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As the CEO of Kit, Nathan Barry has a front row seat to what’s working in the most successful creator businesses.
On The Nathan Barry Show, he interviews top creators and dives into the inner workings of their businesses in his live coaching sessions.
You get unique insight into how creator businesses work and what you can do to increase results in your own business.
One of the things Nathan is passionate about is helping you create leverage.
Creator Flywheels let you create many copies of yourself so you don’t get bogged down with the little things in your business. Flywheels will help you reach a place where you can focus on revenue instead of busywork.
Tune in weekly for new episodes with ideas and tips for growing your business. You’ll hear discussions around building an audience, earning a living as a creator, and Nathan’s insights on scaling a software company to $100M.
Learn how to get more results with less effort and:
Grow faster over time.
Work less hard over time.
Make more money over time.
Jon Youshaei: [00:00:00] What leads to a creator who endures versus fizzles out? I had a chance to work on YouTube Rewind in 2014. I looked at what happened to those creators 10 years later. If you were an education creator, you're enduring to this day. But if you were anywhere near that category, you make it big.
Narrator: He's your favorite creator's favorite creator,
and he knows
all the secrets.
Jon Youshaei: Prepare for opportunities you don't have, because they'll come. 8am, I get a phone call, it's like, Are you available to interview Jimmy tomorrow? I'm gonna interview the world's biggest YouTuber. I start talking to his manager, I start talking to his chief of staff. Like, he has a guy following him 24 7 doing a documentary.
So I just start talking to him. But, And we haven't posted any of this publicly yet.
Nathan Barry: Pretty rare to have someone who has been on both sides, building the platform and then also on the creator side.
Jon Youshaei: Believe me, it's harder to get started and to keep going. Getting a hundred thousand, 200, 000, 300, 000 is easier in a cent than that first 10, 000.
Okay. Let's do some questions.
Audience: From your time at [00:01:00] Instagram.
Jon Youshaei: If you're ever thinking about launching a campaign around the holidays, think twice.
Audience: One of the things that worries me is titles.
Jon Youshaei: Can I look at your channel? I would not put that in your title. The police are here because that's too good of advice.
Nathan Barry: Jon, I want to start by talking about your time at YouTube and Instagram. It's pretty rare to have someone who has been on both sides, uh, not just You know, on, on multiple platforms, but also like being able to see those building the platform and how that works. And then also now be on the creator side.
And you mentioned in your talk that you've seen a lot of people like fizzle out. What do you notice is the difference between those creators that endure for a long period of time? You know, Beyonce, who you're talking about, you know, 30 plus years, uh, in the spotlight and creating versus those who, you know, made it for two years on YouTube or four years.
And that was it.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. So here's an interesting stat, uh, to answer your [00:02:00] question. Um, what leads to a creator who endures versus fizzles fizzles out? Um, I had a chance to work on this video called YouTube Rewind back in 2014. I don't know if you remember that, but it was like a big recap video that YouTube put out that basically they chose the top 100 creators at the time, put them in a big video.
It's a music video. It gets like 100, 200 million views. And it was this big honor to be selected for that video. Um, I was on the other side, I was working on it, helping producers select the creators, et cetera. Um, now that I'm a creator, I did this little exercise and I think I'll put out a video about it, but I looked at what happened to those 100 creators 10 years later.
After YouTube Rewind 2014. And I saw, I basically mapped everything in a quadrant because, you know, everything can be put in a matrix or a quadrant. And so the axes were, um, short form, long form, education, entertainment. If you were anywhere near the entertainment category, you either made it super big, the Logan Pauls and Mr.
Beast of the World, or you're no longer [00:03:00] uploading, irrelevant, and went broke. There's almost no in between or middle class from at least that sample size of 100 creators and the trend that I saw. But, if you were an education creator or had some tinge of education and worked towards that side and closer to longer form, you're enduring to this day.
iJustine, Jon and Hank Green, Veritasium, Vsauce, all these people were still uploading 10 years ago and still are maintaining a high degree of relevancy and viewership in their content. Channels and businesses. So, I think a lot about that, that even if you're an entertainment first creator, you have to have some form of education in your content.
Both: Right.
Jon Youshaei: Um, and I could give an example of what that means and how to do that. Really
Nathan Barry: quickly, I'm curious, raise your hand if you consider yourself more on the entertainment side of being a creator with your content. Interesting.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. That squares up with a newsletter. I think so.
Nathan Barry: Now, what about if you're on the education side?
Okay, cool. I was, I'm glad to see that people are [00:04:00] actually raising their hands. I was a little worried that just people were like, I'm not, I rejected the premise of your, I'll see you guys in 10 years. But yeah, that's what I've noticed is, you know, anecdotally is that people who are building that longterm, um, education connection tend to endure much longer.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah.
Nathan Barry: What's an example of, of a creator that you were thinking of? So,
Jon Youshaei: um, there's this. Uh, video on YouTube that has, I think, 1 million, 2 million views. It's called, I Ate Taco Bell for 30 Days. Um, and it's essentially the YouTube version of Super Size Me. It's from a creator named Sam Reed. But what's interesting is not just in, like, what is this guy doing, like, challenging his body type of thing.
He basically, the whole premise of it, there was a bunch of articles that came out, believe it or not, about a year ago that said, Taco Bell is the healthiest fast food out there. Which sounds like an oxymoron, right? But they were making these claims like Taco Bell is healthier all this stuff and he's like, you know what?
I'm gonna go through this 30 day challenge. Here are the [00:05:00] rules. I'm gonna talk to medics I'm gonna talk to doctors throughout the time and get my blood samples and there's really an educational piece of video disguised as entertainment And I think if you're on one side of the spectrum like a lot of us are on the education side There's ways to make it more entertaining that we could talk about and if you're more on the entertaining side There's ways to make it more educational.
But that to me was a perfect example of one that really crossed the chasm.
Nathan Barry: Yeah, I think that the, the storytelling is so important, right? And a lot of us breathe our own personality into our videos. We're not just saying here are the facts. It's not like, you know, the worst college professor you've ever had.
He's just teaching right out of the textbook. You know, we're finding a way to breed story and entertainment into it. Who are, or what are some of the examples that you've seen Of people, you know, or tactics that we can use to bring more of that entertainment factor and like package up our education in, you know, a form that people actually want to consume.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. So I think it comes down to the intro and like [00:06:00] thinking about how you could hook people that way. Um, and so I think about when it comes to good intros, it's how can you address an objection right away? Cause I think people say, Oh, viewers have fleeting, like, like attention spans or, you know, dumb. No, I think.
Viewers are smarter than ever. And so I find that a lot of people like, okay, in this video, we're going to talk about this and they go into the actual video, but they never say what you may be thinking about. Like whenever I talk about YouTube tips and my videos that are solo explainers, educational ones, my, all right, today we're going to be talking about six tips.
to, uh, grow on YouTube. And no, these aren't the normal tips that you already hear. Or like yesterday, I was like, you know, giving that presentation, I was like, no, no, it's not those, be authentic, be original. You already know that. We're gonna go deeper. And so I find that, like, that just gives a big, like, okay, I'm, I'm a human being, we're gonna talk about something more, uh, just fun and, and, uh, and, and deeper than you usually get with all the quote unquote, like, normal education content.
Nathan Barry: Are there other ways that you try to do that [00:07:00] in your videos? And then I guess a follow on, do you need to do that throughout the video? Or is that really something you emphasize in the hook?
Jon Youshaei: Uh, the hook is so important. But then throughout, I always try to find an interesting like case study, which is why like, like yesterday, like it's interesting to share that as an example, because I want to make a video about that.
And also like you guys, um, uh, for those of you who are there, like I could have given a talk about everything is a remix, like, you know, nothing's original and all that, but the entertainment factor was Beyonce or Mr. B. So I feel like if you find like a case study or a testimonial as like boring as those words are, that's really related to pop culture and that people understand.
And you can make people think. differently about somebody they think they know, that's magic. And that is what, like to me, um, your, your, your lesson is what you have to get out there, but the story is the glue that makes that lesson stick.
Nathan Barry: On the enduring for a long time, right? We have this [00:08:00] spectrum of educate versus entertain.
But there's gotta be more factors beyond that, right? That's in a broad category. What else do you notice about the creators who endure for years?
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. Um, you know that famous, uh, essay, like, uh, uh, Kevin Kelly, True Fans, yeah. I don't buy that. I think you need a thousand true students. That's, that to me is the most, okay, let's see.
Who are you guys a fan of? Like fan, like, like you've gone to a concert or something, yell some names out. Adele. Adele. Okay. Um, when's the last time you've gone to a, went to a Adele concert? 2016. How much do you pay for that concert ticket? Do not remember. Have you ever bought Adele merch? You have what?
