Colin & Samir: How To Make $1M+ On YouTube
You just explained that like you're a machine learning thing tagging it, like extremely visually compelling piece of content, high, high engagement to the end.
Like, you know, I've seen, I've seen too many videos at this point.
I have to put them into buckets.
Colin and Samir, do you guys know what you're getting into? Do you know what this is at all?
I thought this was a podcast about pure cur—
Procurement. Oh, all right, he's a fan, he's a super fan. I love it.
Is that not what this podcast is about?
Yeah, it's all about office supplies.
I don't even know how to say the word procurement.
Yeah, once you get— once you get around us, you— that word becomes a problem, right?
And Ben is the systems integrations guy, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you know, it's got it.
Yeah. And so give, uh, give y'all's story. So I, I kind of know a little bit of it, but let's assume people listen to this don't know it, which is my way of saying I kind of only half know it, but give me, give me y'all's story.
Yeah. Um, so I'm Samir, by the way. Uh, this is my voice if you're listening. Um, I graduated college, um, in 2011 and I went to school to study film and digital media. And I grew up in LA, so I was like really into the film business. I wanted to be a storyteller. I wanted to find a way to, um, you know, become a filmmaker. And that was a really challenging thing.
You look into it. So, so how did you, how'd you swing this? I'm going to be a filmmaker, uh, with He's good looking though, too.
I mean, he looks like an L.A. person.
I know, but I'm saying the parents— parents don't care about that.
No, you're right. I mean, I remember the moment when I called my mom and I was like, I'm not going to be a business major. I'm going to be a film major. And it was a scary moment, I think, for them. But I was a bad high school student. I was not good in high school. I was just not good in college. I didn't do homework. I was not someone who really lived up to the standard of what it was to be an Indian kid. Whereas my brother was student body president. He became a lawyer. Like he, he followed more of a traditional path. I think they had noticed that I was so unconventional that it was like, all right, at this point, do whatever. But my dad's also really unconventional. He's an entrepreneur, he's a fashion designer, like he's, he's different. So I think there was a bit of like, okay, I mean, you seem confident, figure it out. And so for me, when I graduated school, you know, I had a, I had an issue with being someone who wasn't good in school, like I didn't— I wasn't great at like being an employee. That was really hard for me. I worked as an editor on a film called Ides of March in Hollywood, and I just— I just didn't like it. I didn't like doing a single task. I didn't like doing one thing. And I had become aware of YouTube primarily because I was up in Northern California in college and was really fascinated by it. So I felt like I had all the tools to just upload a video. And just make something. And the subject matter that I picked, uh, was the community that I was a part of when I grew up. I grew up playing the sport of lacrosse. I played lacrosse in college and I decided to spin up a YouTube channel called The Lacrosse Network. And, um, that is the origin of my first upload onto YouTube really outside of like student films. Um, and at the same time, Colin was uploading a series, uh, or uploaded a trailer for a series about the Colorado Club lacrosse team. I'll let him pick up from there, but. Um, this is, this is in 2011. Uh, just for frame of reference, let me jump in with one thing.
I've seen a video where you said something dope, Colin. You go, my first video only had, I don't know what you said, like 100 views or 1,000 views. You're like, but Samir was one of them. And that view, that one view changed my life because then you guys ended up joining forces. You guys do a bunch of cool shit. Fast forward till today, you guys got this like pretty baller YouTube channel. And this is like, you get to do the thing you wanna do. You get to, like, I don't know, if I could do anything, I'd probably be like a professional basketball player. That'd be like the, the peak of like getting to play and like be super successful at the same time. Uh, but I feel like the second best thing might be being a YouTuber. And, uh, and so like, you know, that's— I love that idea though, that like, okay, I only had 100 views or I only had 1,000 views, but like that one view changed— that one of those views changed my life. I thought that was like an amazing little like nugget?
Yeah, I, I think for me it was a real lesson in, in community. Probably unlike Samir, you know, I actually was a really dedicated student, almost probably to a fault. And so when I finally had this experience in college of, you know, buying a camera and being a little bit more of a creative, you know, putting out my first video, which was about the lacrosse team, having it not necessarily be a huge success, But, you know, it did connect me with all of these like-minded people, one of which was Samir. He sent me an email that day basically saying, if you're going to be making these videos, even though you just started, why don't you put them out on my network? Because I'm trying to aggregate tons of people who are fans of the sport. So, you know, from that point on, I was like, I don't even care about my past education. I am so interested now in just telling stories and having it connect with people.
But that didn't— the, the Lacrosse Network, that was like kind of a failure, right? Like it got you to like a certain point and then you're like, shit, this isn't going to pay the bills. Is it? Because people—
right. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think it didn't, it didn't, it definitely didn't pay our bills in the first 3 years. Right. Um, it was something that was not a failure, but you know, yeah. I mean, like, long story short, we sold the company in 2014, which was really positive. Um, so that was a success for us, but like the pathway to get there was really challenging because there was no business model really surrounding YouTube in 2011, 2012. Um, when we tried to, to get advertisers, no one even understood that spending money on YouTube was a reasonable thing to do. That was like the only way people could understand us was a video production company. So what we did to make money is we did creative jobs for people, like service jobs. Okay. Yeah. Well, you've seen that we can make pretty good videos on online. We can make you a video. Or we even did even more creative odd jobs. We made websites for people. We designed stickers for one company. It was just kind of like, oh, these guys are like creative internet people. So if we have a creative internet task, we'll, we'll ask them to do it. And then what, what was beneficial to us was that YouTube, the company, was, was very interested in what we were doing. And they basically came to me and they said, if you can secure live rights, we'll really get behind you because we're trying to explore live sports on YouTube. And that's what I did. I got rights to high school games first, then college games. Then we eventually distributed pro games and figured out how to acquire live rights and get YouTube behind us. And that kind of grew our profile and got us to the point where we could— we got acquired by a sports media company. And a lot of that, you know, I would say it was an acquihire, to be very clear. Like, the benefit of that was that, you know, there was cash exchange for our company, but really the majority was in, you know, we had salaries and stock and we got to actually have like very comfortable, stable jobs pursuing YouTube and exploring not only— there's a company called Whistle. Yeah.
Um, so, so by the way, I want to say something here. YouTube started in like what, 2005, something like that.
Yeah.
And you guys are saying it was 2010, 2011. And you're like, it really wasn't like, uh, well, a well-trodden path of like, be a YouTuber, make money doing this. This can be like a business and this can be the platform. Versus the way you guys used it was kind of like, it's kind of our portfolio and we'll get some clients from this and it'll be a launchpad. Maybe, maybe we'll get picked up by somebody else bigger, like real traditional media that will pay us. That's kind of crazy, right? That's like 6 years into the game. And that's why, like, right. Uh, just to make a point about like, let's say crypto right now, it's like these things take a long time before they become a thing, before it's like what YouTube is today. Where it's like obvious now that you could be a YouTuber, you can make a bunch of money, you could be MrBeast, whatever.
