How I got 1,000 paying users for my SaaS with only 2 videos (copy me)

Get 50% off your first month on Velio using the code « florian »: https://velio.co/?ref=florian59 In this video, Marcus shares the best SaaS marketing strategy to get your first 1000 customers without ads. Marcus Jones grew one of the biggest YouTube education channels to nearly 500K subscribers and launched his SaaS, Velio, to 1000 paying users in just 60 days with only 2 YouTube videos. In this conversation, he breaks down his complete playbook: - The 6 things that actually matter on YouTube - How to find video ideas with built-in demand - Why most founders make "solution aware" videos instead of "problem aware" ones, - The exact video structure that has generated over 7 figures in sales. Whether you're a SaaS founder, app builder, or indie hacker trying to grow without paid ads, this is the roadmap. Marcus Jones' YouTube Channel: @Marcus-Jones Join OpenClaw Lab: https://openclawlab.xyz Find me on X: https://x.com/floriandarroman Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florian.darroman/ Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 1:05 - Why start YouTube as a founder? 2:00 - The real problem with YouTube advice 3:51 - The 6 things that actually matter 4:28 - #1: How often should you post? 6:24 - #2: What makes people choose you? 10:33 - How to find your X factor 15:10 - #3: The consistency trap 19:00 - When quitting is smart 21:33 - Aristotle's rule for YouTube 25:07 - #4: Retention isn't production quality 30:17 - #5: Why your packaging is broken 32:44 - How long to spend on thumbnails? 34:14 - His team behind the scenes 34:50 - A/B testing that actually works 38:09 - When to start hiring 40:43 - #6: The one thing that trumps everything 44:02 - Finding ideas with built-in demand 47:03 - The metric nobody talks about 52:44 - You don't need data skills for this 55:31 - How he got 1000 users with 2 videos 57:36 - Problem-aware vs solution-aware videos 1:01:12 - The video structure that made 7 figures 1:06:45 - Starting from zero: the exact plan 1:13:38 - Stealing formats from other niches 1:18:09 - The biggest mistake to avoid 1:20:15 - The mindset that keeps you going --- Find me on X: https://x.com/floriandarroman Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/florian.darroman/ Get customers from Google and AI on autopilot: https://distribb.io Join 300+ founders building with OpenClaw: https://openclawlab.xyz Website: https://floriandarroman.com All podcast episodes: https://profitablefounder.xyz

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We were completely bootstrapped and we went from zero to a thousand paying users on just two YouTube videos. It took about two months, but the catch was they're a very specific type of YouTube videos. This is Marcus.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

He built the second largest YouTube educational channel in the world with half a million subscribers. And he did it with a webcam, an hundred dollar mic, and a fifty dollar Amazon live. We all know that YouTube is the most powerful marketing channel for your startup. So why do we get paralyzed when it's time to start?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

The problem is not a lack of knowledge, the problem is too much knowledge and not knowing where to actually focus your efforts. Should you be doing SEO? Should you be trying to rank Google? Should you be trying to get your video to rank in Gemini? It's just a million things to do. But Marcus figured out the 20% that actually matters. Because I just focus on those six things while everyone else is focusing on like 10 things or 20 things, like repurposing all their clips on TikTok and like all this kind of random shit. I'm able to sort of like pace our competition and maybe stay ahead of the curve.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

In this episode, he breaks down the exact six-step strategy to grow a YouTube channel from scratch, but also the playbook he used to get customers to sign up to his stats before they even see a Marcus. Why should I start a YouTube channel as a funder?

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Make a bajillion dollars and get lots of paying users who love you and not only use your product but also then tell other people about your product and make content about your product. That's enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

I'm ooked. Back in the day, you just launched um you just posted the video about Mr. Beast that got really huge, and I think that was the one that got the most traction at the beginning. Now you have like I think 10 videos above 1 million views. Two of them are above 5 million views, which is crazy. And the craziest part about it is that the second last video has 400k views. There is a lot of YouTube uh channels that are when were doing well better uh before and now they are like kind of dying, and you kept growing. So, what is your secret?

SPEAKER_02 2:00

The problem with YouTube growth, or the the biggest problem now in 2026 is that there are a million people talking about how to grow on YouTube because they want to sell you their course on how to grow on YouTube. Uh and a lot of the time uh they're maybe good, but they're not quite the best at what they do, or they're like they kind of just like parrot information that other people have already said, and you just know what these like echo chambers of information. It's kind of like the stock market in a sense that like if everyone could predict the stock market and everyone knew like the best tactics, then the the best tactics would like not be the best tactics anymore. Um it's similar with YouTube, I think. Like, for example, everyone's talking right now on YouTube about like outlier theory, like go on and just copy like videos that have performed really well. Um, and that worked like really extremely reliably well, like two years ago. But now that everybody's talking about it, everybody's doing it, like it stops working as well. So I think the problem, I guess to to bring it back to your original question, the problem is not a lack of knowledge, the problem is too much knowledge and not knowing where to actually focus your efforts. Like, should you be doing SEO? Should you be trying to rank in Google? Should you be trying to get your video to rank in Gemini? Should you be trying to like focus on your thumbnail or your title or do like an elaborate thumbnail title testing strategy? Should you be doing ideas? Like there's just a million things to do. And I think the thing that's helped me has been really focusing very specifically on just a very small handful of things and doing those. There's actually just six of them. And just doing those six things, like I try to do them better than everyone else. Uh, not always successfully, but that's that's my goal. And I think because I just focus on those six things while everyone else is focusing on like 10 things or 20 things, like repurposing all their clips on TikTok and like all this kind of random shit, like I'm able to sort of like outpace um my competition. So what are these ahead of the curve areas?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

