Jon Rettinger

Jon Rettinger is a popular tech YouTuber.

He has more than 1.6M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

Jon is the founder of TechnoBuffalo and president at JFL Network.

Introduction-

Jonathan Rettinger was born on 4 September.

He grew up in Orange County, California, United States.

Jon has been a geek and tech enthusiast from a young age; he used to wander around Best Buy and browse on Amazon for new tech.

Education & career-

In 1999, he joined the University of Rochester to study Bachelor of Arts (BA).

Jon majored in liberal arts and graduated in 2003.

In 2008, he joined UCI Paul Merage School of Business, Irvine, California to study MBA; he graduated in 2011.

From 2003 to 2005, Jon worked as an Account Associate at RPA in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

From 2005 to 2009, he worked as a Marketing Manager at Nexa Technologies in Irvine, California.

Then, Jon started TechnoBuffalo, which he later sold to focus full-time on his YouTube channel.

He also worked as a President & Editorial Director at ‘The Nerdy’.

Jon is a full-time YouTuber, and a President at JFL Network.

Prior to becoming a full-time YouTuber, he used to daily spend 4-5 hours reading tech websites.

‘jon4lakers’-

‘jon4lakers’ was Jon’s old AIM screen name from his middle school, which he used to join YouTube on 7 June 2007.

At the time, he had no intention of becoming a YouTuber, he joined YouTube just to comment under others’ videos.

In 2007, Jon was working as a Marketing Manager and hated his monotonous job; it got to the point where he hoped he get into a minor car accident to avoid going to work.

At the time, his HP computer broke, and he bought a MacBook Pro; as he didn’t have any idea of the Mac OS, he searched on YouTube but couldn’t find any information; at the time, YouTube was a place for just cat videos and videos of guys getting kicked in the crotch.

Jon started producing videos about his MacBook Pro and started publishing them on to his YouTube channel, ‘jon4lakers,’ which was later renamed to TechnoBuffalo and later to ‘Jon Rettinger’.

On 8 June 2007, he published his first video, ‘2.4GHz MacBook Pro – Unboxing.’

At the time, YouTube was just a hobby for Jon; he quickly fell in love with YouTube.

He started filming videos in his one-bedroom apartment with an old tape camera and later, started filming with the webcam on his Santa Rosa MacBook Pro; even though the audio quality wasn’t great, he persisted.

As at the time, YouTube was mostly about cat videos and videos of guys getting kicked in the crotch, Jon felt embarrassed publishing videos on YouTube.

Letter gets him monetized & quitting his job for YouTube-

YouTube launched its YouTube Partner Program (YPP), allowing creators to monetize their content.

But Jon didn’t meet the thresholds to be invited to the YPP; so, he wrote a 2-page handwritten letter to the address of the head of the YPP explaining why he should be let in the program.

The head wrote him back informing him that he has been accepted into YPP.

It was a dream come true for Jon as he started earning money by following his passion of making tech videos.

Eventually, his YouTube channel grew and in 2009, he achieved income parity with his channel and job.

As Jon hated his job, it took him no time to quit it and become a full-time YouTuber.

Additionally, he started writing and contributing to the tech websites.

Later, Jon was also a commentator on CNBC and Fox Business.

TechnoBuffalo-

As his YouTube channel grew, he realised the potential of videos and observed that popular tech websites like Gizmodo, CNET, etc. weren’t actively producing videos.

So, Jon wanted to produce videos on their behalf, he reached out to all those tech websites, but nobody got back to him.

So, he himself decided to launch his own website; at the time, he had no business background and knowledge of website development.

Jon put all his capital and raised $40,000 from friends and family and in 2009, he launched TechnoBuffalo, a video-centric tech website.

Only about 45 seconds into launch, TechnoBuffalo crashed because he had no knowledge of running a website.

Jon developed sleep issues and after burning up all his startup capital, he was able to get the website working.

He started TechnoBuffalo with four employees and an office; having studied MBA helped him understand the business better.

From the start, running the website had been hectic, it consumed most of his time and left him with very little time to focus on his YouTube channel.

Jon started taking his YouTube channel for granted and so, its growth plateaued.

He also launched TheNerdy website, focusing on geek culture.

Jon was exhausted from focusing on TechnoBuffalo and later, due to some Google algorithm changes, the traffic to TechnoBuffalo declined and it wasn’t sufficiently profitable.

At the time, he wasn’t paying himself a salary and was saving up to pay his employees’ salaries.

The website was eating up 90% of his time and was generating just 20% of his revenue; so, he decided to sell the TechnoBuffalo brand and website.

On 8 January 2019, Jon sold TechnoBuffalo to Mobile Nations; TechnoBuffalo  later got acquired by Future US, Inc.

Even though selling TechnoBuffalo wasn’t worth it from a monetary standpoint, it was well worth it for him from a mental standpoint.

Full-fledged YouTuber-

After selling-off TechnoBuffalo, Jon became a full-fledged YouTuber and started focusing on his first love, videos.

At the time, his friend, Jonathan Morrison of TLD YouTube channel invited him to film along with him in his studio.

Currently, Jon has staff for helping him out with his YouTube channel.

As of February 2024, he has 1.61M subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel, 318K followers on Instagram, and 188.4K followers on X.

Jon earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on YouTube, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.

He has another YouTube channel, ‘insidejonsmind;’ currently, he isn’t publishing videos on it.

Jon has a personal website.

While on the go, he uses an Osmo Pocket 3 as his video camera and Fujifilm X100V as his photo camera.

Personal life-

Jon married Rebecca on 1 August 2010.

This couple has three children.

Jon lives in Irvine, California, United States.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Jon Rettinger?

Share with me in the comment section below.