26:37Creator Support · Interview
Why Good Storytelling Isn’t Enough on YouTube
Colin and Samir put one cinematic Instagram creator's biggest hit against his worst YouTube flop to show why craft alone never earns a click.
September 24thThe argument in one line.
A YouTube channel grows fastest around one repeatable, predictable format rather than a creator's shifting curiosity, because packaging determines whether a stranger clicks before the content ever gets a chance to prove itself.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A creator with a year or two of uploads who still gets asked 'what do you even make videos about?'
- Someone bouncing between video ideas who wants a repeatable packaging formula instead of chasing one more one-off hit.
- A YouTuber weighing whether to go full-time who needs a clear-eyed read on where the income actually comes from.
SKIP IF…
- You already have one obviously winning format and just need volume, not a packaging strategy.
- You're building an audience off-platform where YouTube's title/thumbnail rules don't apply directly.
The full version, fast.
Colin and Samir sit down with New York City creator Colt Kirwan, whose channel has drifted across apartment builds, a Draw My Life episode, and lifestyle vlogs with no clear throughline. They diagnose the problem as packaging, not talent: Colt needs one repeatable format, 'I Built ___,' that lets strangers predict what they're clicking before they click. Using total addressable market math, they show how a tight, specific thumbnail filters for interested viewers while a broader 'I Built' frame can borrow bigger existing audiences like NYC apartment living or tiny-space builds. They also map his income: most money already comes from short-form brand deals, so long-form YouTube should stay the passion-and-community engine, not the paycheck.
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00:00 – 00:56
01 · No One Can Describe What Colt Makes
Colt admits his channel has no throughline, just whatever he's curious about, and wonders whether a scarcity-mindset upload schedule (a la Michael Reeves) is even right for him yet.
00:56 – 02:42
02 · The Three Rules of YouTube
Samir lays out the three rules (earn the click, respect the viewer's time, give them more of what they liked) and uses Colt's Draw My Life video and its realistic thumbnail as the example.
02:42 – 04:55
03 · Total Addressable Market
They define TAM, run the math on Colt's 9 million lifetime views versus the 40-50k who watched his most personal videos, and show how attaching an apartment build to 'tiny NYC bedroom' or 'I Built' borrows a bigger existing audience.
04:55 – 07:45
04 · Packaging the Robot Arm
Colt pitches a robot-arm build; Samir plugs the free thumbnail-frameworks worksheet and pushes Colt to give the robot an implied job rather than treating it as a novelty prop, citing Unnecessary Inventions.
07:45 – 08:35
05 · A Robot Needs a Compelling Why
They land on 'I built a robot to solve my loneliness problem' as a motivation, and discuss the high-vis vest and goggles as Colt's visual signature across videos.
08:35 – 09:52
06 · What Does Success Actually Cost?
Samir brings up a Jay-Z lyric about success adding stress, and asks whether committing to one format boxes Colt in creatively.
09:52 – 13:40
07 · Finding the Happy Medium
They work out that an engine format exists to find new audience while Q&As, travel vlogs, and personal stories exist to deepen the relationship with the current one, and set a clarity rule: you, in action, building something obvious.
13:40 – 16:16
08 · The Money Is Already in Short-Form
Colt reveals 90-95% of his income already comes from short-form brand deals; they agree he should commit to one repeatable short-form show so sponsors get something predictable to buy into.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A channel's total addressable market is capped by how many people have already watched one of its videos, so a tight title filters that pool down further on purpose.
- Colt Kirwan's channel has 9 million lifetime views, but only 40,000 to 50,000 people were curious enough to watch a video solely about him as a person.
- Attaching a niche video idea to a bigger pre-existing YouTube audience, like NYC apartments or tiny-space living, raises its total addressable market instantly.
- A repeatable engine format like 'I Built ___' lets a creator keep experimenting in other videos without losing the audience's ability to predict what they're clicking.
- The clearest 'I Built' videos show the creator, the tool, and the build itself all in motion in the thumbnail; the weakest just show someone sitting at a finished desk.
- Format experiments like Q&As and travel vlogs don't find new audience, they deepen the relationship with people a creator already has.
