Paddy Galloway
Appearances
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And the audiences are also so... used to advertising that it doesn't have any cost really when it comes to frustration or people feeling like you're selling too much. Cause this is just so seamlessly integrated that it's like, I can just turn this on and make money from my content, which if we're being honest, although we don't want YouTube to hear this, like most of us would make for, for free.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like we don't need to get paid directly from YouTube. It's like such a, such an extra little bonus that I think is a thing is great. Um, Another thing is it's really hard, which could be seen as a bad thing, but I think when you compare it to other platforms, YouTube is the hardest or one of the hardest to master. Um, which means there is a big mo.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think it's hard to compete with someone who has a good understanding of the YouTube and knows how to make content on the platform. And I do think there is more barriers to entry. But that makes it a bit more predictable and more stable of if you get good at this, you can consistently grow audiences on YouTube. And it's kind of how I made my career. I've been doing YouTube since 2007.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I've just got really good at growing YouTube channels. And I find lots of people enter the space and I still have that advantage of, I know these skills. I've been through all of these different journeys of these different channels. And that's a hard skill to compete with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Whereas I have some friends that are into like growth hacking on Instagram, which I used to be into at some point as well and other platforms. And it does seem to be more of a kind of like fast turnaround over marketing tactics that are working. Like how can we kind of like game this system really quickly? And then that gets overutilized, move on to something else.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
There's forms that that takes on YouTube, for example, like a new video format that everyone's copying or whatever. But generally, the platform is just a bit more stable and mature. And you just need to be able to make really good videos. And if you can do that, you're going to do well on the platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And kind of building on the same point, stable, there's no ban coming for YouTube anytime soon, at least not that we know of. I think I feel good building a house on YouTube. And as much as I really like X and I admire Elon in many ways, like I do sometimes feel a little bit unstable on X. Obviously TikTok, if you have a TikTok account right now, you're feeling a little bit unstable.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I know there's that quote of like, you know, building on rented land and you know, it's still owned by YouTube, but it's an American company, super stable, makes really good money, has good leadership. I've met the CEO of YouTube and you know, I felt really good about him. That doesn't really mean that much, but I felt, wow, this guy is a really prioritizing creators and prioritizing the platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I think that's worth considering if you're willing, because it's such a big thing to invest time into, like with this previous point about how hard it is, that if you want to decide if that's a good use of time, I think this is a platform that's going to be around for indefinite, like this is here. Something as well that...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Maybe it's a point that doesn't need to be made too much, but anyone that has a kid, younger siblings, it's kind of crazy how popular YouTube is with those younger demographics. So this is off the top of my head, but I believe total market share of the streaming market for the US as a total number is about 10%. YouTube, 10% or 11%. I've seen it get as high as 13%.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
with two to 11 year olds it's 33 so that's 33 of basically what they're watching is is youtube um which is kind of crazy and again when i look at any of like younger siblings or cousins that are in that age cohort they're watching youtube pretty much exclusively on their iPads, on their TVs. And all those viewers are going to grow up and still watch YouTube in different forms.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
They're going to want to learn about business. They're going to want to learn about different things your audience might be building products and offerings around. I like to look at YouTube as pretty stable algorithmically as well. It's not always the popular narrative, but having built on this platform for years, what works now hasn't changed that much from what has worked in the past.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And that's kind of my previous point around It's less lottery based. There's more stability. There's not as much sort of
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
gimmicks and growth hacks and when i first started on youtube i mentioned 2007 back then it was like the wild west like i was you know doing some outrageous things to exploit things i noticed around youtube's algorithm like different things i could put in a title different things i could put in description all that doesn't work anymore which sucks in some ways because it was so fun but it's actually good now because it means that okay we kind of understand the rules we're playing with there's no way to really exploit this system like there was previously
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then I would say the final point is... I want to talk about that for a sec.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think the main thing for me when it comes to the sort of basis of what I teach with YouTube is that YouTube is not a video platform. Like everyone thinks YouTube is like YouTube videos, obviously. And, you know, I'm being a bit silly, but realistically, most people look at YouTube and say, I need to make a video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Well, I think what you're describing is a very... it's a common thing that YouTubers often find, which is like, Hey, like I've put effort into something. Cause you described this was like IRL. You got these cameras, spent this money. You put effort into something which is important, but it's less important than packaging. So like you could do incredible. I have a friend in Austin who is this like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
He's shot advertisements for Porsche, Aston Martin, Adidas. He's this incredible creative mind. He gets no views on YouTube. His videos are incredible. Every time I watch them, I'm like, this should get more views. But it's because his content isn't packaged. He's not actually a really good... title thumbnail wizard when it comes to his content.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So the point you're making, I don't think that contradicts the point of that YouTube is a stable algorithm. It's just that maybe you dislike a little bit of what that game is in that sense. Like, hey, I put this effort into something that wasn't rewarded.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But to me, I would look at that and say, well, it's still, even if something is not, even if something is focused on being quite clickbait in some ways or like being over the top, exaggerating, like using superlatives, at least we can say, well, that's what works and we can build around that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
What I love for people to think about by the end of this call is I need to make a video. But before that, I need to understand what video to make, the strategy behind choosing ideas. packaging. So when a YouTuber says packaging, they're referring to title, thumbnail, basically like the packaging of a product.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally. I think a similar parallel to this is one of our clients in the business is a personal finance creator, one of the biggest personal finance creators in the world. And if we make content that's around things that realistically the average American should really be doing, like paying off debt, Typically doesn't perform well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If we make a video that is like how to become a millionaire in 2025, following this system or playbook, it's like, everyone's clicking that. Um, which is like, yeah, maybe the, maybe the viewers needed a marketing strategy for 25, but it's less sexy. It's less interesting than seeing this big case study that you did instead.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. I made a tweet one time where I was like, I'm 28. I run a seven-figure consulting firm for the biggest creators in the world. Ask me anything. And someone in the comments replied saying like, how do you not be so arrogant or something? And I was like, I know how to not be arrogant. It would just get no views.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Just in how when you're building a startup or a consumer product or whatever it might be, you have to think about your marketing, your branding, your packaging. The same is true for a YouTube video. And that's a big...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If I was just like, I run a pretty successful and people aren't going to ask questions. So I think so much of these things is interesting. And even the conversation we've just had the last three or four minutes, it hasn't been about the algorithm. It's been about people. It's been about human behavior and what humans are drawn to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And I think what helps me sleep at night when I'm coming up with title thumbnails that are on the verge of being more clickbait is always like, if I feel that the video has really good value in there and has a good message and can be really good content this person should have watched,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
then to just sell them on getting them in there, to oversell them a little bit on getting them in there is the price I pay, you know, for my conscience. I do think there's some truth to like, I mean, even if you look at the world's biggest creator, right? Like the world's biggest creator, Mr. Beast, like he'll make a video on like $1 versus $100 million private jet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
In the thumbnail, there's a solid gold jet. Like it's just solid gold. The whole thing's made of gold. That didn't happen in the video. the video does 200, 300 million views because the video is still an incredible piece of content for the people that wanted that piece of content. So it's like, yes, we oversold a little bit, but it's kind of like how a movie poster shows something.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And that might not exactly happen in the movie. So yeah, I think it's part of the game. It is like a human experience. It's a human thing of like, I wish people would just watch what was actually important. It didn't need to be like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
difference when it comes to other platforms, like even something like a TikTok where content is served to you, YouTube, there is still that decision made by the user of clicking on a video. So I'd love for people just to have a really good understanding of how to think about that. And I also have a bit of like a month by month plan.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
sold and sometimes when the audience members give some backlash it's kind of funny because it's like well stop clicking on it then like i have like you you're the guys that like make me have to do this because every time i package it in the way that is is more authentic to what it is you don't click so yeah it's a it's a funny paradox should keep going absolutely um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Last point I have here, I believe maybe I'd be interested to hear if you disagree at all here, but I think YouTube is the platform that has the best marriage between building real depth with your audience and discovery. So if we think about those two things, they're quite often inversely correlated platforms that have very high discovery, let's say TikTok, Instagram reels, whatever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