It's still not even obvious.
I don't think it's that obvious. Yeah, I don't think it's that obvious.
There's examples now.
Yeah, there's examples. But like, I watch YouTube on my Apple TV and that's TV to me. Most people only— that's true. Like, only teens do that. And like, I'm the old guy. Most people, I don't think, do it like that. But I think like— so I think it's still pretty like not a thing yet.
I do think if you take a step back and look at it, it's, it operates exactly like most media companies. Uh, and that's like, if you just take business models from the past, like how the radio operated or even how, um, you know, television operate, like any media company, a magazine, like that's, that's how YouTube operates too. There's a really unique version of advertising when it comes to YouTube in that we are uploading and the platform will actually pay us, um, without us having to interface with clients, without us having to build a media kit, without us having to pitch anyone, which I think causes creators to not fully understand the business they're in because they don't have to pick up the phone and sell their audience to someone or sell what they're doing to a client. Um, if they're primarily based on the AdSense that YouTube's giving you. When we were first starting out, AdSense was absolutely insignificant because our audience was extremely niche. Um, it was small and YouTube was not that developed, there were people making good money from AdSense checks on YouTube, which is, you know, again, the money that YouTube will pay you, uh, part of their partner program. But, you know, that's never been that significant of a check for us because we've always been very niche. And so we've had to learn the business of media, um, and apply that to what we're doing with YouTube. And I think, you know, that maturity is starting to catch up right now in the space and why a lot of creators are able to build businesses today and why there are roadmaps.
And fast forward to now you have, uh, the Lacrosse Network's, uh, no longer the focus. It's the Colin Samir Show. And it's basically this, it's a YouTube channel. You have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and you kind of talk about like creator economy stuff, but I think that's a little bit niche, but it's like, it's, it's a little bit more than that, but you've got these like really highly produced interviews that you do with people, but then you also have all these like clips and you do this thing where you're sitting in your car and you like give, um, analysis of like different videos and why they're going viral. But you do, it seems like you do a little bit more than that. I watch, I watch it all the time. Uh, and so is that, how big is that business at this point? Just to give the audience like a little, who don't know you, like to, to a little sense of how legit you are.
Sure.
Yeah. So yeah, as you mentioned, we were, you know, we're on our way to 2 million subscribers. Uh, we have 813,000 as of this recording. Um, the business is myself, Colin, and we have 4 full-time, team members who work on, uh, the actual channel. That's, uh, myself, Colin. We have 3 editors, uh, as well as a production manager, uh, and then a data and insights person, uh, who, who works and looks at like kind of how everything's tracking from an analytical perspective. And then we also have a, um, uh, a newsletter and there's a team of 3 that works on that. 2 people, one, one general manager of the newsletter, one more in business development and sales, and then a writer who's, who's on staff for the newsletter. So the total, like, people who work in the Colin Itzmir ecosystem is 10, and it's split across 2 media properties, one being the YouTube channel and one being the, one being the newsletter.
I don't know if you guys—
and I would say, I would say too, like, we're primarily supported with advertising, advertising-based business. Our biggest clients are Samsung, Shopify, Jelly Smack, and other creator economy companies.
What's the revenue now? Can you reveal or no?
Are you getting close to 8?
No, no. Do you guys think this, uh, like gets there? Like basically sometimes you get in a business and it's What got us here won't get us there. And sometimes we just gotta keep on keeping on. And, um, so, so from a business model point of view, is it, if we just keep, okay, we're at 813,000 subscribers today, we're probably tracking to 2 million next year or whatever it is. And the ads will just keep scaling and this will keep going. This will be the business forever. Or is it like we're gonna have to come up with a second act at some point?
So I think there's decisions you can make as a creator. To get there. Like we, we are friends with a lot of creators who, you know, are pushing towards that 8-figure business mark. Right. And, and a lot of that is, is at just ad-supported business. Um, there's other creators who have launched, you know, course companies or education, direct-to-consumer content, Patreon, right. Subscription platforms. And you can absolutely get there. It's just, honestly, I think it's based on, there's this moment as a, uh, an artist or filmmaker or someone who wants to express something where You go from, like I mentioned, I studied film. I was very interested in being a filmmaker, but you go from being a filmmaker to a media maker. And I think that, um, those are two different things and you have to decide, like Colin and I have to decide what we want the lifestyle to look like. Um, I think you guys mentioned, I think it was your mother-in-law, Sam, who said, I like taking Tuesdays and Thursdays off. I think that's a really important thing for all creators and all entrepreneurs to look at and be like, what, what, what's enough, uh, for me? Like what? What is what, you know, what I want to do. And I think Colin and I, this is like a relatively recent, um, success that we're having with this channel. And we're trying to constantly evaluate which parts of this are really enjoyable and which parts of this start to feel like, okay, now we're just making stuff to make stuff. Um, and I think we have to find that balance of, uh, how to scale what we're doing, but also recognize like we, we got into this because we, we wanted to make something. And I think it's okay to lean in to be like, maybe there's part of this that's like, we just want to tell the stories that we're excited about. And yes, there's a ton of opportunity, but it might not match what the lifestyle that, that we eventually want.
Who, who is crushing it? So, um, like you mentioned, some creators do XYZ, like, uh, what's his name? Ali, Ali Abdel. He's coming on, on the pod soon.
Oh, oh, I think it's great.
I think he reveals his numbers where it's like, okay, my, uh, My course business is going to do like $2 million this year or something like that. Yeah. Where he basically is like, you know, become a YouTuber or some shit like that. It's like, you know, it's a course that's around.
I think he's tracking to $6 million. I think he's tracking to $6 million this year.
Okay.
Part-time YouTuber Academy.
I signed up for Part-Time YouTube Academy. So that's the, so that's the course he does. And so that's an example of like, um, somebody who's crushing it in the course model. Then, uh, Sam, you've talked about the guy who does like Bring a Trailer or what, which one was it? The, the car one.
Doug DeMuro. Doug, you guys know Doug DeMuro? Cars and Bids.
We bought a car from Cars and Bids for one of our episodes. Me too. Me too.
Amazing. Great. So he is a car guy with at this point 2 or 3 million subscribers and he has a, uh, an auction website for cars that could potentially be a 9-figure company. I actually think.
And Sam, was that launched off the channel or before the channel?
Oh yeah. No, he had the channel for 5 years, maybe many years.