What are these six things?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah, okay, cool, sick. Well, I kind of think about this on like two levels. So I would think about like you can think about like channel strategy and then like individual video sort of strategy and like making an individual video good. So like the six things relate to channel strategy. Um and the cool thing about them is even though there's six, the first three, like once you've done them, they're kind of done for at least for a while, and then you can just focus on the top three things. So if we start from the bottom and work our way up to like from the least important to the most important thing, just so we can milk everyone for as much watch time as possible and your podcast gets used. Um, the first thing I would say is frequency. Upload frequency. So, how many videos are you actually posting? And this isn't to do with the algorithm. Like, the algorithm is not sitting there with like a calendar on its wall being like, oh, Florian uploaded another video on Tuesday at 3 p.m. Look how consistent it is by sent in all the views. Like it doesn't give a shit about that, right? Consistency is more about uh specific well, there's two two two specific things that I think are important for consistency. One is the more videos you post, the more shots on goal you have. It's like if you are posting twice a week, you have 104 opportunities per year to be discovered or for a video to blow up and go viral. Um if you're posting months a month, you have 12. Right. So one is like the volume of opportunities to be discovered. Um, and the second thing is like the more you post, the better you become at posting. So um I really encourage people to post if you can, particularly founders or like software people, because we really have like a I think we complain about it, but we kind of have an easy time. Like we can kind of like sit down at a desk and just like talk to our audience a lot of the time, which like I know creators, like one of my friends, I was just talking to him the other day. Like he does like challenge content, and like for him to make a video, he has to like book a flight to like a hidden CIA base and go and like stealth camp outside of it and then try and like get drone footage of it and all this. Like compared to creators like that, we have such an easy time. So, like, as a software founder, particularly where you can just like literally turn on like a turn on Loom and just like record a video, and if you know that the strategy, you can get a bunch of views. Like, I would really and you're serious about this shit. Like, I think you should be posting like at least like two, three videos. Um, so yeah, that's the first thing frequency. Um, the second thing, and by the way, if you have questions, just jump in because I can talk about this shit for ages. Man, I will, no worries. Um so yeah, the the second thing is X factors. So X factors are I kind of think of X factors as like the specific seasoning or flavor of your content. You can call it your brand, but I find brand like to be like a kind of broad nebulous term. It's like how do you build a brand? I think about building a brand as like breaking it down into uh what I call those X factors, and then really developing those things. And uh that's kind of the X factors help you be the person people choose to watch over all of your competition. Because if you start doing well, you start getting views, people are gonna start copying it. Um, and so then the question becomes particularly even bigger YouTubers who will copy you have more views, have more views and subscribers than you. So the question becomes, why would people watch your videos instead of other people's? And that's where X Factors come in. It's like they like something specific about your style, your personality, your quirks. Maybe you have a backstory they trust. And that's really how I look at developing X Factors is like think about the unique characteristics and the unique value you provide to your audience, and then really try and exaggerate those things. So, for example, um, I'm Australian, and so on one of my channels, uh, my comedy channel, I was like, that's kind of somewhat of a unique element to me. And for like, there's kind of like Australian stereotypes amongst Americans and that kind of thing, right? So I like played into that. I used like Australian slang, Australian jokes, and all that kind of thing. It just makes me more unique, more memorable. Instead of just being, oh, that this was a Star Wars channel, this other one, instead of just being like, oh, that Star Wars guy, I became that Australian Star Wars guy, which is like more memorable than just that Star Wars guy, right? Um, I do I do that now on my YouTube education channel. I like try and make make jokes. And often I just use my I lean into my own sense of humor, which is typically like inappropriate. Um, to give you an example, like one of my video intros was like if you want to get more views than Pornhub's terms and conditions page, which is like, you know, not the kind of thing you would hear on most like YouTube education videos. Um and so it's like uh leaning into those things, whatever they are, um, or that that unique you can also do it in in like a less you don't have to focus on quirks, you can focus on uh like skills or talent. So like uh Alex Homozy would be a good example. Like he always talks about his portfolio companies and his this and his gym and his story and his this and he's that like he has like people can't emulate or copy his story. Like his story is an X factor that he and he alone can lean into that draws people towards him. Um, so yeah, developing it's not really even developing X factors because you already have them sort of within you. It's like figuring out what they are and just being aware of them. So now when I sit down and I record a video, I'm aware that being trying to be not extremely boring is like one of my X factors. And so I was like, okay, let like let me try and like actually have fun with this and try to remember to put jokes in. Well, Alex, or did you find yours, Hack Tradia? Yeah, so like I said, I think it's for me, it's like really looking at like the person you are, the stories you have, the things that do make uni unique, or the specific value that you are trying to provide that it seems like not enough people are providing, and just exaggerating those things. So, like I didn't pretend to be Australian, like I am Australian, but I like leaned into that, right? Or I didn't pretend to have an inappropriate sense of humor. I just kind of have that with my friends. And so I'm like, cool, like let's let's run with that. Alex Ramosi is not pretending to have this crazy backstory. He actually has it and he just leans into it. I think most people, if they lean into it, will have those those stories or those quirks or those characteristics. They're just not at the forefront of their minds when they're creating their content. If you just bring those more to the forefront and intentionally insert those into your content a little bit more, and you you start to develop these X factors and you start to cultivate a unique flavor that becomes your brand and makes people fall in love with you and want to watch you instead of all the other creators.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, I think it's pretty hard to find it. Like I had two friends and they are DJ, like pretty famous DJ. They go everywhere around the world, and we had a dinner not long ago, and they were like, Oh, yeah, but for you, it's so easy to make content. You live in Bali, you have this beautiful villa, you have this beautiful gym, like it's so easy for you. And I was like, Are you kidding? You're traveling everywhere in the world, like they were in New Delhi. Then after that, in Jakarta, they were going to Miami the week after, then New York, then Toronto. I was like, You have a crazy life. And I feel like if you don't take a step back, you don't see what's your what makes you special. And I feel like the best way to figure out is also to ask people around you, people who really know you well, and they usually know why, like you're special. Like, as you say, like, yeah, well, you're an Australian and you're uh funny when you do this uh joke. So I think for me it helped me to understand.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. I had a friend who is very similar. He was like, he he acknowledged, he's like, I'm I have a bit of a boring presentation style, and he does. Um I was like, but dude, you like travel the world in luxury. The guy's making like 1.5 mil a month or something. Like you travel the world in luxury, like just shoot content in like these crazy places you go to, just like film your videos there, and then you'll become known as like it's like where is he this week? You know, something unique. Um like I said, there's the character quirks you can lean into, just stuff like that, but it's also the value. It's like if you figure out what is the specific value you're trying to provide to people. I know it's a cliche, but like what is the value you're like what like if you're doing something, it's probably because there's a problem that isn't quite being solved properly. Or if you're talking about something that's probably a problem that uh hasn't been quite fulfilled properly. Um it's like okay, leaning into that. So it sounds cliche, but like an example of that with one of my like comedy channels was um obviously comedy is designed to be funny. And so I'm like, actually, maybe a better example. So a better example of that would be like my YouTube education channel right now. Um I create YouTube education content, and the goal is to like help people get views and subscribers and stuff, but there's a lot of people doing that now. Um, and so I'm like, okay, well, how is my content adding more value than other people's content teaching people how to get views and like kind of thing? And I'm like, well, one of the reasons is that I spend a lot more time looking into data than everyone else, I think. Because I have access to a lot of data. I run a YouTube research tool. We have like hundreds of millions of videos and and data points that I have access to. It's like, okay, well, I can lean into that because that's the value people want. They want like data-driven YouTube growth tactics that actually work. It's like, okay, well, I can lean into that and really not just be like, here's what you should do, but actually do the research, come with the data and be like, here's what you should do, and here's why the data says you should do it this way. Um, and here's why it's working right now, and here's what's not working, and really go deep, deeper into that thing. Um so yeah, you can go, you can and I recommend you do both. Like you develop the kind of like character quirks and flavor, but then also have the value and really try and go deep into that and be like, how can I take this thing to the next level to the point that it's like above and beyond what other people are are contributing?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, and you're a good example of that. I feel like your video since the beginning, I always told you they're amazing, but I watched it again today, you know, to see what you're doing now. And man, the way like you structure your video, and it's exactly that. There is a lot of data, but you're also really good at what you do now because how long have you been doing video? Like uh like 10 years. Yeah, 10 years, and we can tell, I think.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Yeah. I think honestly, I think a lot of areas of my videos are pretty bad. Like I partly because I'm lazy and partly because I don't focus on them. Like they're not technically the best videos in the world, but it's just I just focus, I try to just focus on just the core things that I think matter. And I think if you just get those core things right, like you look at my setup, I record at home with a webcam, with like a $100 microphone that I have with me right now, with uh like $50 Amazon light. My whole setup is like terrible. So it goes against like what everyone wants everyone says you should do. But yeah, I think if you get the other things right, which we'll talk about as well, like it trumps it trumps all the other things.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Right, let's talk about the other things then.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Alright, all right. So uh consistency is an excellent. So we've got frequency so far, then you have X factors or branding, but I prefer X factors, um, and then we have consistency, or specifically, I like to call it serial consistency. Um when I when people hear consistency, they think I just upload lots of videos. Um but that's not what consistency is. Like if consistency is doing something in a in a repeatable way, like if I upload one video a year, I'm being consistent, right? So consistency is not frequency, consistency is doing something in a very similar way in a repeated fashion. Um and the reason consistency is important is because it trains the YouTube algorithm, um, which the YouTube algorithm is really just the YouTube audience, but it trains the YouTube algorithm on uh what types of people would enjoy your content. Um way to think about it is like if you post a video and someone clicks on that video, they go, Oh, I like this, and they go and click to your channel. You also want them to like all the other videos on your channel, right? If you have a channel where it's like one week you're posting Minecraft videos and the next week you're posting stock market review videos, and the next week you're posting like food vlogs, it's like people click on the food vlogs, go, oh, I love this food vlog, click to your channel, and they see Minecraft videos and stock market videos, and they're like, what the fuck?

unknown 16:37

You know?