aren't the best for building depth. And then on the flip side, platforms with great depth, like, for example, email, newsletter, but also things like Twitch. Twitch is a great example. Twitch creators convert insanely well, but there's no discovery on Twitch. There's really bad discovery on Twitch. In fact, most Twitch creators grow by going viral on Twitch.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
x and on youtube and then putting an audience towards twitch so i think it's a bit of a unicorn when it comes to you can build a really strong connection and community around an audience and still have really good discovery and i don't think there's anything else out there i'd be curious if you agree or disagree with that um yeah i agree i agree i think um i'm i'll tell you how i think about youtube it relates to this and you can tell me
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, I like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So if anyone is watching this podcast and is like, hey, next 12 months, I want to like build a channel maybe for their personal brand, for their company to just like learn the game of YouTube. I have a month by month, really simple plan that people can follow.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
No, I think you're hammering on a good point though, which is like, I mean, here's a great case study of this, right? Noah Kagan, you mentioned Noah Kagan earlier in this conversation, someone we worked with. When I first started working with Noah, he was doing 10, 15, maybe 20,000 views a video. At our height of working together, we were doing 400 or 500K views a video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But in doing that, because that was, you know, when we met with Noah's team, they were like, we want to increase views. So I'm like, okay, we will work on increasing views. But what happens in doing so is, yeah, we go so top, like I like your example of like looking at the very top of the niche, the broadest videos in the niche. We went so focused on making formats around there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But then on this kind of beautiful, like 360 that can happen on YouTube, I think Noah kind of looked at it and was like, okay, now I'm getting loads of viewership, but when I want to promote something or when I want to make a video that's talking about me or my stuff, it does terribly. So I'm almost like being like negatively reinforced to not do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then I've kind of made a prison for myself and making these viral videos, which is the cost of going viral, which is like, Hey, like if you want to go really broad, there is a downside, which is you're not going to be able to do whatever you want. You're going to have to pander to to an existing audience. And there are exceptions of that. Some creators who just say, I make whatever I want.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And they can be very loud about how silly it is that everyone else panders too much to their audience. But I'm like, you're a unicorn. Casey Neistat, I love Casey Neistat to bits. I'm not going to listen to him too much when it comes to YouTube strategy because he's a unicorn. Like he can, his like sense of what's good is so strong that he can make great videos.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And I also still don't fully believe that he doesn't at least pander a little bit or think to the audience a little bit because I believe everyone does on some level. Um, But with most of our clients, I always like to look at it like, how do we establish the rules for what videos need to get made? And some of these points I'll bring in as we go through this screen share together.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So how do we establish the rules of what's big enough for us? What's an idea that will do well? And then mix in, you used the word affinity, whether that is community, whether that is...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
things you're generally passionate about mix that into those ideas or after those frameworks have passed so like can this video do this this and this and then also can we include this in the video like some form of community passion whatever it might be and i have found that what's interesting is like everyone on the surface says their goal is to you know grow the biggest youtube channel at least when they work with me
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So yeah, if we've kind of changed some hearts and minds about how this platform works and give you a plan, I think that's a really good use of time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
but I've just noticed from observing people that you kind of have to let them at least one in every five or six, just let them try something and do something. And, you know, some creators call it like one for me, one for the audience, you know, I would look at it more like five for the audience, one for me if I'm in control. Cause you know, I'm prioritizing the audience over myself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And if I'm trying to build the biggest channel possible, but yeah, there's lots of like competing trade-offs where, um, I think people would be well-served thinking twice over whether it is they want to build the biggest audience possible because Mr. Beast gets worse conversion rates than you if you're promoting a business product, obviously, but his total volume size is so huge.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
That's powerful in its own right. Totally. What else is on this cheat sheet? So next up, let me just scroll down here. I've actually just got my month by month. So like this is gonna be posted in January and kind of going through and looking at this year, like for anyone that is, maybe they've already started their channel. Maybe they're thinking about starting a channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like this is the real month by month that I recommend people to do. Now, of course, with any kind of prescription, this is about adjusting it based on what you can do, what you want to do, whatnot. But like, We grow channels for fun with my business. We work with these huge creators, but we also kind of incubate and work with these smaller creators from the ground up all the time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And this is what I found works. So if I was coming in and becoming a partner on a beginning channel starting tomorrow, this is the month by month I'd follow. So maybe I'll go through each phase and then just pause and see if there's any thoughts from you, Greg, and we can go from there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally. So month one to four, so your first kind of four months on YouTube, if you're starting from scratch, so zero videos posted. I like to look at this as the establishment phase. So it's kind of like figuring out what we are, what we're doing, like what are we even doing here? And just trying to kind of get to grips with the platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I mean, that's just a really good segue to start screen sharing because I actually put together a little sheet with some points on why I think YouTube is so important. So let me just start sharing my screen and I can actually get straight into this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
A big mistake I think people make is they listen to people like me and other people talking about YouTube strategy too early and that pollutes their thinking and they end up like overthinking content, spending too long trying to make a video, trying to be perfect from the beginning. And I mean, it's the same with business, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like, you know, you can do all like the seminars, you can learn all the stuff, read all the books, but you know, if in four months you haven't launched anything, you haven't done anything, like it doesn't matter. So first four months for me and step one, find your niche. Like I really liked your point you brought up there a minute ago about niche versus sub niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So kind of find what your niche or sub niche is. I like using the triple Venn diagram. So find the intersection between what you love, what you're good at and what people want to watch. Very simple in theory, hard and execution.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But I think when you're trying to identify what your niche is, whether that is your personal brand, whether that is something different, because maybe there's people watching this that would like to like make a a channel as the kind of founding point for a business and sort of reverse engineer it rather than just saying, I've got a business, can I build a channel to promote it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I'm thinking, Hey, like I, I want to start a business in the future that's in this niche. Can I build in a, in a YouTube channel first? So I think understanding that triple event diagram and finding that is really important. And then step two.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
social product like for any internet audience and for any just professional career stuff so that's key yeah yeah because you'll see sometimes people like really focus in on just what people want to watch but if you're not good at it you don't love it like you're not gonna last very long doing it um And sometimes, you know, I have certain things that I love that no one cares about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You know, like there's some things that are too niche or too focused. And also sometimes people think, especially if they're a personal brand, that their channel should just reflect them as a person. And for anyone that knows like basic probability, like if we say like, hey, you have an interest that 20% of the human population is interested in, which is ridiculous, let's say.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
and then you have another interest at 20% there, and then another interest at 20% there, and you try to combine those all together on one channel, like the probability of finding a person that is interested in all those different things is well under 0%. And that's kind of the step two here, which is laser focus on the niche or sub-niche. Don't be a sushi restaurant serving burgers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'm sure you're familiar with Andrew Wilkinson. I remember being on like a Zoom Q&A with him one time, and he just made a really good point of saying like, If you're a business, don't be the sushi restaurant that also serves burgers because you know that's not a good sushi restaurant. If you do everything, you're not really good at anything. And I think when it comes to YouTube, same is true.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Don't be that channel that is like... making business content, but then also like posts a vlog of their golf at the weekend. And then when I get angry, they say lots of people that like business also like golf. I'm like, well, you know what? A hundred percent, 80%. I don't think so. It's like 20%, 10%. Like we're focusing on the wrong thing here. So laser focus on the niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Don't be a sushi restaurant. Um, and step three, this is a bit prescriptive, but I think it's really useful for people starting out. Find a way to make two videos every week at the beginning. Um, Don't worry too much about ideation. Don't even worry about what you're making. Just do what calls to you. Pick your niche and say, hey, this would be fun to make. This would be fun to make.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Just make videos. And if you do that for four months and you're posting two videos a week, you're going to be in a very different position when we get into the next phase of the plan. So yeah, I'll pause here for a second and see if there's any thoughts from you, Greg.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Amazing. Amazing. So I'll talk a little bit about this graph in just a second. But this is a viewership graph graph for long form views for one of our clients. And there's a point here we want to make. But I think when I when it comes to why YouTube, which is literally the question at the top of this page, like why YouTube? Why should I put focus on YouTube?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I don't think I've ever seen that. Even you saying it, I'm like... Because I think I have a biased view because people that I typically work with are either creators that are all in on just being a creator, so they're not doing this as an extension to their business, or they're Fortune 500 companies who are like, write the check, we don't care. We don't need to think about that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, I think part of that is like, understanding that even with this, like there is every real possibility that you could do this for 12 months and not see an ROI or not see like a kind of enough traction to justify it. So I think useful part of that as well as like looking at the beginning and saying like, I'm willing to make this bet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Let's say it's going to be like 30K for six months of runway because I'm going to have a power time manager. I'm going to have this person, that person. And to me, spending 30K on this to try for six months is worth the potential upside that I think this can bring me.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