I think the unique thing that we're experiencing, right? Like this is entrepreneurship. Um, the difference is we build an audience first and then solve how to, you know, monetize that audience through products, services, subscriptions, whatever. Right. Um, whereas a lot of traditional entrepreneurship is, is build the business first and then try and find customers or audience second. Um, and so I think that's when you look at like creators, how big this can become, it's really like how, uh, for a lot of creators who built successful audiences and niche audiences, it's like how big you, you want it to become. The thing that's holding back the creator space right now, I think, is, is operators. Like really good business operators to surround creators because to make, you know, like to make on a consistent cycle when you are the subject of your videos, uh, it doesn't really allow you to operate as, you know, the, the, the business admin, the operator, the person who's pushing Cars and Bids, uh, the, the website and, and that business while you're making the content at the same time.
Ask your question again, Sean.
Yeah. So what are some other examples? So let's take those two. So Ali Abdaal with the courses, Doug DeMuro with, you know, has a car channel, then launches a car auction site. Who else has done something cool? What are some other cool stories of people crushing it that are like started with content, started with audience, and then have done— have created a cool business off their YouTube channel that that's impressive because I don't particularly—
Yeah. Yeah.
I would say an interesting one that keeps coming up is Cassie Ho. She started Blogilates. So like fitness yoga instruction on YouTube. And now she has two separate product companies that are both 8-figure companies, right, Samir?
Yep. Yeah. It's— there's one that's like an apparel company for athleisure and then one that's like yoga mats and like, shit, I think like that's— that is another yoga creator called Yoga with Adriene who started teaching yoga for free. She's so great, but her subscription platform is amazing, right?
Like she's her own man. I'm a customer. Yeah. Have you seen this woman? Sean, her name's Yoga with Adriene. She's got like the girl next door look where she's like not intimidating, but she's definitely beautiful. And she's based out of Austin and she does yoga with her dog and she's very calming. She's the best, man. I love Yoga with Adriene.
I have not seen this.
There's another creator named Amanda Rach Lee, and she started creating content with bullet journals. So she was showing like how she was setting up her bullet journals, how she was organizing her days. And then she's launched a line of stationery and of journals, and that's become her primary engine of business. And like, I think those are a few specifics. I think Yes Theory, when it comes to merchandise and apparel, I think they've done an incredible job with Seek Discomfort and building a brand that can stand alone outside of the videos.
And I believe they also just went into the fulfillment business. So they not only have their own merch line, they also do the printing. The Warehouse of a Thick Pack for other creators too, right?
That's right. I think it's really smart when creators start, uh, businesses like that where they say, okay, if we're going to solve all these problems independently and not go with a partner, then, you know, we can work, uh, we can work with other creators to do the same.
Do you think people should be doing that you, you don't see? So I have a couple ideas. I, I, if you don't have one, uh, I, I'll throw a couple at you. You could tell me if they're why people are not doing that. Maybe they're bad ideas, but what do you think creators should be doing that they haven't yet gone into that, that realm yet? It's not common.
So I actually have a perspective that I think, um, I think I'm curious why we haven't seen creators band together, especially like, let's, let's imagine the e-commerce space. Like, why have we not seen 10 creators come together and launch an e-commerce retail store? Um, like that to me where they can bring a ton of traffic to it and and pair together and all their audiences are maybe on one brand.
Uh, yeah, I think that's exactly what I was going to say.
100%, or even like one singular brand. It's happening with this brand called Cloak in, in like kind of the gaming world. But like, why not just if, if every creator had a, had a piece of this one apparel brand, like, couldn't you make the next big, um, apparel brand? Or could you make the next Urban Outfitters if, if You know, Emma Chamberlain plus 5 creators came together and made a retail store.
Um, I feel like specifically in beauty and fashion and cosmetics, like there's such an opportunity to band together and have one brand because there are so many like standalone cosmetic brands for a singular creator.
But it can, it can really happen in any, like in gaming, this was, uh, I always thought this should happen in gaming. So my company got acquired by Twitch. So when I was there, I was looking at like, okay, what are these creators doing? One brand that stood out was there's a brand called G Fuel. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. It's very like gaming niche. Yeah. But like, basically Sam, I don't know if you've heard of this. It's like, um, I don't know what you, it's like a Red Bull. It's like a, it's sort of like an energy drink. Uh, but a G Fuel as in gamer fuel. So it's like, oh, this will be, you know, give you energy, help you stay focused when you're at those long gaming sessions or whatever.
What was in it?
And I don't know, it looks like a Gatorade. Who knows what's in it? Like, and the guy who started it, he's like this absolute, like 50-year-old bro. Like he's like, yeah, 55 and just like jacked to the gills. And you're like, oh wow, this is like, I don't know what's happening in this company, but, uh, I don't want to drink this. But like, what would happen is they would go to, they were like, oh dude, these Twitch stars have influence, but the traditional brands aren't going to them. They're going to Instagram and YouTubers first. So he went to them and he was like, hey, um, I'll make a flavor for DrDisrespect. I'll make a flavor for Ninja. I'll make a flavor for each one of these. And you'll have your own shaker that you'll like kind of promote that has like your brand on it. And like, he had these, like, he got like 9 of them to be like the sponsored athletes basically. And they, they grew pretty big. I don't know what they were doing exactly. If I remember correctly, it was definitely over $20 million. It might be over $50 million in sales that they were doing just off of like kind of this one real niche channel. Um, and I, what I thought about was like, and then, and then each of the individual creators was doing their own thing. Like Ninja made a mouse, a gaming mouse, and then somebody else made, uh, uh, an another, like a, a coffee or a stimulant or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
And I, I was thinking the same thing. If these guys just got together and the 10 big ones got together, And they just launched a gaming accessories thing, like the best keyboard, the best mouse, the best whatever. Like they would be selling hundreds of millions a year if they like put their powers together, Captain Planet style.
I think that goes back to like the lack of operators in the space right now. Um, and I think it's starting to catch up, but I do think that, you know, there's a lot of short-term revenue to be had. Um, and that's really exciting. And there's a lot of, there's like quick cash to be made, um, in, in our space that I think now it's probably just happening where you're starting to look at these longer term and There's, like you said, there's more roadmaps, you know, of course, you know, MrBeast is in my opinion singular. Like it's, he's not, you can't, there's not gonna be more, uh, uh, of him, but you can look at some of the stuff he's doing with, oh, Feastables is interesting, or even Logan Paul and, uh, oh, they made Prime instead of partnering. Like that's interesting. And they, they partnered together. I, I'm not positive. Uh, I would, I, from what they say, it's going well. So that's, uh, I think that's all we know. Uh, I'm not positive. I will say it tastes great. Uh, we bought it here and it's like a fantastic drink, but I have absolutely no idea how the business is going.
I would say too, it seems like he's following the Beats by Dre trajectory of making sure to get it in the hands of celebrities and famous people with his podcast. Anytime he has someone on, they have Prime in their hand or they try it and they like it.
It's like a good strategy. When you guys got to— how long, how long did it take to get to 800,000?
