Introduction

Today's guest makes $250,000 a month doing pretty much nothing. "Some months I was making like 200k a month, 300K a month, but if you want to get past that, you really need like something else."

Born in Vietnam, he immigrated to the US with hopes of chasing the American dream. But after finding a stable job with an $80,000 a year salary, he abandoned everything to become a YouTuber. "And I really, really hated [school]. When you don't have friends, then you're not worried about social pressure. It just wasn't as weird for me to like start a YouTube channel."

Today he's amassed nearly 2 million subscribers and generated millions of dollars exploring topics like corruption, conspiracies, and power. "All the evil stuff they were doing back then is still happening today. Human nature hasn't changed at all."

In this episode, we'll dive into the process of building and scaling a faceless YouTube channel, explore his views on evil corporations and modern conspiracies, and uncover the dark mystery of who really runs the world.

"What's the most money you've made from a YouTube video?" "Probably..."

Jake Tran, welcome to the Jack Neil podcast.

Interview Begins

Jake: Thanks for having me.

Host: Yeah, of course, man. I've been a fan of your channel for a while. We're kind of - I used to do like a similar niche with the documentary-style YouTube videos, so it's really cool to finally meet you, man. So a good place to start here - how much money has your YouTube channel made you?

Jake: In terms of like, probably less than 10 mil, but in like the multiples of millions. Yes, less than $10 million.

Host: And how many hours do you work a day?

Jake: You know, at the start I was doing everything myself because I stubbornly, stubbornly believe that no one could edit better than me, no one could write better than me, no one can make the thumbnails better than me. But once I finally got past that limiting belief of like, you know, the artist mindset where you have to do everything yourself, I started outsourcing each part of the process of the creation of a faceless video. And these days on the channels, I probably only work around maybe two to four hours a day.

Host: Gotcha. Okay, so you have three channels right now, or I guess you work with a bunch of channels as well?

Jake: Yeah, two main channels. So I have the Jake Tran channel at 1.8 million subscribers, Evil Food Supply - my second channel at - we just crossed 300K subscribers, and there's a few other channels that I'm building right now and I advise on too.

Host: Gotcha. So for the main channel, is that - would you say an hour a day?

Jake: Yeah, probably like an hour a day around there.

Host: Got it. And that's usually - yeah, people ask me this a lot - like what do I do?

Jake: I mainly think about, you know, what videos do we create next, what's the next video idea. I decide on that. I review when my writers come up with the outline for the video, like a summary of what we're going to talk about. I review that just to make sure everything's in the right place and we mention everything we want to mention. Then I review the final scripts. For my main channel, since I still use my voice, I record the voiceover - that probably takes like 30 minutes to an hour. And then I review the final edit. I give some direction on the title thumbnail. I review the final title thumbnail before it goes live, and that's pretty much it.

Scaling to Success

Host: You said when you first started going viral and getting kind of consistent income, you scaled the channel up to maybe $30,000 a month. And what kind of took it to that next level? You mentioned the limiting belief like the artist mindset, but what were all the moving factors?

Jake: So once I finally have my first video that did well, growth was like pretty fast after that. I was able to go up to like 15-20K a month, I believe, after just a few months. But by then I hit a ceiling where I really couldn't break past like 20, maybe 25k a month. And it was because I was doing everything myself, so I was working like 10 to 12 hours a day because I was doing the entire process myself.

And like I mentioned earlier, I stubbornly believe that no one can do it better than me - like how could anyone write a video better than me? How could anyone edit like one of my videos better than me?

And it wasn't until I met a business mentor - his name is Arvid - and he comes from the pure business world, and he was a fan of my channel. And he started explaining to me that, you know, if I didn't figure this out, if I didn't take myself away from the process, if I didn't disconnect, you know, how many hours I worked from how much money I made, it would just be another job and eventually I would get burnt out just like I did with my other job.

So from then on, I slowly started outsourcing each part of the process of making a faceless video. And because I was still like kind of nervous about it - like, you know, what if I messed this up or whatever, or what if they can't do it better than me - I specifically outsourced the easiest parts first.

So I believe I first started by getting like a virtual assistant just to take care of like minutia tasks. And then I hired an audio editor who takes my raw voiceover audio and trims it down into the final voiceover file, so that was pretty easy. And with every step that I outsourced, I gained a little bit more confidence that, hey, there's like 8 billion people out there - there's definitely someone that can, you know, edit better than me.

