I was told this show wasn’t possible to make. That’s where this all starts.
Back in 2022, I had the opportunity to meet Bryan Baeumler at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando. Someone I had looked up to for years. What was supposed to be a quick conversation turned into something more, and he gave me more time than he had to. At one point, he said if I ever came up with a show idea, I could pitch it to him. If it was good, he’d put me in front of a production company and take it to a network.
That wasn’t something I took lightly.
Standing there, I came up with the idea on the spot.
At the time, it was called Beat the Bully. The idea came from what I was dealing with online every day. The comments were constant. It didn’t matter what I posted, someone always had something negative to say, someone always knew how to do it better. So the idea was simple: if you think you can do it better, come prove it. Step out from behind the keyboard and compete against me in a real build.
I pitched it right there. He loved it. He put me in front of his production company, and I pitched it properly.
They said no.
They were respectful about it, but the feedback was clear. It wouldn’t work. Haters wouldn’t actually show up. It would be too volatile, too difficult to produce, and too hard to make financially viable.
And to be fair, they weren’t wrong about the difficulty. This is a hard show to make.
But I wasn’t willing to let that be the end of it.
We had another production company take a run at it. They signed a small deal and shopped a sizzle reel around, but it never went anywhere meaningful. At a certain point, I realized if this was going to exist, I was going to have to build it myself.
So I did.
No production company. No budget. No real plan beyond figuring it out as I went.
The first episode was exactly that. I had the vision and I knew what I wanted the show to feel like, but everything was happening in real time. There was no structure. No contracts. No schedule. No judging criteria. We were borrowing a corner of a warehouse, using whatever materials we could get, and trying to pull off something that shouldn’t have worked.
Episode one wasn’t a production. It was me trying to accomplish a mission.
Episode two is where everything changed.
Samantha had been there from the beginning, but stepping into that second episode meant stepping into the chaos and turning it into something that could actually run. What I had was the idea and the direction. What we didn’t have was structure.
So she built it.
Schedules were the first thing. Then contracts. Media releases. NDAs. Liability forms. The things nobody sees, but the things that make a show possible. Without that, there’s no protection, no control, and no way to grow it.
That shift changed everything.
We went from scrambling through a shoot to actually running one. We had call times. We had structure. Judges were coordinated properly and set up in hotels. Competitors had a space separate from the build zone. The camera crew had a dedicated area to set up audio and equipment away from the construction chaos.
It went from me trying to make something happen to us running an actual show.
From there, things started to build the way they were supposed to.
We changed the name from Beat the Bully to YouTuber vs Real Carpenter, and that alone made the concept make sense immediately. People understood it. They clicked on it.
The competitors changed too. The haters didn’t show up the way everyone thought they would, but the right people did. The first competitor, Bradley Dell, set the tone. He wasn’t there to talk, he was there to compete.
Since then, we’ve filmed 18 episodes. We’ve had people drive across provinces, fly in from Newfoundland, and show up because they wanted to prove what they could do. We’ve had creators, framers, builders, and people who had never been on camera before.
We’ve had judges like Michael Holmes, Deck DaVinci, Paul Lafrance, and Jon Dawson, all judging blind with no idea who built what.
And because the comments never stopped, because there was always someone saying it was rigged, we built a system to remove that completely. We created a formal scorecard. Judges fill it out on camera before the winner is announced. The result is decided before anyone hears it. It’s documented, it’s structured, and it’s fair.
That wasn’t part of the original plan. That’s something we built because we had to.
Behind the scenes, we’ve gone through multiple film crews and different production setups trying to figure out what actually delivers the best result. We’ve tested everything from small crews to full-scale productions and rebuilt the process more than once.
We invested in learning. We went through the Changer Studios Accelerator program put on by YouTube to understand packaging, storytelling, and how to actually hold attention. I’ve spent years refining the creative side of the show, while the structure behind the scenes kept evolving to support it.
We pushed it beyond just the shop. We filmed in Nashville. We ran a live version of YouTuber vs Real Carpenter with sponsors, booths, and a multi-day build that ended with live judging.
With the support of Owens Corning, we were able to move into our own warehouse and actually scale production.
And now, after all of that, we’re here.
We’ve been nominated for three Webby Awards in the DIY category: Explainer / How-To, Home & Design, and Brand Ambassador. We’ve also been named an Honoree in the Unscripted Series category for YouTuber vs Real Carpenter, out of over 13,000 entries.
This is considered one of the highest recognitions in digital content.
The reality is, we were never supposed to get here.
This started with an idea that got rejected, a first episode that barely held together, and a process that had to be built from nothing. I had the vision and refused to let it go. Samantha made sure it could actually run, grow, and become something real.
This wasn’t one viral moment. It wasn’t overnight success.
It was built episode by episode, mistake by mistake, fixing what didn’t work and doubling down on what did.
And what this proves to me is simple.
You don’t need permission to build something real.
– Gordon
Bully Media Inc 