Um, I think at least 4 years, right? Call at least 4 or 5 years.
I mean, yeah, probably 4 years to get to 200 and then 1 year to get 200 to 800.
Yeah.
So let's, let's take this journey. One second. I got a question on this. So if we strip away hard work and talent, because let's say those are like core ingredients that you guys have. Um, but like every journey has like inflection points, like something where something just broke your way or you realize something before others did, or like the one thing went viral and that kind of helped step you up to another level? Because like, if I go to the channel today, I see the, the top thing is like a video with Miss— interview with MrBeast has 10 million views, right? And I'm like, how the hell did they get MrBeast? Like, that's a big pull.
Yeah, it was a great interview.
So what were the things that were like, besides hard work and, and consistency and talent, what made you guys grow and what made it work? How do you get to a million subscribers and MrBeast doing an interview with you guys?
Um, my first answer is time in market. Um, I think like we've been in this market for 10 years and that has introduced us to a lot of people that have created opportunity for us as we started to grow, right? Like Jimmy shot us a message. Jimmy is MrBeast. Um, he shot us a message when we made a video a couple of years ago and he was like, that was a cool video. And we struck up a relationship and we started talking about YouTube because we were both really into it, um, and authentically into it. And that created a situation that, you know, when we got to a point where we had an interview show or talk show, we had a relationship with him such that we could fly out, get access in North Carolina to his new facility. And like, he was excited to be on our platform and we, we had that relationship. And I think even when I think about an inflection point for our business prior to that was when we, you know, really weren't catching that much traction from a sponsorship perspective. But we had made some connections to the point that, you know, Samsung was looking for creators to partner with on like year-long ambassadorship deals. And our names were up there because of the relationships we had created in the market. So I would say the fact that we just stuck in it for 10 years has introduced us to people that created opportunity as I would say we are late learners and we've like figuring out YouTube took a really long time for us. Um, but as we figured it out, we were in a position where we had enough relationship that, you know, our first couple interviews are like Marques Brownlee, MrBeast. Like we were able to have these creators on, um, who we had developed relationships with prior that now fit into a format that we had landed on. Um, and collaboration on YouTube is like That's how you grow.
Um, you know, time and market, time and market is an awesome way. That's an awesome phrase. I've actually never heard that before. Time and market is a great way just because typically we would, John and I would just say like, well, I'm just like in the mix and I was just like, I've been doing it for a while.
Time and market is a far more like formulated way to look at it for investing, right? Like, uh, Buffett, I think said, you know, instead of timing the market, what matters is time in market. And, uh, it sounds pretty similar, uh, for what you guys are talking about.
I would add too that it's, it's time in underserved market because, you know, the reason that Jimmy or MrBeast even reached out to us is because no one was really talking about creators or about the YouTube space for a long period of time. And we continued to talk about it while no one really was giving it the time of day. So I feel like it's not that we were just in the market, it's that we picked an underserved community. And so we happened to be that place where creators could turn.
That's, um, uh, in crypto that's happening right now. Like I created this crypto media company not long ago called the Milk Road and it's doing really well, but we're so new and crypto's now cool. So you don't get credit for being there when it's cool. There's a guy, uh, there's a show called Up Only that's on YouTube that's, uh, started by this, uh, this guy Kobe and, uh, Ledger or whatever. And they, They've been doing it for a long time back when like there wasn't a lot of heat in crypto. They were still just every week going on and just talking about whatever, shooting the shit, talking about crypto. And so now when famous people want to go hit the circuit, they're like, well, we gotta go there because they have the respect of people because they were set, they were hanging out here before the tourists arrived, you know? And, uh, yeah, you can't, you can't beat that.
No, I agree with that. I think like, you know, we watched the people go from being not interested in what we were doing on YouTube to extremely interested. And then a lot of those people who are interested in the creator economy, I think shifted over to Web3. And so like, I think you'd like time in market when you're just like, actually, like, this is the, this is the career we've chosen. Like, we're going to be in this. We enjoy this. This is what we want to do. This is what brings us fulfillment. Then, You know, wherever this goes, uh, the ups and downs of it, we're just, we're just here. Right. And so like, I think that is a, that is an important thing. Um, as you're, as you're going on your entrepreneurial journey.
So right now Sean and I have a really like our, our podcast is doing great. Um, we're not, we're, we're a pod, we're like a podcast that sometimes it's posted on YouTube and, and, and so podcast numbers are first, but we've each, uh, toyed around the idea of like Maybe we should give this YouTube thing a try. Like maybe like separately, like in our own, like our, like, you know, like we'll pick a niche and go at it. And I've thought about it, but I'm like, you know, I'm not ready to go. Whenever I'm going to do it, I'm going to go all in on it and like maybe hire someone to help me do it. Can you give me and Sean some advice on like, look, here's like the, here, here's like the table stakes in order to get to 100,000 or 200,000 subscribers inside 6 or 12 months. Here's like the, the, the absolute minimum. And keep in mind, like, assume that budget— this isn't for most people— assume that budget is no big deal. Like, we're willing to spend money.
So here's something that I think is really important. It's like you're creating a video podcast. So in your mind, the thought is there's not much marginal cost in posting this video to YouTube. You're already producing a video and audio right now. Uh, there is not marginal production cost. There is marginal distribution cost. You're going to have to spend time thinking about how to distribute this show on YouTube and how that differs from audio.
Think beyond— so think if it's, it's like Sean does, I do something on fitness or anything. Sean has one.
Well, sure. Sure.
Sean has one on anything, building houses. I don't know.
Yeah. I think like you do need to go all in. You need to understand the audience that you're serving. And most importantly, you need to understand packaging and what works on YouTube from a search perspective. And what works on YouTube from a click-through rate perspective. All of YouTube is, is click-through rates and then retention, right? Tell me, did you get some— yeah, what works?
No, I mean, you're saying, you're saying understand what are like— what are you getting at?
What's, what's the niche that you would want to tackle? Entrepreneurship?
Uh, let's say I'm just gonna make— let's say, um, I bought a bunch of— I'm buying Airbnbs. Let's just use that for an example.
Airbnb. Yeah, short-term rentals.
Yeah.
So I think like you would want to, um, go long from a packaging perspective on, uh, basically how to make money through Airbnb rentals, right? So maybe you would create a series that's like zero to a million dollars in revenue on Airbnb rentals, episode one, right? And it's, uh, and I wouldn't title it like that, but like, call, I don't know if you have ideas on titles, but I think brainstorming titles would be our first step. From an audience perspective, because you're trying to transform people to understand how they can do the same thing, correct? Yes. That would be my assumption. Yeah. So call, I guess let's, let's spitball back and forth titles on something like that.
Well, even that first thing you said, that's a, like a story frame, right? Like zero to a million in, in rental income. 30 days.
You set the stakes already.