Vinyl. Okay. All right. All right. Roughly how much that costs? 50 bucks. Okay. So let's say they take it roughly like maybe 300, like 50 vinyl. Anything else from your fandom? Okay. Two, 350. Okay. Now who's [00:09:00] like a student of somebody who you've taken their course or, okay. You went, your hand went up. What, whose course have you taken recently?
All these course. Okay. So you're paying at least nine, nine 95 or something, right? I know. I know we launched our own course. I've been studying the market. Did you buy the Academy or the accelerator? Accelerate. So you paid, do you pay five grand? You did. Okay. All right. Here we go. This is good. This is good.
Isn't it great when the examples actually works for your point? I planted them into the audience guys. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. 350 5, 000 this is like an extreme example, but students the way you can monetize if you're an educator versus an entertainer is just so much more vast. Put out a book, put out an event course.
newsletter, you know, like, like, like YouTube sponsorships. If you're an artist, um, and I argue that both can be artists, but you're an entertainment first artist, okay? Concert, merch, uh, [00:10:00] tour, uh, media, meet and greets. It's just that much harder and your audience is Propensity to spend is not as much. And I think the key is to answer your question.
Taste and preferences change when it comes to entertainment as educators. Like it's our job to be Guinea pigs and try the newest stuff, see what works, what doesn't, and find the best way to explain it to our audience and our students. And that to me is like much more longterm in terms of a strategy.
Nathan Barry: One thing that I've talked about that it makes me think about is I've been say, teach a skill that makes money.
To people who have money because there's a lot of things in there. It's like, Oh, I want to teach. And I will say this, this is if we're optimizing for income and in every audience and every creator business, you need to be clear on what you're optimizing for. And early on in my creator career, I was optimizing for income and I was very clear about that.
Right. And [00:11:00] so I taught software design to designers and developers. Right. And I know that that can be paid for on a company card. I know, you know, all of these things. Now, there are plenty of creators who have made amazing livings, you know, teaching things like, um, you know, recipes and cooking, uh, homesteading, you know, things that aren't skills that make money.
Um, but you know, if you want to maximize the revenue per subscriber, if those two things are true, that really, really helps. Well, first, I love that you're like thousand two fans. Not true. Well,
Jon Youshaei: it's not completely not true, but yeah, I think it has to be updated for, not to say there's not value for entertainment creators.
There absolutely is. Like I, I look back at concerts and art and music, like all that stuff is so important, but you know, it's harder to build a business around it and, and, and, and really make it. But if you do again, like I said at the beginning, you make it big, right? Or you make it broke. Middle class, the [00:12:00] opportunities, I think, go to more of the educators.
Nathan Barry: Yeah. That makes sense. Is there anything in that middle class, any other traits that you notice? You know, they're focused on education. Uh, they're really focused on getting those thousand true students. What else do you notice about that group?
Jon Youshaei: Um, I think that a lot of times they know how to hire, like there's this other great Jay Z quote that's like, I'm not a business man, I'm a business man.
That I think is the mindset you need to have when you're a creator and you go into it. Like I, I left my job and I'm like, okay, I'm starting a business. I'm not just going to become a one person studio. I want to build a best in class. team and hire and really make content that I know can be sustainable.
And of course, like the stress burnout, sleepless nights, but how can you minimize those? Um, especially as you get bigger. So I think a lot of creators. Like I would meet at YouTube and Instagram, they'd be big. And they were like, they'd be beating their chest. Like I still edit every single [00:13:00] frame in my videos.
And like, what? And then, and then five seconds later, like guys, guys, creator burnout is just the worst, you know, like it's just the word. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. What is going on here? So I think the ones who hired, but then it's funny, like even having something as simple as a brand guide, like, like in our videos, if you see, like, we're obsessed about our graphics and our design, and we have like a, um, a few page document about, no, this is how our videos and our design, the corners around and the hex codes we use, the fonts we use, and if we bring on freelancers to help us with stuff like eBooks or like stuff like that, we pass that along.
And then that makes the onboarding process easier.
Nathan Barry: Yeah, that's good. One thing that's interesting is you brought up what creators are proud of. And I find that creators as a group are often proud of some very strange things. And it's things like, I edit every frame of the video. I write every [00:14:00] word of my newsletter.
There's lots of things in there that you should be proud of. But I, one thing that's helped me is to write down a list of like, what am I really proud of. And then look at that list and say, which of those are serving me, right? Because in your example, you have creators who are very proud of something because it ties into their identity in a certain way.
You know, I do it all myself. And then you realize like, okay, is that that may have served you for the first few years. But does that still serve you today? Is there anything that you can think of, of something that you were really proud of or that you brought to it that then you later realized like, Oh, that, that doesn't actually serve me anymore.
Jon Youshaei: Oh, I think, I think everything I tried to do up until some point. And then hire. So my big belief is do it, then delegate, because then I won't be able to like, so I think just about everything I've been proud of, I've tried to figure out a way to create a system around it.
Both: Yeah.
Jon Youshaei: You know, um, for our interviews, like I try to research and, and like, I [00:15:00] would say, like, I've, I've tried to watch all their interviews, watch just about every major video they put out.
Um, look at their high school newspapers, like, like go way back. Now we have a system where it's like, okay, like, Pull these things together and I'll still be the one who like looks through it, but it's like taking that and like kind of letting me like focus so we can do more of it in my style, my way that I've done it before I delegated.
Nathan Barry: I think what's interesting in that is you're still very proud of the result, but you don't have to be proud of or like attached to the exact way that you achieve that result. Yes. The standards still say hi.
Audience: Yes.
Nathan Barry: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense with this line that we've been using at ConvertKit, or I guess that kit of we serve creators who mean business, that's good.
And there's a different identity in there. You know, there's people who are coming around and saying like, Oh, I'm just going to do this as a side hustle. You know, we'll, we'll throw this out there. We'll see what happens. And something we noticed about everyone in this room and the creators we serve is they show [00:16:00] up with a level of intention, you know, they mean business.
And so I'm curious because you came from. You know, watching the creator world before you stepped into it and you came in with so much intention. What are some of those ways that like you showed up that you mean business as you launched your creator career,
Jon Youshaei: high production value, the podcast game, the talk show game is saturated.
We all know that. And I was entering like two, three years ago when, you know, everybody had a show. Like, and so I was like, I'm not doing zoom, even though that was post pandemic, I am going to go for the Biggest, like, guest that I know that's in my, like, phone and text, and I'm gonna see what I can do. So I flew to Port I texted Logan and Jake Paul, and I flew to Puerto Rico.
And we did two interviews, and I think that set the trajectory of our channel. Um, but I will always try to make it easy for the talent. We did an interview with Terry Crews, um, who if you watch Brooklyn Nine Nine, or America's Got Talent, or White Chicks, like that. And I was like, I need to make this as [00:17:00] easy as possible.
So I asked his manager, where does he live? Okay. Booked a studio five minutes away from it. Got my team there. We showed up early. We set up, um, and, uh, yeah, it's harder. I know as you, uh, if you have a studio, you can optimize a lot of stuff. But for me, it's like, okay, how can we have high production value, both in terms of the actual set, they get good assets out of it to promote what they want to promote.
Um, in addition to telling a story, but then I'll ask them questions that like, I'm surprised that other interviewers won't always ask them. I'll go down this lane. Like if, you know, I see they get excited about in past interviews. So I think that was a big differentiator and a big cost,
Both: right?
Jon Youshaei: You know, like I, I took the, my salary.
I've saved. a pool of it. And then I took a few consulting gigs. I'm like, we're starting a business and that's how I went into it.
Nathan Barry: Yeah. So there's a few things in there. One, the level of research and effort, you know, that you're putting in, you're getting some of these opportunities, you're making most of them, but you're also [00:18:00] describing a level, you know, of resources in your network that you had already.
What's something, you know, if for everyone here, If you had to build that network over again and you didn't have YouTube or Instagram as a logo, you know, uh, to start those relationships, how would you go about it?
Jon Youshaei: I think if you want to play ball, like you gotta at least work for the NBA. So use that metaphor.
Like I think a lot of people want to be basketball players or a lot of people want to be creators. And if you want to develop those relationships, but you don't want to take that risk at day one, Working for one of these companies, it doesn't have to be for them. Like, you know, just the Instagrams or YouTubes, even like working for like kid or like, like other platforms that work with creators just gives you a lot of learning by osmosis.
And I think if you're in these situations. You can just help people more freely. Like the number of times, like a creator who's like big now, or a lot of people know him would like message me or text me. He's like, I just got a copyright strike on my account. Like, can you do [00:19:00] something? Like, I just got this legal notice on my account.