- A useful brainstorm test for any idea: could it fit the phrase 'I built' even when nothing physical gets built, like 'I built my dream body'?
- The Jay-Z line 'what do I think of success, it sucks, too much stress' captures how winning a format relocates the stress instead of removing it.
- 90 to 95% of Colt Kirwan's income already comes from short-form brand partnerships, with long-form YouTube funded as a near break-even passion project.
- Committing to one short-form format removes the need to reinvent a pitch every time a new brand reaches out, and gives sponsors a predictable show to buy into.
- A robot sidekick in a video needs an implied job to do, like solving loneliness, or it reads as a prop instead of a character worth watching.
- Unnecessary Inventions works because its 'unnecessary' robots still solve a real, if silly, problem, which is what makes them funny instead of pointless.
Pick one repeatable format, not ten good ideas.
WHAT TO LEARN
A channel grows when strangers can predict what they're clicking before they click, which means packaging around one repeatable format matters more than any single video's quality.
01No One Can Describe What Colt Makes
- When every answer to 'what do you make videos about' is 'I do everything,' viewers have no reason to click your next upload over anyone else's.
- Scarcity only works once an audience already trusts you enough to wait for the next drop; early on, frequency builds that trust instead.
02The Three Rules of YouTube
- A video only gets watched if it earns the click first, so the title and thumbnail have to work before the content ever gets a chance.
- Respecting the viewer's time means proving a video is worth finishing within the first moments, not just promising a good ending.
- Matching a new video's outfit, title, and thumbnail style to a past hit tells a happy viewer 'if you liked that, you'll like this' before they even click.
03Total Addressable Market
- Total addressable market starts at your whole audience and narrows with every specific word in a title, so a tightly filtered title is a deliberate trade, not a mistake.
- Out of 9 million lifetime views, roughly 40,000 to 50,000 people were curious enough to watch a video solely about the creator as a person, a useful baseline for 'about me' content.
- Renaming a niche project with a bigger existing audience's language, like NYC apartments or tiny-space living, borrows that audience's size instead of starting from zero.
04Packaging the Robot Arm
- An idea only becomes a video once you can answer 'how do you package that,' which is why a swipeable list of proven thumbnail structures beats starting from a blank page.
- A robot prop needs an implied job, like a functioning assistant, or it reads as a toy instead of a character with stakes.
05A Robot Needs a Compelling Why
- Even a silly build needs a real motivation stated plainly, like solving loneliness or settling into a new space alone, not just the novelty of building it.
- A consistent visual signature across videos, like the same props or outfit, works like a worn trademark: a viewer recognizes it's 'that creator's video' before reading a word of the title.
06What Does Success Actually Cost?
- Winning on one format doesn't remove creative pressure, it relocates it: the stress shifts from 'will this work' to 'I can't let this stop working.'
- Committing to one format doesn't erase a creator's freedom to try other things, it just means those other videos serve a different job than growth.
07Finding the Happy Medium
- An engine format exists to find new audience; personal videos like Q&As and vlogs exist to deepen the relationship with the audience already there, and conflating the two goals wastes both.
- Framing a personal story inside the same engine format, like 'I built my girlfriend a movie reel of our trip,' keeps a consistent brand while still getting personal.
- The test for whether a video belongs in the engine format isn't whether something physical gets built, it's whether the viewer can predict the payoff from the title alone.
- The clearest 'I Built' videos put the creator, the tool, and the build itself all in motion in the thumbnail; the weakest just show someone sitting at the finished result.
08The Money Is Already in Short-Form
- 90 to 95% of this channel's actual income already comes from short-form brand deals, with long-form YouTube running close to break-even and funded by passion, not ads.
- Committing to one repeatable short-form format means never reinventing a pitch when a new brand reaches out, which turns a sponsor relationship into a recurring show.
- The most common business model for a new-to-mid creator right now is monetizing short-form and using long-form as the loyalty and community layer underneath it.
Terms worth knowing.
- TAM (Total Addressable Market)
- The full pool of people who could plausibly watch a given video idea, used here to judge whether a title and thumbnail are too narrow or wide for the goal.