So next up, I outsourced the easiest part of the video to edit first - so like the last 30 to 60 seconds. So I hired a video editor. I made sure the work they were doing was good, like it was up to my standards. And once I saw that they could do it, I then outsourced like the next minute of the video, and eventually I got up to the point where the entire video wasn't being edited by me anymore. And that saved me so much time.

And then I moved on to outsourcing like the thumbnails and then the writing itself, to where today I kind of view myself as like the master chef where I just make sure the food comes out good.

Outsourcing Strategy

Host: I've heard you chat about that process before of kind of going backwards to forwards. Can you explain to people wanting to start YouTube channels or just do social media in general why it's so important to outsource like the reverse of the video? You know, like you did - you started with the last 30 seconds, then you did like the last five minutes, then eventually you got to the first 10 seconds.

Jake: Yeah, I think if you're already creating content and you're already making money from it and you have this like artist limiting belief, I think that's a good place to start where you just outsource the easiest parts first. That way it's not so overwhelming and you can prove to yourself that it's possible to keep up the quality while still you actually not doing the work yourself.

If you're starting from absolute scratch and you have like zero desire to learn video editing - it is like a good, decent skill that you're going to have to learn - it's totally okay to outsource the entire thing right from the start since you don't have like a style, you don't have an existing personal style that you're trying to like mimic.

So those are my thoughts on it. Does that answer your question?

Host: I guess more so, like why would you leave - like why do you consider the end of the video to be less important than the beginning of the video, for instance?

Jake: Yeah, so I view everything as happening in a chain, where on YouTube it's not just the video itself that's important. First it's the channel idea - like how your channel is positioned. Then it's the video ideas you choose. Then it's the title thumbnail, because unlike TikTok or Instagram, you have to - on YouTube you have to make a conscious decision on what video you're going to click on next, and the main tool we have to determine that is the title and thumbnail.

Host: Would you say thumbnail is more important than the title?

Jake: I think they work together because a really good thumbnail with a wrong title cannot work. A really good title with the wrong thumbnail can also not work. But like an okay thumbnail with the right title - that could be like a really good offer that people really want to click on. So they really have to work together.

When I'm judging a thumbnail, I always have like the title in place just to see what they look like together, because I think they work off of each other, if that makes sense.

Host: That's interesting. And then what's the next most important part after title thumbnail?

Jake: So once they actually click on your video, then you have to hook them in with the first like 30 seconds, 60 seconds of the video. So I call that the hook. And the goal of that is to just get them as excited as possible, get their emotions as high as possible, so that they're actually invested to stick around to the rest of the video.

So I think of it as like leaving them on an open loop. So kind of like in a movie or a TV show, something happens at the start of the movie and it leaves you off of an open loop where you have to watch until the end to figure out how it concludes. That's how I view like structuring a video.

So kind of like if you think about The Dark Knight movie, it starts out with that famous scene of the Joker doing that bank robbery, so it leaves you on a giant open loop where you have to watch the rest of the movie to figure out like what's actually happening.

Host: That's interesting. So kind of along the lines of thumbnail creates curiosity, title compliments a thumbnail and creates even more curiosity, you click it and then you get a little bit of that interest kind of answered, but it also creates a new question. So creating good YouTube content is a mixture of like question-answer, like dopamine hit question. Would you say that's kind of a good way to think about it, or just leaving an open loop of something that keeps you watching?

Jake: Yeah, leaving an open loop. Like the title thumbnail leaves you on an open loop, then the hook makes you watch the next part of the video, then the next part of the video makes sure you watch the next part, and maybe at the end you have a call to action to watch another video on your channel.

Making Money on Social Media

Host: What's your advice for making more money on social media?

Jake: My business mentor explained this really simply. He said when something's making money, you just do more of that thing that's making money. So in my case, my videos were making a good amount of money - like I think it was around like 5K in revenue per video when I was first starting out. So I was making like four videos a month, so I was making like 20K a month.

So if you want to make more money, then you just increase what's already making money. So you upload more, ideally keeping the same quality. And that's literally all I did. Throughout this whole like automation outsourcing process, I was able to increase my uploads to maybe double - eight videos a month. So because I was maintaining the same quality, I was now making 40K a month, doubling my income without necessarily putting in double the hours.

Host: Got it. And where did the decision come to do three channels as opposed to one and just doing like an upload every single day?