Like I'm a man on this mission, which I think is not what most people would just naturally think to do. But for you guys, it's like, Well, if you have a mission, people are going to want to see if you can do it or not and how to do it. They might want that too.
Yeah, I think for that example too, people are, people are doing that and that's not a problem. Um, that actually can be to your advantage. A lot of times we tell creators, you know, if there's something you want to talk about, search it into YouTube, sort by most viewed and see what are the videos that are getting a million views. There are definitely videos about, you know, the business of Airbnbs, buying Airbnbs that have over a million views. So I think that's a good place to start. Uh, in your journey is like, what's currently working, you know? And then what are those videos about? Like, I think the key for you would be, how can I actually make sure that when I get this title thumbnail, that's pretty sensational about making a certain amount of money or, you know, converting some house or something like that, how can my video actually meet the expectation of the person who clicks? You know, that it's not maybe you just sitting down talking about it retroactively, but, you know, maybe it is a video that took you 2 months to make or 3 months. Who knows, you know, but it's got to match that expectation and be actually impressive.
I think probably packaging it around like, I made $1 million on Airbnb, um, in 30— let's say, let's cut the stakes to 30 days, and basically over the next 30 days you're going to track how you went from not making any money on Airbnb to even like, how do you make money on Airbnb? So I think that's, that's the packaging you'd have to, to fall into, and then you'd have to meet that expectation. Like you'd actually have to do that.
And then I would think about like, where, where are people currently getting Airbnb education outside of YouTube? Are there places that are actually really popular where those communities already hang out? Where if you made your video, you could seed it to them, or it would be a success if they started talking about it and sharing it organically. What would you think about where on the internet do they exist?
What would your early team be? Would you have just an editor, someone filming you? Would you have a thumb, a thumbnail maker? What would, what would your your skeleton barebones team be?
For you, I think if you said that like money's no option, right? That's, that's not really—
Yeah, just for the sake of argument.
Yes.
Yeah, I would hire a thumbnail designer who is part YouTube strategist. Most thumbnail designers have a lot of YouTube strategy in them as well because they're so linked. So yeah, I would recommend trying to find someone who Really deeply understands packaging, uh, and has seen things that work.
I'm going to read some titles and, uh, maybe you guys can guess the viewership in this exact category. Um, how to make your first million on Airbnb.
I mean, I would think that's over a million.
Yeah. 900 views. Oh, 900. Yep. You can make a million dollars per year on Airbnb in 2022 with the U in all caps.
Oh, I hate that. That probably has views. I'm going to say low. I'm going to, I'm going to hope and pray it's low.
Is it low? 18,000. Okay.
or medium? I would say that's medium. How much money my Airbnb made in its first month?
High.
That one crushed it. That's probably Shelby Church. Is that Shelby Church?
I watched that video, by the way.
That's how I know.
It was a great video. I love her. Do you know who Shelby is, Sean?
No, she's better.
She's great. Yeah, she's amazing. Shelby Church is amazing. But I think like that's where— do that exercise in packaging. Like just go through all those and then the ones that are not working, upgrade the titles yourself. Like what was wrong with that title? What was wrong with that framing? Did that not match the expectation? Uh, and then for Shelby, like what was right about that? That framing is really great. How much money my Airbnb made in its first month.
Great. Yeah. Me and Sean talked to this woman named Rebecca. Sean, what was her last name? Rebecca Z.
She's got a Zamorolo or something like that.
She's got a, she's got like across all of her things, maybe 10 or 15 million subscribers. She makes content for like 12-year-olds. Um, not like little kids, but 12 or 10 and 12-year-olds where it's like plays and stuff. And, uh, she was, I was asking her, I was like, man, she was like, yeah, like I, I, we got to like a million subscribers pretty quickly. I think like within a year or 2 years. And I was like, that's amazing. How'd you, you know, what was the thing? And she was explaining it to me and I was like, okay, so basically what you're telling me is that you just like quit your job and like, you just made this like your 9 to 5 and you just focused on it. And she was like, yeah, like no one else treated this like a job. And this was like, I'm at the office at 9, I'm working until 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 sometimes, but I'm showing up every single day and I'm just like, I'm working. And versus most people, they're just kind of like dicking around. It's like, oh, I'll get to it when I get to it.
Yeah, and I think studying as well, like really being a student of the platform. Like, that's it. That took 5 minutes to look at some of the top performing in that category and dissect what you thought was good, bad, what worked, what didn't work. You know, I think you have to do that first. It's like market research.
I can't find this client info.
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Grow better. Is there a good tool that shows you search volumes on YouTube? So, like, you know, you could do this with Google Search. You can figure out how many people are searching for these keywords. Can you do that within YouTube?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a tool called vidIQ that you can use. There's— we do it on Google a lot because again, like, Google and YouTube are obviously connected, right?
So it's like—
People are searching it.
Keyword tracker?
Google Trends. That's all you use?
Yeah. Yeah, we'll use Google Trends to track like, okay, is this keyword better than this keyword? Or are people searching this more than this? But, you know, on YouTube specifically, we do use vidIQ sometimes.
Um, and it'll tell you like how competitive maybe that keyword is. Is there a lot of search traffic on YouTube for that?
And it'll also show you the top videos for that keyword. So if you, if you go into vidIQ and you type in Airbnb, you're going to start to see like, okay, what, what are the trending videos in this category? What's working? What's not working? What are the thumbnails that are working?
Um, so yeah. And do you guys like, vidIQ is a great example of as you guys try to be successful on YouTube, you're like, ah, this is so, I wish it was easier to do this type of research and not just see what's popular, but how competitive it is. And just quickly show me the top videos in that, in that thing. Right. VidIQ becomes this piece of software that you guys might pay for, you know, is useful to you guys. What are some business— what are some tools or things you guys wish existed? I know this is a little bit of a hard question, but like there's, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs who listen to this that will like hear that and be like, oh, I could build that. I could build something like that where you guys aren't going to have the time to build it necessarily. But what are some opportunities you see that could serve YouTube creators?
The two things I wish existed when we first started and that I still think there's opportunities for are LegalZoom for creators and TurboTax. For creators. And I know those two things exist for entrepreneurs, but something with a more creator lens, uh, and I know there's people starting these now, but I think those are really helpful, um, especially on the tax side. I think a lot of creators, like, because you just have this influx of, of freelancers essentially who are now starting to, like, it goes really fast from, okay, I made a little bit of money on YouTube to, okay, wait a second, what do I, what do I do now? Now I just made a ton of money on YouTube. Um, So I think some of that would be really helpful of, you know, the backend business side is what you need the most help with. You're, if you're into it, like if you go 9 to 5 into YouTube, you're going to figure it out. If you're really into it, you're going to figure out your niche, your category, uh, how to find audience. Time and market, baby. Time and market. Like you're going to figure it out. You might have to hedge your bets and have another job while you figure it out or have another source of income. But if you're really into it, you're going to figure it out. It's, it's the backend of, you know, the, the younger, like being 21 and all of a sudden landing, figuring it out really quickly and then being like, what do I do now? So I think some of that business ops, that business admin stuff would be really helpful to, to help with creators to make sure things are like clean and growing, right?