realistically it's going to take at least 12 months for you to see the roi so we have this um i have this like cohort based program we just called the youtube accelerator and i'm not bringing up to plug it because we're not actually taking applications right now but the interesting thing is like one of our like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
things we look for is you have over a thousand subscribers and you've posted over 50 videos before we let you into the program. Because I find that like that is like the awkward phase. That's the kind of figuring it out phase. That's the kind of necessary like steps you have to put in before you're even primed for growth.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And one of the first things that comes to mind for me is I think people put YouTube in the same bracket as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, even maybe X to an extent and look at it like a social media platform. But when you look at who YouTube are competing with and when you look at what YouTube is becoming, to me, it's much more like a streaming service.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
um after that stage like if someone has a strong niche if they are doing the right things and they have the right strategy like things can grow quite quickly um things can snowball pretty quickly after that point but yeah it's a you need to be willing to kind of look at this as like i'm gonna eat shit on this for a long time before this might pay off
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
We won't title it that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally. I've titled nearly every podcast I've ever been on, and most of them have done well, so I'm totally down. Cool. All right, let's keep going. All right, so let's say you figure that out. And when I say make two videos a week, I agree, it's really hard, especially if this is something that you're only able to dedicate a certain amount of time on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
At the start, to me, it really is about numbers and just getting stuff out there and just getting used to posting videos and not really worrying too much about ideation. So let's just say you're a channel that wants to talk about
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
um ai startups like at the beginning like you're maybe you're just filming a video on loom just walking through some thoughts and you're just posting that video and there's not much edits you're just trying to make a basic thumbnail at the beginning i'm not really worried about that i just want to kind of put something out there to just get into that habit of making content and versus like you know trying to refine something really well at the beginning
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But let's say you do that. You do that for four months. You are about 32 videos posted. Now we move into improvement phase. So we've kind of established ourselves as a channel. Really at this point, we're posting frequently and we have a laser focus on what that niche is. Now people often ask me like, How do I know if it's the right niche? How do I know if I should pivot?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
All these things, to me at least, they're like the wrong kind of questions because if you did this exercise at the beginning, we know you're in a niche that people, there is an audience for and we know you're good at it and we know that you love this niche. So the question isn't or the solution isn't to pivot just because we haven't seen results. It's to keep focusing on this niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I see these people, maybe you see these people in the business world, Greg, which is like, They're just constantly jumping between projects or ideas or passions, and they never actually really build anything of note because they don't wait long enough.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It's like the fisherman who constantly moves his hook from the bottom of the ocean to a different spot every like two minutes and keeps missing the fish. So I think being focused on that niche you select and just committed to it is really important.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If you do want to look at it at a more kind of data-backed rather than human-focused method, one thing you can do is use a tool. And I'll give you two examples of tools. These are basically called YouTube outlier tools. I don't know if you've seen them, but one example would be oneof10.com. Another example would be ViewStats. You can use these tools. You can go onto...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It's much more comparable to a Netflix or an Amazon Prime in how people actually consume content nowadays. For example, this might shock some people in the audience, but for a lot of our biggest clients in my company, we're getting 60, 70, sometimes as high as 90% of our viewership from TV. So from people watching on TV as their primary device type.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
basically their own search on their own website, search a topic. So let's see, you search like startup business and it will rank and filter videos by outlier score. So basically how much more views of this video get than the average for that channel. By doing that, you can then get a really nice insight into what content is outperforming in certain niches. So I'm using the business example.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Let's actually flip it and say, what if it's like personal development? So to say, hey, I'm starting a channel and my niche is personal development. Too broad.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If we type in personal development or we search personal development content through one of these tools and we notice that content built around this certain shelf of self-improvement, let's call it like breathwork or something, is outperforming the average by quite a bit right now, that could be a good sub-niche to start in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like focus on just breathing, breathwork, breathwork's healing properties, whatever it might be, to be the focus for your channel. So that's one thing you can do that's a bit more technical than just human-based, which is try to see where the outliers are within a sub-niche. And what you'll find is there's always trends.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
What's fascinating to me is I remember studying self-development content in 2016, and cold showers and getting up at 5 a.m. was really popular. It was just going crazy. People would make, like, cold showers are changing my life. Getting up at 5 a.m. is changing my life.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then everyone started doing it and then, you know, it kind of died down as an interest profile and then it kind of resurfaces again and reemerges again. And it's like, if you want to find in your niche, what's working right now, it's like, look for what the outliers are right now in the niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think the key thing is, is if you use those tools to pick your niche, um, then you almost like have to stop looking at them because it's very easy to be like, okay, I'm going to focus on cold showers to start.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Oh no, now I'm seeing this thing, you know, I'm seeing this other sub niche is working and yeah, you could get this spinning wheels sensation where you're just constantly going between things. Um, but yeah, let's say you've, you've gone through that journey. You're in this, what I call improvement phase, month five to eight, um, Posted 32 videos, roughly speaking.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So you have some volume under your belt. You know your niche. Everything feels like, okay, I'm kind of understanding. And at this point, I'm not even looking at results. I don't really care too much about that right now when we get to this point. It's just about we've picked it. We're doing it. So step four to me in this plan is start coming up with 100 ideas per week.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Now, a lot of the recommendations you're going to see here are like things that require a lot of effort and time. So we always have to consider the fact that people here are running their own businesses, doing their own things as well. But I would argue that people see this number of 100 ideas and just get too intimidated by it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I can sit down with a channel and come up with 100 ideas in an hour together. Just think about it. It's just like, what is it, 1.4 per minute or something? You can write ideas down pretty quickly. I'll walk through my process for ideation a little bit later in this podcast, but that's not as hard as it seems.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I think there is this kind of perception that YouTube is like this, oh, you're on your phone, you're flicking through cat videos or whatever. But in more recent years, I think that's changed to being, hey, this is actually a streaming service. This is TV. This is TV in 2025 and beyond. And so I always like to sort of start with that point of like, no, this isn't just Instagram or TikTok.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But if you're looking for what is the difference between big creators and small creators, I feel small creators who are not growing,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
don't put too much emphasis on like i'm going to make this video and then committing to that video sunk cost fallacy just make it happen put out the video and they don't really have a process for like was this the best idea i could have made did i come up with a enough volume to really see if that is a good idea so i really recommend people start investing into ideation at this stage not in the first stage because at that stage we just want to start making content but