Jake: So I view every channel just like any other business - like every channel is its own brand. So like the brand of the Jake Tran channel is like these kind of like 48 Laws of Power type videos. But I started noticing like other channel opportunities out there, like other channel ideas that I could start. But if I were to post the same videos on my main channel, then it just wouldn't really fit the brand. People are coming to this channel expecting one thing, so you want to keep delivering on that one thing, just like your podcast, for example.

That makes sense. On top of that, I also wanted to diversify my income a little bit more. You know, just having two different channels growing at the same time, that just offers me like more options - two different income streams. On the other channel, we have like this product now, Evil Goods, so that's another income stream that I couldn't really start on my main channel.

So yeah, I just saw like other really good channel ideas out there that I really wanted to start, but I knew they wouldn't really fit on my main channel.

Channel Branding and Segmentation

Host: That's interesting. So would you say you're really big on segmentation when it comes to social media? Like this podcast, for instance, I posted it on my crime channel, which was a mistake in hindsight. But how do you decide what video are like, "Okay, this doesn't fit with what the viewers like, this needs to go on another channel?" Do you have any process for that?

Jake: So I've learned a lot about branding throughout this process, and at the most fundamental level, a brand is simply a promise. You know, the promise of a Toyota car is you're going to get a really reliable Japanese car, and nothing more, nothing less. And a channel is the same way.

Every channel is a promise. My - the promise of the Jake Tran channel is you're going to get these contrarian 48 Laws of Power type videos. And the way you build a brand is by continually delivering on that promise over and over again.

You know, a lot of people give Taylor Swift a lot of shit for, you know, basically putting out the same albums all these years, but that's exactly the point. That's her brand. People come to her for these teenage heartbreak type songs, and she is at the top of her game. She's like the biggest pop star right now because she keeps - she's the best at continually delivering on that promise in a new, fresh way for her audience.

So a channel is the same way. If I post like a podcast video on my main channel, that completely goes against the promise of the channel. So you should just start a different channel to do that, for sure.

Host: That's interesting. The deviation... like I guess more specifically, like so you had a really viral video talking about Nestle and like how it's an evil company, and then now you have this channel that's related to kind of the food industry, right? Would - if you made that video tomorrow, would that video go on the current Jake Tran channel, or would that go on the Evil Foods kind of channel?

Jake: The Nestle video I would keep it on the Jake Tran channel because I more so talk about the business of Nestle versus like the actual health implications or why it's unhealthy. If I were to make a video on the Evil Food Supply channel about Nestle, it would be more about like why their stuff is unhealthy, all the toxic stuff inside their ingredients and stuff like that, versus the Jake Tran channel - it focuses more on like the money and power aspect of it.

Host: So you're kind of thinking about what the audience gets out of your videos rather than the topics themselves. So they watch the Jake Tran channel for what would you say? Like money, power, war, crime, 48 Laws of Power, that kind of thing?

Jake: Yeah, and they want to learn about those topics.

Host: And then Nestle wouldn't fit inside of that because it's more about... okay, that makes sense. Interesting.

Jake: And maybe a good example is like how I came up with the Evil Food Supply channel. So I was really getting into like alternative health just for my own sake - like I want to improve my health. And I noticed that on the alternative health space on YouTube, it was usually either, you know, like old white doctors talking to the camera - and nothing wrong with them, but it was just really boring to watch. It wasn't very inspirational either, or emotional, or dramatic at all. And the other segment was like young white girls talking about alternative health - which again, nothing wrong against them, but I couldn't really relate to it as like a male.

So I saw that there was giant gap in the marketplace for high-quality faceless videos about alternative health that were more in like a documentary format. And it was just such a big gap - like it's such a big no-brainer to me that I just had to create the Evil Food Supply channel.

Finding Opportunities

Host: How did you know it was a good opportunity though? Were those videos still getting views? Were they - was there a lot of SEO?

Jake: I think there's two worlds on YouTube. One world is where you try to go viral right when you upload the video - like a million views in a day or whatever. The other world is ranking for keywords like SEO. So my world for these channels is trying to go viral, so I don't really care about SEO at all.

It was more that I saw that these videos from these other channels that were pretty boring, they were going like super viral really. Like Dr. Eric Berg - have you seen him?

Host: I think so.

