We had the opportunity to speak with Haley Pham! She is a YouTuber, entrepreneur, and has recently started a podcast, Call Me Candid and clothing line, Retro Reprise!
Keep reading to get to know Haley Pham!
What was the deciding factor in starting your YouTube channel? Did you ever expect it to grow so big?
Haley Pham: I was not expecting it to get that big, but I started the channel when I was ten, and I was doing it for six years before I got any traction. It wasn’t until junior year things started picking up out of nowhere. I never expected to get to 2 million. My goal during junior year was to get to 1 million because I felt like it was starting to go that way. It’s been a crazy journey!
What is the genre of videos you post on your channel?
Right now, I’m doing more experimental things, like I just posted doing acupuncture for thirty days. The next videos I’m going to be posting are interior design, decorating transformation, makeover type videos which are new for my channel and hopefully it goes well. I’ve taken a whole month off to prepare.
Could you tell us about your new podcast you started, Call Me Candid, with your friend and fellow creator Lilly Ann? Why did you decide to start it?
I actually met Lilly over instagram direct messages, it’s a wonderful place to meet new friends! We just started FaceTiming every day, we could talk for like two hours at a time. When we finally met in person, we both had been wanting to start a podcast for so many years we just didn’t know who our co-hosts would be. It kind of just aligned perfectly. We wanted to talk about girl advice, and business advice, kind of just talk and chit chat like we normally do on FaceTime. That’s what it has become, it’s been super fun! It’s the only platform where you see me talk about certain things that I don’t talk about on any other platform.
You recently started your own clothing line Retro Reprise! What is the vibe you want your line to be and what was the process like creating it?
The whole thing is inspired by memphis design. It’s one of the art movements that is my favorite of all time and I couldn’t find it on any other clothing so I wanted to create it for myself to wear it. It involves a lot of crazy patterns, a lot of bright colors, it’s more of a 70’s, 80’s type of vibe. The process starting it was finding a manufacturer first and then getting samples, which takes maybe three months. Once they come in, you revise them and then you have to do that all over again. It took about a year just to get our first collection out because everything is so custom and I wanted everything to fit a very particular way. That’s why our next drop has taken so long but it should be this April, so that will be exciting!
How was the experience of working with so many big brands ranging from Fabletics to Sephora Collection?
I love Fabletics! My entire closet is Fabletics. I really love that everything that I get sponsored by I actually use, like Function of Beauty. It’s fun obviously to get sent these products that I would be using anyways and then promoting something that I use in my everyday life. It doesn’t feel forced and I don’t feel guilty about it. They are just great brands to work with!
Are there any difficulties that come along with the career you have chosen, but on the other side, what are some of the amazing moments?
It has been so crazy seeing how many friends I have made from the Internet, whether they’re YouTubers or not, it’s just crazy that in this digital age you can be meeting people from across the world. Now, most of my friends are long distance because of it.
The only hard thing about it is the criticism that you can get online. It is something that I have gotten a lot better about handling and figuring out what is criticism and what is hate and which to ignore and which to kind of lean your ear into. So, that’s the only part that is a learning curve for anyone who wants to be online publically. Other than that, it’s pretty much rainbows and sunshine, so I can’t complain!
What was the journey like buying a house at 18?
It would have been a lot scarier if I didn’t have my boyfriend! It was really interesting, I have always done a lot of research about that kind of stuff. I always knew that renting an apartment didn’t really do anything with your money except for give it to a landlord. We knew that we wanted more space to make videos and wanted to put our money somewhere smarter. That’s why we chose to do it at this age. We’ve known since we started dating what our future was going to look like, overall it’s been a happy process.
What have you learned from being an entrepreneur? Do you have any advice for anyone who would want to follow in your footsteps?
Really the biggest piece of advice I have is that you won’t know what you’re doing until you just start. Anyone who you see online who is quote on quote made it, really just started where everyone else did and they didn’t know what they were doing. It is scary and you don’t know what your friends are going to think about you but you really just have to start. That’s the biggest roadblock people face if they want to start a YouTube channel. They’re just scared and they don’t know how to edit, you really just have to whip out that camera and start, from there everything will unfold!
Along with your new podcast and clothing line, do you have any new and exciting things to come this year?
I have the Retro Reprise drop coming in April and new merch coming, of course! Really I’ve been working on that and my new series that’s coming!
Where do you hope your clothing line, podcast, and channel go this year?
I really want to make my YouTube channel more of a tv show with that interior design series. Lilly and I want to do live shows for the podcast so badly. Overall, I just really want to work on myself and want my online presence to be that can be a role model for younger girls and people who want to do something like this in the future. Just trying to make a place on the Internet!
Make sure to keep up with Haley Pham on all platforms!
YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | TikTok | Retro Reprise | Call Me Candid