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But at this point, 100 ideas per week, I think is a really good place to be. When I worked with Mr. Beast, for example, like I know that is like a crazy, you know, top of the line example of YouTube strategy, but like ideas that would literally be considered like the lifeblood of that company, like video ideas. And you'd have spreadsheets with 20, 30,000 video ideas in them.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And you'd have people who, individual people whose each person was brainstorming, you know, a hundred ideas a day, just like consistently, it was kind of like an idea farm. Um, and you don't have to do that, but yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Drinking Red Bull, coming up with ideas. Um, definitely like the tools, like I mentioned, the one of tens, the, uh, view stats, um, even just like using YouTube yourself and, you know, searching for popular videos, um, But a lot of it is just, like, spamming ideas, honestly. And I really do think about it as, like, something I'll talk about a little bit later.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I read it, I believe, in a book about Steve Jobs, but his idea of, like, 110-1, when they were thinking of, like, innovations and ideas instead of Apple, just, like, realizing that some of it is just, like, volume. Like, if you get enough volume, you put it into an effective filtering system, your quality is going to improve. And I think that's very true for ideation.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then my point here is try to start brainstorming around outliers. So at the beginning, I do think it's very useful to focus most of your attention on, okay, we've established a channel. Now we're in the improvement phase. What is really working in the niche? Let's make a list of all the things that are working in the niche using tools like we've mentioned.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then for each one of those ideas, let's brainstorm four or five ways we could change, adapt, twist this idea into something new for ourselves. And one of my favorite things to do is... look at my niche and then find what I would describe as like kind of niches that are vertical to it are very similar to the niche, but not the niche.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So for example, if you are a fishing channel, let's say, what is something that's like fishing in many ways, but is not fishing? To me, something that's like fishing, but it's not fishing is golf. Bear with me. The reason why I would say that is golf is enjoyed by a similar demographic of people to fishing, generally speaking in the USA. It is very equipment focused.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So it's gear heavy, like golf clubs, fishing rods, tackle. Those things are very kind of similar. It's an outdoor pursuit. So when I look at the niche, and if I say I'm a fishing channel, I might study other fishing channels, but also golf channels and say, well, something worked really well in golf. It's not a world apart from fishing. So is there a way to adapt it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So if we see there's a big outlier where someone played a whole round of golf with a wooden golf set, which I saw was a huge outlier for someone. Maybe in the niche of fishing, that's I fished a lake with wooden fishing rods, something like that. That's kind of top of my head. I'm sure there's better examples out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
This is its own streaming platform. And the interesting thing, if you look at data, Nielsen actually put data together. YouTube, when you look at the total time spent streaming content on YouTube, it's the biggest streaming service in the world. So more people stream content on YouTube than on Netflix or any of these other big streaming platforms. So it's the biggest streaming platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But I like to not only look at my niche, but also kind of similar niches and try to adapt into what I'm doing. I think that's like a great place to start. It's just to really brainstorm outliers like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. Yeah. There's actually, I mean, that could be a whole nother pub, but like, I feel like there's a lot of open space for these kind of tools in the YouTube industry. Like something I'm always like trying to figure out as well is overlap, audience overlap. How I've traditionally done that is I used to use a tool that was called subreddit overlap.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Let's keep going. All right. Step five, start making three thumbnails per video. Just do it. Everyone has ABC testing. So... YouTube gives everyone ABC testing. It allows you to upload three thumbnails every time you upload. It's kind of controversial. Some people don't like it. Some people do like it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I use it with most of my clients and find it as effective and increases the average user we're getting for videos when we try it. But even regardless of ABC testing, Thumbnails are so important. They're kind of like the 20% of, you know, a video that gets 80% of the results in some ways. And yet people still like spend 20 hours, 30 hours on a video and then they spend 20 minutes on a thumbnail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Uh, which is crazy. And to use an extreme example, rebel are like one of our biggest, um, corporate clients. I was speaking to like two or 300 rebel producers. I looked at a video and I kind of broke down the video. I was like, okay, there were 50 people involved in this video. It was filmed over all these weeks involved this much risk, this much experimentation, all this stuff.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then, you know, I mentioned the budget, which I can't mention the video, but you can imagine big ass budget for this video. Then it was like, how long did we spend on the thumbnail? And someone was like, we made it like 20 minutes before upload.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And I was like, if the thumbnail can lead to so much of a difference in performance, it can literally be like 50 or 60% of what makes a video effective on YouTube. And we're spending so much time, like hundreds, maybe thousands of total hours of employees working on this video. And then we spent 20 minutes on the thumbnail. It's just doesn't make sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So while you're making videos, try to get to a place where you're making two or three thumb options per video. And I'm going to hit you with this, Greg, do you do that right now for your channel?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
One of the reasons I think YouTube is so useful for founders or just entrepreneurs in general is the fact that it's not just a, I post a video and then that video does okay. And then I post another video and that does okay. I almost like to look at YouTube content, like digital assets. And people might've heard that term before of like, oh, you know, create digital assets online.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally, totally. I would say stuff like that is definitely on the fringe, like people complaining about that kind of thing. Because at least generally, like for one, if someone has seen a video, sometimes people have this concern, but if someone has seen a video and watched a video, they're not going to get recommended again just because the thumbnail is different. So it's one thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then also usually YouTube A-B testing will select one thumbnail and show that to a user and then not change it for the same user as much as people think they do. But it can definitely happen. So it's interesting that you got that comment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
The very fundamental thing or platform you can use or tool you can use. Um, if you just want to make something that's like decent, um, If you want to make something good, like Photoshop is what I use and what I've always used for my thumbnails. And I think you can get to a point where you can make good thumbnails in maybe five or six hours of Photoshop learning. So like a Sunday.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Because, and this is a point I have later actually, which is that The correlation between being really good at graphic design and really good at thumbnails is actually pretty weak. I've tried to work with some of the best graphic designers in the world and I've not been successful with making them great at thumbnails. I find some random kid on Twitter who's like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
just looking at thumbnails all day and making thumbnails. He might not have actually have very good Photoshop skills. And if I showed the PSD file that he used in Photoshop and sent to a graphic designer, they would say, this is a war crime, but he is able to make the thumbnails that people click on. Cause he understands the psychology of a thumbnail more than just the execution.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I'd say Canvas is fine. Learn some basic Photoshop. Um, people always ask about like AI thumbnail tools. Um, I find that AI can be good for like the base of the image you use, but you still have to bring it into Canva or Photoshop to like get it there. But using AI and thumbnails is not against YouTube's terms, contrary to popular belief.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And a lot of people do it and they're quite effective with it. But yeah, those would be the main tools. I think Photoshop, Canva. Also thumbnail designers, like you can hire like a,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
pretty cheap thumbnail designer like thumbnail design rates vary a lot like i pay five or six hundred dollars for thumbnails um with like our biggest clients potentially but there's definitely like a market for people that make thumbnails for like 50 to 100 dollars but where do i find those people i'm glad you asked ytjobs.co my own uh actually the world's biggest recruitment website for youtube channels yeah will i pull it up
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, pull it out. So yeah, I co-own this company. And we have, if I just go to talent here, I'm not even signed in, which is funny. But yeah, we literally have, I believe, 40,000 video editors, thumbnail designers, YouTube strategists, creative directors. We basically have like the entire YouTube workforce registered on the site. And you can post a job and people can apply.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You can filter by thumbnail designer. You can see all these thumbnail designers we have. Some of these, excuse me, some of these thumbnail designers are going to charge a lot. Some of them are newer. Someone like Brittany, Brittany works with me. You can see some of the thumbnails she's worked on, Red Bull, Jesser, 22 million subscribers, all these different people, and has reviews.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But I think every YouTube video I post, I try to view it through the lens of this is almost like real estate on the internet forever. And to kind of back up this point of like evergreen content, I'll bring us to this graph here. Let me just zoom in a little bit so people can see it quite clearly. But this is just month over month viewership.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
everything there. So obviously a bit of a plug, but it's a good platform to use. And I'll see if, if you, if you did want to link it, I'll see if I could get like a discount code for, for your audience.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But yeah, step six, this is where it depends on the channel, depends on the kind of content you're making. But I think this is a good place to actually switch from two videos every week to one video a week. Again, depends on the channel. Some channels like it works while having a good like volume of content, but again,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I would say for most channels that I'm starting from scratch or I'm working on that are small, I like to get us to a place where we're able to make decent videos and then switch to one and really try to focus on improving the quality of those individual videos. So that would be the step six, is switching to one video a week and starting to actually put more emphasis into making a great video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, absolutely. Um, these things also go in like really interesting flows where I filled 10 years ago on YouTube. And for people that remember each of 10 years ago, it was daily vlogging. It was Casey and I start posting a video every day. It was Logan Paul and Jake Paul doing their like daily vlog, uh, getting in trouble.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Then we went into this period of like the Mr. Beastification of YouTube in some ways and YouTubers starting to realize that quality was like highly rewarded. And that goes to extremes on the other side where like I have encountered creators that get five or six million views a video and they post once a year. For anyone interested, type in James Janney on YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