You were talking about like partnering or like you— I mean, what you were saying was about operators. Creators need more operators. And in my head I'm like, Oh, that's cool. You just like, um, someone like me who knows how to operate a business, I just partner with someone like you who's like famous and we do like a 50/50 split and, and I build a business that you just keep getting famous. And I agree that that's a great business. But in that example, as well as the example in your guys's partnership, and as well as just like a normal person who just wants to bail, what happens if one of you guys dies or you get in a fight or you want to quit? Um, is your business just going to die? You know, are you going to be done? Do you think about this? I know Jenna Marbles, I think is huge on YouTube. I'm pretty sure she just bounced. Like she just said, I'm out. Same with Casey Neistat. He goes, I don't feel like making videos. So does your money just go away?
I think creators are a lot like athletes. Like I think the term creators and athletes are kind of like, you can think of them in similar ways. So it's kind of like if, if we stop playing, like, yeah, your income from playing is, is gone. Uh, I think it's about figuring out the businesses that can support you outside of creating videos. Because the reality is like, you can't sell Colin and Samir and expect someone else to operate it. If one of us is gone, this version of Colin and Samir is done. Um, that's the reality. But the things we build, like, it's, it's a lot of why we built a newsletter. Cause like, we, we were like, okay, that follows a similar value prop. It's similar, um, in creating content. I'd say Sam, like inspired by a lot of what you did and You know, like, hey, we're educating people about this space. We think we could do it in this way. We can hire writers, we can scale our voice and our thoughts. And if we're gone, that thing can operate.
It's not called the Colin and Samir newsletter, right? You know, it's called the Published Press for a reason. With that goal in mind that it truly can scale beyond us.
But what we do is, is unscalable beyond us. And I think we were okay with that.
You know, so I think if we, if we were to separate in that hypothetical, uh, something were to happen, I would hope that like, let's say I'm no longer around. I think Samir like could continue the interview show that we're currently doing and serve the brand partners that we have if he wanted to do that.
That sounds like Colin's thought about it. Yeah.
That sounds like, I'm just saying, hypothetically, like, whereas, whereas in the past we had a format for We had like a really high lift format for creation that just wouldn't have worked. Like if one of us was gone, it wouldn't have worked. But right now we have an interview show. We have a talk show.
Yeah.
It wouldn't be the same, but like you could carry it on.
What creators surprise you? Have you come— have you guys interviewed anyone or come across a channel where you're like, dude, this fishing channel that just does fly fishing is making $1 million a month? Or like, has there's ever been anything like— there's a guy I saw who has a channel just on, uh, breaking into locks and it's got like, it's a huge channel. That's another channel. That where they just smash stuff. It's like a, it's like a press. I forget what you call it. Yeah. But a hydraulic press. Is there any channel that you come across and you're like, man, these guys are killing it. No one knows about it. Or at least mainstream doesn't know about it.
Man. I want to, I want to pull up the exact name, but it's a barbecue channel. There's like, there's a whole barbecue genre on YouTube that's massive. And they do huge partnerships with like brands that, you know, Colin and I would never interact with, right? Like Sweet Baby Ray's or Stubbs or, and they're like starting to sell their own rubs, right? Like spice rubs. And those are really high margin. And like that genre to me is really interesting. And people who are into barbecue are really into barbecue. So I love that genre. I think that's like— they're very good businesses there when it comes to selling spice rubs and barbecue accessories, I guess.
I'm always amazed by channels like the Slow Mo Guys where there's literally no need for language. It's just the visual of something happening in slow motion. And the viewership is so high because those videos can be watched again and again and again all over the world, no matter what language you speak, that YouTube can place ads globally in every market. And so just the revenue that they get from YouTube, the platform, is out of control. That to me is a fascinating business where it's just let's film something in slow motion and rake in massive advertising dollars.
You guys want to hear something fucked up? So sure, there's this channel that I follow and it has a huge following and no one talks about it because it's really embarrassing. So there's this, there's a group of people, I'm one of them, that we, we like, uh, like popping zits. But to take it a step, yeah, to take it a step further, there's one where people love seeing dandruff come off people's head. And so because, because like when you have dandruff, you like scratch and you're like, I need to get this out, it's killing me. And sometimes you can't do it. So when you watch other people, at least for me, when I watch other people do it, I'm like, oh, I feel the relief. Like it feels relieving for me to see that. And there's this guy, I think it's just called like the Indian dandruff barber. And he takes guys with dandruff and he shaves their head and you could see it all. Like you could see like his scalp get like cleaned. And, uh, I was with my friend Neville recently and I went to his house and I turned on his YouTube and I go, hey, let me show you this video. It's hilarious, but don't laugh at me. Think I'm a creep. Eddie and I went through that video and it was purple. He had already clicked on it and I was like, dude, you fucking guy, you watch this dandruff shit too? And it's— there's like this whole genre of people. If you watch, if you do like, if you type in like dandruff removal, there's so many videos of people who just love watching. Or another one is like, like seeing cysts. You know what a cyst is? Like a lump in a body. Seen those get removed. I fucking love those videos.
I love them, dude.
You guys don't watch that? Don't make me feel like a freak.
No, no, no.
I—
no, listen, listen. Whenever I come across a good pimple popping video, I'm diving in. Like, I'm not— I don't shy away from that. And I've seen the Indian dandruff guy. I don't think I haven't seen that. I also— there's one account that I like got really weirdly into, which was the folding lady on TikTok. She just folds clothes in different ways and that's it. And like organizes them in her drawers and my drawers are a disaster. So it's like this for me, it's like this aspirational account that I can watch where she organizes stuff well. There's a lot of weird stuff out there.
And how do you guys look at TikTok? Because this TikTok is this like younger, sexier version of YouTube. It's like, you know, you're the 37-year-old actress and now you see this, you know, 21-year-old come onto the scene and you're like, oh no. What's happening over here? You know, what's the perspective on TikTok from your guys' point of view?
I see TikTok as a bit of like a content accelerator that like, if you're new to content creation and you want to find out what works faster, then go to TikTok because it's a low barrier to entry to post. And if something doesn't get viewership, no one really sees it. Like there's not much weight on it because of the For You page. Which is like this talent show style format. It's like, if it's good, it'll find people. If it's not, whatever. It doesn't feel like with YouTube, you know, when you start a YouTube channel, it feels like a statement. You're like, I'm here to make my own version of some big media company. And you know, that is there for all of time. Every time you pivot, every time you make a bad video, it's just sitting there in your library. Whereas TikTok, it's like, it's not as much weight on it. So just move fast, put something out. And I think it's a great place to find audience. I don't know if it's a great place to monetize that audience though.
