100th Youtube Video | AnalyticsAriel Celebration

The last two years have been an incredible journey for the AnalyticsAriel channel. Check out this video for highlights, a deep dive of my background, and how you can provide feedback.

Transcription

Ariel Herrera 0:00

Ariel Herrera 0:00

Hey everyone, today is a special day it is the 100th video of the analytics area channel. Thank you to all the followers for this channel because it motivates me to post new content every single Wednesday. And for the 100 video, I want to share with you some of the celebrations over the last two years for the channel, and more on my background and why I created it to begin with, stick to the end because I want to hear from you on some ideas I have for more content within the year. And I'm going to share with you how you can provide feedback there. Alright, let's get started. For the 100 video, I want to give you a little bit more of a background on myself accomplishments of the channel as well as how you can provide feedback. So first to get started. If you're not aware, my name is Ariel, I'm a data scientist. And I have a YouTube channel called analytics Ariel. I also reside in Tampa, Florida, originally from New Jersey. And for my undergrad I did go to Rutgers University, which is in New Jersey go are you I currently work full time at folio as a data scientist. And I am an avid Yankees fan, very sad right now in the year 2022, that there's a lockout going on. But hopefully, the season will start soon. So onto some celebrations for the channel. One two years, I had no idea where the channel was going to go. And there's been over 50,000 views, which is amazing. And subscribers, over 1.3k subscribers, which I never thought would be possible in the two year timeframe, and almost 3000 hours of watch time, which is incredible. And the top video, just didn't expect it to be has been how to use Zillow API with Python. So it seems like a lot of you do like to have these tutorials on using Python and also using a data source. So you're familiar with something similar to Zillow, it does have a user interface that you can go into manually if you'd like. Then, the most incredible part I'd say thus far of this channel is the people that I've met. So whether it's through just solely networking, or potentially collaborating on a project, over the last two years, I've been able to network with over 100 people, I average about meeting one new person per week, which I absolutely love, because I learned so much from the people that I've met, in comparison to books and podcasts, which also supplement my learning. But nothing is like learning from peers. And a huge, huge thing that we had coming into 2022 was hiring a Content Manager, his name is Josh and he's been incredible. You guys might have noticed that the quality of thumbnails videos so on have really improved and that's because of Josh, he has a great eye for understanding what content people want to see. And he's been a tremendous help for me to be able to put out more on the channel. So you may be wondering if especially became the channel at a later phase is where did I come from? Why is I analytics area here today? A little bit about my background.

I was very, very career driven and still am earlier, as I was still in school, and I had an internship, I graduated from Rutgers University, and I had a slew of other roles within different companies. Bloomberg when I was there in January 2015, that's when I first started coding never thought I'd be coding. But I had a colleague was teaching how to code in Excel using programming language VBA, my mind was just blown tasks that were taking one hour, I was able to automate it, and it took two seconds for the code to run. So from there, I went straight to Deutsche Bank to be able to really expand my technical skills. Now being a tech and BA flex role. There I learned SQL Python and was able to actually dabble into data science as a junior data scientist. And I wanted to get more experience into consulting so to be a little bit more forward facing, which is why I went over to Accenture. The travel was a little bit much for me, especially traveling within New Jersey and driving taking about an hour and a half each way. Which ultimately once I finished my degree at NJIT, I did take an opportunity to work back into New York City at FINRA where I got a role as a data scientist. And throughout this journey, I was always driven for the next thing next thing and always thinking that the next role was going to be better and provide more happiness as well as more funds. However, I found myself in 2018, as I was working at FINRA, which is an incredible company, that I was just still not fully fulfilled sending on the academy bus, which this is like, right by where I used to work. And going in and out of the city two hours each way, like, Is this really what I worked so hard for what I'm grinding for? Why all these interviews that I go on what it's all about to do this for the next 40 years of my life, I don't think so. So that's when I really started diving into books and learning a what people that have also been frustrated with the whole career lifecycle, what they currently do. And in this sense, I decided that what I want for the rest of my life is I want to be able to achieve financial freedom, not to discontinue work. But to have the option to work. I want to have the availability to pursue my own ideas, as my mind is always racing of different business opportunities, I want to be able to take the days that I want off the whole idea of accruing days and having to time exactly or I'm going to take a half day and then leave at this time on a flight to make sure that I'm within my 20 days for the year is just crazy to me. And I want to be able to spend more flexible time with family, not just after hours of work when I'm exhausted. But also, when I have a lot of energy, maybe be able to have a flexible day where I work for three hours have a gap work again, these are all things that I see as ideal that are just not possible within the stage of my life at 2018.