He's a creative friend of mine from London. He posts a video probably twice a year and has a full business, does really well, has people working for him. But he just makes really, really high quality documentaries. And he's able to sustain himself from just one or two videos a year.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So, yeah, I think one a week is a good medium place, though, because like when people learn that information, what's funny about that is like, let's be honest, like if James, my friend in London, was able to post a great documentary every month, he'd make way more money and would be way more successful. I think he would admit that as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And a funny conversation I had with Jimmy, Mr. Beast, when I first started, was talking to him six or seven years ago was like, Hey, like, I think it's really smart that you like focus on scarcity and you focus on like, like keeping things like scarce for the viewers. So that when they see your videos, it's a real special thing. And he was like, you idiot.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like I would post, if I could make a banger every two days, I would post every two days. So he was like, it's just that it takes longer to make a banger. Like, he's like, if I could press a button and bang, bang, banger comes out, like I'd make one every day. So I think one a week is a great place to be at if you've already kind of established yourself as a channel.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Again, for long form, no short form included on this graph for one of our clients. And you can see in the month, this is viewership from videos we posted inside the month. So inside the month of June, we did 2.6 million last year in 2023. Um, and on the bottom is catalog. So videos posted before the month. And you can kind of see that in the month viewership is very up and down.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So moving on to the last stage of the first 12 months. So this is where we're kind of looking at, hey, we've posted like around 48 videos. We were close to that 50 video mark, which I think is really important to get to as a channel. At this point, I really want you to start honing in on the top 10% of videos. I know it seems very simplistic, but what are those top 10%?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
When you look at all the videos we've posted, we've posted only 50 videos at this point. what are the top 10 performers? What are the top 10% performance? The top five videos, I suppose, that are doing the best on the channel. And can we do more of those? I've been introduced as a genius of YouTube strategy by people.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And while I appreciate that, so much of it is like, hey, this did well, let's do it again. Obviously, there's a lot more to it than just that. But so much of my career has been built on like, actually, telling people they can make the same video again or repeat the content again.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And even if, I don't know if anyone in your audience is familiar with my own channel, but on my channel, when I used to post videos on that channel, I literally just did the same video again and again and again with just different creators as the subject material. So find ways to really kind of build formats out of your videos that are working well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And if you're looking at that first sort of nine months as like, okay, start, I'm just making whatever. Then I'm starting to put more focus on ideation. I'm making more and more videos. This is the point where we start to be a bit more strategic and look for like the right opportunities. An example or like a metaphor people use that I think is really useful is like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
There's the machine gun approach, and then there's the sniper approach. The machine gun approach is kind of just like spraying bullets at the wall, seeing what hits. The sniper is just zoning in, looking at your distance, picking your target, and shooting. I think the more you do YouTube, the more you become a sniper versus a machine gun in terms of how you approach things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So really try to focus on those top 10%. And this one I would encourage even for people that purely look at YouTube as like a kind of marketing channel. I still think it's great to just carve out time to really study YouTube, study trends, outliers, what other people are doing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
i like to have this i have this for all my employees i have this for myself i have this for my clients i just say hey try to carve out four hours a week where you're studying youtube and you're actually just going through and looking at at content um one thing i do that's i think a bit of a hack for this is in youtube i create different playlists so i'll create these playlists and the playlist title will be something like outlier video or great thumbnail or great title or great intro
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And every time I watch a piece of content, because most of us watching this here will be watching quite a bit of YouTube per week. Every time I'm watching YouTube and I see something interesting, I put it in one of those playlists. And then I have time scheduled in my calendar to go through those playlists and just sort of write down and break down what I think worked about that and what did well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
We usually have like quite slow stats of the year. You see like 1 million and in 2024, January and whatnot, because we just don't really, um, have a consistent schedule all the time and things can happen. Somebody has performed somebody who's don't. So you see this very like up and down sort of cycle of in the month viewership. Then you look at your catalog.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I think for anyone that is really serious about becoming a YouTube creator or using this as a major channel for their business, really understanding and learning that game is so crucial. Or hiring people that will do this for you and save you that time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
documenting databasing studying swipe file i totally agree with that but also some of it is just like training your brain because i did this in my bedroom in ireland for like 10 years just every day just studying youtube and going through and like studying things that worked and two weeks ago we're making a thumbnail with a client and i just sort of say what about we try like what if we try this like we create a sign in the thumbnail that looks like this and whatnot
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And my team who were on the call were like, yeah, let's do that. We did it with the client. The video did really well. And I tried to reverse engineer how I came up with that specific thing to add to the thumbnail because I think it made a real difference in this thumbnail, putting this specific component in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And as far as I could sort of trace back, it was from like studying a video six years ago that had a similar element in it. And maybe I'm inefficient, so I don't know this, but I think some of it is like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
really useful but also just training your mind to like see enough content and understand the content where it becomes second nature to you where you know I can just think of these things on the spot because I've trained my mind and maybe there will be and this is something I'd love to talk about is like an agent or something that can like say oh you're working on this still now like here is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
20 examples of thumbnails that were on similar themes that performed well in the last you know six years or something like that could be interesting but um definitely like focusing on youtube studying youtube for some time each week is huge and the last is the last step yeah step nine continue to post weekly make each video that little bit better improve one little thing each time one percent improvements um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So this is your first 12 months. Like I'd love for you to end the first 12 months with this, just philosophy of we're going to continue to post weekly. We're going to try and make each video a little bit better. Um, you know, that classic 1% each time, like little marginal gains in each video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But if you're doing that with every video and you're posting weekly, like you make quite a lot of progress. Um, so this would be the last step of the first 12 months. And then there's a lot of, uh, unanswered questions, which we can, we can jump into in some of the next pages.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You see like in the month of December, we did 27.9 million views. So this is just the December that went by. 27.9 million views from videos posted outside of the month of December. So older videos. So we kind of have nearly 30 million long form views coming in every month from the catalog.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
One thing we do with clients is once per month, we do a learnings report. So let's just say we're working with Red Bull. We go through and break down the learnings of the videos posted. And those learnings are a mixture of looking at how well the video performed, looking at retention curves. So for anyone that doesn't know, YouTube gives you a retention curve.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It shows exactly where you lose people, where you gain people, where they hold on your videos.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
so if you're like looking at that studying that for each video then each time hypothetically you're equipped with more information about what works and what doesn't work um so yeah we do that for every every video i've probably looked at 10 000 retention curves in my life probably more and it just gives you a great insight into what holds attention and what loses attention and some things would surprise you like even this is just a bit of a side note but
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
A few years ago, I was looking at a retention curve with a creator and he was like, for the life of me, I can't understand why 10 minutes into the video, this was a 20 minute video. So 10 minutes in, I lost 5% of viewers, like 5% of people left. And for his video with how many views he was getting, that was like maybe 50,000 people clicking off the video at that point.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And he was like, I don't understand it. And I watched the video and on the surface, there was nothing in it. Like he didn't like do a bad edit. He didn't like bring in something really boring. But what he did was he used language that made it feel like the video was ending.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So he said, at the end of the day, the reason America pulled out from Afghanistan, because I think that was like the topic for the video. He said, at the end of the day, and viewers heard that and they were like, oh, the video's over. Goodbye. And when I brought up that point, he's like, that can't be right because they have like the progress bar. So they would have known that wasn't the end.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'm like, dude, have you seen someone watching YouTube? they're like one swipe away from changing content all the time. Like you're hanging by a thread the entire time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So if you give someone this indication that the video might be closing to an end, so like another language like this is like, you know, nevertheless, like I hate that word because that like makes people think it's like a summary of the video and it's going to end. So like to recap, another thing I hate, like whenever someone does that, I just like feel like getting sick. So