I would say, I think a big reason for that is because it's the, it's like the closest thing to a lean back experience, right? Like you just turn it on and you say, whatever's on the For You page, like it's really good at finding content. That's good for me. I might not go in there and search for a creator. Uh, that's like not really a behavior that I think a lot of people do. It's just like, you feed me whatever's good here. So let's say you take out the top creators on TikTok, like the absolute top creators. Um, all of our TikTok experience wouldn't be changed that much. Like it would still find content that's interesting to us. So it's actually not a great place for creators. It's a great place for content. It's not a great place for creators to build relationships with their, with their fans. That's why most TikTok creators move to YouTube to build that. They can build like longer lasting, more depth with their audience. They can build a library of content that, you know,, you know, cruise viewership over time. It's, it's where like you would, if you're serious about the career, I think you'd move to YouTube. Um, TikTok, you're, you're, you're there like TikTok is the creator. You're putting content into their system. Um, so I think that's an important distinction between the two.
What sounds like you guys are not as bullish on TikTok. Like I've kind of thought about, like, I'll give you an example. Um, I put out a tweet the other day, Sam, I don't know if you saw that. You did, you did see it. You called the guy an idiot and you were like, this guy's an idiot. You should hire him. Um, This, I put out a tweet saying, hey, I just want to hire a great content creator.
Cause are we talking about the milkman?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Okay.
I saw it. So this guy, I tweeted out this thing saying, I'm hiring a content creator. You just got to be great at content and we will, we have distribution. We'll help you accelerate here. And, uh, for the Milk Road. And we, I get this tweet back yesterday. That's like, for those who haven't seen it, it's on my Twitter. You can go find it, but it's this, I don't know, Colin, you tell me. I thought it was amazing, but maybe it's just cause it's about our thing. Was it amazing to you guys as it was to me?
I think that's an extremely visual, compelling piece of content with, uh, in a format where I have to watch to the end. You get to see him struggle to try and finish that gallon of milk.
You just explained that like you're a machine learning thing tagging it, like extremely visually compelling piece of content, high engagement to the end.
Like, you know, I've seen, I've seen too many videos at this point. I have to put them into buckets.
Summarize the video, Sean.
So the guy's basically like, hey, um, You know, you're hiring. I saw your tweet, you're hiring a content creator. And he like, he used our joke from My First Million. I've moved straight to the end. He's like, so I've moved straight to the end. Here I am. I've got a gallon of milk. I'm going to drink this to show my commitment. I don't even know what his premise was, but he's basically going to chug a gallon of milk in order to show how bad he wants this job. And he made a funny TikTok out of it with the editing. And he's like asking people, hey, can you hold this camera? I need to drink this milk. He's like at a car mechanic's place. They're like, no. So he puts it on the ground and he just takes off his shirt and he just starts chugging this milk and it's just awful. And then he's like, has little cuts in between where he's like, why couldn't they have called it the Juice Road? And because he's like, you know, having to drink milk and like, you know, just little funny bits like that. And he, whatever, he finishes it, he celebrates, he pours the milk all over his head at the end and he's like, whatever, he sends that over. So I hired him. So I tweeted out, I was like, this is amazing, you're hired. I just talked to him on the phone before this and he's like, all right, like what's the game plan? And I was like, well, I think the first thing we gotta do is we gotta pick the channel we want to be on. Cause I think the platform will dictate what content works on that platform. Um, and so like, uh, like I have a buddy, Steve, uh, Steve Bartlett, who, who says this, uh, which is like, you need to hack the algorithm. Like you need to understand how the, what the algorithm wants. And then you have to be able to serve it to them, uh, if you want to grow like faster than normal. And so, and so we were debating like, should we start on YouTube or should we start on TikTok? And in my head I'm like, I use both, I love both products, but TikTok does definitely feel like a, um, I don't know, it just feels like the growing wave compared to where YouTube is. And so I'm like, I guess if you're starting fresh, you would just start on the platform that's like more of a growing wave and like try to make it happen over there. But that was the downside is even if we get viral growth from it, like those people may never see us or hear from us again because just the way that TikTok works. So that's why I was like, ah, I don't know, I'm not sure about this bet here. Which one should we go for? Your guys' perspective sounds like it'd lean more towards YouTube, is that right?
Well, well, actually, actually say the opposite. Yeah, I would say the opposite. Go ahead, Cole.
Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think you have to pick and choose necessarily because let's say you're gonna commit to short-form vertical content, which obviously you would put on TikTok, right? Sure, you could post that Yeah, you could post the same thing on YouTube Shorts, uh, as well as on Reels maybe, and like, you know, keep that up for a certain amount of time and see what takes off. Because you may find yourself in a situation where YouTube Shorts takes off and all of a sudden people are subscribing to your YouTube channel for Shorts. And then if you wanted to transition to a long-form video, you have a home for it. And that's a place where you could build a deeper connection. On TikTok, you don't really have that option right now.
A long-form YouTube video, I would say like that's the highest barrier to entry when it comes to content. Uh, so I think short-form vertical is the lowest, is a lower barrier to entry, not the lowest. Like a tweet is probably the lowest barrier to entry. Um, but like that is, you want to take more shots to figure out your format, your style. It might take 100 videos to be like, actually, that's our format. That one works. Or maybe you figured it out and this guy's just got to chug milk every day until you guys, you know, get enough users. Um, but like, I think that's what it is. It's format development and you need a lot of shots on goal to, to, to—
Can I tell you my, my first assignment I gave him? Yeah, sure. I was like, all right, here's the first, first thing, uh, man-on-the-street style interview. You know, where you go, like, you've seen this on late night shows, you go and you just stop somebody in Times Square, you're like, hey, bro, do you know about this? And then they give you some goofy answer, you cut them together. I said, uh, go outside of a strip club and ask strippers if we're in a recession. And, uh, like, ask strippers how the economy is going. And basically that's what he's gonna do. He's gonna go man-on-the-street style outside of a strip club, and then when the strippers come out, he's gonna ask him How's the economy doing? Because they are the front lines. They feel it first.
You know, they see what, you know, is the cash flow from all the, from all the drunk hedge fund guys.
Yeah. They get the, they get all the scoop and they see the tips, how they're, how they're changing cash, you know, you know, in real time. So that's gonna be the first piece of content.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that can work. Uh, I think that's a very specific audience and, and it'll work for that audience. Right.