Jake: Yeah, his videos get crazy amounts of views. And yet there was no like higher quality, higher production quality channel in that niche. So I saw like a really big gap in that sense.

Another way to think about it is if you were to go to New York and you wanted to open up a restaurant, would it be a good idea to open up yet another pizza shop, or should you look at what are the - what is the market of restaurants out there and what's - what food is not being offered and offering that? So that's kind of how I view finding a really good like channel opportunity.

Host: That's interesting. I think a big reason my crime channel worked originally - the opportunity I saw there was true crime is majority like women speaking to the camera, like maybe doing their makeup or just like telling a crime story. And there was one guy, Mr. Ballen - he's maybe in his 30s, like Navy SEAL type. And I was like, "Oh, I don't see any like 20-year-old young people talking about this topic." So I feel like there's an opportunity here. So that's interesting you think of it the same way.

Jake: Yeah, exact same thought process.

Hiring and Management

Host: As far as hiring talent goes, why are employees overseas better than American workers?

Jake: So that's a really great question. So most creators or like YouTube channel owners or whatever, when they go about outsourcing, their goal is to find like this jack of all trades that can just do everything for them - like just one golden employee that they pay a lot of money and they can do the title thumbnails, they can do the video editing, they can do the writing, they can do all these things and manage everything. Because they can do it and they think other people can do it exactly.

But the problem with that is that number one, they're really hard to find, these jack of all trades types. And on top of that, if you find someone like that, you're gonna have to pay them a lot of money. And then your entire business, instead of being dependent on you, now it's dependent on them - this one single point of failure.

Whereas I took the exact opposite route. Instead of trying to find like one single jack of all trades, I broke the process of creating a faceless video into its fundamental parts - like writing, thumbnail design, video editing, audio editing, etc. - and I just hired for those specific roles.

And yes, you can totally do that in America, but the problem is the rates here are really high. And on top of that, culturally in America, employees - they're always - like their current job is always like kind of like the bridge to the next opportunity. They're always chasing the next thing.

Whereas in somewhere like the Philippines or South Africa or even in the Middle East, Africa, all over - like their entire dream is to have a stable remote video editing job that pays them double, triple, quadruple what a job that they can get in their home country, where the quality of life is way better because like the jobs in their countries are really terrible.

So them working for you is like their dream job, whereas here, them work - like having an employee that works for you, it's like their stepping stone. So they're not super motivated in America. They're not as hardworking, whereas over there, it's like the exact opposite.

Host: Have you found any correlation between talent level and how much you have to pay that employee?

Jake: There's like going market rates for each role. So like a really good video editor, you can get one that's really solid for six, seven, eight dollars per hour. Other roles I found like have kind of like a going rate like that too.

Host: What was the hardest role to outsource, would you say?

Jake: Probably writing, because number one, there's no pool of YouTube writers out there really. The only writers you're going to find online - the only jobs that they've been able to work are like blog writing jobs or SEO writing jobs, where it's completely different from YouTube writing.

When you write a blog to try to rank on Google, you're trying to jam as many keywords in there as possible, and you're just trying to jam as much information in there as possible. Whereas on YouTube, you're really trying to write more of a story that's like emotional and story-driven.

So I had to find a way to take this pool of genuinely good writers, but they just haven't been trained in YouTube videos, and put them through some kind of like SOP or process to train them to write my YouTube videos.

So what I did was I analyzed all my videos I did really well, and I realized that most of my videos - the really successful ones - they all follow relatively the same format. We have a hook, and then we tell the story in a certain way. Maybe we go through the Nestle story chronologically, or instead of that, we just have sections on different interesting things that Nestle has done.

So I broke down my really viral videos, I created templates for it, and then once I had those templates - like just a kind of like almost a fill-in-the-blank kind of thing that they could follow through - then I hired them, had them go through my template, kind of train them on my process, and that kind of guaranteed that they would write something a lot closer to what I want.

Host: I'm curious if you had this finding - this is something I found - was that I was trying to get people to write like me for so long, and then eventually I was like, "Let me just try a video where they write closer to how they write but still within my guidelines," and not adjust it at all and see if it does the same. And it relatively did about the same performance. Did you like have that experience? Like were you super like, "This has to sound exactly like Jake Tran's writing style," or...?