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Little things like that you notice from studying retention curves. And these are the little improvements where you're like, okay, well, 5% of people left at that point in the video. It might seem like a small amount, but that's 50,000 people. YouTube is about marginal gains. It's also about marginal gains over competitors. So two videos being side by side by each other.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And you can see this number is a lot more consistent than it's growing over time versus the in the month being a bit more up and down. So I really like to look at YouTube like, hey, this is a platform where you can make content that lives forever. And I don't think that's necessarily true of a lot of other platforms. It's true for things like search, like Google search.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If one video loses 5% at the 10 minute mark, and that's 5% of people that are not going to watch the next 10 minutes of content. You compare that against the competitor who holds up that 5%. it might be the difference in the video getting one million views and three million views. You know, that sounds ridiculous and that's really kind of stretching, but like these things really add up.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So these small improvements can make a big difference to video performance. 100%. Awesome. So if there's time, we can jump into next here, which is just a real quick cheat sheet on ideas. So I've mentioned how important ideas are a lot on this podcast so far. So I just want to really quickly run through basically how I think about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So this is like my diagram for sort of explaining how I think about ideation for YouTube. First of all, you have zero ideas at this point. You're just trying to understand like your strategy for your channel. So a lot of that is what's my niche, but also some of these frameworks, which I'm gonna touch on in a second.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Then you brainstorm 100 plus ideas, whether that's in a week, a month, but just brainstorm 100 plus ideas, ideally in a week. Then you apply elimination criteria. It's a classic funnel you're eliminating at this point. Then you're left with, let's say, 10 strong ideas. And then you further develop one.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So sort of 0, 100, 10, 1, that is the framework I've used for most of the channels that we work with. And the keys really are brainstorming enough and then having like a strict criteria for what actually becomes a video on your channel to eliminate and whittle down those ideas to be left with the 10 best and then selecting the best out of those 10 you think is the best to go forward with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
two frameworks that I find are really useful for this. First one is CCN fit. So what I notice, and this actually leads a little bit into your point earlier about like niches, sub-niches, and then like what are broad videos in a niche versus like core videos in a niche. But generally when I'm ideating for a channel, like I always want videos to have CCN fit.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I want them to be appealing to the core, casual and new. It's very simple in theory, but like a lot of things on this call, simple in theory, but execution is hard because what I find is oftentimes people make videos that are too core focused. Maybe the video we talked about earlier, the marketing plan for 2025. It's too core.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
People cared about it, but only like a real small part of the core cared about it. Then other times people make videos that are too new viewer focused and they alienate the core. They go too far outside of the core. They're trying to do something too different. And I always like to sort of look at my videos and say, does this have CCN fit?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like, does this hit my core casual new viewer on my channel? So I always like to say, does my like fan favorite viewer who watches everything I do, are they going to like it? And does this viewer who I've never heard before, never watched my content before, are they going to be able to enjoy and consume this content as well? So I think that's a really important framework to think about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You know, you make a blog post, it might be very evergreen. But we do look at like X and, you know, we both love Twitter X and use it very heavily for promoting ourselves. I could make a banger tweet. It could get 600,000 impressions in 24 hours. But after that point, it's pretty dead. Um, I think Instagram is pretty similar.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then I would say this is arguably the most important to understand on YouTube. And it's where almost everyone goes wrong in my opinion, which is I like to build channels where each video I look at it and say, does this have 80% plus? I should actually add like a plus there because videos can have higher than that audience overlap. So I don't want to make two videos.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like everyone thinks, okay, I understand the niche thing. I should be in a niche. I should be a sushi restaurant that doesn't serve burgers, whatever. But then they still make content that jumps around too much between different things. They jumped around too much between different topics. Like maybe it's your business channel, but you're covering videos that focus on like startups.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And then you make videos that focus on like cashflow businesses that do 10 million a year that are already existing. And you don't make that interesting to the startup audience or whatever. So I always like to look at the content and say 80% plus overlap.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
We have to look at our videos and say, people that watch this video, 80% plus of those people could watch this video, could watch this video, could watch this video, could watch this video, and look at it like a catalog in that sense. And yeah, I find a lot of people just don't really grasp that as a concept, which is really interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, like this to me is scheduled time. It's, I think so many people just do ideation where they do like shower thought ideation, which is like, oh, I'm going for a walk. I'm in the shower. I think of an idea, write it down in my notes app. And that's something, but I like to schedule idea time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And I also like to use other people a lot for this as well, where I remember like working for a channel at one point and I would like send them like three outliers or send this, sorry, not them, but this college kid that went to the college I used to go to, three ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
and then i would be like these three ideas work for us brainstorm 50 ideas similar to this for each of these ideas he'd come back with 150 ideas i'd pay him 40 i would look at the ideas i would go through and They'd be mainly dog shit, but there'll be some in there that jump out. There'll be something in there that sort of has like a kernel or something I can work with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So I like to do this myself, but I also like to bring in other people for this. I've worked with big crowds before that have like a Discord channel. We're in the Discord channel or the Slack channel, whatever it might be. If it's a community thing, school, circle, whatever you're using for community, you have a channel where people like contribute their own ideas as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
and it's almost like how do we just have this huge funnel that's capturing ideas from everywhere so i want the shower thoughts i want the walk in the park and i think of an idea i want those i also want the schedule idea time i want the idea if i have a producer an assistant producer has joined one of our teams that we work with who has never done youtube before and just is like hey i just hold the camera i'm like i still want you to come up with ideas and see what happens because i'm a big believer that like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
anyone can come up with an interesting idea for a YouTube video. And sometimes there's a benefit in someone that's outside of your world as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So if you apply your criteria filter, Because the classic, like if I had asked people in 1910, you know, what they wanted, they'd say a faster horse instead of a car. So if you have, that's why the system of having the elimination criteria is so essential because I've found the flip side where like people listen to their audience too much and the audience will nearly always say more of this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It's something you've already done, you know, or like they'll just say, well, you should do something like this again. And you know, that might be a good idea, but. maybe there's something else that exists out there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Thousand percent. To me, there's like three main sources of ideas for YouTube channels. So external sources, this is basically like outlier theory, outlier ideation, which is looking at other channels. We've talked about this throughout this podcast, but using tools like view stats, one of 10, even just looking at YouTube yourself, seeing what's working. There's so many levels this can go to.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like another thing I've done in the past is create a dummy YouTube account. and then only watch my channel on that YouTube account, and then see what videos I get recommended. Because YouTube's algorithm can serve you videos you might not have seen otherwise. Because let's say I'm a channel that just does startup ideas.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You still probably watch other things in your watch history that aren't just startup ideas. And that's going to pollute your recommendation feed to a certain extent, because it's tailored to you. But if you create a channel that just watches your channel, you're kind of getting your viewers' archetype and seeing what they... they might be watching in other ways.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Um, so external ideation, internal ideation, that's like looking at our own channel, what's worked for us, what's doing well for us on the channel, what's getting views on the channel right now. Can we bring some more ways of doing ideas around that? And then innovation is, you know, the classic kind of like blue ocean sit down, like what could be cool? Like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'm a big believer that nothing is ever completely original. There's always going to be some way that got impacted or molded by something else. But more so, you're not looking at a video for inspiration. You're kind of like just sitting down. Maybe you're looking at like a show or something or a movie and you're like, oh, that could be cool to do a YouTube video on or whatnot.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But if you're using those three sources, and maybe it's like 40, 40, 20, like 40 ideas coming from external, 40 from internal, 20 from innovation, something like that, you can mix and match those ratios. But if you're brainstorming a large volume, 110, one, you're just gonna be in a much better place as a channel. The crucial step here as part of this process is your elimination criteria.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
To me, that's like four or five things that you sit down and decide a video needs to have to get to the next level, to get to the point where you're even choosing. Like when I have these 100, 200, whatever, 1,000 ideas in the spreadsheet, they're not even at the point of choosing. They're just at the point of, okay, you're ready to go into the elimination criteria.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
To me, the elimination criteria, four or five points, I'll give you some examples of like what we do with clients. So one thing I would always put in the elimination criteria is can I think of a good title for my offer of this? annoys me when people say, I've got this great idea, but I can't title film all that. I would always say, well, you don't have a great idea then.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like that's not a great idea for YouTube if you can't title film all that. Unless you just can't think of one, there is one out there. But if you can't realistically in your head, find a way to package it, it's not a good YouTube video. So that could be one. And you'd be amazed. You might have 200 videos in a spreadsheet.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You apply that filter of like, could we actually come up with a good title film? Suddenly you have 40. And you're like, oh, okay, I've got rid of a lot. And another filter is the view target filter, which I really like, which is a bit of gut, but it's like, hey, like realistically, could this video get X views?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So for me on my channel, when I made my own videos, it was, can this video get 1 million views? And if you look at my channel, the average is around 1 million. A lot of videos didn't get 1 million. But I always tried to make videos that I thought if everything went well, this video could get one million views. For other channels, it might be 10K, 5K, 20K.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