SPEAKER_02 16:37

So like and then they click away and that sends a really negative signal because the argument's like, not only is it like, hey, I'm probably not gonna I'm gonna be more cautious promoting videos from this channel to this viewer again, but I'm also gonna be more cautious promoting videos from this channel to other people who are similar to that particular viewer because there's something about this channel that this viewer didn't like or might not have liked. Um it's more complicated than that, but like in a nutshell, that's a way to think about it. Um so keeping your the your everything consistent, not just uploading, but like the topics you talk about very important. Like the the the avatar you're talking to, like your editing style and and your X factors and your your your your stance, like your your political stance. Like, are you like if one week you're super politically correct and professional and the other week you're super um colloquial and and basically just an arsehole like me, like it's gonna attract a different kind of person. Like one week they're gonna like your videos, the next week they're not, right? So it's like being very consistent with who you are and the topics you're talking about. Um and the the caveat I'd add in though is I call it serial consistency because what sometimes people do is they take this too far and then they just be like they just keep doing the same thing that's not working for like six months. It's like doing the same thing over and over again, like we all know the quote, right? So what you want to do is be consistent in a serial manner. So it's like be consistent until you feel like you've you've maxed out, you've done everything right for a long enough period of time. Um like you you feel like you've basically done everything you reasonably can do to make this kind of content work. And then if it's not working, it's like try something else. So for a lot of people, that's like five to ten videos. It's like your first couple of videos, you're still learning the style, you're still getting the hang of things, like you're still figuring out what you like, what you don't like, you're looking at your attention graphs, seeing what people like, what they don't like, testing different thumbnail styles, etc. But if you get to 10 videos, you've made like 10 videos on the same topic with the same style, what and like and it's all not working, and you're like, look, I'm doing everything. I've got the ideas, I've got the titles, I've got the thumbnails, I've got like if it's not working, it's like, all right, do something else and then do that new thing consistently for a period of time until that doesn't work, and then do the new thing consistently and keep and basically just jump like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

That's interesting, yeah, because I feel like well, with the podcast, I try to do that, and the more I do the same thing, the more I see what works and what doesn't, and the more I remove what doesn't work and I keep what works. And for me, like I think I did the same format. It looks like the same format, but in a way it's like not the same format at all. It's still a podcast, I still interview the same kind of people, but I start to ask different questions and go in a different direction, and I can see yeah, what works. But um, at the beginning, I think I was doing that like same question, same format, and it didn't work at all. So I was like, okay, I need to change something, and now it works.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Yeah, and that's like a great way to look at it is like you were doing something that wasn't working, and so you're like, okay, I'm gonna change my approach a bit. It's like you didn't quit, you stayed consistent with it. Um, the problem where that goes too far is like if you change all your questions, because you're like, this isn't working, or you look at your attention, you're like, people don't like this, I'm gonna cut it out, and like you do all the optimizations and then it's still not working, and you're posting videos and it's still not working, it's like maybe that's a sign you should like make a bigger change. Um but it sounds like you're definitely not at that point. Yeah, it's it's working, it's working well for you, right? But um, I just I don't know, I feel like I wanted to spend some time on that point because I feel like consistency is like talked about so much, and like quitting is like so demonized, but like it's also just as bad to spend a year doing the same thing over and over again and like not getting like not getting results.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

I think I get what you say, but um I did that on a dot on another platform. I was doing short form video and I was doing daily video, and it didn't work. I was publishing every single day, I got people who liked it. Um, but the main thing is that I didn't like doing it because that was like one thing that I had to do every single day, and then at the end I didn't like enjoy doing it at all. So it didn't really work, and I stopped. Like I say, okay, I failed on that, but I failed in a way that I'm happy with because I just don't want to do that. So then I changed. I went back on X and then I started YouTube again, and now it's working. So I feel like I get what you mean. For me, it was another platform, but for some people, I see them also on X or on YouTube, they're just doing the same thing every single day, and you see them not growing at all, and you want to send them a message like maybe you should change something.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Have you heard of like Aristotle's golden meme? No, I I think about that a bunch. Like, um like Aristotle basically had this concept that like the extreme of all good things or all virtue is like a bad thing. So and I think that's like very true with at least YouTube in particular. It's like if you're too like for example, we talked about frequency. If you're too frequent, you're probably not gonna have time to make your videos like actually be. Valuable. Like if you're trying to post three videos a day, the videos are probably going to suck because you don't have time to make the videos good. But if you're posting like one video a month, you're not frequent enough. Right. So it's like you got to find that golden mean, that golden average in the middle. And I think it's similar with like consistency. Like everyone talks about you want to be consistent, you want to be consistent, which is true. Um, particularly when we're talking about like being consistent with the topics you want to talk about. But if you're too consistent to the point that you've optimized every possible little thing and tried for a really long time and it's not working, like that's when you should stop being consistent and try something else.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

So what frequency walked for you when you started? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

I think like one to two videos a week is like a good point. Um it depends on the type of content you're creating, but I think like for talking head videos, which is what probably a lot of people watching this are going to be creating, like you should be able to manage two videos a week. Like you know what you're talking about. Um, so like even just like bullet pointing things out and then just riffing off them and adding adding value that way. Um I think that's that's a good frequency. Two, if you can get three, that's that's awesome. But I think once you start going more than three videos a week, often the quality starts to drop and people start I've noticed the quality starts to drop, people start rushing their uploads, making mistakes, like just putting out content for the sake of putting out content that's not actually that valuable. Um that sort of defeats the purpose.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

So yeah, someone told me once, like, you don't unfollow a person that you don't see, you unfollow a person that you see too much. And I think that's like probably this, like, yeah, if you publish a video every single day or like three times a week, but the third video is always bad because you have no time to do it, then people will see that every week and they will be like, I just want to unsubscribe because I don't want to see this guy again. Because once a week he sent a bad video. And uh, yeah, I think it kept it stay in my mind when I heard that.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

I think it's I think it's like I would agree with that, but I think it actually more comes down to the quality of the content rather than the weakness. Like if someone was putting out one video a week, but like every video you watch, you're like, oh my god, this is fucking amazing. Like, I can't wait for tomorrow's video. I'm like, you're gonna watch it, right? So it's not necessarily the problem that they were putting out videos too much. It's they were putting out bad videos too much. Yeah. Um, and so that's that's the that's the caveat there. Like Mr. Beast, for example, like he's he's talked about people like, oh, do you post like once every two weeks to like build suspense for your uploads? He's like, no, he's like, if I could post every day, I would, but I just can't make videos fast enough and good enough to post every day. Um it's like finding that that point where you are being frequent, which like I said should be at least one to two times per week. Um, because any slower than that, and like you're just not gonna learn fast enough um in the beginning, anyway. Um but that you're still putting out content that's actually good and useful and valuable to people.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Interesting. So where are we? Point four.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Yeah, so um this is when like things start to get both cliche, but like these are the most important things, I think. Because the things we talked about so far, like getting your getting your frequency right, that's just like picking your upward schedule and sticking to it. So you kind of like decide on that once. Like your X factors, again, you kind of decide on that once. You can like evolve and update them and that kind of thing, but you kind of sit down and you figure out okay, who am I? What are the the valuable points I have, the unique points I have, and how can I integrate this into my videos and users keep it. And then consistency is similar as well. It's like once you're aware of it, you're like, okay, I'm gonna be consistent in creating uh interview videos for software founders, then you just like be consistent in that. So the next three things are like the things that I kind of focus on then from like a week to week. Um, the first one is like retention, so just making good videos essentially. Um and I say retention specifically because I think when often people hear good video, they think like high quality production, like camera lighting, all this kind of thing. Um and sometimes that can help, but there's plenty of videos with very low production that perform extremely well. I think I've kind of done this intentionally because I'm a little bit of a douche, but on my channel, I like I've I've grown it to what getting close to half a million subs right now. Um the other day, this is gonna be a super douchey brag, but the other day I checked and they're like the second largest like YouTube education channel in the world in terms of monthly views, and the people that for long form and the people who are ahead of us have like three full-time, three or four full-time careers working on their channels. Like for me, it's just me. Um and I don't say that to brag, but I say that to add content to the next thing I'm about to say, which is like again, my content is all recorded with like a webcam, this shitty microphone, and like an Amazon line. It's like the content quality itself is shit, but it's the people still watch the content because it's it's structured in the right way. I communicate the information and that the people want to hear. Um and I guess I share that example to be I I I kind of do that intentionally, like I said, because I kind of want people to see that and be like, hey, I don't need the super fancy production, I don't need this, I don't need that. Like if I just communicate properly and understand like the psychology of getting people to watch, not necessarily just the production, um, that's the main thing that matters.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah, and I think like a good example I have on that is um the difference between, well, it's two different levels, of course, but Samsoulek and Daniel Dalen, for example, they do the same thing, they vlog. Um, I think Samsoulek is like every day, and Daniel Dalen was like every week, and the quality is like totally different. One is like polished content, everything, the music choice, the the color grading, everything is beautiful, and the other one is like the same. I don't even know if he has a camera, but like it's just like I think it's just like a it's like the latest like potato XL. Yeah, like really bad quality, like it's there is no cut at all. I remember watching his uh his um his channel just to understand, and he's he was basically like filming himself on his table, and there was a big blank, and he was just eating his breakfast, and you hear him you hear him chewing, and there is nothing, and then he started talking after like maybe 45 seconds. And I was like, that's crazy. So like I think that's the best example of the two different kinds of contents you you want to do, and you are close to Sam Sulek. But more or like the way you the way you talk, like the way you uh you actually uh uh you articulate and then the cut and everything is totally different than Sam, of course. But uh yeah, that's the example I have in mind.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yeah, no, I think he's a good example, and I think I think the thing that's clear here is like uh Dylan, who you mentioned, he's also like quite successful. And so like the point here is like content quality isn't about like getting your your lighting perfect and you're this perfect, it's like about retaining people. Like, if you can create a screen recording loom video for 10 minutes that people watch, and they watch it for the same amount of time or a similar amount of time as they would if you went and recorded that video in a like a professional studio, then make the loom. Like lower effort, you're gonna be able to make more of them, and people still watch it for a similar amount of time. If anything, maybe the loom in that scenario feels feels better because like it feels like you're kind of getting like a behind-the-scenes sort of like look behind the curtain at some like special process that most people aren't aware of. Whereas if you were to go and like produce it in a studio, it feels it's like what's this guy trying to sell me? You know? So it's like thinking about like the psychology of it and what's actually gonna retain people again. Not to repeat myself too much, but what's gonna retain people not just making good quality content from a technical perspective?