Can you do something like, Jon, I'm not getting, I'm like, Oh, no problem. It's not, it's not, it's not my job, but I will do whatever I can internally to make sure that you're taken care of. Cause I know that this is your business. So I think I pulled and, and, and I help so many people at those little favors in those eight years, and just tried to look out for them without really knowing that maybe one day I'd say, Hey, can I interview you?
And, uh, that's, that's how it came full circle.
Nathan Barry: I think another thing in there is not just working for the companies that power the creator economy, but working for those well known creators. Uh, Jay Klaus is someone that I think so many of us in this room admire and he was doing good things as a creator.
He built his reputation, but the time that he spent working for Pat Flynn and really launching Pat's community and, and scaling that gave him so many connections and so much credibility. He was able to walk into the community and core space with all of this credibility. [00:20:00] Cause he's like, yeah, this is what I did for Pat.
Here's the testimonials around it. And everyone's like, Oh, I know, I know your work. And that opened so many doors for him. And there's all of these things that creators need that they don't have time for, you know, there's platforms they'd love to be on, but you know, they don't have the team for yet. And so there's so many ways that you could serve these bigger creators and end up learning a ton from them and then being a part of their community.
And then, like, I'm sure that Pat made so many introductions and opened so many doors for Jay because he killed it when he, you know, he worked for Smart Passive Income.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah, I think the nuance, and that's a great point, is that either apprentice or work for a creator or work at a platform, being a full time creator is your ultimate goal, or work in the industry.
Like, um, but, uh, I think now that I'm a creator hiring, If I could sense from a mile away that this person wants to become like full time creator, like yesterday, I'm like, okay, like I'm put a lot of like training [00:21:00] into them and I want to grow them. Uh, so like, I just want to know that they're like, like what's their intent for the next few years, even if that's her intent for the like three plus years.
Nathan Barry: Yeah. How do you think about that? Because on one hand, if someone's, you know, I'm interviewing for a job at your company and I'm like, yeah, just as soon as possible, I want to be a full time creator. And you're like, I'd kind of like to keep team members around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a, there's an interesting thing where you want to hire someone who is in love with and obsessed with the types of things that your business does and wants to learn and will study that in their free time and, and treat it like much more than just another job.
Audience: Yeah.
Nathan Barry: But at the same time, you want someone who will be around for a hundred percent years, you know, at least a year and a half, two years, something. How do you, how do you find that balance?
Jon Youshaei: I just ask a lot of questions and get a sense of like, okay, whose career do you admire? Like what path are you trying to have?
And there's no problem with somebody trying to be a creator. In fact, I love that. I mean, that's [00:22:00] like how I really got into what I'm doing. But, uh, if, if they're like, I've seen a lot of situations where creators hire other creators. But you could tell that that person is like splitting their time because of like they're they have their own weekly upload cadence You know or like they have their own schedule and all that and again, there's those superstars that can manage both But I think you want somebody who's like, okay How can I pour everything I have into what you're building because they'll be compensated for that and then Whenever it comes time like, you know, like I think the creator will then support them tenfold You Um, when it comes to them, like inevitably wanting to do their own thing, sort of their own business, become their own creator, um, just like Pat did and like probably open a ton of doors.
So I think it's like just being really honest about like, okay, I'm going to put in my time and uh, yeah, like in the same way I tried to put in my eight years before I started.
Nathan Barry: Yeah. There's two different quotes that come to mind from that. Uh, one is from [00:23:00] Danny Innie, uh, he was a great creator in the business space.
He talks about if you pay for half of someone's time, you get a quarter of their attention. And so I've always thought about that when hiring part time versus hiring someone dedicated. And then from the creator side, there's a quote from Derek Sivers and he talks about how you can do anything you want in life.
And actually I think he says you can do everything you want in life, but you have to do it in sequence rather than in parallel. And so I think what you're talking about is less of. You know, work at YouTube, work for this big creator and drive yourself crazy, trying to also scale your creator thing with your best energy at the same time.
And more of for this season, I'm going to dedicate myself to learning this craft as I build up this business, you know, or this creator's business. And then, you know, I'm going to take tons of notes. I'm going to know where I'm going, uh, and work towards that. [00:24:00] But then when that chapter closes or I'll have a transition period or something, then I'm going to go all in on being a creator.
Yeah. Is that right?
Jon Youshaei: Those are great quotes. And I'd say like another level of nuance is that there's ways you could start to de risk it. If you've been there a while and you're trying to figure out like you're at the precipice of making your next move. So, I mean, I haven't talked too much about this publicly, but I would take like vacation days.
And like my nights and weekends, like I would spend that time trying to create while I had the safety and security of a full time job. So I knew that I could do this on my own time and I would just like spend the day writing, making videos and just trying to see if this is something that could become full time or what it would look like if I were to leave.
Nathan Barry: Yeah.
Jon Youshaei: Can I ask one other question on the hiring thing? Because I think that's so important. You've done that so well. Um, Nathan, what, what's your favorite interview question?
Nathan Barry: Now you put me on the spot, I thought this was going to be longer. Yeah, or, or,
Jon Youshaei: no, no, no, this is too late. This is my interview. Um, but, but, or other tips of like creatives hiring, because you've seen a lot of that [00:25:00] and I've met so many people on your team who like are very multifaceted, but have also been around for Convert kid for many years.
Like what, any hiring tips or questions you asked to try to vet out those superstars from the others?
Nathan Barry: I like to ask who someone admires. I think this is a question that I ask a lot of creators when they're trying to build their business is who are you trying to be like? Uh, cause that, that says a lot. Um, and so, you know, who you admire in the space, who's a creator that you follow, even if I'm hiring someone for a job that has very little to do with, like creative work in the traditional sense.
Like it's one thing if you're hiring, uh, you know, a designer or one of our creative growth managers, like I need you to be deeply embedded in the creator economy. Yeah. But if you're our finance manager, I, you know, like you don't need that. We don't want creative accounting necessarily. Uh, we can get into that later.
There's multiple layers for that joke with Jon. But, um, but I want someone who [00:26:00] cares about this industry. even if it's not day to day applicable in the job. So I really like to ask who are the creators that you follow and if it's someone totally generic or high level, um, I'm just not that, that interested.
And I want to know who you're actually a fan of rather than like, Oh, you know, I listened to this one album of somebody or, you know, occasionally this person pops up on YouTube. Um, so it was asking a little bit of like who has a bit of an obsessive personality. Because I think that that's what this level of, of like drive and success requires of like, you get hooked on something and you want to see it through to the end and you have really high standards, uh, for the results.
Love it. Great. Let's talk about how you've scaled the business for anyone who wasn't here yesterday. Give a few of the stats on the YouTube channel, the newsletter and how it's grown over the last couple of years. Uh,
Jon Youshaei: YouTube has been the focus of our business. Um, and now newsletter, like guys are a big focus for [00:27:00] 2024.
Now that's rock and rolling. But right now the YouTube channel is at 460, 000, uh, subscribers. And that's in just about two years. Yeah, that's awesome. Two and a half years. And so, and are like, and now I always feel like if you, if you guys are feeling like you need to diversify as a creator, which is always a good move, and you're trying to get into video, believe me, it's harder to get started and to keep going.
And so if you're feeling like, like, I feel like getting your a hundred thousand, 200, 000, 300, 000 is easier in a sense. So it's still hard than that first 10, 000. And so just know that if you push through, then things really compound. Cause like you have that library of content and the best comments that trust me, you'll get if you keep at it.
It's like, Oh my God, I just discovered your channel. Or like, how did I not know this existed before? Like, I just binged three of your videos in a row. Like those comments will come. And, uh, yeah, so the YouTube and then, um, take talks, I get 140, 000 Instagrams, I get 90, [00:28:00] 000 LinkedIn's at like 60, 000 62, but then newsletter, we just started this year and I met Nathan for coffee and just, I was like, okay, this is a big focus.
And I want to build with all the pro tools that convert kit has and the referral network. Um, and so right now we're at about 5, 000 and, uh, Um, I'm, I'm, I don't, I don't know if this is too early, but I hope I, this time next year, I'm just putting it out there. We'll be at a hundred thousand.
Nathan Barry: Okay.
Jon Youshaei: That's my goal.
A hundred thousand for the newsletter at craft and commerce 2025.
Nathan Barry: All right. Put it out in the universe. Put it, putting it out in the universe.
Jon Youshaei: Um, so you can all help, right? We can get, I mean, that'd be awesome. If recommendations or if you guys want to like the convert kids, like recommend it to me, that recommendation, um, uh, then the creator network is so cool because it's like, For years, it's like, okay, YouTube has had just the video and you watch the video and you consume the video and bam, now we have the suggested tab,
Both: you
Jon Youshaei: know?