So yeah, dude, what happened? So, um, The point I was gonna make, a point where, so our podcast gets 1 or 2 million podcast downloads a month. And compared to like a lot, like a website that gets 10 million, I'm like, I think we're, we have a bigger, a big, we don't have a bigger, but we have a far more loyal following because people listen to us for an hour at a time. With YouTube, they watch you for 10, 20, 30 minutes at a time. And I was gonna say, I would've thought that you guys had 1 or 2 million-ish downloads a month, uh, views a month. I'm looking at your stats on Social Blade. You were at like a million a month, every month, 800, 400, 500, $500,000, and then all of a sudden you got to like $27,000,000, $28,000,000, $42,000,000 a month. What the hell happened? Is that from Shorts?
That's a lot from Shorts, but Shorts propelled the other content. Like basically the way we view Shorts, like a lot of people had a lot of problem with like, oh, you can't monetize Shorts. And I was like, but if I told you as a, as any business that I had a way that was lower lift to get you in front of way more people to get your brand exposure to millions of people. Wouldn't you take it? And that's what we did. Like, right when Shorts kind of emerged, we were like, okay, we can make a Short in a day, whereas it takes us a very— like a week to 2 weeks to make a full long-form YouTube video. We can make a Short in a day. And so let's just try it. And as we started to try it, like we had Shorts that pushed 10 million views, 20 million views, 7 million views, 8 million views. And those people were subscribing. And then there was concern like, are those people going to watch the other content? But because the Shorts were, you know, directly connected to the longer form content, we were just aggregating more people who then watched our library of content. So it worked for us. Um, and that has fluctuated too. I think we're back to like right now, I think we're in like the 9, 10 million views a month range on the channel. Um, and Shorts are not like as big of a factor. We're not putting out as many Shorts, but a lot more people are watching our library now. Um, and that is what YouTube is like. You're building a library of content. That, you know, our MrBeast interview, for example, you mentioned it, it's pushing 11 million views right now, but in the first month it did a million views. So, you know, you look at now it'll, it'll be a year in September, it'll probably have 12, 13 million views. Um, you know, and so that's, it's about this library building a piece of content that can be viewed over the next year or 2 years, 5 years. Um, and when you do that, it does have, you know, this compounding effect, especially when Shorts are added to the equation as an accelerant.
We have a— we had a short go viral recently and it's Sean explaining who like one of the Ball brothers is. And I have— I don't pay attention to any of that, any sports. And they're— and all the guys, I just randomly clicked on the comments and they're all like, these fucking guys are idiots. Like he doesn't know anything about Lamar Ball. I forget who it is, Sean, but it's the dude.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're like explaining this and people are just ripping us, uh, of the short comments. Or maybe I think just how you went viral really. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Whenever any of our videos hit that mass scale, that's when the comments sort of turn and it's just, it's kind of a good sign in a way. It's just, just what happens.
Yeah. There's one that, um, there's one, so we did this clip contest for the podcast. So we're like, uh, hey, we'll, uh, take any of our content. You own a channel. So you make your own TikTok channel, your own Shorts channel, and cut these clips. And basically we just want our clips out there. So we're kind of doing it different than most where you guys want to, you guys want to build your specific specific channels. We're like, you can call your thing My First Million Clips or whatever and, uh, go ham with the content. You own that. We just want distribution. And we give out a prize for whoever like does the best job each month of cutting it. And people have like, what the, so the first, first winner, they had a few million views on their, uh, like TikTok channel or whatever. And we paid 'em the $5,000, you know, prize for our thing. But they've actually turned that into a business for other podcasts. And that business will do like a million dollars in revenue this year as like a, you know, pretty young kid. Then with this one, just yesterday somebody said, oh, here's the clip that's gone, gotten 1.2 million views. And it's this clip from an interview we did with this guy Neil Patel. And he's talking about how he spends like $180 grand a month. That's his like monthly lifestyle burn rate. And, um, and the title of it is like billionaire, like billionaire explains how he spends $180 grand a month. And like the guy's not a billionaire, but like doesn't matter. Like the, the, you know, the kid who's running this channel is probably like, fuck it, that's gonna do better than the, the The top comments are like, oh, like that's, that's Neil Patel. He's not a billionaire. And then like this guy's like egging it on. He's like, question mark, question mark, question mark. And this is his only response instead of being like, oh yeah, sorry, that's a mistake. And then somebody else says, who is this guy? And he just wrote, he writes, the founder of Google? Question mark. And then there's a hundred comments being like, that's not the founder of Google. And I was like, who is this genius that's hacking the engagement by putting dumb comments as the creator just to get people riled up so that this, you know, the algorithm sees that this video has a ton of engagement in it.
I mean, we've played around with that a bit. That's, that's, that's, uh, definitely something that creators do. We've, we've misspelled words sometimes in our subtitles. We've, um, we, we had a short where we, we interviewed the, um, chief business officer of YouTube, Robert Kinsel. And the short begins like, we interviewed the, we were, we wanted to say we interviewed the head of business at YouTube. And we said, we interviewed the head of YouTube at business and just kept moving on. And like people rewatched it so many times to be like, wait, what did they say? Um, So like, I think there's, there's a lot of fun ways to play with that and play with the audience.
And, you know, we would never do that. Me and Sam would not like do that. Like now we wouldn't do that, but this person who's doing this has nothing to lose. So they're of course going to like just crank the dial up to level 12 of like spammyness. Cause they're like, well, who cares? It's not my brand. It's not my content. Yeah.
Why not? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think like your Drake, um, steak short, like that, that piece, there's definitely a short there, right? Like that was really fascinating. Um, you could tell that in a really concise, you know, like one clip bit. Like that was really interesting that you guys, um, what you guys talked about. And I think like that was one of your better thumbnails too, I would say that came across my recommended, like, but the challenge there is that your timestamp at 100 or, uh, sorry, an hour 24, I think like anyone's expectation might be like, wait, is that an hour 24 on Drake, uh, and, and steak? Um, And then, you know, there might be an opportunity to just say, hey, can we just clip out the part that was about that? Um, and then, you know, lead people to, to watch the full thing or listen to the full thing on, on audio feeds.
I, the guys who edit the podcast, I think they also edit the YouTube. So, hey guys, you hear that? Do it, please.
Yeah. I think, I think that's your opportunity is like, hey, it's, it's actually 8 minutes on, on the Drake steak situation. Right. And it, that, that was your best thumbnail. I think like that, that caught my attention. That made me curious. Um, so yeah.
Well, dudes, thanks for coming on. This is sick. Um, I've been listening to you or watching you guys for a while. Um, it's really awesome that you came on and it's awesome that you knew about the pod. So that was really cool and we appreciate it. This is great. And of course, thanks, me and Sean, we've both run, run or ran newsletter companies. So you've been helpful with us for new, uh, videos. If you ever want to shoot the shit about newsletters, we got you, man.
That'd be awesome.
Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. We definitely want to learn. So yeah, right on guys. Cool. All right.