- Engine format
- A single repeatable video template, like 'I Built ___', that a creator returns to again and again so audiences know what they're getting before they click.
- Thumbnail framework
- A reusable formula for pairing a title and thumbnail so a video's promise is instantly legible, independent of whatever specific topic is inside it.
Things they pointed at.
07:00channelUnnecessary Inventions
11:37channelCasey Neistat
12:07channelVan Neistat
Lines you could clip.
00:00
“And I don't know, I do everything, you know?”
09:04
“What do I think of success? It sucks, too much stress.”
10:43
“Those don't serve the purpose of finding new audience. They serve the purpose of connecting deeper with the current audience.”
14:38
“I would prioritize a short form format because then you're not reinventing the wheel every time a brand reaches out.”
15:36
“If any brands are watching, reach out to Colt.”
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogy
All right, Colt, welcome to Creator Support. Thank you for having me. Tell us about what you make and what your problem is.
Yeah, so I make videos out in New York City, a little bit of lifestyle and kind of new into the makerspace tinkering space.
And my problem is kind of just like, I've done a bunch of different things and it's just been like, oh, Colt, what do you do? And like, I don't know, I do everything, you know? So I think it'd be cool to kind of have something that...
you can definitively say. And you're narrowing in on the makerspace. I think so.
I think the idea I have is like the intersection of kind of like Casey Neistat meets like Michael Reeves type videos. So the difference there is there's a power of scarcity of Michael Reeves. Michael Reeves only uploads maybe six times a year.
It's an event when Michael Reeves uploads. Do you feel like you want that to be your vibe? I feel like I would love to upload a little bit more just because I feel like I have to kind of like prove myself before I can like afford that like scarcity mindset.
And also it takes the pressure off. Like right now, every video a month goes by. I'm like, dang, this one has to, I got to put a lot of effort.
It's got to bang. But it would be nice to kind of just be like twice a month where it's like, okay, this video is not going to be as serious or whatever. And you can get away with that, you know.
I've been a regular viewer of your channel since you uploaded. I actually chased my dream for one year. This is what happened.
Great video. That's a great video. And I got to be honest, like one of the most refreshing things about it is the thumbnail.
Okay. Like I absolutely love the realism in the thumbnail. And I think as I look at your channel, like that continues to be my favorite thing.
And then when I started to see this, like these three feel like the beginning of Colt Kerwin. You know, when we think about the three rules of YouTube. The first one is, if they don't click, they don't watch.
It's kind of obvious. The second is, like, respect their time, which you're already giving me. Like, give me a good enough story to watch until the end.
And know that you have to earn my attention constantly through your story. A beginning and end is like, this thing doesn't exist, and then it does exist. Perfect engine for a story.
The third one is, do you want more stuff like this? Which essentially, summed up, is give them more stuff that they can watch that's similar. So the nice thing is, like, if I watch this video and I had a great time, I can jump over to this video.
Similar vibes. Because it's also titled really similarly. You're wearing the same glasses and the same high -vis vest.
That at a glance, I'm like, if I enjoyed my time there, I will likely enjoy my time there. Now, for a creative individual, that can be one of the most challenging things because you're like, don't put me in a box. Let me do whatever I want to do.
Yeah, and that is a part of me as well. Like, to draw my life, I was like, oh, this is going to be so nostalgic, whatever. Didn't hit as hard.
But that's kind of been, I guess, like, my driving factor has just been, like, the sheer creative curiosity of things. Like, oh, I've always wanted to do this. I'll do that.
But I don't know in terms of running a successful YouTube channel if it's good to be hopping around all that stuff. So let's talk about Draw My Life. What's the TAM of the idea?
What's the total addressable market of this idea? Draw My Life, Colt Kerwin. The total addressable market is someone who's watched a Colt Kerwin video.
Okay. Right? Yeah.
So how many lifetime views does this channel have, let's say? So it has 9 million views. So 9 million people have come across a Colt Kerwin video.
Yeah. 40 ,000 of those 9 million people watching is actually not bad. Okay.