Jake: If you try to get it like completely one-to-one with my writing style, it's going to take forever, and they're probably never going to get there. So I get like 90% of the way there, and then I'm pretty satisfied with that. And I also give them like general rules of thumb like, "Hey, I like to say this phrase written this way so I can - when I speak it into the microphone, it's a lot easier for me." But yeah, I get like 90% of the way there, and then I'm pretty satisfied.

Host: Do you - are you big on like segmenting the edits of the video? Like this editor does the first minute, this editor does the next 10 minutes, the next editor does the next 10 minutes? Or is it usually one person?

Jake: Yeah, the secret to how I've been able to pump out so many videos really quickly is I have different editors working on each section of the video, and then at the end, a lead editor takes all their sections and stitches it together. And they all - they're all trained on my editing style. They know like the editing aesthetic that we're going for. So that's why it works, and that's why we can pop out a video like way faster than most channels.

Host: That's interesting. Yeah, I spend a disproportionate amount of time on the first minute of the video - like that takes just as long as... even with this podcast, we have these really complex intros, and that probably takes as long or twice as long as the full edit of the podcast plus the thumbnail plus like all the mid-form clips and such. But yeah, it's interesting.

Do you think Americans are lazy?

Jake: I don't think so, or else we wouldn't have the best country like with the best companies, the most accessible companies, I guess. For employees specifically, compared to like other country workers... well, if you paid Americans like 200k a year, then it would be as motivated as someone in the Philippines or whatever.

Host: You think so?

Jake: Maybe not as motivated, but pretty close. But on the other hand, not many people can afford to pay 200k per year employees.

Host: That's very true. Yeah, I guess I tried that one out myself.

So how do you manage the large amount of employees working on your YouTube channels?

Jake: So a lot of people like to have meetings. I hate meetings, so right from the start I made it a goal to not have any meetings at all. So throughout my entire business, I've probably only had like two or three meetings with some employees, and that was early on when I didn't really know what I was doing.

But I've set up everything in a way where, you know, everyone knows their responsibilities. They know that, "Hey, when I finish this edit, I'm going to give it to this guy. When I finish this audio, I'm going to give it to this editor team." So everything's streamlined like that to where everything works and I don't have to have any meetings.

And when I do have to explain something kind of complex, I always record a Loom - like a screen capture. I just use like Loom the app, and I just explain my thoughts visually, and that kind of gets the point across.

Host: Got it. That Loom has been a lifesaver for me. It like - I think its headline is like "no more meetings" or something, but yeah, it's very true.

Okay, so what would you say your software stack is on everything? Are you managing this all on Trello, Clickup, something like that?

Jake: For editing, we use Premiere Pro and After Effects from Adobe. Like Photoshop for thumbnails. To talk with everyone, we use Slack. But for the first like two years of me running my channel with other people, I literally just stuck to Skype, like the free messenger. So I think most people - you can just stick to a free messaging app like WhatsApp to start out. Once it gets too much to manage, then you can move on to Slack, but it does cost more money.

For project management, again, I stuck to no project management apps until I couldn't anymore. And then once I did, I tried all the other ones like Monday and whatever. I ended up going with Notion just because everything's customizable, so we used Notion for everything. And then for like the script writing, we just stick with Google Docs, Google Drive for storage.

Host: Got it. And then Frame for like reviews, probably?

Jake: Gotcha. Okay, I don't like Frame, but we have to use it. We just switched to Dropbox, Dropbox Replay. My issue with it was I couldn't use Replay on my phone, so like if I was like on the go, I couldn't like revise any edits or making sure things were happening, and editors weren't getting notifications. And I was like, "You know what, this isn't worth it. This is slowing us down just that much to where I'm going to switch it back to Frame."

But what don't - what do you not like about Frame?

Host: It's expensive. The mobile app barely works. It's a pain to use. It's really expensive.

Jake: Interesting.

And then as far as managing your employees, do you speak with them yourself, or do you have like an operator in place for the business?

Host: When we - once we have like too many of like the same person... I think I read this in Jocko's book, "Extreme Ownership," but once a team surpasses like four to five people, that becomes too much to manage. So you appoint one of them as a leader, and then you keep the teams around like four to five people. So that's what I do. Once there's like over four video editors, I'll just appoint the best one as the lead video editor, and I just communicate through him, and then he communicates with the rest. Same with the other roles.

Jake: Got it. And do you have a person like above all those people that you just talked to, or is that kind of hard to manage?

Host: I think most people should. I still do it myself just because I kind of know how everything works already.