For you, maybe it's less about views and more about can this get X amount of positive comments or whatever it might be. But some sort of like aspirational target, because it's amazing how many times we justify a video, but then if we put it through that filter of saying, let's be real here, like could this get this viewership? It's too much of a just a, I'm not sure, you know?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You're never going to be guaranteed, but like as an example, I made a video on my channel where I covered Graham Stephan, who's a finance YouTuber. I broke my rule because Graham Stephan on his own channel was doing 300K views per video. So me making a video brainstorming how Graham Stephan grew his channel, it's probably not going to get one million views a video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So that's a case of like, you can kind of use some basic logic to be like, it's probably not going to get my view target. So I think those are two examples. Other examples might be like, more kind of like holistic, like, does this excite us? Is it feasible? Like, is it physically feasible? Like, you know, I did a BMX trick shot on the moon is a viral idea, but it's not feasible.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So can we actually do this video? Is it something that excites us? Maybe you have some other things in there, but basically four or five points that you can use to whittle down an idea to make a great idea for your child. Um, I think it's really important. And then some things that I think make a great idea, um, So easy to convey in title for mail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like I said, if you can't convey in title for mail, it's not necessarily a great idea. has some form of uniqueness, superlative. Like so often when people are pitching ideas to us, I'm sort of like, okay, like we're going to do a facility of like an interesting, let's say we're doing it, we're a wildlife channel and we're going to like tour a zoo.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Patty Galloway on the pod.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'm always looking and saying like, is it the world's best zoo? Is it the world's biggest zoo? Is it the world's most expensive zoo? Is there something unique about this zoo that we can title the video around? Because otherwise, you know, what's unique about the video.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If you look at the most viral videos on YouTube, they always have something that's a bit unique or different or they use a superlative like, you know, can you bend the world's strongest bar? It's not can you bend the strong bar? It's can you bend the world's strongest bar as a strength challenge? So always looking for superlatives I think is really important.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Something to think about really heavily is like, does it play on a competitive advantage I have? So with channels, I always like to identify what are your competitive advantages? Like what are the things that you can make content on that other people can't? That could be a competitive advantage from knowledge and experience. Like, Hey, like I'm a multimillionaire.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So obviously I can teach people about building businesses or personal finance, or maybe it's,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
i have specific access to something that other people don't like you know a great example is we work with a basketball creator jesser and when we're brainstorming i'm looking and saying can we play on competitive advantage because his competitive advantage is he knows players and he has access to the the nba like they give them access to games So just a random creator can't really do that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Like you can't come up with an idea and saying, I got to gift LeBron James shoes, which is an idea we did that did 10 million views because you don't have access to LeBron James, whereas we do. So like playing on competitive advantages, I think is great. And that doesn't have to always be things that are impossible to get. It doesn't have to be just money.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
It could be like you have specific expertise or knowledge on something that other people don't.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
um and kind of on the same ccn fit idea not too narrow um but also not too broad we don't want something that's so broad and like could be anything we also don't want something that's so specific and niche that it's only appealing to like a certain percentage of the audience cool yeah i know uh i'm happy you said that the unfair advantage doesn't necessarily need to mean
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah, totally. And then moving on quickly to just some things on packaging. It's a bit of a packaging cheat sheet. So again, packaging title for Mel. This is like interesting with our discussion earlier, which is the kind of like, the line between boring and misleading, which is where I feel like all title and film ads on YouTube fall on,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
going to be somewhere between being boring not interesting which is potentially what you had with the example of like the broccoli the vegetables example misleading that to me is when you're putting something in the video that is dirt in the thumbnail and you're creating an expectation that's just not delivered on at all and i think people are sometimes too afraid to be on this side
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But again, if we just look at the game, the game is the game. You look at the biggest creators on the platform, they almost exaggerate and mislead a little bit, but then they deliver something so good that you don't even know about it. You don't even think about it.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So as a great example of this, actually, we did a video with Noah Kagan, which was asking millionaires how to make a million dollars knocking on doors. We're one of the channels that made that format really popular. And In the video, we didn't have a good thumbnail. So Noah, if I remember correctly, had a friend, this girl.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
We just shot the thumbnail with Noah facing this girl who wasn't even in the video. She wasn't in the video. It was just a random girl that was in the thumbnail. That was the person we used for the thumbnail. The video got four or five million views. I didn't notice a single comment saying that person wasn't in the thumbnail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Because I think the average viewer on YouTube looks at a thumbnail for a split second and goes, is this interesting or is this not interesting? Us as creators, we overanalyze it too much. We think about all the details. We want to be like careful not to clickbait, which is good. It comes from a good place. But the average viewer is like, wait, MrBeastGoldJet, click.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Start watching the video and it's like, oh, you watched a video, you finished a video and you can't even remember what the thumbnail was. In fact, if we actually think about it at this point of this podcast, I don't know how much this is going to be edited down by, but let's say we're at like the one hour 20 mark of this podcast or whatever.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If we sort of ask people, what was the thumbnail for this video? I guarantee you very few people are going to remember what was said in the thumbnail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? But yeah, exaggeration, it's a standard on the platform. I think misleading someone is the wrong way to view it, but exaggerating the truth a little bit, it's just a game. Make three thumbnails per video. Still not enough people do this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I feel like everyone who listens to people like me talk about YouTube hear this, but they don't do it or they find ways to cheat, which is like, I'll make three thumbnails per video. Don't you worry, Paddy. But the thumbnail is like the same thumbnail with just different text. I'm like, that's not three different thumbnails. That's just the same thumbnail with slightly different text.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'm talking about three different concepts.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I love that analogy, that's totally true. Learn basic Photoshop, study outlier thumbnails. Being good at graphic design does not equal good at thumbnails. So again, people sort of like, I don't have time to master graphic design, but it's like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
it's more about looking at what's working on YouTube and just learning how to replicate it rather than like, you know, learning all this advanced Photoshop work. Um, and yeah, like, like we said earlier, there definitely is like a market for Thumbnail designers, um, out there. And there's a lot of designers at different price points that people could, could bring in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And it's one of those things where like, again, people like will spend money on editors and spend money on like production and all this sort of stuff. But yeah,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
thumbnails is kind of an underutilized use of money resources time when it comes to youtube and when it comes to great packaging some things i think about um titles keep them under 60 seconds use like easy language like easy to understand language see if you can use like superlatives or like things in your tile that make it unique and different to other videos on youtube
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Something I always think about, even if you are a search-based channel, is to focus on human interest, not algorithm. So without naming names of tools, there's been tools in the past that have been like, hey, we'll help you optimize your title for search engine. And then I look at the titles people write with these tools and it's like, iPhone 12 review 2025, check out this iPhone 12.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And it's like, it's not even real. Like, I don't know what you're saying. So I always like to focus on writing a title for a human. Like with some clients, I'll let you say like, what would a, like, what would a, an Uber driver describe this thing as like, could that be our title? Or like, how could you put it in the most simple language possible? So yeah, Focus on the human, not an algorithm.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If you do focus on search, like you can still incorporate key terms, like your keywords in your title while not making it like a gobbledygook of different things. I think that's really important to understand. Example I use here, which I'll just make a bit bigger for everyone. So this is with two Austin-based creators, Ryan Tran and Haley Pam.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And if you look at their title, it's X dancer trains like a marathon runner. And it seems simple, right? It's very simple, easy to read. And if you run it through like a readability score, it gets a grade A. It basically says, hey, like seven or eight-year-olds can read this. Define it as like a 100% reach with this specific readability score.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You can just type in readability score to like find these tools.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
just for fun i was like well what if you like titled it more accurate to what the video was and it was like x contemporary dancer trains like a d1 athlete if you change that video title to that suddenly it gets a grade e it has 33 reach um and you know a thing i would actually say which is really interesting as well is like if you're trying to build a global audience and you are american