Because you have to be like... Someone who's come across a Colt Kirwan video who's interested enough to watch about Colt Kirwan's life. Solely for Colt Kirwan, yeah.
Yeah, you put a pretty aggressive filter on this video with the title and thumbnail, which is fine because it showed you that 50 ,000 people in eight months are actually just really interested in who you are as a person and learning about your life. Yeah. A good exercise is to go, what's the biggest TAM for this idea?
One of the highest TAM audiences you've approached is I built my... dream tiny NYC bedroom. Yep.
You just increased the audience size for like people interested in building, people interested in tiny spaces. NYC, yeah. Yeah, NYC.
You're starting to like expand this concept of TAM by taking something YouTube and applying it to something that has a pre -existing big audience on YouTube. Yeah, gotcha. So why not with this video, title it, I Built.
a highly functional tiny NYC apartment and put yourself in the high -vis. My problem was because this was like solely a apartment tour. There's no building at all in this video.
It could have been interesting to like fit into the same like I built and just include footage of looking at how you did this stuff. It's really fun to own the term and brainstorm within the term I built. Do you think it's too late to try that out?
Okay. Do you have enough things to build moving forward? I have a couple of projects that I have in mind.
Obviously, I don't want all of them to be apartment related just because there's only so much you could build out of your apartment. So then I guess that's like a future video idea that I could talk about today is like this video. I made this like little tiny robot or whatever.
And I'd love to expand on that, make like a robot arm. But how do you package that? You know, like I feel like building a robot arm is like so niche, but I would like to still stay kind of broadened.
Kind of what you're saying with tan, you know? All right. So that thing that Colt just said, how do you package that?
That's something that I've said to Colin so many times over the past couple of years, where we have an idea that we want to make, but we just have no idea how to build a title and thumbnail around that. And because of that, we just gathered all these different frameworks that we've seen work across YouTube and put them into one.
worksheet it's called 16 thumbnail frameworks and basically it's so that you can take an idea that you like and see if it applies to any of these frameworks and if it does then maybe you can actually turn that idea into a video so if you want to download that that link is in our description just click that link put in your email we will send you this worksheet it's helped us a lot over the past couple years so hopefully it helps you why do you want to build the robot arm um just for the sheer enjoyment i think it'd be fun to have like I have my little robot, and then he's got like a little friend, and then they're just like characters in the video.
Kind of like Tony Stark, you know, Jarvis, can you grab that? And then like the arm actually grabs it. So the robot is a functioning robot that does something.
Yeah. Okay, so here's a real picture of you. That's me, yeah.
Man, I'm a good haircut, man. I mean, immediately at looking at this... Gotta be honest.
I'm pretty interested. Okay. I do I probably have a bias because I like watching your videos I just wonder if you weren't a fan of me, would you like that?
You know, I like the word unnecessary I built an unnecessary robot that implies like a level of fun Yeah, but I do think the robot is lacking some sort of action Okay, like whether that's like I want to know like Is this a robot you can have a conversation with that's going to act as your friend? Is this a robot that's going to assist you with X, Y, and Z?
I think that's what's fun if you've ever seen Unnecessary Inventions. Yeah, I love the channel. Unnecessary Inventions, there's always actually some sort of utility to the robots, even though he calls them unnecessary and ridiculous, and I think that's what's fun.
I wouldn't watch a video of someone building a robot that actually does nothing. That's not a robot. It's like, I built a robot to...
Do X. Yeah. What does it do?
I think without that, there's no implied challenge or requirements for what this robot needs to be. Yes. I built a robot to solve my loneliness problem.
That would be really interesting. Okay. Oh, yeah, that could work.
And then in the thumbnail, there's like a... Like you're having a conversation. Or like you're editing and the robot's next to you saying, good work.
Good job, Colt. I think it's a good idea just because it kind of plays off of the whole loft build desk setup. It's like my roommate's moved out, I'm on my own now, blah, blah, blah.
And then it plays off of the robot already there. I mean, that's... Yeah, because you need a...
It needs to solve a problem. You need a compelling why. Gotcha.
And that compelling why doesn't have to be any... It can be very human and very real. Yeah, I'm lonely.