And so if anybody wants to talk and, uh, um, you know, collaborate there, that'd be [00:29:00] cool. But for me, a long time for the newsletter, it wasn't just like putting it out. It's trying to figure out what our format was,
Both: right?
Jon Youshaei: So it's like, okay, we have news and now we have a new section called the outlier video of the week where we look at what, like yesterday, what's a small channel that has outperformed with their videos and what are thumbnails of the week.
And then questions that people give and then I answer and can put on future newsletters. And then we also have a cartoon Sunday comics like edition. So we hired illustrators from the New Yorker. So if you sign up, you'll get 20 cartoons every Sunday, which is inspired by interviews I've done with top creators.
Nathan Barry: You really focused on the level of quality on YouTube. What like systems or processes have you put in place or planning for that same level of quality on the newsletter? Because you're not just like throwing out random thoughts that you know on a the night You know that you wrote the night before right?
There's real thought behind it.
Jon Youshaei: There's a template to everything So it's like if you look at our newsletter on the top We have like our images and then even the way we curate that thumbnail roundup like Um, [00:30:00] like having it very clearly displayed and then the takeaways, um, and then just being very intentional about like, okay, right now we're twice a week newsletter.
Can we scale to three times a week while making it quality? But the twice a week took a while to figure out because initially we wanted to put out a cartoon every week and that's just hard to illustrate. So we took it and then every time I do an interview, I try to have our illustrators, I work with them on a joke or some kind of like illustration based on the interview and we add it to the sequence.
And so that was actually a big, like, thing, like, talking with you and your team and Kyle especially. Shout out to Kyle, my God, one of the best partner managers I've ever had. We like Kyle.
Nathan Barry: For real.
Jon Youshaei: So Kyle helped us think through, like, okay, this can be a sequence and any time, this is the magical thing about like email newsletters that you can't really have on like social media.
It's like, you can. Like encourage a very specific content journey, you know, so you just signed up Okay, [00:31:00] you're going to get this welcome email if you sign up for my news, uh, from my landing page. You're going to get this welcome email if you sign up from the, like, the network as a recommendation. Okay, for the next 20 Sundays, you're going to get some of the best cartoons and illustrations that will make you laugh, learn.
But then every Thursday, you're going to get something new that's going to be a broadcast. And believe me, these are words I've never thought I'd be using, uh, like this comfortably. But, you know, thanks to Kyle and Nathan and the whole team, it's just Like we're very deliberate and that took a while to figure out.
And I could talk about the whole referral thing that we're about to put out next week that took a while to, to just think about, okay, now that we have it, how can we pour gasoline on it?
Nathan Barry: Yeah, I like that. I mean, I do the same thing. I have a private paid newsletter that people pay for one time talking about money and that's something, you know, I don't have the time or energy to write a weekly newsletter about that, but I did the same thing that you did of made a And when people, you know, buy the products on, I still don't know whether to say ConvertKit or Kit.
This is, we're like ConvertKit soon to be [00:32:00] Kit. But when the people buy the product on Kit, I'm just going to go with that for right now. Um, then, you know, they get dropped into the sequence and they work all the way to the end. And then they just sit and wait at the end until I publish another, uh, another email.
And it works really well. So I'm glad to see that you're doing that. I think it works especially well with the content that's out there. It's really high quality and hard to produce. And so you, I think about this intersection between quantity and quality and you want to find the, the cadence basically where you can maintain consistently hit your quality bar.
And there's some of these things like a long form essay or custom illustrated comics where you're like, I just, I can't do that every single week. And so you use tools like this to be able to bridge the gap and have the best of both worlds.
Jon Youshaei: Yep. Absolutely. Yep. And there's a few surprises in there when you get to like week 16 or 17.
If you read on, I've put a few Easter eggs to that, make those sequences a bit more fun, but yeah. Harder to pull off. Yeah.
Nathan Barry: Really quickly. We [00:33:00] talked about the newsletter a bunch. Where should people subscribe to it?
Jon Youshaei: Uh, created dot news. So just like created, just like our show created which on you shy dot news.
Yeah. I love it. Okay. You mentioned
Nathan Barry: the show. Um, I want to know the behind the scenes story, and this is entirely selfish. Forget about them. I just want to know this. of Jimmy reaching out and giving you the exclusive for his new launch.
Jon Youshaei: Oh, that, that was crazy. Um, so I met, uh, Jimmy, Mr. Beast six years ago now, five, six years ago at VidSummit, which is a conference for video creators.
And, uh, we just, you know, it's like, you know, the industry is small. You kind of know people and then. Um, this past, uh, October, November was a bid summit 2023 and I was preparing for my keynote, like, and like, you know, just trying to like, really like crush it there. And then all of a sudden, uh, like 8 AM or so I get a phone call.
I was like, Hey, um, Jimmy is giving a keynote, but he actually rather do an interview. Are you, are you available to [00:34:00] interview Jimmy tomorrow? And I'm like, Yes. Like say no more. So like, I, I go straight to the venue. This is the day before. And like, he's like, Hey, Jon. I'm like, okay. All right. So this is like, we already, uh, remembers me and like, you know, so then we start talking and all that.
I'm asking like, okay, of all the things we could cover, like, What do you want to get out of this interview? All that stuff. And, um, and I'll never forget, like I had about 24 hours to prepare for that interview, which was kind of like, I didn't realize at the time, a tryout for this one that you just asked about.
And it was the craziest 24 hours because that night we were in Dallas for this event and Jimmy's like, Jon, why don't you come with me? We're going to play basketball tonight. I'm like, okay, uh, where's like, oh, the Dallas Mavericks practice facility. And I'm like, yes, yes. As one does, as one does. Sure. Sure.
Um, but you know, I'm not going there to play basketball. Like I rode the bench in high school. Like, I'm not going to embarrass myself or get injured the night before I'm going to interview the world's biggest YouTuber. I'm going there and I'm talking to everybody [00:35:00] on his team. And so that night I'm just like doing like, like I'm speed running my research process, even though I've, I've been kind of preparing for this moment.
Cause I'm like, it's going to, it'll come as weird as I'm like a big, like, I don't like the word manifesting, but I am a big believer in just manifesting. If you see it, you believe it, and you work hard at it, at some point it's a matter of when that is. And so, I just, I was there, everybody was having a good time playing basketball, and like, like, he has a guy follow him 24 7 doing a documentary about him.
So I just start talking to him, you know, I started talking to his manager. I started talking to his like chief of staff, like all these, like Jimmy in between, he's like, he's like, he just got a shot of like, Hey Jimmy, so your last video, tell me, you know, so it's like, just, I'm just doing all this research.
And then I'm a very visual person. If you ever watched my interviews, I come with a ton of visuals, you know, I get rough drafts of stuff. I ask them about things that they don't usually talk about publicly when it comes to their creative process. So I got all that in 24 hours. Um, the keynote went well, like [00:36:00] as an interview instead of a speech, because that's also what I found.
It's like a lot of folks, they don't want to prepare slides if they're very busy. So they want an interviewer to come in and just, you know, tee up and get the best out of them. So, so I felt like that was a tryout for a game I didn't realize was what you talked about, um, which was the big sit down interview, 90 minutes in North Carolina.
Um, and so that was October, it went really well and we'd been in touch with, um, each other as well as his team. Uh, to, like, do an interview the following year, which is now this year, 2024. And then I got that DM I showed you guys. Then I got a phone call. He's like, Hey, can you come next week, North Carolina?
You know, like, this is just a few weeks ago. I'm like, and again, I'm just like, yes. You know, whatever you need and at this point again, I am a big believer prepare for opportunities You don't have because they'll come so I had already like I told my videographer Look into videographers because I always like to save cost by having one of my team and local [00:37:00] folks So we already looked into videographers in North Carolina Like already before he even called me.
And, um, and then he's like, like, yeah, we have a, like a, a big launch coming up. Like, I would love to, like, have you interview me, me about it. Cause like you reach the audience that's going to consume this product. The product is a YouTube analytics software called ViewStats. Um, and so, so yeah, within about a week, like, Flew down to North Carolina.
We spent a few days there before setting up and then what really blew me away. And we haven't posted any of this publicly yet. We spent like that week and just the whole day with Jimmy and we actually have two more videos coming out with them.
Nathan Barry: Oh, that's awesome.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. So we have a day with him and then I also did a video with him.
That's like. Have you ever seen those Vanity Fair like drawing on the screen videos where like a director or filmmaker breaks down a video? That's our new format that we're going to do in addition to interviews. And Mr. Beast is our first episode. That's going to be a lot of fun. So stay tuned. Yeah. I haven't told too [00:38:00] many people about that, but two more videos coming up that we shot with him.
