Monitor and LED microphone in position, senior Jack Dang steadies his webcam in an RGB-lit room. After designing every step of his action plan and the culmination of countless hours, Dang was finally ready to update his YouTube channel on his life as a student abroad, drawing in viewers from both the United States and Vietnam.
Dang has been creating YouTube content ever since he was 8 years old. Living in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam at the time, he was inspired by his cousins to start recording Roblox content. His first videos included toy reviews, Roblox playthroughs, commentary and even water balloon fights with his cousins. Seeing steady progression in his editing skills and confidence, he eventually started to push his boundaries, creating cartoon edits. Specifically, he edited clips of the cartoon “Gumball,” making both serious and meme edits. These edits rapidly went viral, amassing over 100,000 views apiece, with his most popular reaching 670,000 views. Dang accredits these early videos to his passion for content creation.
“Watching my views grow because of these edits has been one of the proudest moments of my life,” Dang said. “It really motivated me to pursue content creation in other ways.”
Moving from Vietnam to California in 2021, Dang’s family experienced the brunt of currency exchange, which heavily affected his family’s finances, leading to a pause in his content creation journey. As his parents moved from white-collar to blue-collar jobs, he moved from house to house. Concerned for his family’s well-being in America, Dang was inspired to pursue business and finances. Without knowing a word of English and without the comfort of his old YouTube channel, Dang found excitement in experimenting with business. Around campus, students are seen wearing his clothing brand “Tora Desune,” which features a cute hand-drawn Japanese stuffed animal named Tora. To create these clothes, Dang first sketches out his design on paper and then commissions artists on the internet to create custom designs related to the order. Dang and his friend use Pixlr — a browser photo editing application during the design process. Tora Desune has had students from Lynbrook model their clothing, and they also offer custom design commissions. At its height, Tora Desune garnered over a thousand followers on Instagram. Due to Dang’s busy schedule and other businesses, Tora Desune took a half-year pause, but returned on Jan. 29.
“Looking at all of Jack’s trials and errors in business, I think it’s inspiring to see his persistence for improvement and knowledge,” junior Sterling Lam said. “He is pushing himself to become an entrepreneur at such a young age.”
Dang has also taken up various side hustles across the area, such as working as a website designer at Cupertino’s Safeway La Floriya, where he designed an artificial intelligence chatbot to help customers sort out their flower orders and learned web design to promote the store. With his newfound skills in web design, he then founded his AI agency, Elyik. Inspired by the British businessman Iman Gadzhi, Dang scoured the internet, looking for business models and plans. Designing his website from scratch, he was eventually able to set up the website’s functionality, using AI to improve business client acquisition and engagement. At 16 years old, he was able to sell a share of this startup and currently co-leads Elyik with its newfound proprietor. As always, Dang documented his whole journey in an extensive YouTube video. Throughout his journey, he has learned the importance of reaching out to others, as his friend in Vietnam played a huge part in negotiating the prospective business model for the Elyik buyout.
“Though this agency didn’t really perform well at first, it served as a stepping stone for my future plan,” Dang said. “Running my marketing agency was a fun experience with all the interactions, and I hope to do that again with my content.”
As Dang became less busy from his business endeavors, he decided to reinvigorate a more personal side of content creation. He has now gone on to create another YouTube channel with an emphasis on capturing the details of his personal and business journeys. He started off with piano and guitar covers, which amassed thousands of views. However, with this initial burst of success, he felt that music, though one of his beloved hobbies, didn’t show much of who he truly is and what he does. Sacrificing his views, Dang decided to cover personal vlogs and document his journey at an American high school, balancing business with lifestyle content.
One of Dang’s favorite videos was made when his father’s car broke down. Though lots of humor was used in this recounting, he recalls that this video showed a more vulnerable side of his family life. Coincidentally, this is also the video where he was able to experiment more with Capcut editing, where he eventually found his style in colorgrading and video pacing.
“When I watch YouTube, most people do not show their downsides,” Dang said. “In my videos, I want to relate deeply to viewers by showing them what I go through.”
As of a month ago, Dang has recently partnered with a student from San Francisco named Horden Huang. They met in Dang’s YouTube comments section, where they both realized the similarities they shared. Huang is also an avid content creator, who has been inspired by Dang to take on short-form motivational videos.
“I was surprised about how Jack was willing to record parts of his daily life,” Huang said. “I used to be really insecure about posting short-form content, but when Jack did the same, I was deeply inspired.”
Dang and Huang plan to start a website design agency in the near future, as they both share experience in this regard. They both now produce short-form content, with Dang starting two series titled “from $0 to $10,000” and “Turning my College Essay into a Movie,” both releasing at daily intervals. Recently, Dang has hired an editor from Vietnam to collaborate with him.
Ultimately, Dang’s goal is to use his funds to go back to Vietnam and support his bedridden grandfather while also starting a soccer-themed restaurant to reunite with his primary school friends. Content creation and business are both cut from the same cloth, intertwined by Dang’s common passions.
“Opening this restaurant will be like a starting point for all of us, “ Dang said. “My end goal is not this content creation thing, not buying a Porsche nor buying a house, but being able to build amazing relationships with my family and friends, and see them be happy.”