I need a friend. YouTube is a really lonely job. Yeah, yeah.
Which it is. Yeah. I do think the high -vis and the goggles is a really interesting place to live.
It serves the purpose as like the... At least for me, I don't think I've seen anyone else own that. Yeah.
Right? Now, the further I go down the I built route, does that now kind of like... not allow me to do, like, a travel vlog or a camera bag review or something like that.
Well, it depends. Like, not allow me to is a strong term. Yeah.
Because you can do whatever you want. You're the boss. Yeah.
That's true. Now, there is a Jay -Z lyric that I'm going to bring up here from the song Success. You ever heard this song?
I don't think so, no. He says... Uncultured.
He says, what do I think of success? It sucks too much stress. Okay.
And I think about that all the time. Because I think that relates to YouTube quite a bit where like as a creative individual, when you find success in a format, it can kind of suck because now you have so much stress around it not working. When you're full time, you have stress around losing your income.
You have stress around all kinds of things. Like it becomes less about how fun it is to make the video and more about playing defense to just save the career. Yes.
Does that make sense? Yes, yes, yes. And I think about that lyric all the time because I would say I've fallen into that quite a bit where it's like, man, this was so much more fun when it wasn't successful and we were just trying things.
What does success mean to you? Yeah. Is it to be able to make anything you want at any time?
Because there's always a give and take. So the take there would be I can make anything I want. The give would be like, but not every video is going to perform super well.
True. Yeah. Right.
Which like I'm I'm kind of OK with doing like I am so happy I did the job my life, even though like in terms of ROI was so much waste of time and didn't really garner the views that I wanted. If I can kind of like do this built format, but then also like people still come back for maybe less people, but they'll still come back for like a travel vlog or like a day in NYC.
That would be like the most happy I'm at because like it's tough. Like you said, like how much things can you actually build, you know? Yeah.
And these videos, they're its own challenge of like. researching how to even, I don't even know how to do it most of the time. So sometimes I want to just like pull out a Q &A or something like that.
Yeah, they take a really long time. You have to build something in order to make the video. Yeah, yeah.
I think it's totally fine. There are a lot of creators who do this where like they have an engine format. So your engine could be I built blank, right?
I built my dream blank. And then you can experiment, which are the travel vlogs, which are the Q &As. And those are, they serve a different purpose.
Yes, yeah. Right? Those don't serve the purpose of finding new audience.
Yes. They serve the purpose of connecting deeper with the current audience. I see.
I wouldn't want to confuse people, but you could also, like, rather than a productive day in my life in NYC, you could be like, I built my dream life in NYC. And you are building something to like represent what a day looks like. Do you remember the Casey video where he breaks down his schedule?
Yeah, with like the dominoes? Yes. Yeah, yeah.
So there's something to like playing around in the maker or you called it the tinkering space? Yeah, tinker space. So like in the maker or tinker space to just like telling me something personal about your life.
In a buildy way. In a buildy way. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. So like what does it look like if I tell the more personal stories through like I built? Like I traveled.
to meet my girlfriend. Like, very fun. Yeah.
Van Nystad has this thing, and actually he made one for me for my wedding, which is like this, this Toy Fisher Price. Oh, it's like, you look through the projector. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. So you could like, build your girlfriend a movie reel of the trip. I see.
Does that make sense? Yep, yep. And like, it's an interesting constraint to brainstorm in the direction of, what if all of these ideas I want to do are builds?
Yeah. And, And that's the extreme.
That's the extreme, right? Where it's like, I fit my personal stories into an I built. Yeah.
In the future, I've also wanted to do just like a, I don't know, 90 day fitness transformation or whatever. Could that be like, I built my dream body or something like that? Totally.
Even though that would, it's the I built, but it wouldn't be building something tangible. It'd be like, you know. Yeah.
That video will test. the audience yeah in a good way which i think is fine i think as you move on in this builder maker tinker space i would think about making sure that it's extremely clear what it is that you built because i think this one's incredibly clear that you built this loft bed you're like actively building it and there's so few elements is you the red drill and what you've built and in the next video building your dream desk you're not in the action of building yeah So I don't actually know what it is you've built and it's pretty busy.