Jake: That's interesting. Yeah, I think that might have been a mistake I made. I tried to make it to where I just speak to one person and they speak to everyone, but an issue that you find as a creator is like often your employees are excited to work for you, so they kind of want to like have that one-on-one relationship with you. Have you found that to be an issue, or...?

Host: I think it would be an issue if I hired fans, but I'm personally not a fan of hiring fans.

Jake: Have you done that? Is what - is that why?

Host: I feel like I've hired a bunch of fans on the editing side, or just like people that see the following and they kind of respect you more than like some other employee. They just don't feel as like personable. But some people have no issue with it at all.

Jake: I can see that becoming a problem. I think a lot of my employees like that I talk to them directly.

And then how do you hire people? Do you have any hiring secrets for YouTube channels?

Host: The big secret is most people - they look at their resume and their cover letter or whatever. I don't look at any of that. I just ask for their top three edits, their top - the top three things they've written, because that actually shows that they can do it.

And then most people hire them right away and then test them out for like a month. I test them out in like a day to see if they can actually do it. And then if they can't, I move on to the next applicant. And that just saves everyone time. If it's not the right fit for them, they can move on to a better opportunity for them, and then we get like a better editor too.

Jake: That's really interesting. A day?

Host: I mean, my thing is like if you assign someone an edit and if they can't do it in 24 hours, it's like should you really be an employee of the company? Like if you're not going to deliver now, then you're not going to deliver later.

Jake: Exactly. Are you hiring from like Indeed, LinkedIn, Online Jobs PH, Facebook groups, Reddit?

Host: My favorite has always been LinkedIn and Upwork.

Jake: Okay. Yeah, I found the most successful those. And you're hiring international on LinkedIn?

Host: Yeah.

Jake: Interesting. Okay. Yeah, you can make a job post on LinkedIn, and then would you say you're bigger on like hiring fast or firing fast?

Host: Both.

Jake: Gotcha. Yeah, every time I've given an employee like a second chance where they like mess up on something, it never ends well. So I think, you know, the faster they get to a better opportunity that fits them better, the better for them and the better for us too. So yeah, hire fast and fire fast.

Analytics and Going Viral

Jake: Something I saw from you - it was you don't believe analytics matter when a video goes viral.

Host: So everyone talks about, you know, click-through rate and watch time - how many people click on the thumbnail and how long they watch. But I think YouTube's AI is way more complex than that. I think there's a lot more factors. I think they take in everything from like if you're watching the video, if you're like scrolling to the comments or like scrolling to other videos, you're not actually engaging with the video.

Because I've had videos with really good click-through rate and watch time, but they don't really take off. But other videos where I can tell - I can just feel - the video is more... it connects with viewers more. People are - people just like it more, they're engaging more. Those videos take off even if the click-through rate and watch time is not as good.

So I think, you know, with our brand now I've learned more about the Amazon algorithm. I think YouTube's algorithm is just as complicated as Amazon or Google or OpenAI, where they take in way more than you think - like what you're looking at on the screen, where your mouse is going, commenting, likes, etc. I think that all plays a factor.

Jake: It's really interesting. What other parts of that - like what have you learned about Amazon's algorithm? Have there been any unique things that you're like, "Oh, I didn't know they looked at that?"

Host: So like I mentioned earlier, there's two worlds on YouTube - SEO trying to rank for keywords and trying to go viral. Amazon is pretty much exactly the same as like the key - the SEO world on YouTube, where on YouTube you're trying to find keywords that have high search volume a month - like 10,000 searches a month - with low competition so you can easily rank to the top position. And if you rank to the top position, you can capture a lot of those searches to your video and you get like passive views every month.

Amazon's the exact same way, where the whole goal to start out is you find keywords with high traffic, low competition, and if you make a genuinely good product with like a good hero image, a lot of people will click on it, it will naturally rank to the top, and you'll capture a lot of those sales.

Jake: In your experience having worked with like new and upcoming YouTube channels and people asking for advice, like what's the biggest lever people aren't utilizing? Are they not working on their thumbnails enough, or they not working on their ideas enough, the channel concept to start out with? What would you say it is?

Host: I think everyone focuses on the video editing way too much. Obviously the video itself has to be good, but I think most people are putting like 90% of their effort into the video and then at the last 10% they finally work on the title thumbnail, and then they wonder why it bombs.

