Show Notes
Neil Koch walked away from a good job 4 miles from his house at almost 50 to go full time on YouTube. His channel, Dig Drive DIY, sits at 348,000 subscribers, and it started with videos of a backhoe he was trying to sell on Craigslist. He drove 6 hours from northeast Indiana to tell us the whole story.
DIG DRIVE DIY ➱ https://www.youtube.com/@digdrivediy
Neil was a farmhand at 14 on a culti-mulcher, then worked weekends on a 700 sow farrow to feeder operation. After that came three 10 year careers. He ran heavy equipment out of high school, spent about 10 years fitting some of the first hydraulic auto steer systems on tractors, then 10 more as an agronomist.
Years later, a clip of his buddy Jack side loading a dozer racked up 7 or 8 million views and had him monetized before he ever made a video on purpose. He has now posted 250 or 260 Sunday videos in a row without missing one.
Then we got into why people actually watch. Neil says it’s a look at rural, blue collar, middle class life that mainstream TV quit showing, and foreign viewers tell him all the time they’re glad this America still exists. We also got into the hard parts: young people with no house to get started in, farmhouses getting leveled when ground sells, and 10 bad comments that outweigh 1,000 good ones.
Also in this one: the backyard swimming pond that hit trending, why he heats with firewood when he has propane, small towns getting coffee shops and butcher shops back, a professor pitching Google in 1999, what he tells his 15 year old daughters, and running a John Deere scraper again after 20 years.
“I finally decided I’m going to be an idiot if I don’t. Like, what am I waiting on?”
What’s the project you’d buy a backhoe for? Drop it in the comments and we read them.
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THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Hog sheds gone after 138 haul truck loads
03:44 Remembering Jonesy, trucker extraordinaire
05:16 Who Neil Koch is and why he drove 6 hours
08:09 Farmhand at 14 on a culti-mulcher
10:07 Weekends on a 700 sow farrow to feeder farm
11:45 No Google, no YouTube, just figure it out
14:07 Why kids are afraid to drive now
16:19 Dirt work in summer, hauling milk in winter
20:29 FFA kid, drummer, no idea what was next
22:38 Iowa Corn and the Farm Bill fight
23:45 A teaching degree he never used
28:33 Vinyl graphics and the first websites
31:18 Fitting the first hydraulic auto steer
34:00 Learning agronomy from scratch
37:35 She called him out of the blue
40:23 The kid who always had a camcorder
42:45 A phone video with 7 or 8 million views
44:21 Monetized before he ever tried
47:51 Why vinyl and VHS are cool again
55:24 Everybody ate fried bologna
59:05 348,000 subscribers and going full time
1:02:49 Buying a bulldozer for the channel
1:05:39 The backyard pond that hit trending
1:08:24 Walking away at almost 50 to bet on himself
1:11:24 Why people say this America still exists
1:17:29 No houses left for kids to start in
1:21:23 Small towns are getting their shops back
1:23:39 Who’s left to wire an outlet?
1:28:48 I live in New York but want a dump truck
1:33:52 Why he still heats with firewood
1:36:08 10 bad comments beat 1,000 good ones
1:37:36 He hit 100,000 and found no finish line
1:42:47 Ambition is a blessing and a curse
1:48:22 What he’s teaching his daughters
1:51:13 Advice to 20 year old Neil
1:54:24 Tip of the Hat
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