Cause I feel like just the vibe of the interview was really well, we, we, we, you know, hit it off. I
Nathan Barry: love it. Is there, you know, that was something that you like had locked in your mind that you're working towards? Is there, is there something? You know, that you want to put out there that you're like, this is what I'm aspiring to, or would love to have happen.
Jon Youshaei: A hundred thousand subscribers on my newsletter. I don't know. I sometimes say these numbers, but I know that it's also input then output comes. Right. So really it's like weekly newsletter and see if we use scale to like biweekly. And then I guess that would be three times a week with the cartoons, um, as part of the sequence.
But. Now, I really want to have a best in class newsletter and be the place that you come to to get greater news, but then also greater insights. It's like, why did this video take off? Not just, why is this thing trending in the news? Because not all of that's as applicable. Um, you know, but it is something that keeps you in the know.
So, that right now, um, if that answers your question. Yeah,
Nathan Barry: it does. When you're thinking about the newsletter, you've [00:39:00] really focused on the content and dialing it in and the systems and processes. Now that you're thinking about scaling, scaling, scaling, scaling. What are you focused on? Like, describe your plan to go from thousands of subscribers to a hundred thousand.
Jon Youshaei: It's so funny because I'm like, I think about scaling, but then I still think about like, okay, is every word in there, like, Needs to be in there. So I'm still like, we have like a great, like, copywriter on our team, like, we talk about the stories for the week, we pick them, we talk about the outliers of the week, the thumbnails, we pick them, he goes off and writes it, then I'm still looking at it, like, I look at it on desktop, I look at my phone, and I'm like, okay, It looks good.
Is there wasted space? Let me take out these few words, make it more. So I'm like still in the non scalable stuff to make sure that, you know, when people see it, they'll share it, that it scales. Um, but I think the biggest thing is going to be our referrals because I want to be able to fulfill stuff that are digital but highly valuable versus a lot of other newsletters I see is like, um, [00:40:00] you know, there's a lot of like higher lift stuff to give to their, Subscribers are like, you know, things that I'm like, do people really care about that?
You know, so like for, I'm actually curious to hear everyone's take. If you refer one person to this newsletter, I'm going to give you a, essentially a 30 page ebook guidebook that's like, it's called Infinite Ideas. And it's eight ways to come up with new ideas that will hopefully like do well on your social media.
Like that's one. If you refer five, you'll get the top 25 thumbnails ebook, which is like the best 25 thumbnails on YouTube for the past year. Um, and why they work with the psychology behind them. And then 10 is, um, uh, top video outliers, which is like top 25 video outliers on YouTube, why they took off.
And then if you refer, I'm still figuring the numbers out, but this may change. But if you were for 50, I will, I'll give you a personalized roast of your content and social media. Is that, is that an interesting like skip? Yeah. Okay. Maybe [00:41:00] give me feedback afterwards or when you do it. Yeah, I'm trying to assess that.
Nathan Barry: The personalized roast. I mean, I want that. I'll tweet about this afterwards. We'll see. Yeah. To be clear, you all will sign up with my code so that we'll get a personalized roast of my YouTube channel.
Both: There you go. Yeah,
Nathan Barry: that'll be great. Don't wait for my code to sign up. Just go ahead and do it. Um, so the referrals.
That's a function of how many subscribers you have right now, right? It is a percentage lift on what we already have. It's not its own traffic source.
Both: Yeah.
Nathan Barry: Right. And so you're going, you know, you might end up growing, say 30 percent faster than you were already. But like, what are the things that are we thinking about of, you know, diving deep on conversion from your YouTube channel to email partnerships with other people, like, you What else comes to mind?
We also brainstorm things with the audience, too.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah, that's a great distinction, Nathan. Yeah, you're right. Like, the referral is amplifying what we have and, like, [00:42:00] to your question, like, where else are we, like, pulling on to bring people in? On YouTube, like, what I've realized is, like, and we did this with the MrBeast interview, where if you watch, like, past the hour mark, I have a, like, a, like, essentially, like, a 20 second thing where I'm like, Hey, if you're watching this far, because there's, like, validation there, you should sign up for my newsletter.
Yeah. That's been, um, bringing in more subscribers. Um, uh, and then, oh, again, I'm a big believer in, like, make everything look beautiful. And, like, very nicely visually designed. So every part of the newsletter, like, we think about, like, the template of it. But then I'm also thinking about, okay, can this be taken and posted on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.?
So, our thumbnail roundup every week, we post on Twitter and LinkedIn. And those do pretty well and bring people in. So for me, it's, how can I take the ass or like the outlier of the week? We're going to post on Monday. Um, so, and then the cartoon, so it's like the cartoon, the newsletter, like these are nice visual assets that can stand alone as their own post, but you won't get the complete picture unless you sign up for the newsletter.
So it's a nice give and get. [00:43:00]
Nathan Barry: Yeah, that makes sense. So you've basically taken what would normally be one long form piece of content that someone would just reply to and be like, Hey, great newsletter this week. Thanks. And you've. Chunked it out in a way that they could. You know, share that content, they could copy with taste if you will, and add in, you know, their own take on it.
Like here's, here's, you know, the best thumbnails of the week. Here's why I think they worked. And then that's getting, you know, these bite sized things to be shareable. Yeah,
Jon Youshaei: but I'm still figuring it out. So you guys are the pros here. And certainly you, Nathan. Um, so any ideas like I'm, we're trying to like scale while keeping quality.
So like, let's start
Nathan Barry: with that. Instead of going to questions, let's go. If you were in Jon's position growing his newsletter right now, What's something that you would try? We'll go right back here, uh, with the mic.
Audience: Something that's been super helpful for us is just doing, it's no extra work off our back, but doing an early release.
So telling our, hey, get on my email list. We're dropping this video on the channel in a week, but if you're on my email list, you [00:44:00] get it tomorrow.
Jon Youshaei: Hmm. But then if you get it tomorrow, like, are you putting it on an unlisted link? Yeah, so we're
Audience: just putting it on listed, and then, and then take it away. But the second it
Jon Youshaei: gets unlisted views, it's like, triggers the algorithm.
Audience: So yes, so we've been told both. We've seen it cause we've tested it, right? So we've tested the theory because we do this with member videos too, cause we give it to memberships. We have memberships, so we'll give it to our members and then we take it public.
Jon Youshaei: Got it.
Audience: Um, we've seen that it doesn't impact the views from our channel.
Jon Youshaei: Windowing content is smart. That's a good, yeah. Okay. I got to think about that. I got
Nathan Barry: there's little things in that I see a lot of people on like do this on LinkedIn and X especially where they're saying, Hey, here's what's coming in tomorrow's newsletter. And that's part of their flywheel where they're making sure the newsletter comes out Tuesday morning, Monday evening.
They always have a post. It's a little preview. Like on social, on social. Tease it. Yep. And so it's in the, in stories. And then from there.
Audience: Hey Don and Nathan. Um, so one thing that has [00:45:00] worked well for me and I've seen others do it is to To gamify your content. So if you have the top 25 thumbnails, what you can do is you can release a quiz earlier.
Like, which one do you think performs better? Perform the best, or which one of those three or four do you think is, uh, in our top 10, uh, for 2024? Uh, or for 2023. And then they'll go and vote. And then, um, you know, the lead magnet is you'll send them your breakdown of which one it is. So to find the winner or the, um, the one that's at the top, they'll have to give their email address.
Jon Youshaei: Got it. So it's a quiz that people, like they, they take to guess the top thumbnails and then the lead magnets. I send them the. Yeah.
Audience: Yeah. And you can have like a series of things. You can ask them, which one do you think is the best? Or you can ask them, which hook do you think won in an AP test we did, we [00:46:00] did.
And so they'll feel smart for trying to guess. And then they'll be like, Hey, I guess, right. And then they can repost that and say, I guess, right.
Nathan Barry: Hmm. Yeah. I think that's interesting. Let's go right over here. And while you're thinking, um, just to add onto that, it's closing the loop, right? So it's, it's involving them in the conversation and then closing the loop and saying, Oh, this number of you were actually correct.
Uh,
Audience: right there.
Nathan Barry: Hi Jon.
Audience: Um, something we found really effective is, uh, PDF guides that are associated with the video.
Jon Youshaei: Okay.
Audience: So you said how long was your interview with Mr. Beast? 90
Jon Youshaei: minutes.
Audience: Okay. And how many actionable things do you think he said? Like,
Jon Youshaei: I don't know, like, like 15, 20, it was like very like, and by the way, we filmed for two hours and like, I I'm a big believer in like making it as succinct as possible.
So there's a ton of, it was like jam packed.
