Zack Nelson (JerryRigEverything)

Zack Nelson is a DIYer, and a popular tech YouTuber.

His YouTube channel, ‘JerryRigEverything,’ is the world’s largest cell phone repair channel with more than 8.2M subscribers.

Introduction-

Zack Nelson was born on 29 June 1989.

He grew up in Utah, United States and did his high schooling there.

At 19, Zack moved to Guatemala, Central America for a couple of years to serve a mission of a church; here, he learnt Spanish.

Education-

In 2009, Zack joined Utah State University to study Bachelors in Business Administration and Management, Interdisciplinary Study.

He graduated in 2013.

A born entrepreneur-

Since his childhood, Zack always wanted to grow up to become an entrepreneur.

At the age of 3, he sold toothpicks to his neighbours for a penny a piece by going door-to-door.

In his high school years, Zack did residential construction, framed houses and did drywall painting.

Later, he also built computers as a side job before joining the college.

And even while studying in college, Zack did many projects.

He did the business of shipping cell phone parts like batteries, lenses, etc. to Amazon.

Finally, he became a full-time YouTuber.

Career-

While in his first year of college, in July 2009, Zack started working as a Sales Associate for T-Mobile.

And from April 2010, he started working as a Retail Sales Associate for Sprint Nextel.

Zack worked in this position until March 2014.

Even while working at his job, he always dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur.

An interesting fact- Michael Fisher (MrMobile), a popular tech YouTuber with more than 1.2M subscribers, also worked at Sprint Nextel.

Potential of YouTube-

One of Zack’s acquaintances published a video, ‘Why Men and Women Cant be friends,’ on 2 December 2011.

This video got viral which allowed him to purchase a car with the earnings from this single video.

When he shared this with Zack, he was very impressed by the earning potential of YouTube.

After a while, Zack’s old Jeep Wrangler broke down and when he took it to the repair shop, he was informed that it would cost him $1000 to fix it.

But he wasn’t convinced because he felt that his Jeep itself wasn’t worth $1000.

So, as Zack wanted to repair the vehicle himself and started researching on YouTube.

He stumbled upon a video of ‘briansmobile1’ YouTube channel and learnt to fix the issue for just $60.

Later, Zack messaged the owner of ‘briansmobile1’ to thank him and learnt that he was not only earning from YouTube but is also making the world a better place.

‘Green dew oceans’-

As Zack was impressed by YouTube, he decided to start a YouTube channel to teach and help people by sharing his projects and also to earn.

At that time, he was studying in college and liked Mountain Dew; so, he named his YouTube channel ‘Green dew oceans.’

Zack started publishing Jeep and motorcycle repair videos but soon realised that most of the people own cell phones rather than Jeeps or motorcycles.

He also realised that he would get a good number of views on publishing cell phones videos.

As during that time, Zack was already doing a job of repairing cell phones for a shop, he started filming his work and publishing them onto his YouTube channel.

Soon, people started liking his concise videos.

Zack was doing all these on the side while studying in the college.

Deleting his channel-

After publishing around 40 videos on his ‘Green dew oceans’ YouTube channel, Zack realised that the name of his YouTube channel wasn’t good.

As during that time, YouTube didn’t allow to change the channel’s name, he decided to delete his channel and start afresh with a more apt name.

So, even though Zack had acquired a few hundred subscribers on his YouTube channel, he deleted it.

And on 23 July 2012, he started a new YouTube channel, ‘JerryRigEverything.’

Prior to deleting ‘Green dew oceans’ channel, Zack downloaded all its videos and then, uploaded these videos onto his JerryRigEverything channel.

Story behind the name-

His grandfather, Jerry, loved rigging things.

At 13, Zack lost his grandfather.

So, he named his channel ‘JerryRigEverything’ out of respect to his grandfather.

Also, as his channel revolves around fixing things, this name seemed apt to him.

Initially, Zack was earning just 5 cents per day with his YouTube channel but as he liked his work of repairing cell phones, he persisted.

Starting small-

Zack shot his first 200 videos with his HTC Evo 4G smartphone and used to edit them on his laptop in his dorm room.

After a couple of years of starting his channel, he acquired just around 2000 subscribers after publishing 100 videos.

Becoming a full-time YouTuber-

After around two years of starting ‘JerryRigEverything,’ the cell phone company which employed Zack was getting closed.

So, they offered him a severance package for four months and after quitting the job, he decided to dedicate most of his time to grow his YouTube channel.

Zack began working hard on his channel and thankfully, after four months, his YouTube channel became feasible.

And since 2015, he has been working as a full-time YouTuber.

Along with cell phone repairs, Zack also started testing the durability of cell phones and started posting these videos onto his channel because the majority of the people would be interested in knowing the durability of cell phones rather than to learn to repair them.

His cell phone durability videos have been very popular.

As of December 2023, Zack has 8.27M subscribers on ‘JerryRigEverything’ YouTube channel, 748K followers on Instagram, 2.7M followers on his Facebook page, and 848K followers on X.

He earns from a variety of sources like advertisements, ‘membership,’ and ‘Super Thanks’ on YouTube, merchandise, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing.

On his second channel, ‘ZacksJerryRig,’ he has 235K subscribers.

Zack films his videos with a Panasonic Lumix GH5 camera.

He has a website.

Personal life-

Zack met Cambry Kaylor on a dating app.

Cambry is a registered occupational therapist, and she also teaches horse riding (equestrian).

After dating, they got married on 31 August 2019.

This couple has a son, Cyrus Nelson; he was born in October 2021.

‘Not-a-Wheelchair’-

Zack along with Cambry, in partnership with Utah Trikes created ‘Not-a-Wheelchair,’ an affordable bike for paraplegics capable of off-roading.

They have also made these bikes available for the public.

Some interesting facts about Zack-

• Zack is fond of trucks and motorcycles. Toyota Tacomas are his favourite trucks.
• While in high school, he had an afro hairstyle but due to genetics, he lost his hair.

So, how are you inspired by Zack Nelson’s success story?

Share with me in the comment section.

Featured Image credit: Zack Nelson/Instagram