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Really interesting. Let's go to the fifth step.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

All right, all right. Uh so the fifth step is packaging. So packaging, aka tiles and thumbnails. Again, people have heard about this a lot, and I'm sure you guys you've you've all heard like make eye-catching thumbnails and do this and like have your face in them and have a text and all this kind of thing. Which a bunch of those rules aren't necessarily true. Like the best packaging, similar to retention, is just like the one people click on. Like almost every rule you hear, people will say, like, you want to have your face in the video. I can find like a million thumbnails of that don't have a face in them that perform really well. Or you might say, like, oh, well, you don't have a face in a video. It's like I can also find a million thumbnails that have faces in that work well. Um, so again, it's more about getting people to click. But the thing I want to, I guess, draw people's attention to that maybe isn't talked about as much, is that it's I call it packaging for a reason. Uh, and that is your title and thumbnail should actually work together to win the click, not as like individual entities. I see a lot of people come in and they write their title and design their thumbnail as if they're like two completely separate components, whereas they should actually work together. Um, and then you can make the most of your screen real estate. So uh an example, uh the video you brought up earlier, Florian, not not to put myself on a pedestal because like I'm stupid and dumb and make lots of mistakes all the time, but the video you mentioned earlier that got 400k a couple months back, um the thumbnail of that, the text is like it's like a broken YouTube logo, and the text is I have proof. And then the the title is like no seriously, YouTube is starting to break. And when you think about it, like those, if you just saw the thumbnail out of video without the tile, it wouldn't make that much sense. Like you'd see kind of a broken YouTube logo, and it's like I have proof. Like, what does it mean? Like, it doesn't quite make sense. Um, and then the title comes in and adds more context. It's like, oh okay, now it makes sense. And also the tile itself, the tile and thumbnail work together in a sense that the tiles has no series of YouTube starting to break that makes it sound like a uh like an opinion piece or like a casual random piece, but then the thumbnail has I have proof in it, which then sort of like implies to people it's like, oh, okay, so he's not just like sharing his opinion, like he has some sort of data or some sort of proof, which I did share with people. And so it's like it's not that the thumbnail was specifically that great on its own or the title was that great on its own. It's like together they worked really well. Um, and so that's what I would really encourage people to think about.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

How long do you spend like choosing the thumbnail and title? And do you do that before you do the video or after?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yeah, so I usually how long do I actually spend? I probably on average would spend around like an around maybe I had to average it maybe like two hours uh thumbnail. Um but it like takes as long as it takes for me. Like sometimes I because I do it a lot through research and like very research driven, I guess. And sometimes I'll be researching and I like just won't find something interesting. So like I'll have to go for like four hours before I find something that's like actually good, and I'm like, oh okay, this is cool. Sometimes like I'll start researching and I'll find something in like 20 minutes. I'm like, oh, this is sick, I'm gonna jump on. Um, so it's one of those ones where it's like, yeah, it takes like if you find something amazing in 15 minutes, um, then then don't spend another four hours doing it just because I told you to. But like also if you've been going for two hours and you still haven't found anything that you're like, oh, this is like this is gonna be good, um, don't don't just settle with the best thing you found. Like keep going. Um so yeah, that's that's for me. The other thing I'll add there though is like that's I have like thumbnail designers, so like I'm just doing like the concept ideation and the research usually. Um not always, not even always the concept ideation. I only sometimes do that, but like I'd do that and then send it off to the designer who will then probably spend another couple of hours.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

How many people are working on the channel now?

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Um, so we normally have three full-time editors. Um, and then we have I usually have like three thumbnail designers, but they're not full-time, they're like contract. Um, and I'll usually try and get three thumbnails designed for each video from like each from a different thumbnail designer. And then I'll either like test them all against each other. Um, or if two of them aren't that good or whatever, I'll just like go with the one that I think is good.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

But you only choose one title because now you can also uh A B test the title. Do you also do that or just the thumbnail?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah, so usually I think the thumbnail has a bigger impact. So I'll start with the thumbnail. Um, and so I would I would approach it. The caveat here is uh I am getting some like views on my content. So I can like make tests that are a bit more statistically significant. Um, if you're not getting at least like 500, at least like bare minimum, even then, this is like dodgy, but like at least like 500 to a thousand impressions a week on your on your content, then like doing an elaborate testing strategy isn't that useful. Like, for example, I see even guys like you see guys like DioVer CEO, and if you go and look at their like thumbnail split tests and title split tests, they'll like test one every hour for like the first 24 hours of the LB live, and it's like that's not like you can't actually get statistically significant data on like whether that thumbnail or title were good if you're testing so rapidly. Um, so a lot of it comes down to like whether you can actually get statistically significant results from your tests. But if you can, this is sort of the process I would recommend. So first you start off with thumbnails, um, you test three completely different concepts. So three completely different concepts for the first video with the same title. Then you take the winner of those and then test variations of that winner in like a separate test. So, like maybe I'll take the so for example, for me, I took the winner of that last video that you that you were talking about, um, and I tested the copy. So I tested the copy from like no seriously to I have proof, um, to I can't remember what the other ones were, but I basically took the same thumbnail, thumbnail, and then tested the the copy. And then after that, if it's still getting views, I'll often do like another round of testing, which is like iterations. So like I tested lowercase text in the thumbnail versus uppercase text in the thumbnail versus like a full stop at the end and no full stop. Um so like I kind of have if your video is like going crazy, then you have like those three stages of test. Um and then uh I'll often test the tile as well. Um, I'll usually test the title with like only like sort of one stage, um and then just go with that one. Um Main reason for that for me is I've already done a lot of tile testing on my channel, so I know like what title case typically performs well, what words typically uh do better for people and stuff like that. Um, but if you if you complete starting from scratch and you're in the dark, then you can do those multiple phases as well. So like again, test three different titles, then take the one that work the best, and then test like okay, uppercase versus lowercase versus like title case, um, or test like swapping out a particular power word. So maybe test like YouTube is breaking versus YouTube has broken versus YouTube uh is is doomed or something like that. You can test like little variations. Um starting broad and then narrowing it in until you find the one that works. But again, you only go to that level of detail if your content is getting enough data to make the tests actually reliable. If you're getting like a hundred views on your video, doing three rounds of tests like this is not gonna show you anything you can.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I was expecting that. I thought you would give me uh the secret and I would get 10,000 million views, but no. You say there is like a three full editor, uh, you have a person who did a thumbnail. The first time I talked to you in 2023, you were alone, or there was someone with you. I had people with me, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

I'm a big fan of like outsourcing. Once you get to the point that you you know what your style is and you found something that works, I'm a big fan of like outsourcing, particularly the video editing. Like it's not high leverage for you to be editing all of your videos and spending 20, 30 hours a week editing a video with someone else.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