Audience: So if I were discovered that video, cause I want to learn from Mr. Beast and I watched that and you had, [00:47:00] you know, at the end said, Hey, scan this QR code. And I'll send you immediately the top 20 takeaways from this episode. Even if I don't want to join your newsletter, I'm going to join your newsletter.
Really?
Jon Youshaei: What is it about that? That's really interesting. What is it about the fact that you get something written is that you don't have to take notes? Yeah, there's
Audience: lots of stuff I missed or if I'm, if it's a podcast or whatever, I think having something that is written that I can look at in the future is, so we do this all the time with recipes where it's a PDF download and, It's a huge way to attract.
Really? I mean, our newsletter is, I think, way higher than it should be for, for that kind of, uh, the reach that we have.
Jon Youshaei: I guess, just show of hands, how many people who, like, would want to see, like, a takeaway of, like, a PDF guide? Holy crap. So I think what's interesting Even if you watch the interview, you'd still I mean the crowd has spoken.
They [00:48:00] have opinions on this. And then would you want, like, how does that landing page separate from, like do I set up a new landing page just for that? Like created. news slash MrBeast? Or slash mkbhd? Like I do this for them?
Nathan Barry: I would because I want to know the conversion rates on that landing page and I want to track those subscribers.
And then I also, you know, would then have Kyle, I'd be like, Hey Kyle, how do I then tweak that welcome email based on You know, Hey, thanks so much for signing up from the video with Mr. Beast. That was so much fun to film. Now that you're here, here are the things that I talk about, right? Kyle.
Jon Youshaei: Let's talk about this in our next meeting.
That's that, that's, that's, that's great. And like doable. I got to think about how we bring that into our writing
Nathan Barry: because you
Jon Youshaei: got to get
Nathan Barry: it into the system.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah. One
Nathan Barry: other thing on that. If I watch the video,
Jon Youshaei: the police are here. Cause that's too good of it. They heard that they are stealing ideas. Yeah.
Yeah.
Both: Too much idea. Yeah.
Nathan Barry: But one thing that I would want to know is [00:49:00] if I watch a 90 minute video, I have my own notes and takeaways and like my aha moments. I want to know what yours are. Right. And you're not going through the video and be like, Oh Jimmy, that's so good. All right. Pause everybody. My aha moment here was this, right.
That would totally screw up the flow of the video. Right,
Both: right, right, right.
Nathan Barry: But I want to know and I want to be able to refer back to it. And so I think that that would be great. And so the, in the hook on it, if you're like, you know, at the end, you're like, Hey, if you got all the way through the 90 minutes of this, you must absolutely love this.
And if you want to know my biggest insights and takeaways, go to created. news slash Mr. Beast. And I will give all of that to you right now.
Jon Youshaei: Maybe it's good that we're doing this talk after one video and then I have two more with me coming up.
Nathan Barry: Wow. Uh, let's go one more idea and then we'll go to questions.
I think, uh, right over here is
Audience: My highest converting video ever. Converted at twelve and a half percent, meaning twelve and a half percent of the people who watched the video turned into newsletter subscribers. That's insane. It was a video where I was teaching people how to write a business plan [00:50:00] and I had a template that I was using and then they could sign up and For my newsletter to get that PDF of the template.
So they saw me using it in the video. It was
Jon Youshaei: a template of what again?
Audience: A business plan template.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah.
Audience: So just whenever you can give them a tool from the video or, you know, content from the video in another form that they can take and actually use, but especially if you use it in the video and that one was the highest converting, but I've had a bunch of others that converted at around 10%, if I used the resource in the video, instead of just talked about it, just said, Hey, you should download this thing.
Jon Youshaei: That's really good. Here's one other thing, like, because I think we even talked about this when we had coffee is like, I want to do that for every video because everything I have that you saw my present is like a template to like, um, I don't know if you guys know anybody who's a good like ebook writer or like can take like visuals and I just have gone through a few freelancers that I'm like, how do they miss this detail?
So for me, it's like, I want to do that. But it's like, And there's, we put so much work in the video that [00:51:00] I, I just want to find something you like. Where the quality is that high. Yeah, the quality is that high versus like, did you even watch minute 45 to minute 50? And like, you know, to get that thing that is totally missing from you.
So, or needing me like to write everything after having just like gone through the prep. Like, so if anybody knows folks who are good at that and I would love to talk with them.
Nathan Barry: Yeah.
Jon Youshaei: Yeah.
Nathan Barry: That's good.
Jon Youshaei: Okay. Uh, of the referral things, I'm just curious what's most interesting. Um, okay. What, uh, just say you're like, I'll just raise your hand for your number one.
And again, before I go into the infinite ideas doc is like eight ways to come up with better ideas that go viral on social media. Um, the, uh, the second doc is like breakdown of like the top 25 thumbnails, like why they work and how to adapt them and like different categories and checklists. And then the third one is.
Um, outlier videos, like same idea, but for video concepts, like why they took off and how you can adapt them. [00:52:00] What's your number one, most thing that's interesting, like, okay. Infinite ideas. Okay. Um, thumbnails book. Okay. Uh, and outlier videos. We're pretty evenly split. There was not a clear winner there.
Okay. And do you feel like one email is fair for infinite ideas? Three and five? Or should I raise them higher? Make them lower? Quick one. So one, three, and five. And then where would you, what? What number would you put a roast? Like how? How hard would you work to refer people to get a personal Shout it out.
Hundred.
Nathan Barry: What? You're gonna get a lot of them. You're gonna get a lot of them. Yeah. Really? How many of you would love to have your content roasted by Jon? I mean. Should I start a roasting service?
Jon Youshaei: I mean. Yeah, for a hundred subscribers. Oh, no, in my, it's funny because I have a cohort that we run and I do weekly roasts for their [00:53:00] content.
Um, but they pay a lot for that kind of stuff. I've always thought if I should pair that off or, but either way, I was, okay, that's a hundred. Wow, a hundred? I, I always saw like the email subscriber thing. I see people's referrals. I'm like, I'm not referring 50 people for a hat, you know, like you out of your mind.
But I get, that's why I try to make like you're subscribing to my newsletter for knowledge. I want to give you more knowledge, you know, and, and, and more hands on.
Nathan Barry: So I think there's also something in the target audience, right? Like this is something that I think about in our business and how, uh, you know, lucky, serendipitous, whatever it is that we serve creators.
I thought about this when, you know, early on when, um, people like Pat Flynn and sites like Wellness Mama and others really promoted us. It was sort of like, you know, before I was in the small business world and I'd be at like a chamber of commerce event or something else. And you talk to someone, if they loved your service, they'd like [00:54:00] tell, you know, their friends.
And that's like three people. And then we worked with Pat and he loved our service and he told his friends and that happened to be like a thousand people or ten thousand people. And so in your case, when you're serving creators, it's not like the skim or morning brew where it's like, Oh, I loved it so much.
I told three people at work. Like we all have audiences and so if we love something, you know, it's a lot easier for us. to tell a hundred or a thousand or 10, 000 people. And so you can set some of those specials higher. I love the idea of, of starting low and building that momentum. But I think like a hundred is much easier to achieve in the creator world than it is for a morning.
And maybe that
Jon Youshaei: segments it where it's like one, three, five. It's like I give you those easy wins. You're getting started. There's something for the aspiring emerging creator. And the 100 is like the more, like, okay, you have an established audience you're building. I could give you much more nuanced feedback.
Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. Cool.
Nathan Barry: I like it. Okay. Let's do some [00:55:00] questions.
Audience: Hey Jon, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your team, like who are the key hires on your team and how do you, like, where have you seen creators as they're growing, like decision points and like people that have done it?
Well,
Jon Youshaei: yes, yeah. Great question. Um, so I could talk about the con there's like the two parts of our team is like, um, content and then like the operations side. So the, I'd say the. Key hire, uh, like my wife is my business manager now and she manages our partnership. Thank you. Thank you. Anything. Yeah, she's, she's on it.
Like, I'm such a people pleaser though. I know. Don't say that. She's like, no, we need to say that. We need the, we need to get their W nines. We need to get this document. We need it. Like, this is the car. I'm like, thank you, baby. Yeah. And like, so she, she's like, stays on top of managers, our team. And she's always thinking about like, one of the things like she taught me is like, okay, like this whole idea of process and template has come, has come from her.
Um, So like, that was big because we used to have an external manager and I could talk about like kind of like the pros and [00:56:00] cons there. Um, but that was huge. Uh, we also have like a, a content writer that's been big, but content writer, I'd say that, um, and he does a lot of writing, but he also does the first pass at our interviews now.
