Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth. You can check out previous installments here.
Some people, when they start making the big bucks in their career, celebrate by buying their dream car. Others splash big on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.
Adrian Vazquez?
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Adrian Vazquez bought a couch.
He’d wanted it for years. It’s a dupe of a Mario Bellini couch–still high quality, still expensive, but not quite as expensive as the genuine item. Vazquez is thrilled with it. When he rings us up for his interview, he’s sitting sprawled against it, and so is his dog, a Great Pyrenees mix named Popcorn. The couch is important not just because it represents a milestone in Vazquez’s career, but also because it features front and center in the marketing for his new home goods brand Homebody.
But let’s back up. Vazquez is from a small town in northern California, and first got started making content as a young dad. His son, then four, really, really wanted to be a toy reviewer, so Vazquez made them a YouTube channel. He’s a big believer in practice making perfect (he quotes Steph Curry practicing by taking 10,000 shots a day), so considers those early videos with his son an essential foundation for the next step in his career: making content for other people.
He moved to New York City and ended up spending six and a half years making content for Million Dollar Listing New York realtor Ryan Serhant. During that time, he says, he was surrounded by “all of the cool architecture” NYC has to offer.
“[I]t inspired me to want to up my interior game, and I was obviously balling on a budget,” he says. “I was like, ‘How do I make these really cool, unique things budget-friendly, and then really take advantage of what New York City has to offer? Everyone is just throwing away these really beautiful pieces of furniture, let me pick them up, upcycle them, and make them something unique in my own space,’ and the internet seemed to like it.”
Now, Vazquez has more than 1.8 million people across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram following his upcycling DIY home decor adventures. And he’s parlaying that success into launching his own apparel and home goods brand, Homebody.
“I’ve built this audience who are typically homebodies, and I’m very much a homebody. I’m like, you know what? Let’s build this brand around this idea of this person who loves to be at home, who loves to put on their comfiest outfits, who has a furry friend, who likes to really curate their space. Has their latte that they have every morning, has their book. They know they’re going to be on the couch or watch that Netflix show or play some Mario Kart,” he says. “That’s that character that I built. I’m like, how do we cater to this person?”
Homebody’s debut collection launched earlier this month, and Vazquez is already taking notes for its next drop.
Check out our chat with him below.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Imagine somebody’s reading this and they don’t know who you are, they’ve never seen your content. Give me a little bit of introduction about you and where you’re from, and what life was like before you got on Instagram and YouTube.
Adrian Vazquez: My name is Adrian Vazquez. I am a DIY home decor creative based out in New York City. I’m a father of two. My girlfriend and I decided to launch a clothing brand/home goods brand called Homebody. Before the internet, I’m from a small town in northern California called Newman. To give you a reference on how small it is, we have a total of two streetlights and my graduating class was 78 kids. Everybody knows everybody’s business.
Tubefilter: Big difference from New York City.
Adrian Vazquez: Complete opposite. Complete opposite. I was that kid who was just really creative and artsy, and into graffiti and into streetwear, and into just culture in general. In that town that I’m from, it’s a little slower pace of life. It’s very traditional. You get a job in agriculture or agriculture. That’s what you do where I’m from. I was that kid who was like, “I just need not this.” I had a kid really young, and that’s how I got my foot in the door, actually.
Tubefilter: Really?
Adrian Vazquez: Yes. When my son was four, he wanted a YouTube channel, and I was super thrown off but I was like, “Hey, this is cool. I want to do creative stuff again.” Because at that point, I was stuck at a regular job, and my son wanted to create content. I was like, “Whoa, let’s figure this out. Let’s go.” He is 12 now and he was 4 then, so like, 8 years ago, we found this world of content, and social media, and became obsessed ever since.
Tubefilter: When you started, were you immediately in the DIY niche, or how did things evolve for you?
Adrian Vazquez: Initially, we got our feet wet by making toy content. My son wanted to be a toy reviewer. I think back to Steph Curry saying you need like 10,000 shots, how to perfect the craft. That was that for me. We were uploading daily content, reviewing new toys, just I don’t know, just whatever Landon–that’s my son–whatever Landon wanted to do. I was trying to be as encouraging as possible. We would make a lot of Easter eggs, I guess. There was always a little bit of a DIY factor in the content. We would make these massive Easter eggs.
Then eventually I would have moved to New York City to pursue creating content for other people. I stumbled across this character named Ryan Serhant. He’s on a TV show called Million Dollar Listing New York and he was just about to venture into creating online content and I was right place right time. I was like, “Hey, I’m here, I’m hungry, let’s create some content.”