What is the um 20% you should focus on and when you should start actually hiring people? Uh when you say 20%, you should focus on what do you what do you mean? Sorry, like for the past. 20% to actually bring the 80% um for your YouTube channel. For example, in my mind, I will have um I will focus on writing the script myself and think about the thumbnail con uh concept myself. That would be the 20%.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah, okay, yeah. Well, I mean the the 80-20 for me would probably be these things we've just talked about um so far. Um and then it's basically like how can you do these things as effectively as possible? In a sense, the like if I like can I outsource my editing and get the same end result in less time because I'm paying someone? Like, yeah. Um can I outsource my thumbnail design and get the same end result without me having to be physically there, like designing the thumbnail? Like, yes. Um can I outsource the script at the moment with it being the same caliber? It's like no. So I I do that myself. Um so it's like yeah, that that's probably how I would like I would probably start by like doing most of it yourself so you have a rough idea of um of like what you want, um, depending on like what your budget is. Like if you have a lot of budget that you can pay someone who's like good at what they do, and then they can help you out with all the editing or stuff like that. If you have a like lower budget, I would start by like trying to figure out and learn this stuff and test it yourself. Um and then once you've sort of found something that's working, it's like okay, standardize that thing or come up with certain guidelines or rules that will help someone else adapt adapt from all the learnings you've gained. Um then they can do that work and you can focus on something. That's clear. Let's go to step six. Alright, the final one. This is my favorite one. Uh I think this has the biggest impact. Um, I think like the way I think about it is like uh it's like a it's like a movie. Like imagine like I don't know, what was the last like bad movie? Remember?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Last bad movie?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Uh I yeah, I have one. It's like the one with uh DiCaprio actually. I don't remember the name, but it's like it started at the Mexican border, and I think it's about immigration is in the US. And I started that video and I last I lasted maybe 10 minutes and I stopped.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

So it's it's interesting you say that, right? Because like um DiCaprio is like I think people can pretty much objectively say he's like a good actor, right? Yeah, I think people would probably also assume that if DiCaprio is in the movie, it's probably got a big budget, probably got a big it's probably got a big marketing budget behind it, probably had a decent director. Like it had a bunch of good things around it, but there was something about the core story itself, like the core idea or the concept behind like what was happening, that you're like, uh no, not for me. Right. I think YouTube is very similar. And so that's where the final step is like ideation, like the idea. So if the core idea behind what is behind your content, what's going on in your content is not inherently objectively interesting and desirable for people, nothing else matters. Like you could literally, like genuinely, like I know people who like I have a thumbnail guy on my team right now who's like worked with Mr. Beast. I have editors who have worked with like some really talented creators. Um, and if we give them a bad video idea, like they're the it's gonna get like a hundred views, no matter how good the thumbnail is, no matter how good the editing is, no matter how good the script is. Um so the video idea, super, super important. When I say idea, uh the way I think about it is the video idea is like the combination of two things, the topic. So it's like what are you talking about, and the format, how are you presenting that topic? Um, so for example, a topic could be how to tie your shoe, like or tying your shoe, right? Um, and the format could be a how-to video, like how to tie your shoe. It's a tutorial. Um or you could have a topic that is tying your shoe that's a challenge video. It's like I I I broke the world record for most shoes tied in one minute, or something like that, right? So like you can have like you can take topics and like mix and match them with different formats. Um, but the the killer is when you find like a topic that a lot of people are really interested in that not a lot of other careers are talking about, and then a format that's like fresh or unique or a really good way of presenting that topic, and that's that's what comes together to form like a really good video idea. And then once you've got a good video idea, everything else becomes so much easier. Making a great thumbnail for a good video idea becomes so much easier, editing becomes so much easier, the scripting becomes so much easier, and uh getting views becomes cool.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

So I understand it. And how would you um find this kind of concept? For example, as a funder of uh SAS? Like, how do you find this kind of concept?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yes, no, that's a good question. I mean, uh this is kind of like unplanned. I know we didn't talk about this, but I can show you if you want.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

So like I have like an an ideation process, and I think there's like three pillars to coming up with like a good good ideas consistently. Um I can show you like how I do this transparently. This is uh like the software that I actually have. Um, but like I built this software but like reverse engineering the principles and the processes. So like you can kind of do this without the software. Uh it just takes you longer. So um yeah, anyway. So basically, the first sort of step that I like to do is you need to you need to know like what's going on in your niche. You need to know what's working, what's not working, how many people it's working for, how many people it's not working for. Uh, so you can get an idea of like what's the sort of status quo in my niche. So you can do this. I used to do this like before software I used to do this in a spreadsheet. Um, or you can do this, uh, you can like create another YouTube channel, like a separate YouTube channel, and just go and find all of your competitors, go to YouTube search, try and search for all your competitors, all the different key terms that they might be making videos about, and subscribe to them all and do it that way. Um, I do that right now with a tool, like my tool value. Basically, what we do is like you go and you put in like a description of your niche, and you uh train the algorithm a little bit on your niche, and then it goes out and try and it finds the competitors in your niche. So for me, for example, I this is my YouTube education niche. Um, there's like 383 other YouTube education channels on the internet, like people making videos about YouTube education. And basically now they're all in one place. Um, I can see how many views they're getting, how many subscribers they're getting, and all their videos in one place. So it's like first we're gonna like but we're tracking everyone in one place. Um now, once you've got everyone in one place, we can start off with the first step. So the easiest way that I like to do this is I come into uh there's like a trending tab. So if I come over to here, uh basically what Value has is an algorithm that like identifies uh across our niche what videos are popping off right now. Um and not just like in terms of views, but also views relative to their subscriber count and stuff like that. And the way that kind of looks like this is so for example, this video, we can see this number here, 15x. This is the first, so it's like outlier score. So basically finding videos that have outperformed the channel's typical average. So for example, we can see this channel typically gets 9.5,000 views, but this video they posted 21 days ago got 147,000 views, which is 15 times higher than their average, right? So that's a signal to us like, hey, there's something special about this video, the packaging, the topic, the idea that is making it get a lot more views or making it reach a lot more people beyond this channel's typical audience. Because we can see this channel again typically has 9,000 views, right? So they've done something, there's something special about this video. Um and basically that's that's again the that's the first pillar. So it's like looking at what are the outperformers, the outliers, the breakout videos in your niche at the moment, um, and what are they about? Um so once you've once you've got that, the next thing I like to look at is, and this is this is where a lot of people break because most people just focus on this like outlier theory and copying things that have already worked is sort of kind of becoming commonplace now. Um, but the problem is if you copy something that everyone else is already copying, and it starts not working. So the next thing I look at is like how many people are also making videos on this thing. So again, you can do this manually on YouTube. You can go to YouTube and like search for other similar videos and then go into them, whatever. Um, but on Velio, basically it'll show you like a stat here. So we can see there's about roughly like less than 50 videos made on YouTube is demonetizing channels at scale. And I can actually click in here and I can actually see those are the videos. So we can see YouTube monetization updates, like no more faceless, YouTube massively demonetizing channels, YouTube demonetizing channels, YouTube demonetizing channels. You can see a bunch of demonetizing channel videos. Um, and so what I want to find is like an outlier video that has relative to my niche a lower amount of competition. So we're basically trying to find a video that's blowing up, but not other that not like a topic that's blowing up. So in this case, like YouTube demonetizing channels, that not many other people are talking about relatively. So this one, like from my niche, 50 is like if we scroll through here, you can see 50 is kind of like a an average amount. If we maybe like look at a more specific uh video, let's see if we can find one. Um it might be so. I mean, I can search through, you can like look at this, like, never do this after posting a video. You can see that this video at 86,000 views compared to this channel, usually getting 600. Like, actions to avoid after posting a YouTube video. You can see there's like less than 30 videos on this. Um, we're looking at so basically you want to find those videos, and then once you've found those videos, the other thing that I often like to look at is the last thing is here. This is typical outlier score. So we we talked about like outlier score earlier, so like how well this video has performed compared to other videos on this channel, typically. Um typical outlier score, this shows like how well on average all of the videos on this topic are performed. And so what you want is like above one at the very least. It's like 1.4x means not just this video did well, but it means out of the less than 50 videos on this particular topic, they perform like 1.4x times better than average. And so what this is telling us is like, okay, there's a recent video that has drastically outperformed. There's let's say there's not many videos on this topic, or like a an in this case, there's like an average amount of videos, which for my age, like 50 it'd probably be in the mid-range. Um, but we can see that out of these videos, they all typically perform 1.4 times better than average. And so what that's telling us is like if I was to make a video on this topic, I'm sort of stacking the deck in my favor because not as many other channels making these videos, and when they do make these videos, they typically perform better than average, 40% better than average. Um, so that's kind of how I would go about it is like find like outline videos and then look at the supply and demand of those videos. You want to find something that people are watching or viewers are watching at a disproportionately high rate compared to other topics um that not many other people are making videos about. And that's that's where you it's very similar to it's very similar to like product market fit and software, right? It's like you want to find a niche where there's not many competitors and the customers are voracious and are really hungry and really want that solution. You're basically doing the same thing here with the videos. You're finding a video that is showing us that there's not many people, not many competitors, um, but customers are or viewers are really wanting to watch this type of video idea.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