So, like, I believe like, um, there's so much more room for podcasts to improve visually. So he goes through it and he's like, okay. Um, what are all the moments that we refer to a video that we need to find B roll? What are the timestamps of those videos? Let me give it to the editor. He goes through and on frame.
io, like puts that down. Imagine that, for 90 minutes, me and Mr. Beast are talking about different videos. He's finding every single video link and timestamp at the most interesting points. Like, if you look at our videos, I'm not just shoving a piece of B roll in front of you. No, no, we watched it through, scanned it through, and we're finding those few seconds where you see something that's like, oh, I got kind of what this video was about.
You know, when Mr. Beast talks about, Oh, one verse 1 million hotel rooms and all this. And then he said, Oh, I adapted it from like this guy who bought like a, like, or the Buzzfeed [00:57:00] video or, you know, we're finding those moments. Um, so that was big then on the creative side, like editors, here's a big learning that we had.
There is very few editors who are Swiss army knife and who can make all these different types of content. So I used to have one editor on my, okay, can you edit the interview and can you edit the intro? No. We now hired a specific intro editor. Um, and again, process wise, we have the different songs that we use, the different sound effects that we use.
And it's not those, like people use these like vine booms and like the, no, no. It's like, uh, and if anybody wants to talk about sound design and soundpacks, like, like we could talk all day about that, but we have an intro editor who makes us feel like movie trailers almost. And then we have, um, uh, editors who do the, uh, now we have one editor who does the body of the interview and then we have graphic editors, which is So, like, the other thing that, um, we'll do when we go through an interview is like, what moment requires a visual graphic?[00:58:00]
There's four quadrants of creators that I've experienced in the past ten years. What he does first is he mocks up a PowerPoint slide. And I look at it, I make notes, I edit it. We send that PowerPoint slide to our editors and they animate it. We used to just say, hey, here's a moment, editor, go make something nice visually.
What the hell is this? You know, like, and it wasn't bad quality. It's just like, I have an idea in my mind, like they have an idea in their mind. It doesn't match up. I need to communicate it. So yeah. And then we have a whole consulting part of our business where, um, like, like brands or like creators hire us to set up their studio or, or help make their content.
We're trying to do less of that. Cause it takes so much time. And I did more of that early on to bootstrap and. fun, like the editing, which took a lot. And, but, uh, yeah, those are kind of like the different parts of the business.
Audience: Great. Jon Nathan. Thank you so much. Yeah. Question is, do you see a, [00:59:00] um, some sort of high level pattern distinction between service based businesses and product based businesses such that there's a behavior that one should not do?
And it's like disproportionately impactful. So like there's a top recommendation if you're a service based business that creates a lot of impact. And then there's like a top recommendation for a product base and they'd like, don't, what are we,
Nathan Barry: what, what are we optimizing for? Is this for like to get new customers attention for it?
Uh, revenue. Um,
Audience: that's a good question. Um, let's say subscribers. Okay. So, so hot, like top funnel leads.
Nathan Barry: The first thing that I would say on this is the service base, they're going to have totally different revenue arcs.
Audience: Sorry, can I change that?
Nathan Barry: Should I say for optimizing for referrals? Oh, for referrals.
Okay. The service based business and the product based are going to have totally different. [01:00:00] Uh, revenue arcs, the product based business is probably going to have this long, slow ramp, and it's going to take a lot longer to build up and the service based business is going to be able to have much more linear growth and start much earlier.
So it's not an answer to your question, but it's just important characteristics to watch for. And the worst thing you could do is. Just compare the results you're getting in your product based business to a service based business and vice versa and assume that those graphs are going to be anything like each other.
Jon Youshaei: I actually think about that a lot because I see a lot of creators now launching these products that like they haven't done any R& D for or they haven't really thought about and they're like low quality products and the few that everyone talks about that's like, Oh, Cool. Like, we could just launch the next Feastable or Prime, or like, you know, Jimmy launching his, like, a software company, ViewStats.
Um, for me, I think services is actually really interesting if you're, like, good at building process, like, internally. So, um, so yeah, like, I, we're actually thinking about a few service based businesses as well. I mean, I was actually telling Nathan, I feel comfortable telling you guys as well, in a few weeks, we're [01:01:00] launching a accounting business for creators.
Because we find that, like, the way they manage their books and, like, their, their, their, their paperwork is really disorganized. And so, um, yeah, that's a service based business we're thinking about starting. If anybody's interested in that, uh, feel free to reach out. And we're just starting with a small group of creators as clients just to really perfect it and optimize it.
And then once we figure out that process, as I was saying, then we scale that service. But I'm a big believer that services, if you can do that process right and find a niche, Like there's a lot more opportunity there.
Audience: My question is, uh, for both of you, uh, what are your systems and frameworks for handling uncertainties and unknowns in your efforts?
And in what
Jon Youshaei: specific, because there's so many unknown, like, like in, in content, in, in business and hiring, like,
Audience: like deciding, uh, to, uh, start that specific business for, uh, for like accounting for creators, for example.
Jon Youshaei: Oh, that, that to me is like, it comes down to, do I feel an acute pain? And do I feel [01:02:00] like that pain is not solved in the market?
So we've gone through like, we didn't set out and say, we're going to start an accounting business. We work with so many accountants and I'm like, like, how do you not know what this line item is? You know? Or like, why are you, like, you just asked for my fax number. Like what, like what era are we talking about here?
You know? Or like, like, like, you know, you didn't know that you could build a business on YouTube. Like, or like you can't help me find my ROI on a video per video basis and just things we've had to build like in house so I've felt that pain. The other way I'd say I deal with uncertainty and find like opportunities like, like moments like this.
The fact that you guys said you would recommend a hundred people to get a roast is honestly making me think about that roasting business. And I'm like, maybe like if you, I don't know, a monthly service where I review your content, give you feedback so you don't have to. Like, get sugar coated feedback from friends.
I don't pay for that. How much would you guys pay for that a month? A thousand? You know, I'll say this right now. I'll [01:03:00] start that business. No, no, really. I'll do it with just five people. If you're legitimately interested and want to do for a thousand dollars a month, email me at hi at you shy dot com. I'm serious about that.
Right. My normal public email is Jon@isha.com and hi. Like my wife will see it to him. Ask that. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, HI at Y-O-U-S-H ae i.com. Five people
Nathan Barry: at a thousand bucks a month.
Jon Youshaei: I like it. Yeah.
Nathan Barry: And that'll be the early access pricing, 'cause the pricing will go up to 2,500 a month for the next cohort. I'm making that up, but it will
Both: happen.
Okay. Let's take a look at the, uh, let's go
Audience: right here. Hi, I'm curious about your main motivations. What keeps you going every day? My daughter,
Jon Youshaei: that's a good one. I just became a dad. And so, I mean, I say all of it. Thank you. Yeah. I want to get my kid of immigrants. My parents gave me an amazing upbringing. I want to be able to do that for my daughter.
And if we have another [01:04:00] kid and just, yeah, that, that, yeah. Same
Audience: for you, Nathan, that question.
Nathan Barry: It's not as good as that, but, um, no, I like, I think a lot about the, the mission for the company. We exist to help creators earn a living. And I know like it was so transfer transformational for me to learn that making money is a skill and that we're really the combination of, you know, hundreds of little skills and you can master those just like you could master playing an instrument or something else.
And when I realized that I was like, doesn't just other people don't know this. And it was just like, okay, I'm going to get very good at learning those skills and let's teach those skills. And let's, like, when you get to the point that, uh, money and income is not a point of stress or concern in your life, it, it's an absolute game changer.
And you have that feeling of agency and control. And I'm like, I just wanna bring that to as many people as possible.
Audience: Jon. Uh, so I'm in my second year as a creator. I'm on YouTube. And I've been really fortunate. My channel's kind of taken off, but [01:05:00] I, I talk about retirement planning for people, 50 plus. But one of the things that worries me, and I'd love your thoughts on this is scary titles work a heck of a lot better than hopeful titles.
And I'm, I'm sad that I've learned that because now. A third of my titles are scary.
Nathan Barry: Yeah,
Audience: what are your what it's it's hard once you've learned that it's hard to unlearn that and not lean on that lever What's your thoughts on that? Can I look at your channel? Yeah, it's uh, asul wells azul asul wells
Jon Youshaei: Okay, five reasons to retire as soon as you can.
Okay Average retire. Oh you put an emoji in a title Why? Cause it worked.
Audience: Cause everybody told me to take it out, but it was going off, you know, it took off so I left it in. You put two emojis. You put a dollar bag emoji in. Cause I'm over 50. Because I'm over 50 and my generation does that. That's when my daughter says, I, you know, you're a boomer [01:06:00] because you put emojis in.
I
Jon Youshaei: know, but I would not put that in your title, but it's doing well. But you know,
Audience: almost a million views. You
Jon Youshaei: always have to wonder, you know, especially when it's like compounding that much, but average retiree income, how do you compare? Two question marks. Okay.