I would spend the next six and a half years creating his digital world, and then just being around all of the cool architecture, the really unique homes, it inspired me to want to up my interior game, and I was obviously balling on a budget. I was like, “How do I make these really cool, unique things budget-friendly, and then really take advantage of what New York City has to offer? Everyone is just throwing away these really beautiful pieces of furniture, let me pick them up, upcycle them, and make them something unique in my own space,” and the internet seemed to like it.
Tubefilter: That’s amazing. New York is definitely unique. The amount of furniture I see on the curbs, it’s unlike any other city I’ve ever been in.
Adrian Vazquez: It’s crazy because no one believes that. Everyone thinks it’s like, “Oh, it’s staged.”
Tubefilter: No!
Adrian Vazquez: Right? It’s like, no, dude. Come to New York City and the first or the last day of the month whenever everyone is moving their staff, you can furnish your whole fucking apartment. It’s crazy. You have to see it in person to believe it, I guess.
Tubefilter: It’s definitely a unique experience. Even in my building our trash room, the stuff people leave on moving day…And it’s valuable, too!
Adrian Vazquez: 100%. I found some really cool bar carts in our trash room. I think I just have a little bit of a cheat code too. I live in a massive rental building. There’s 900 units.
Tubefilter: Oh, huge. I actually have a bar cart as my bedside table.
Adrian Vazquez: Let’s go. I just converted my bar cart. I found an airplane cart on Facebook Marketplace and that’s my new bar cart. It’s pretty sick. I’m pretty hyped on it.
Tubefilter: Do you find the majority of your stuff on Marketplace, aside from just seeing stuff around?
Adrian Vazquez: Listen, I don’t like to spend money. I’m pretty frugal. One, if I can’t find something, I’ll immediately go to Facebook Marketplace. I’ve thankfully been able to develop a network of friends who make stuff. I’ll barter with friends like, “Hey, We’ll make some video content if you help me make this really cool-sized table.” Then I’ll try to find some high-quality stuff online, but that’s my last resort.
Tubefilter: You moved to New York City for this job. You were creating content for somebody else. What was growth like? Because I know that you have over half a million followers on both Instagram and YouTube.
Adrian Vazquez: I think it’s 1.8 million across platforms. I was very fortunate. Ryan was my guinea pig for the last five years. I only started content in November of 2022. It’s a year, maybe almost a year and a half. It started out pretty quickly. Again, because I’ve been able to test out all these formats with Ryan, I had a little bit of a cheat code. I would say I gained the majority of my following within the first six months. That was really a locking-down format, and then just staying consistent, and then slowly evolving. I got to 1.4 pretty quickly within the first six to seven months.
Tubefilter: Are you full-time on your own content now?
Adrian Vazquez: I have separation anxiety from my other job.
Tubefilter: Understandable.
Adrian Vazquez: I’m part-time now. I go into my office two days a week. That’s because I’m just really proud of what we’ve built, and I just have a hard time leaving it. We have a group of incredible people that I’m just obsessed with being around. I’m there two days a week, but for the most part, I’m creating content. A majority of my income at this point comes from content.
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Tubefilter: I would love to hear about Homebody and how the idea for that came about.
Adrian Vazquez: Homebody was an idea that I came up with a couple of years ago, during my full-time gig at Serhant. It was really just like…I’m fueled by change. I just need new things often. I originally came up with the idea of Homebody as a project for Serhant. I was like, “You know what? I don’t know if this is the right place for it.” Then eventually, me and my girlfriend Emma, she and I have been wanting to do something together.
I’ve built this audience who are typically homebodies, and I’m very much a homebody. I’m like, you know what? Let’s build this brand around this idea of this person who loves to be at home, who loves to put on their comfiest outfits, who has a furry friend, who likes to really curate their space. Has their latte that they have every morning, has their book. They know they’re going to be on the couch or watch that Netflix show or play some Mario Kart. That’s that character that I built. I’m like, how do we cater to this person?
Then outside of that, I love clothing. I always wanted to do clothing as a kid. That was the first thing that I recognized that I wanted to do as an adult is like, I want to have a clothing brand. As I’ve grown up, I’m really into home goods. I’m really into unique clothing hangers. I’m really into unique side tables. That’s the space that I want to get into. I think that’s what Homebody will eventually get into.
I think as we’ve spent more time at home, we are kind of looking at things around our house and like, “Hey, how could this be more interesting looking.” I really believe that there will be an interesting-looking broom that’s not super expensive. When’s the last time the broom has had a facelift, stuff like that?
Tubefilter: That’s awesome. Also, very important, I see a dog. What’s your dog’s name?
Adrian Vazquez: Popcorn.
Tubefilter: Popcorn.
Adrian Vazquez: That’s Popcorn.
Tubefilter: What a cutie.
Adrian Vazquez: She’s a pain in the ass, but we love her. She, I think, will be a staple in the brand. Our back graphic on our hoodie is a dog on a couch. It’s this couch and it’s that dog.