That's so funny because I was exactly thinking about the correlation between between the two, and I was like, if there was a video for business and you could see actually the you know, like all these kind of numbers and data for a business, and you can see if you can go copy this SAS or not, it would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, like that's that's that's pretty much that's it's like the simplest way. If you do this frequently, again, you this isn't gonna work every single time. It's there is no like mathematical equation that I know of, or I don't think any I don't think anyone knows of it, but we're not aware of one yet. And we've had we have a lot of data to look at. But there's no mathematical equation that like 100% predicts virality and getting views. But if you do research like this, which 99% of people aren't doing right now, most people who are doing research, the only thing they're looking at is like, oh, did this video go viral? And you do this frequently, you're posting like two, three videos a week modeling proven, successful examples. Like eventually you're gonna have a video hit. Like it's just a matter of time. Unless your content is like absolute garbage and your your like retention is bad and your packaging is bad, which is the two things we just talked about, like you're gonna have a video hit.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

I feel like such a boomer because I really never ever checked the data like that, but it makes so much sense, you know, to just like check if it will work before you actually do the video. So yeah, I really like it. And one thing as well is that I did that once uh on my channel, it was like a long time ago, and I saw a guy who did this beautiful cinematic uh video about like his whole um entrepreneurship uh journey, and the video was probably like that like probably 100x is median uh views. It was a unique video, probably no one did that before. So I copied it and I got 1600 views. It was good, but the thing is that I didn't have the skill to do that cinematic video, and I think um that's something you should be aware of is that you can copy a concept, but you have to be able to actually do it as good as they did it, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Yeah, well, I think that's like that's one of the reasons why I like to look at this typical outline number, right? Because it's like uh we could probably find one in here. Yeah, here's an example, right? So you see, Elon Musk just changed how careers get paid big. This is big. This particular video got performed 18 times better than average. Most people are gonna like look at this who aren't doing the research and be like, oh, this is a great concept. I'm gonna make a video on this. What you can see is the typical outline. So the average video on this actually performs half as good as usual, right? So it's like maybe there was just something special about this particular video. Maybe it was the time this video was posted, like the timing, maybe it was the way it was presented, maybe it was maybe it had a shout-out from someone, maybe it was using paid ads. I don't know. I haven't investigated this particular video, obviously. But like that's where not just looking at the individual video, but looking at how other videos on this topic have also performed, um, I think is really useful. Because again, what you want to find is like something that on average, like for example, this specific one, this is probably better, right? Because we found this video up here, YouTube demonetizing channels. This is a bit broader. Then we have this specific video that's like YouTube demonetizing channels for inauthentic content specifically. So it's like kind of taken that and gone a bit deeper. You can see this one has like less competition, less than 10 videos, but the typical video on this performs 2.7 times better than average, gets 12,000 views, right? So it's like if I was to make a video like this, not only is this video doing well, but all of the other videos on this topic are also doing well. So it's like that's very much even though this is like an outlier video, exactly the same as this, you're gonna have a much better time getting views on something like this because the data is just showing us that like other videos like this are also getting views, which is not the case with this video.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

I love it, and that's uh actually the perfect transition because I invite you. I invited you because you're not just a content creator, you're also a founder. Velio is your business, uh, it's a SaaS, you're selling it, and you did an amazing launch. Uh, if I'm remembering well, you got dozen paying users in two months with only two YouTube videos to actually promote it. And this is something I want to talk about because a lot of the people who will watch this video are founders, they want to start a channel and they want to actually sell their product, which is an app, a SaaS, or a service. Yeah, how did you actually combine both? And can you just like walk us through how it worked during the launch?

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Yeah. Yeah. So we were completely bootstrapped and we went from zero to a thousand paying users for just two YouTube videos. Um it took about two months. Um, but the catch was there are very specific type of YouTube videos. So we can talk about that. Um the first step is like we said, this like in the beginning, I talked about like there being kind of like two stages like getting your channel right, your channel strategy right, and then getting an individual video strategy right. So we talked about the channel strategy, right? There's six steps, and then now it's like about getting the individual video right, and specifically an individual video that's actually going to get you sales. Because not all videos that get views will get you sales, as I'm sure you're aware. Um the first the first thing that I like to think about is we need to make sure that we're giving the audience what they want, not what we want to give them. So you want to meet the market where they're at, which comes down to the ideation stuff that we just talked about. You want to find ideas that are already working and then make videos around those those topic those topics that are already working and proven to work, rather than trying to make a video about your product and service and try and get that to go viral, right? Um, so that's the first thing. And like a way to think about that is uh the problem a lot of founders make, I think, is they make solution aware videos, not problem-aware videos. So for example, um, if I was to, so I have I have value, it's like YouTube software, it's about like how to how to find viral video ideas, how to research and all that all that shit. Um if I was to make a video that was like how to find viral video ideas on YouTube, that's not going to perform that well for me, most likely, because that video operates under the assumption that people that my customers already know that viral video ideas are the solution to their problem. Right. So it's a solution aware video. A problem aware video would be like the one I launched my software with, which was like, if you have less than a thousand, the title of it was if you have less than a thousand subscribers, do this. Right? So it's like they don't need to know that viral ideas are the solution to their problem. They just they just see that and they're like, I have this problem. Like I want the solution to it. Um so that would be the first the the type of video that I would probably focus on that's had the biggest impact for me are those problem-aware videos. You can make solution aware videos, and I'd recommend probably making them as well. But that's again, that's only really gonna hit the you hear like the what do they call the larger market theory where it's like only three percent of people are actually ready to buy. Um that's only gonna hit the three percent. Um, so problem-aware videos. Um, and yeah, so you were gonna say something there. You want to jump in?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