And, of course, one thing is to have a goal and your reasons, but to also have some dreams as well. So then these dreams, what I wanted, I saw myself for the future was to be able to be a real estate investor. So I could provide safe housing for others be a business owner so I can create employment opportunities in the future. And then also one of my goals is to be a part time professor, however, didn't want to go through a whole PhD because it would end up be costing a lot of money, probably making the same amount and losing out and experience time. So I was thinking, Well, how would I ever share my knowledge of what I know, if I won't be able to get the degree that would allow me to become a part time professor, that as you'd see, analytics area has given me that platform to be able to share my knowledge without having to go through that entire process. So my journey since 2018, has been absolutely incredible. And it has not been a linear line. It's been all over the place, but in a good way. So to start off 2019 Analytics area, I was just in a brainstorm, I was reading so many books, and they all had one consistent theme, which is you need to network and you should start something of your own. That way you can build on it. In my head, I'm like I have no properties want to talk about. So I thought alright, well, I do have skills and data science, maybe I could do some little project of forecasting, house prices or something, and I could put it on a blog. And as I was going through this process of researching what data I could use for this model, I want it to build, I realize, wow, there's a tremendous gap and data, there isn't one singular data source to point towards for real estate publicly. And then at that there's missing coverage throughout the United States. There's also inaccurate data. And that's what led me to think, hey, there's a gap here that's actually needed, because there's so much work and so much really cool, fun stuff that can be done once the data is clean and set. And that's why I started creating videos around data analytics. So in 2019, also reading books, the same thing theme for each of them was need to just get started. So as nervous as I was, I was like, Alright, I'm going to do it. I am going to purchase my first ltr which stands for live and rent, check out my videos on lived and rent strategy. That idea for me was put 5% down, live in it for a year move out and continue the process. That way I could get away with putting a lot less down and acquire more properties without having to save so much in between. And personally within that timeframe. I was also house hacking the property where I lived in one bedroom with my significant other and then someone else in another bedroom. Then, in 2020 was the launch of analytics area and it was pre COVID. I had the whole idea in January of that year set it up in February and in first video ended up being when COVID was happening, which actually really helped me to stay consistent with content because I had all this new free time of not having to commute into the city Then for real estate, this is when I acquired my first out of state property is also when I got my second ltr and moved to Tampa, Florida within river view,

has seen so much appreciation over the last two years, which is incredible. Then personally, that's when I made the decision to go remote full time. And I had asked my employer early on just probably like two to three months into the pandemic. Always thinking ahead, I'm like, Alright, if I, you know, am working in the city, there's probably others like me, who also don't want to go back realizing all this time, you now have to spend your families and pursue projects, I'm not going to be the only one there is going to be restrictions in the future. So let me get ahead of it by requesting to go remotely full time because I'm moving away, and I don't want to leave the company. So by framing that all up and being a good employer, I was granted access to be one of the few fully remote people of the company, which was incredible for my journey. And then 2021, I decided that I wanted to see how I can really expand analytics area. And this what this pursued me to do was actually leave my role at FINRA start a new position at a lower salary, lower title, but with idea of doing more freelancing for analytics area, which I'll get to how challenging that was. But in that year, I also got my real estate license, which was super, super exciting. And I also got my third ltr property which I currently reside in, and this more in the center of Tampa, the city. So in 2022, some things have changed, I have realized that because I do work in roles that are a little bit more extraneous, to put myself into doing, freelancing is a little bit difficult to put to put it nicely. So working, you know, 1214 hour days on a consistent basis is just not for me, doesn't really make sense because I'm not really upping my skills. And I'm also not able to put my full effort into one given role position or freelance job. So I have scaled down freelancing. And now I'm more focused on consulting, which I still incredibly enjoy it. It's really my skill set. And it also benefits whoever's on the other end, because I could focus more of my time within that moment, then 2022 for the channel, I also plan to have more add on. So I did have a course the last year and I want to be able to have a more affordable course. One of my complications, there has just been data sources change because there's a lot of Zillow, Redfin, and all these companies, they don't provide their data for free, but at the property level. So you have web scrapers that get this data, these web scrapers can be shut down at any time, this actually happened with one of the scraping API's that I was using, that was based on realtor.com, I was told to even take down the video that I have for it, or potentially have some legal action taken against me. So because of this, courses have been a little bit delayed, but I am working with some companies to see if that are more established to see if there can be some free credits that are used for the channel for the course across anyone who signs up for it. Then I want to add more add on. So stay tuned for the next slide, when I show you how you can actually provide feedback on some of these add ons I'm thinking about to make the channel more inclusive and have more information. In 2022. I also decided to get my first international investment, I had a lot of bad luck trying to get another property as a vacation home within the US, especially in Florida. So I actually do a lot of research out of the country. And I've provided more videos on that. But I do think it could be a really great cash flowing investment. And I am starting business with my sister in wholesaling. And this is going to help this channel too, because I'm going to dive into a lot of different new platforms and processes. And I'll make sure to post those especially probably on Mondays, the ones that are non coding related, I'll post those. And I'll also have some coded related videos like I'm thinking of doing one on how to find cash buyers programmatically, and it might be a lower cost than some of the tools that are out there today. And lastly, the exciting thing is I have changed to a real estate related company at folio as of this year. So I am putting a lot of attention to my role, of course, but it has been a journey of realizing my passion for real estate but not being in a position full time of it.

So now being able to exercise that on a regular day basis, work with real estate related type data is absolutely amazing and super excited for where that journey is going to go. So the main things I want to hear from you, I do have a forum on Google Forms just to ask several questions. I'm going to go through that briefly. Now, just so that you're aware, and I'd really, really appreciate if you could fill it out. Great. So I really want you to be able to give feedback for the channel. And you could do so in the Google forum link below, I have some questions on what content you want to see more of what topics you would want to hear if I decide to do live streams on a weekly basis. As well as what add ons you want to see more of. I have gotten some feedback of creating a mastermind group where it's people who are more technically focused within the real estate domain. That's an interest, please let me know, now that I have a team that's expanding, having Josh, like, there's more bandwidth to be able to create some more community centered around analytics area, as well. Another question there is, would you be interested in the Facebook group don't want to put the effort into doing this and then no one joins. So I'd want to hear from you. Is it a Facebook group? Is it a mastermind group? What would be really useful to you to get feedback not just from me, but from the community on technical things related in real estate. And then if you have a project that you've worked on, it could even be in an early phase or prototype, even an idea and you want to share on the channel, please let me know. I'd love to be able to interview you on it and showcase the work that you've done. So overall, thank you so much for following this channel. It really gives me joy and it's my passion. So please subscribe if you haven't already. And looking forward to the next one. Thanks.