie Wealth Creation back in the day. We're the cold open. I like it. Yeah, yeah. We're in.

**Owen Rask** (1:42)
Yeah, yeah. Why did you change it?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (1:45)
I noticed at the time that every time, every video I produced that went more viral, that virality came from the US.
And then I looked at my name of Aussie Wealth Creation and I was like, that's probably limiting my growth. So I worked with a branding company to come up with new money, and we did a whole bunch of design work. And then we just ran with that. So I kind of eliminated the Aussieness from my brand to make it just more global, I guess.

**Owen Rask** (2:17)
Yeah, you've got like 1.1 million subscribers. You would have to be the biggest in Australia, like an Australian based finance creator.

**Brandon van der Kolk** (2:28)
You'd be surprised. Like Economics Explained, way bigger than my channel.

**Owen Rask** (2:33)
Is it Australian?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (2:33)
Yeah, Michael up in Sydney. Yeah, there's a sneaky number of Aussies, not all in the finance realm, but there's a sneaky number of Aussies out there with really giant YouTube channels. It's impressive, actually. You ever heard of Sonny V2?
No, he makes like internet drama kind of videos. Well, he's stopped, but he's actually someone that I used to watch. Millions and millions and millions of subscribers. And then it turns out he's from Canberra. He went to the same high school as me.
I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. So I got on the phone to him and had a chat. It was wild.

**Owen Rask** (3:05)
What are the chances of that happening? Economics Explained, 2.9 million.

**Brandon van der Kolk** (3:08)
Yeah, yeah.

**Owen Rask** (3:09)
But okay, yeah. So like in the investing genre, though.

**Brandon van der Kolk** (3:12)
I would say in the value investing genre, hopefully. Let's niche it down. Mail, presenter, value investing, Warren Buffett style.
Then I'm probably the biggest.

**Owen Rask** (3:27)
That's great, though. How much of your audience would be US vs Australia now?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (3:32)
It's probably like 40% US, and Australia would be either my second or third highest at like 8%.
So yeah, the highest single digit ones are US, sorry, not US, Australia, Canada, UK and India, actually. And then it's just low, the rest of the world, that make up the rest of the 100%.

**Owen Rask** (3:53)
Is the book available in India or going to be made available?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (3:55)
I don't know. Well, I mean, it's available on Amazon. I guess Amazon, you can probably get it wherever.
Yeah. Yeah.

**Owen Rask** (4:02)
So how did your fascination with money and finance come to be?

**Brandon van der Kolk** (4:06)
I think low key, I've always been fascinated with money. I used to play video games when I was a kid, and the ones I was drawn to were like the economy based business growth tycoon style games. I just didn't really realize I was into it, and I don't think my parents kind of realized that I was into it.