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
sometimes things that are very like obvious and feel like everyone knows that to you might not be to other parts of the world, which is still a huge market. So for example, D1 athlete, I don't, until I moved to America, I didn't necessarily know what a D1 athlete meant. You know, we just call them like a college athlete in Ireland. Like I'd never heard of that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Or like someone's like talking about Goodwill. I'm like, I've never heard of Goodwill. I don't know what Goodwill is. Like now I do, but I didn't know before. So just putting yourself through that lens and saying, is this universal? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
can like a seven-year-old read this title i would even argue for like a channel which has like a a much older demographic like your channel i'm sure has a much older demographic than something like this i still think it's useful to be able to like put things into really simple english and just make things like consumable um for the for the viewer
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Thumbnails, always keep them clear, bright, should be easy to see what's going on in the thumbnail. I think there's like an interesting thing, which is like this idea of like a glance test. And you can actually do this yourself.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You can create like a, just open up a Google slide, put your thumbnail on one of the slides, put the second slide as just a white screen, and then just use your arrows and just quickly click between them and give yourself like a second to just look at the thumbnail and say, can I process this thumbnail and this title in a second?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
we as creators are making thumbnails in Canva, Photoshop, we're obsessing over all these details. Your viewer looks at them for split seconds. And people sometimes deny that. I'm like, look at your own viewership behavior. Look at how you consume YouTube. Like when I'm looking through YouTube, I'm just like, Oh, interesting, click. I'm not looking at going like, let me read everything.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Let me look at every detail. So keep it really simple. Make sure it passes the glance test. That's a really important one. Shouldn't be text heavy. I try to limit text. It's interesting, different cultures are different here. So for example, I've noticed in Asian markets,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So like Singapore, different countries like that, they use more text than English speaking markets and Spanish speaking markets. But in general, for a thumbnail, it should be about four or five words should be your cutoff point for how much words you put in the thumbnail and ideally less. Sometimes people just put way too much text in there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You have a title and you have all this text in your thumbnail, it's too much for someone to read in a glance. And then one other thing I would share with your audience, which I think is really useful is the three focus area rule, which basically for a thumbnail, there shouldn't be more than three things the viewer has to focus on. That's the cutoff point.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
There should be either only one, two or three things to focus on. So maybe that's like a face, a piece of text and the thing that's being held up to the camera, you know, whatever that might be. What you'll see is people try to jam so much stuff in. They have like someone here, they have text here, they have a logo here, they have this thing here, and it's like too many things to focus on at once.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Totally, yeah. So I think that's a really good point because a great example you'll see is sometimes like a YouTube strategist like myself will be like, you should spend more time making videos. You should make really quality videos so they become evergreen. But if a channel that's audience is news-based, covers the California wildfires,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So the best thumbnails are very simple and just keep you focused on the main areas. An example of this, like with the clients, like this is what we did with a personal finance client we work with.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Super simple background, you know, four words you've been lied to, which is outlier text that we saw this performing really well on another thumbnail that got like 10 million views for a very small channel. You've been lied to. That video was about the dodo's extinction. So the bird and how it went extinct. You've been lied to. I was like, let's take it for this thumbnail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You've been lied to about housing. So you've been lied to in text there. House on fire. Rumi, his expression kind of matching what the video is. It sounds like an obvious thing, but you'd be amazed at how many people cover like serious topics and they're just like smiling in the thumbnail. It's like weird. Title is like simple to understand, but has like an interesting proof point.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Multi-millionaire, interesting contradiction. Like why don't you own a house as a multi-millionaire? all these details out together and also notice three focus areas, face, text, house. You're not having to look at a million things. Super easy thumbnail. And that was the first video we posted with him and it did 2 million views.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So yeah, that's a bit of a cheat sheet on thumbnails and titles as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
where could where could they get to know patty more i think x is the place and patty g96 i i tweet a lot there i'm always uh looking what greg's doing and thinking how i can adapt it to the youtube side of of twitter um so that's the best place um and i i think you've got a really interesting audience and if anyone does have like startup ideas they want to run by me or anything around this space like i think there's so much room to build uh in this industry and
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think the issue is a lot of people just build the wrong things. They try to solve the wrong problem for creators. So it's been a pleasure. It flew by. I didn't realize we were here for nearly two hours.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
You know, three, four weeks after it's happened, no one cares. The news has moved on. So I think that's a really good point. I think I always like to think of channels. If you are a channel that covers a lot of news events, you're either all in on news and then you have to sort of admit that you're not going to see good catalog viewership, at least compared to what you could do with other formats.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
But for most channels, I don't think, even in your case, I don't think you're all in on being super time-specific all the time. So I think it's just about having a nice mix and balance of, yes, I make time-specific videos, but I also make videos that have a longer tail and that aren't just as focused on right now.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
The difficult thing that I notice is even when you're thinking about this for your content, you say it performs three or four times better. That might be true for sure, but... the timeline over which you're measuring might be quite short because of how just naturally YouTube shows you, oh, this is doing really well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And it's like first 24 hours when you zoom out a bit, maybe those other videos that don't start as well do pick up a little bit. Have you noticed that with like videos that aren't just time specific, having a bit of a longer tail on your channel?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
but I love where you ended up because I thought you were gonna say you care about comments and likes because algorithmically that's important but it sounds like it's purely sentiment like it's a good uh indication of hey how much my viewers actually really enjoyed this um versus yeah like for example comments have no algorithmic waiting like you don't look at comments for video performance but it's a great indication of hey like especially with an audience like you have here that is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I'd love to give your audience a bit of a cheat sheet into YouTube strategy because this is what I do all day, every day. This is what I focus my life on. And I think if by the end of this podcast, I can sort of dispel a few myths and give people some good ideas of how to tackle what is, in my opinion, the best platform to grow an audience on, I think that would be a great use of time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And that also just made me think as well, is like, in this first point of streaming service versus social, I think what's interesting is like, YouTube has that kind of like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
time spent that you get from like a streaming platform as in how long you're spending with the viewer um but there is like some social media components which is a comment section like netflix doesn't have a comment section so you feel more connected to the community than just watching content 100 all right let's keep going Totally. So yeah, really do like to look at content evergreen.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
I think that is a really good point, though. Not everything is evergreen, but there is algorithmically nothing that punishes older content. If older content started getting more views than newer content on YouTube, that's what would be promoted. There's no bias towards new content on YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
In my experience, I'm curious what you think about this, Greg, but in my experience, from comparing it to other... marketing forms, like I find that YouTube converts second best only to email when it comes to selling to a product, when it comes to selling or promoting a service, I find YouTube converts really, really well compared to other platforms and at least at a per user basis.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
So that's also something to really consider as well as like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
you can build really big audiences on other platforms but youtube especially if you do have like a quite defined clear audience you're going after after i find converts really really effectively and now this might not be as big of a factor for people in your audience but it's also worth mentioning and i'm sure you've noticed this as well yourself is like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
you're kind of getting paid to make advertising content in some ways. Like your content is advertising what you might provide or do, or even if it's just purely because you want to build community, you're getting paid to do that. YouTube have AdSense built in. I would say the kind of range I give most people here is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
If you have a Western audience, if your audience is primarily English speaking in America, Canada, UK, Europe, you're probably going to see a $3 to $10 RPM. So that's the amount you get paid per 1,000 views. So if you're going to do some basic maths on that, like you look at the viewership that we see on these channels, and you just look at like December 27.9 million views, you apply a $10 RPM.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
or PN to that, that's $280,000. So like there is a lot of potential money just to make just from that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
This YouTube expert made creators $100M+ (Not clickbait)
And even if you are a smaller channel, like I've worked with channels that are maybe doing a couple million views a month, which is still big in the grand scheme of things, but a lot smaller than these numbers, they're promoting a service, they're promoting their book, their service, their product, whatever it might be, but they're still making 20, 30K a month from YouTube kind of seamlessly.