Whereas I think it should be like 50/50. 50% of your effort should be first spent on the channel idea, the video idea, the title thumbnail, and then the second half you should actually spend on the video. Because if the foundation isn't there - if the channel idea isn't good, if your channel isn't different enough from the other channels in your niche, and then if your video idea is kind of generic or it's been something that's covered on YouTube a bunch and you don't have a new angle to it, if your title thumbnail isn't good, no one's going to click on it so no one's going to watch your video. So I think people should put way more effort into the channel idea, video idea, title thumbnail first, and then you actually work on the video.

Thumbnail Strategy

Jake: What advice would you have for thumbnails?

Host: The best advice is literally just copying other successful thumbnails and titles, as long as it's not from direct competitors. So if you're in the finance niche, try not to copy a thumbnail title thumbnail from another famous finance channel because people have already seen that and you're just going to look like you're copying them. But if you take a really viral title thumbnail from a different niche, now you have something that you know works, that's been proven to work. And since you took it from a different niche, people in your audience in your niche has not seen it yet, so it's going to look both effective and different in your niche.

And people might think it's weird to like copy titles and thumbnails like, "I want to create it myself," but every big YouTuber, every big channel owner copies titles and thumbnails from other channels. You see it all the time. So if they're copying from other channels, you should definitely be copying from other channels.

Jake: Yeah, and the shocking part about this is where do they copy - like big YouTubers, where did they copy their videos from? It's like small channels usually, like they find like an outlier.

Host: Yeah, like when you look at a successful thing to copy, it's not a channel that averages 10 million views per video and you just pick one of those videos. It's a channel that averages 400 views per video and they got one that randomly has 300,000 views. You know, it's like, "Okay, that's a really good one" because no one has ever seen this channel before, so obviously it went well in the algorithm.

Jake: How - what's kind of your process for identifying outliers? So I know a lot of people use the outlier app. I use it sometimes to get like title thumbnail ideas. For video ideas itself, like what video I create next, it's kind of a mix now. A lot of people recommend me ideas like in my network - like they just like my channel so they have like some idea, and sometimes I get really good ideas from that. A lot of times I get good ideas just from scrolling other social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, etc. I find some idea that works well on the food channel or whatever.

And other times, if I get a really good idea, there's like two criteria for me. Number one, if the video has never - the video idea has never been covered on YouTube yet, then I can just make like a general overview video of it and I'll be good. But if it's an idea that has already been covered on YouTube a lot - like let's say I've made a video on Epstein already, so I can't just - and I want to make another one, but I can't just make the same video - so I have to find a new angle to the story. So originally I made like an overview video of Epstein, and then when I wanted to make another one, I made a video on how he initially he made his money with a Ponzi scheme. So I focus on that angle of the video idea. So same kind of topic, completely different angle.

Host: So you take something viral and then kind of twist it to a new angle. It's interesting you said the outlier app. What is that?

Jake: Yeah, it's called OneOf10.

Host: Oh yeah, I've heard about that one. Have you used like the Mr. Beast one - can't remember the name of it - ViewStats?

Jake: I didn't even know he had one.

Host: Yeah, it's pretty good stuff. You can like search thumbnails by like text in the thumbnail or like what is in the thumbnail, I guess.

Thumbnail Design Process

Jake: The thumbnails themselves - like what's the design process like? Do you just have one thumbnail guy, or is it like a bunch of people always trying out, or...?

Host: I have a few different thumbnail designers, and then I just pick the best one. I give them all the same set of instructions like, "Hey, this video is about this, maybe we should have this in the thumbnail, the text should probably be this," and then whoever makes the best one, I use that one.

Jake: Do you split test those?

Host: Sometimes, but I don't really do that very often.

Jake: Me either. Yeah, because if it takes off, it takes off. If it doesn't, I change the thumbnail right then and there.

Host: That makes sense. Okay. Yeah, and my secret of thumbnails is, you know, when you're scrolling YouTube yourself or scrolling TikTok or whatever, typically you're not like over-intellectualizing it. Typically your brain is turned half off and you're kind of just trying to find a video that will distract you. So when I evaluate a thumbnail and title, I do the same thing. I try to put my brain in that same half-turned-off state and I just see if it piques my brain's interest. If it peaks my like primitive brain's interest, and if it does, I know that's the one. If it doesn't, I keep trying out like a different thumbnail.