No, no, it's I I tried to find an uh an example, but for me, let's say like um I'm talking about open cloud this day. Problem aware will be no solution aware will be like um this is how you create uh 15 agents to automate your business with open cloud. So they know that they need uh they already know that they need open cloud to automate their business, and problem aware will be um something about maybe the time they have with their business. Like this is all you yeah, I have no title ID actually. You probably have one, but yeah, basically, like yeah, this is like how you can uh do more with uh less work or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah, well, I think the scenario that you brought up there is actually really interesting because the the thing with open claw is that there are a lot of solution aware people, like there are a lot of people who are interested in open. So you can make more solution aware videos. But the problem most founders have, I think, who are like, I guess we're talking specifically about like software founders trying to promote their initial business, is that people don't know who the hell they are. So like there are no like if you are uh if you are open claw, everyone's talking about open claw. So you can make more solution aware videos. But if if I was trying to create again my YouTube research software, no one knew what Valio was, no one knew Valio existed, like relative. Like there might have been a couple hundred people aware, right? But and so I need to then focus on more problem-aware videos rather than solution-aware videos, um, which is I think uh the mistake people people make a lot. So it's like it's not necessarily saying that solution aware videos are bad, it's that for launching a product that not many people know about yet, in that specific circumstance, they typically don't perform.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Actually, really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Yeah, so solution aware, uh not so much problem aware videos. From there, what I will typically do is again, I'll look through and do the ideation stuff that we just talked about and I'll try and find like the ideas to get the topics to get inspiration from to talk about. Um so like for me, again, at the time it was like if you're under a thousand subscribers, do this. And then from there, basically I make I make a video and I'll lay out I'll lay out sort of like the structure that I've found works best for selling software. And I've tested this quite a lot with my own product, but also tested this with like affiliate marketing products and stuff. Um this is probably made this one video format alone is probably made like over like well over seven figures. Um so basically what you want to do is you start out by talking about the problem people have. So if I was talking about like reaching a thousand subscribers, right? It's like if you're under a thousand subscribers, do this is like the video title. I might start out by talking about, you know, like you're not getting views, no one's watching your your content, like you're following all the gurus are saying and it's not working, right? So I'm hitting, I'm talking about the problem. And then what we want to do is like give them some sort of perspective shift that solidifies in their mind that we know what I'm talking about, that we know what we're talking about. Like some something, like some early value that's like, oh, that's really interesting. Like I had no idea about that. Um, and this completely changes the way I think about this problem, right? So you're establishing yourself as someone because the thing, people are people are gonna be skeptical, right? So you can't you can't get straight into talking about your product or showing them about your product because they're gonna be like, oh, this guy's just a salesperson. So you need to give them some value immediately, like a perspective shift before you can start talking about your product. So in my example, for example, I had 300,000 subscribers do this, the title, they click on that, and then I I talk a bit about that problem. And then the perspective shift for me was most creators think that YouTube isn't promoting their videos. But if you actually go into your analytics and you look at your impressions, even if you're only getting 10 views, chances are you probably have more than 10 impressions, maybe 30, 40, 50, something like that, right? So YouTube is promoting your video, it's just not getting positive signals from the people it is promoting your video to. And so the problem isn't most people think the algorithm isn't promoting their video. The problem is the algorithm is promoting your video, your video is just not clicking or resonating with the people it's promoting to. Um and so for a lot of people in my case, that was like a perspective shift because everyone's like, ah, the algorithm, like fuck the algorithm, the algorithm hates small creators. But then I actually show them and they follow along and they go, oh, okay. And they go into their YouTube analytics and they click in impressions and they're like, oh shit. My video that got 30 views last week actually did have a bunch of impressions. Like it, like I can like he's right, right? So at that point, they're like, like, okay, this guy knows what he's talking about. No one showed me this before, my perspectives change. So what's the solution? And then I basically walk through a formula or a method that's like a multi-stage process, and it naturally integrates my product within it. So, for example, for me, I'm like, I might, I might go through it's like what I did earlier, kind of unintentionally, is kind of like that. So, like basically where I was like, okay, so you want to focus on you know ally theory and then supply and demand, and look at those two elements. And we walk that through step by step and then naturally integrate your product within that. So you're not, and then you let basically let try and let the method itself and the the methodology and the principles you're sharing sell the product more than you sell the product. So you're not trying to be like, oh, there's this awesome product, and you can see if I click here, it does this, and if we click it's like, no, like here's the methodology, here's the theory, here's why the theory works, and let me show you examples of how it works and whatever, and let me demonstrate this to you. And then there's just like a really natural sell at the end because it's like, well, he's walked me through this four-step process that is so like in my my stages were like what you've got to track your competitors because you need you need your niche in one place so you can actually analyze your niche, right? So you track your competitors, and then once you've tracked your competitors, then you look for outlier videos. And then once you find the outlier videos, then you go and do like competition, like supply and demand research on them to see like, are other videos being made on this topic? And if so, how are they performing and how many of them are there? And then at the end, it's like, okay, um, you you can then be like, oh, and by the way, if you want to do this with my product, here's my product, and you can sign up and do it this way. Um so yeah, that's kind of that's kind of the rough, the rough process, like hit the problem, hit them with some like sort of perspective shift, and have a method that like shh kind of subtly demonstrates how the product works gradually. And then by the end of it, if your product's actually good and your methodology is actually good and useful, like people should almost like sell themselves on the product. Like, oh, this like it makes so much sense. Like this guy knows exactly what I'm talking about, he knows what all my problems are, like he's Proven to me that that he know he's the one who knows the solution to my problems, not these other people. Um and the method makes sense to me. Like logically, the theory checks out. So, like, of course, I'm gonna buy his product if his product helps me do everything he just showed me how to do so much easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

I like the impression um example because there is a lot of examples of channel who explode at the first video. So basically, there is no warm-up on YouTube. People think that you have to be consistent for this little guy behind the algorithm who say, Oh, this guy is consistent, I will reward him. But that's not true. It's like they are waiting for you to actually build the video or like create the video that will actually work on their algorithm. So, what would you do if you had to start over? Like you have like a brand new YouTube channel. Um, you want to set a software. Like, where do I start? Do I spend one month thinking about the best concept and actually create the best video? Or do I just throw anything I have in my mind on YouTube and I wait until I find a good format?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

Yeah, no, that's a good question. So most people who are watching this probably don't have a huge amount of prior success on YouTube. Majority. Um, a lot of the time when you see these, not all the time, but a lot of the time when you see these channels go go viral from their first video, um, because like I study a lot of these channels, right? Like, because it's sort of my niche to like figure out what's going on. Like, I would say in at least like 80 to 90% of the cases, those people have had prior success and experience on YouTube. Like they know how the game works. Um, most of the people watching this, if you haven't got like another successful channel, you might not that that like one hit wonder video strategy is probably not going to work for you. So um I would pretty much just go through the steps we talked about earlier. So frequency, I would try and post, like depending on how hard it is for me to create the content I'm trying to create, but if it's like talking head videos and I'm trying to get started fast, like two, three videos a week, um, then I would have like I'd I'd sit down and probably spend like an hour or two thinking about my X factors and like what I want to consciously portray, like the flavor of content I want to create and just be aware of that when I'm making the videos, like how do I want the videos to feel and what is the specific value I want to exaggerate in the videos. And after that, it's like consistency. It's like okay, getting clear on like what specific videos are you making, like who are you making the these videos for? Again, the mentality that I think about is like you want people to who click on your videos when they land in your channel to also want to watch all of your other videos. So it needs to be that related. Um then after that, again, you've got the retention side of things. So just making sure, and for retention, what I often like to do um is the easiest, the easiest way to sort of like get good at retention is um I can just share my screen again real quick. I'll show you. Um the easiest thing is again to study what's already working. So what I like to do is um if I'm in value and I've got my competitor database here, for example, um, I can go into filters and I'll just look at videos like posted in the last year. Um, and I'll sort those videos by the most views. Um because for a video to do well initially, it needs to have like good packaging, and that their content itself can actually be a little bit more on the average side, like not bad, but it can be average. But for a video to scale, it has to have uh pretty like the content itself has to also be really fucking good. Um, so what I would often do is like in the last year in my niche, like I've I've got all my competitors here, so all my competitors here, I've filtered by last year, I've sorted by most views. So these are the most viewed videos in my entire niche in the last year. What I would do is I just go through, watch three, five, ten of them, um, and really pay attention to what they're doing. So pay attention to like how they're structuring the video, the hooks they're using, like what they're saying. Uh, and like almost, almost try and look at their videos as formulas. Like if like the formula I gave you earlier, where it's like I start out by talking about the problem, then I give them like a perspective shift and prove to them that I know what I'm talking about. And then after that, I have like a method where it's like a multi-step, like step one, do this, step two, do this, step three, do this, step four. Um, you want to kind of like do that for your competitors and be like, okay, like what what what is their formula that's working really well for these top videos? Like this is a perfect example here. This channel, three like this video posted three months ago, got 1.3 million views. In the last year, it's the third most viewed video in my entire niche. I would go and watch that and be like, okay, how does he introduce video? How does he and you're not copying what he says, you're just taking the framework and swapping out the variables for what you want to say. Um, so that's that's the retention side. Like, practically, that's probably what I would do. I'd probably spend and like all this stuff I've done, like deciding on your upload frequency, like that should be like a 10-minute decision. Deciding on your X factors, maybe spend like an hour or two like journaling on that, asking some friends, figuring out what the core ones are. Um, and after that, being consistent, like figuring out what you want to talk about. Um, if you are a software founder, you probably already know like the topic you're talking about is going to be the related to the software that you're creating, right? So you choose that, should be like again, another half an hour. So again, we're doing all of this in like the span of like half a day. So we're moving quickly. Um then we're going in and we're watching all of our competitors here, maybe spend like maybe like six, six to twelve hours doing that. But again, you want to make sure you're doing it to like the top videos. You don't want to be doing this like average performance or decent performance. You want to be doing this to like the best videos across your entire niche. Um, you want to learn from the very best. Um, and then once you kind of got an idea of like their formats or formulas, then again, I would go to packaging. Um, so for packaging, again, I would also take inspiration from videos that are trending in my niche, so videos that are starting to blow up. I could also look at other niches that are adjacent to mine. So I might create databases. So, for example, I have databases for um like I have a bunch of different databases in here, and I have like databases for like advertising and digital marketing because advertising and digital marketing is kind of related to YouTube. So often I can go into there and see what their thumbnails are and sort of get inspiration from their formats and stuff like that. Um, and then especially if you're not very good at design, I probably get a thumbnail designer to actually design the concept. Um you can go to a there's a good Discord server called Thumbnails 101. Um, so I'd that's probably where I would go. That's where I hire most of my thumbnail designers. Um so go thumbnails 101, find find some like good concepts, hire a thumbnail designer. Um, how long would that take? I'd probably spend again the thumbnail research can be like as take as long as it takes for you to find a good concept. Um using a tool, maybe it'd take like a couple of hours to find like some decent ones. Uh if you're doing it manually on YouTube, like your home page or something, it'll take you a lot longer because YouTube's obviously designed for viewers. Um maybe like a day or so. Um and then after that, it's like yeah, you're coming up with your your ideas. Like, what are you actually talking about? Actually, you're you're you're coming with the ideas earlier than the thumbnail and the thumbnail and editing, obviously, right? So you're coming with the ideas first and then you're looking at the thumbnail and editing. Um and yeah, so all of this, like realistically, if you're like locked in and like going hard, you could have your YouTube strategy up and running in like a couple of days.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