Nathan Barry: I'm
Jon Youshaei: sorry, I look at every character count when it comes to a title.
Eight things to stop doing after 60 and have more dot dot dot. These are, I also want to qualify, he's crushing it. This is 1. 1 million views, 938, 000 views, 821, 000 views. So give him a round of applause. Okay,
I have two trains of thought. I could give you more thoughts specifically about your content, but let me answer your question first. Yes, negativity sells. Like, you know, it's ages old as time. If it bleeds, it leads, you know, but, but I think there's a difference between like packaging and like the like [01:07:00] delivery of the content within that packaging.
And if you feel like I have a question, how many of your headlines on just a rough estimate are negative, like
Audience: a third right now,
Jon Youshaei: a third, how many videos are about or like feel like they have a negative tone or talk about? Like they talk about something like negative or like, like are very overly pessimistic.
Audience: I usually unpack it in the first 30 to 45 seconds. So I go with a negative headline, but then I spin it into a positive.
Jon Youshaei: Okay. So probably way less than a third,
Audience: right? It's probably 10 percent are, you know, uh, the federal reserve just made it impossible to retire. Right. And but then I'll unpack that and say why that doesn't matter.
Yes, interest rates are high, but it doesn't matter. And here's why
Jon Youshaei: you're playing the packaging game. We all have to play it, you know? And so if the thing is, the thing is, if you were to say my packaging and my titles are negative and then about the content, you didn't say the thing about unpacking and [01:08:00] making an optimistic or giving people like skills and tools and techniques to unpack that.
Um, you'd be like, no, yeah, my content is 50 percent negative. I'd be like, whoa, whoa. Now we're now we're leaning into like appealing to a certain audience and demographic that may start getting a bit uncomfortable and unsustainable. But the fact that you're playing the packaging game and the truth is, if you don't do it, a lot of your competitors will.
And there's already things I'm seeing that I think you could dial it back. Cause like, like there's certain ways of framing it again, syllables, emojis. I'm, I'm picking this stuff out, but all of it makes a big difference. And even as I'm thinking about your thumbnails, like, you know, we could go on and on about like, just like, I like to think about the 18 percent rule, which is like when you're designing a thumbnail, don't design it and then shrink your Photoshop page down to 18%, make it really small and see if you can see the different elements.
And I'm looking at a lot of yours. They're good, but some of them, like, I, I'm like, it's hard for me to see the, the words at a quick glance. So, um, I think, like, what you're doing is working, but [01:09:00] there's definitely room to improve. And, like, update the packaging. And still use a bit of, like, you know, I don't, I don't want to use, like, negativity.
But, like, a bit of that and, uh, get people in, but then make them stay with positivity. Yeah.
Audience: Wow. I love it. Great. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah,
Jon Youshaei: yeah. I appreciate it. But good job. That's, that's a great, you've defined your niche. You're growing. Okay. That's, that's exciting stuff. Yeah.
Audience: What's your philosophy around chasing views and what the algorithm wants versus maintaining quality?
Um, I would just kind of like to hear that because like, uh, we heard in one of these talks, if you just chase the views, you end up being porn. On the video side. And if you just chase the conversions on the newsletter side, you end up being like direct marketing copy. Uh, so in the short
Jon Youshaei: term, there's a discussion in the longterm.
It's all the same. You know, I think like, it's like, you could play a few games for the algorithm and good monitor and like, what, like, Oh, what did YouTube just release? What an Instagram release. Let me jump on that. [01:10:00] But in the longterm to me, it's like the same, the real, like maybe the question within the question is like.
How can you create stuff that you really believe in, not just stuff that like works and you believe in and I think the truth is for that, it's kind of like experimentation. There's a lot of things that I've wanted to do on YouTube, but just didn't take off. So I've had to just clarify those formats that are because at the end of the day, it's like, okay, it's a business.
How do you make it sustainable? Um, but like new ways, like I've wanted to have to have a draw on screen format for a while. I was like, when I get a big interview and I could like do it, I'm going to launch it with, and then somehow this all happened, you know? So it's like, it's kind of timing, planning, and knowing that like introducing one new thing for every like five videos within the same format that's worth, because it's like, yeah, people come to expect and you're building a habit.
Audience: Jon, could you please share some insights, something that you fall back on, something that just stuck in your head [01:11:00] from your time at Instagram and YouTube?
Jon Youshaei: Yeah, the Met Gala is to Instagram as VidCon was to YouTube. And what I say about that is that the, the DNA of a platform matters a lot. And who is big on each platform.
And I'll never forget, for my five years at YouTube, every single year we'd be planning like the big product launches for VidCon. We'd be going there, like trying to, like, the creators, the people who were starting their bedrooms, their dorm rooms and all that, like, like, how can we talk with them? At Instagram, it now has become more about that.
But for my first few years there, we're like, okay, guys, the Kardashians are going to be at the Met Gala. And Taylor Swift said, she wants this feature launch and we got to ship it by the Met Gala guys. Like, like all this stuff. I'm like, wow. Okay. So celebrity drives more of like, what's going on at Instagram, at least back then creators became more of a focus.
Um, but what's interesting is that there's creators, there's celebrities, there's friends and family content. Like there's so many things that I think. Like for Instagram, it just, um, [01:12:00] there's a lot of like different stakeholders versus like YouTube. It was like, okay, like, you know, your cousin or your friend may not have a YouTube channel, um, versus they may have an Instagram and they may be posting on there.
Um, and I'll give, can I give one tip with that too? That's more tactical. If you're ever thinking about launching a campaign around the holidays, Think twice if you're going to do that on Instagram. Why? Because when does Instagram content supply go way up? During holidays. Your friends and family who haven't been posting in months are all of a sudden posting their selfies and their food photos during Christmas break and all that.
So if you're launching something, you're all of a sudden competing with more content being delivered to your followers, whereas during other parts of the year where it's more dormant and quiet, it's just creators, celebrities, and brands posting. So that was another thing I realized, like, I mean, I could go on and on.
I could compare them like, yeah, but that's one thing more Yeah, pop culture level, one thing more technical. That's helpful.
Audience: And then we find like, we as creators are [01:13:00] much bigger on Instagram than we are on YouTube. It seems like, you know, almost everyone in this room has chosen one or the other. Do you know of any creators who are doing both of those particular platforms really well?
Jon Youshaei: I think it's easier to go from YouTube to Instagram and because, like, now the answer to that question is like, oh, they're repurposing their shorts. Um, but I'd have to dig into, like, case studies, because I think the real art of Instagram and where it has, like, a bit of an edge is, like, DMs. You know, and like, think about it this way, like, Instagram has become the modern business card between creators.
You go to an event and people who aren't comfortable sharing their, you know, phone numbers, they may share LinkedIn, but they're probably sharing their Instagram accounts, you know, and they're probably having a DM conversation. And a lot of collaborations on YouTube start in the DMs of Instagram, you know.
So I think if you've mastered a DM strategy and there's like many chat and a lot of things for that, that could help, but um, Yeah, I'd have to give you a clear answer other than like, the reels are popping off and so are their shorts. But yeah,
Audience: like one thing just off the cuff. So I [01:14:00] love you and I think you're amazing.
I have to tell Nathan. This is the reason I bought the ticket. So I told, I told Jon I would tell you this because it's true. The reason I bought the ticket was for Jon, but like you're so polished and you're such a good interviewer and you're just like amazing. But what if the challenge was like, we all want to be roasted.
Like you do something live. Like our, we do, no one goes live in your space. It's all polished. It's all so nice. It's all great. What if there was just like more live, raw content of like, you're already really great and you're already really polished. I know you want all these graphics on screen and it's so good, but just like a 15 minute live of a teardown of somebody.
Jon Youshaei: So that's I think as I'm thinking about this one is crazy if this comes to fruition because of this session But it would be a live session and I would take like this group of like I don't know if it's five or ten like I'll feel it out and and it would be a live session. So I would prepare I would have a cue And I would roast them live.
So you learn hands on about why your content can be better and you could learn from the other people that I roast too. I would do it all live.
Audience: I [01:15:00] love that. I would love to do that for ConvertKit too. Live teardown of newsletters. Thanks. If
Jon Youshaei: you're interested, I'm dead serious at this point. I don't know if I've just escalated my own feelings because of all this response, but Yeah, oh, you know what?
Created with Jon Ushai, roasted with Jon Ushai.
Both: Ooh, I like it. The two sides. I don't know, I don't know. But yeah, seriously, I'm serious about this. On that note, we should let everyone go to lunch. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. That was a lot of fun. If
Nathan Barry: you enjoyed this episode, go to the YouTube channel to search Billion Dollar Creator.
Go ahead and subscribe. Make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also who else we should have on the show.