This is just a guy sitting at his desk. It's not that clear. So I would, as you continue with these types of titles and thumbnails, make sure that it's you, action, super clear what you are in the process of building.
Gotcha. So I just want to talk about now this concept of you being full -time. From a mathematical perspective.
How many videos do you need to make and how are you supporting yourself right now? I'm broke. No, I'm just kidding.
No, actually, no. I'm very lucky and my business per se is very interesting. Most of my income comes from like brand partnerships.
Well, so shout out you guys. I love you guys. But most of my money...
That was just a shout out to brands in general. Shout out brands. Give me your money.
I'd say like 95 % of my... Maybe like 90 % of my income this past year has solely been from short form brand partnerships. That's great.
So I make my money here and then YouTube is kind of reserved for... burning money, but also just like passion. You know, there's no, there's really no ad breaks or anything like that.
And I don't know if that's like a flawed business model, but no, I think it's really just like make the money here. Then YouTube can kind of be what it is. And then also my return from YouTube is like the community I get and the fan base and stuff like that.
Then then goes back to short. I think that's actually the most common business model right now for a new to mid -sized creator is what you just said. Yeah.
Monetize short form. make long form yeah so how many short form videos are you making in a month uh not that much so then that's like okay should i also like switch to that and like prioritize that a little bit more since the money's coming from there here's what i would do i would prioritize a short form format because then you're not reinventing the wheel every time a brand reaches out yep it gives yourself a filter of like when adobe comes to you you're like okay it has to fit into this show yeah But like then my audience is going to like it no matter what.
I'm not going to have such high volatility in my viewership. Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Where like I'm not going to get 16 ,000 on this one and a million over here. Yeah.
It's going to be a show that people like and then sponsors are going to sponsor that show. Yeah. I like the idea of telling stories about tools.
Yeah. So like tools are things that inspire you. Yeah.
Or that like a small thing that leads to a bigger story. . Yeah.
With big. Impact. Yeah.
Tiny Stories is fun. Tiny, tiny, big. Tiny Stories with Colt Kerwin.
Could be that. I don't know. You hate it, Colt.
It's okay. No, there's something there. You don't have to ham it up for the camera.
The only time I saw you excited in this whole episode was when you shouted out brands. Please give me your money, please. Shout out brands.
Thank you guys for taking your time and everything and love the brands, love my friends. Yeah, I'm just trying to have some fun. If any brands are watching, reach out to Colt.
Reach out to Colt. Yeah. yeah all right thanks for coming on always a fan dude always rooting for you thank you
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Colt Kirwan sits down with Colin and Samir to answer the question that's haunted his channel for years: what do you even make videos about? What follows is a live audit, thumbnail by thumbnail, of how to turn a scattered portfolio into one format people recognize on sight.
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:48list
The Three Rules of YouTube
- If they don't click, they don't watch
- Respect their time and earn attention until the end
- Give them more stuff like this, so the next video is easy to predict
A three-step filter for whether a video's packaging and structure will work: get the click, hold attention to the end, then make the next upload easy to recognize as 'more of this.'
Steal forauditing any video's title, thumbnail, and pacing before it ships
03:12concept
TAM (Total Addressable Market) for a video idea
Before greenlighting an idea, estimate how many people could plausibly want it: the creator's whole audience, a narrow slice interested in one sub-topic, or a bigger pre-existing YouTube audience the idea can attach to.
Steal fordeciding whether a title is too narrow, and how to broaden it to borrow a bigger existing audience
10:43model
I Built ___ (engine format)
A single repeatable title and thumbnail template a creator returns to for 'find new audience' videos, while travel vlogs, Q&As, and personal stories become experiments that deepen the relationship with the audience already there.
Steal forany creator who keeps hearing 'what do you even make videos about'
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
05:45link
“If you want to download that, that link is in our description, just click that link, put in your email, we will send you this worksheet.”
The worksheet pitch lands mid-conversation, tied directly to the packaging problem just discussed, instead of arriving as a disconnected sponsor break.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