I love it. And I got so many things from that. And I have a question about it because now you showed all your different lists that you have. Uh, you have your competitors, but I guess that you also sometimes take concepts outside of your field, right? For example, there is um yeah, this concept of video I saw is like people who are just like studying and they film themselves for five hours studying, and they get millions and millions of views. And then there is this other guy, I don't remember his name, but he's doing vibe coding and he filmed himself vibe coding for hours as well. And he gets also tens of thousands, maybe hundredk views just with that. And I feel like there is an emotion between two, is that you don't want to be alone doing something that is kind of lonely, like yeah, studying something or uh uh building or vibe coding something that doesn't make money yet. So this guy probably took this concept from this field to bring it in the vibe coding AI field. Do you do that often and how do you do that if you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Yeah, so I I do that quite frequently. Um the way I start initially, like if you're a complete beginner and like you want to get up and running as quickly as possible, is again, we're just looking at your niche and what's working there. Uh, but obviously, if you only just do that, you're gonna run out of ideas and also it's not gonna be fresh and unique. Um, so then the additional step you can add on, which um I can jam my screen again. Um the additional step I add on is like looking at um formats from other niches and like thumbnail ideas from other niches and stuff like that. Um so the way you can do that again is like like you mentioned, so I have like different different databases in here. So I have like a database for dropshipping, I have a database for advertising and digital marketing, I have uh I have a database of like the top 100 YouTubers, just like the most subscribed YouTubers, just out of curiosity. I have a database for like statistical and analytical data channels, and I can often scroll through them and look at their the trending tabs inside of those databases and figure out like, okay, like what is what's working well in these spaces and how can I potentially bend those concepts across to my own. Now that that can be a little more advanced. So again, if you're a complete beginner just starting out, I'd probably like you want to make it as simple as possible. Like you want as few steps as possible. Um, again, assuming we're talking to someone who like hasn't really done YouTube before. Um, but as you start to do YouTube, you can start to have these different databases. The other thing you can do, um, and again, all the thing I'm talking about here probably seems like I'm just selling Value really hard. But like you can do this on YouTube as well. Like the principle here is the most important. So, like the other thing you can do is just look at formats from other niches. So, for example, now on Velia, we like break down all of the these viral videos into different like format categories. So, what you could do is you could just go and if you're making tutorial videos, for example, you go to the tutorial, and then you can look at uh all of these different tutorial videos from completely different niches that have done well and see if you can bend those into your own based on topics that are working well. So it's a bit more complex, but like uh an example would be so let's say I was looking at my database and I found that in my niche, videos about making viral thumbnails is doing really well. Like viral thumbnails is like a topic that's performing really well. Um I could take that topic and then combine it with a format from another niche. So if this video, for example, showed out learn to code like a genius and not waste time. I could take this and be like, uh, learn to make viral thumbnails and not waste time, or learn to make viral thumbnails like a YouTube genius, or learn to make thumbnails like a YouTube genius and not waste time. And so you're taking this format from another niche, taking it into your niche, but combining it with a topic that's proven to work. Um, and that's where you can really start to start to really make a big name, like a bigger name for yourself, because now you're you're adding something really fresh and unique to the conversation. Um, again, like this is a little more on the advanced side, and that's why I like I'd usually start off slower. Um but you can 100% go in here and look at different formats and try and take these different formats and like bend them into your own name.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:04

So many things I want to say, but I think I will uh ask you two last question. All right. The first one is maybe was what is the biggest mistake to avoid when you start a YouTube channel? Because I'm sure there is mistakes that waste a lot of time and you should avoid them.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:24

Yeah. Probably is a callback to like what we talked about earlier. I think the biggest mistake is like spending time on things that don't matter. Like your time is a limited resource for many founders, you're very busy. And for you to spend time on SEO, to spend time on like with tags, for you to spend time on like making sure you upload perfectly at the precise time every like just to waste time on things that don't matter is the biggest mistake that I see most YouTubers doing. Um like even if you like I can take I can I can take creators who are who have very little talent. I've seen many creators who have very little talent, but they just focus on like the small subset of things that matter, and they absolutely crush people who actually are talented and are charismatic and all this kind of thing, just because they're running around trying to get their view to rank in like Google Search or show up in Gemini or like uh worried about like trying to jump on the latest algorithm hack by adding like hashtags in their description or like all these random things that just don't matter. It's like yeah, it's I think maybe put another way as well. It's like some of those people like hear the fundamentals, like ideation, packaging, retention, whatever. They try it a little bit and it doesn't get them a bunch of views immediately. So they're like, oh, and they go start looking for like the YouTube algorithm hack, sort of a symptom of a more specific symptom of the problem we just talked about. It's like no, it's not that these fundamentals don't work, it's not that there's other YouTubers out there doing something that you don't know, it's that you're not you're not doing these things correctly and properly and and right yet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:12

And the last question if I'm a funder, I'm looking at this video, I want to start a YouTube channel, I know it's a long road. What is the mindset I need to actually keep going?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Yeah, that's a good question. I think the mindset for me, I I think about it as I think about it almost like I don't invest in startups, but if I did invest in startups, I would imagine it's it would be like what I've hoped. Um and that is it's not about like in startups you're not trying to make every single like most of your investments aren't going to go um and you just gotta accept that. But then you'll have the the unicorns that blow up and make it worthwhile. I think YouTube is like similar to that. A lot of your videos, like 80% of your videos, 90% of your videos will do next to nothing. But it's that 10% or that 20% that blow up that generate all the results and make everything else so much more worthwhile. So I would probably focus less. My mentality would be more on doing the six fundamental things we talked about and doing research the right way, and then doing that repeatedly, trying to find that video that blows up and takes my whole channel with it and makes it so much easier, rather than like obsessing over why did my like obsessing over trying to make every single video get like consistent views and like why did my last video get a hundred views rather compared to like I've seen for example people like their videos their last video got a hundred views and their video before that got 150 and they're like spending a bunch of time trying to figure out exactly why. It's like I would it's like just just keep going, just like keep going, keep keep doing the the research, keep making sure you have good ideas, good titles and thumbnails, good packaging, and just do that frequently over a long enough time horizon, and eventually one of those videos will pop.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:21

Well, Marcus, thank you for your time. That was amazing. And I'm sure you will come back on the channel to teach us even more so. Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:31

No, I appreciate it. Apologies for blabbing a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:33

If you like this episode, you will probably want to watch Marcus roasting my YouTube channel for twenty minutes. I wasn't supposed to share this private coaching, but I thought it might also help you start or fix your own YouTube channel.