Tubefilter: Brand ambassador.
Adrian Vazquez: Brand ambassador, yes. Then Chris, who is helping me build this thing out, our current white color is called Milk and he is like, “Hey, you should just call it Popcorn.” I’m like, “Oh my god. That’s genius.” So our white is now called Popcorn.
Tubefilter: What was the brand development like for you guys? How long has this process been to figure out this lineup of launch products? What’s the process been like?
Adrian Vazquez: I feel like we started this fall of this past year, or at least that’s when the initial conversation started happening. Again, the goal is to get into the home goods space. We thought apparel was a good first step. I’m all about just taking a lot of shots. You heard me mention 10,000 shots. I want to learn how to sell stuff online. I want to know what a real drop feels like. We just had our presale launch at nine o’clock and like all the madness behind that, it’s chaotic, but I love it. Just starting off with clothing, in general, I think is a safe route, and it’s a good first couple of shots.
We reached out to a designer to help us really flesh out this brand identity. Emma and I really spent some time with this design to figure out what the logo looks like, what’s the overall feeling of the brand. The logo is all lowercase letters and it’s bubbly, and it’s based off the idea of this couch. The idea is that homebodies are typically not loud. They’d rather be at home. They’re soft-spoken for the most part. That was kind of the direction that we ran with.
Then earlier this year after the holiday rush, the brand started growing, and we started to really be like, “What do we want to look like?” I like this green. Then, well, I like the idea of really cozy, heavy, soft clothing. We found the best, heaviest, softest material. All these little hurdles that I think are going to be worth it. I don’t know if that’s answering your question.
@adrianvvlogs Today I found a vintage Airplane Beverage Cart to use a Bar Cart #barcart #homedecor #interiordesign ♬ Roxanne – Instrumental – Califa Azul
Tubefilter: What’s the story behind the couch?
Adrian Vazquez: I’ve always wanted this couch. This is a dupe. It’s based off a Mario Bellini couch. It was still a little pricey, but it was a symbol of, damn, I’ve worked really, really, really fucking hard. I’ve sacrificed so much. This was a little bit of an I-made-it moment. Again, it sounds silly and it’s definitely in my head, but it was the first thing that I was able to buy. Up until then, I’ve only inherited couches. I’ve never been able to afford one. This was the first big purchase that I made that I felt like, “Wow, this is a staple piece to my future apartments.” I don’t know. I really like the color and I really like the shape. I eventually do want to buy a real one. I don’t know. It was my first big-boy purchase as a creator. You know how some athletes, they’re like, “Oh my god. I finally made it. I’m going to buy my dream car.” This is just like my dream car.
Tubefilter: It’s a dream couch. That fits very much with your whole vibe.
Adrian Vazquez: Right. It’s quirky. It’s cool looking. Although Popcorn gets her fur all over it.
Tubefilter: The real star of the show. You said your core audience grew really quickly across both Instagram and YouTube and TikTok. Were there any particular videos or posts that took off for you? Or has it just been a build of audience across all of your content?
Adrian Vazquez: I think the first one that really took off was me finding my first piece of furniture that I’ve shared online. It’s funny, because it wasn’t supposed to be anything. My girlfriend had the instinct of filming me pick it up. I was like, “Oh, I could use this. That’s a cool clip.” Then I just built off that. Then people seemed to really like it, and then from then it was like, “Hey. Let’s just document all of our finds.” Started doing that.
Then as I started developing this catalog of videos, I made this montage at the end of 2022 that was like, now the 2022 season has come to an end, blah, blah, blah, blah. I made a montage of all the finds up until that point, and that video blew up across every platform. I think that video has 40 million views across platforms.
I would eventually find this tiny apartment that has a lot of tech behind it. It’s like a bed that comes from the ceiling. It was a friend who hit me up and said, “Hey, I have this project, we’d love to have you come see it.” That video has, I think, 70 million views across platforms.
Then my living room makeover was a huge one, that whole series has about 40 million views across platforms.
Tubefilter: So you’ve built an audience. You have your day job that you’re with part-time, and you have content, and now you have Homebody. What does the average, if there is an average week, look like to you in terms of managing your time across day job, content, your business, your family?
Adrian Vazquez: I was going to ask you the same thing. I’ll take recommendations. I’m the least responsible person I know and I am the worst with time management. Again, I live off the chaos. What does my schedule look like? I’m in the office Mondays and Tuesdays. I have my children Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays. We alternate Wednesdays. Then while they’re in school, I’ll try to film all the content that I can. I find myself doing Homebody stuff at my day job anyways, or while I’m shooting content. Saturdays for the most part are for the family.
Then Sundays I’ll spend a lot of time really just like, “Okay. What happened this week? What could I do better this next week?” I’m still trying to figure out that schedule. I’m just really bad at structure for better or for worse. I don’t know if that’s maybe why I’ve made it as far as I have or maybe I could go farther if I had more structure. I don’t know. That’s why I never cared to have like a regular 9:00 to 5:00 because I don’t know if I’m responsible enough to do that again.
Tubefilter: There’s also an element of creativity to that mindset.
Adrian Vazquez: Yes. Totally, 100%. Maybe I’m just so much of a purist, I guess. I’m just like, I need to be an artist, I need to be. I can’t be caged in. I don’t know, maybe.
Tubefilter: No, I see it. What’s been your favorite part of building this audience online?
Adrian Vazquez: I like the pressure. I’ve already committed that I’m posting once a week. I like the idea of, okay, cool. I have one week to come up with something new. What did I find this week and how can I make it more unique? I love the constant pressure to create. Again, I think there’s a little bit of toxicity to that but as of right now, I love it. I love the constraints of, hey, you have a week, what are you going to make? I think that pressure creates diamonds, and I live in that world? If that makes sense.
Tubefilter: It does. You launched a pre-order sale for Homebody. How did that go? How was the whole experience?
Adrian Vazquez: It’s been a little chaotic. Again, knowing me, I’m very last-minute, so I’m obviously sending my website guy the website photos 10 minutes before launch. I think it’s going pretty good. We’ve had some sales, which is a good sign. We obviously have a lot of notes of what we definitely need to take into our next collection. Again, I’m all about, I can’t expect the first shot to go in, that’s crazy. This is a good first, I was just telling my guy Chris that, hey, we are going to laugh about this drop years from now when Homebody is massive. Fingers crossed. I love the chaos of this first launch.
Tubefilter: That’s good. That’s a good thing.
Adrian Vazquez: Yes, and then our next, our full launch is at eleven o’clock Eastern Time so in 30 minutes. The whole world will have access to it.
Tubefilter: That’s right. Then your next collection, do you plan to drop collections quarterly, or what’s the plan?
Adrian Vazquez: You know how I love structure? [laughs] No. I don’t know. I don’t have a real game plan for it. Maybe it’s like every couple of months, I want to come up with really limited things. I don’t want to depend on a regular, quarterly. I don’t know, I’ve got to talk to the team and really figure that out. I think there needs to be some structure implemented, but as of right now, it’s like “Hey, what does our bandwidth look like now? Let’s do whatever we can to come up with some really nice pieces that we’re proud of.” Then as we get those drops in, we will start to develop a structure.
Tubefilter: Got you. Obviously, you’ve got a lot to look forward to with the brand, but do you have any other cool goals or plans or projects to work on over the next year or so?
Adrian Vazquez: Yes. I really want to get into long-form. That was my intro to the world of content. I’ll be dropping my first long-form video this weekend, so that’s exciting. I had this new series where I’m on a mission to find the most unique spaces in the country. I just went to Austin, Texas and I found this really unique home that was so cool. It reminded me of if Tim Burton started making homes. It’s amazing.
I really want to do that. I’m looking for things that are adjacent to what I’m doing. I can only do so much in my apartment. I found that just in general, people really like unique creative spaces, so if I can just find those and show them I think my audience will like that. The first video did pretty well so now I’m just actively looking for more and more unique creative spaces.
Tubefilter: What’s the searching process like for that?
Adrian Vazquez: The internet, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, recommendations from friends. I’m really inspired by other people’s content. I found this girl in Canada who renovated this church into like her dream home. It has a slide that goes down from the second floor into the living room. Their living room has a trampoline. It’s just incredible. I’m on a mission to go find her, to work with her and film in her space, but it’s just that, it’s just coming across. I want to tell their story in a different angle. They’re creating content already, so I’m allowed to come in and be like, “Hey. can I tell the story in my style,” and hopefully that’s a good approach.
Tubefilter: What is your number one piece of advice for somebody who is, for example, in a small New York apartment and wants to make that space interesting and unique to them?
Adrian Vazquez: Really figure out what they like in terms of, what is their personality? What do you do for fun, and how do you incorporate that into space? Like me, I’m into music, so I got my vinyls and I found a way to display them uniquely in my wall. I think spaces are very sacred to creativity, it’s how you’re inspired. I don’t know, not to sound cliche, but I don’t like to follow the rules. Whatever I like visually, whatever I’m inspired, by whether that’s movie posters or Hot Wheels posters or, I love basketball. How do I incorporate the things that I like on a daily basis, how do I incorporate them in my home? Then start there. Then again it’s the 10,000-shot rule. However you decorate your space now, don’t be afraid to evolve. I am chronically rearranging my space, and I think that’s fun. I think that’s how you learn and try different things and see what resonates the most.
Adrian Vazquez is repped by Viral Nation.
