YouTube Growth Strategy That Actually Works (Masterclass with Aprilynne Alter)
A two-and-a-half-hour studio session where a YouTube strategist walks five pillars of channel growth and live-workshops real pitches from the audience.
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2 months ago
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educational
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22.8K
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57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A YouTube video's ceiling is set by the idea and its packaging before you ever hit record, so the hours spent on ideation, titles, thumbnails, and the first thirty seconds pay more than any amount of production polish.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You run a small or mid-size YouTube channel and your views feel random, with no way to predict which upload will land.
You pick your title and thumbnail after the edit and have never generated more than two or three options for either.
You teach or consult on camera and want a structured way to judge an idea before investing a week into making it.
You edit talking-head or case-study content and lose most viewers in the first thirty seconds.
SKIP IF…
You make short-form vertical content only. Nearly everything here assumes a thumbnail, a title, and an opt-in click.
You already run a title-and-thumbnail testing process with outlier research and want advanced analytics tactics. This is the foundation, not the edge cases.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Most creators pour effort into production when the idea and its packaging decide most of the outcome. The session splits ideation into generation (a daily habit of combining topic, format, and angle) and filtration (two tests: how big is the total addressable market, and is it remarkable enough to be commented on). Titles get a timed thirty-minute sprint to thirty variations, then get judged on skimmability and the size of the curiosity gap they open. Thumbnails run on three C's: contents, composition, contrast. Hooks must confirm the click in five seconds and reach value inside thirty. Storytelling is reframed as nested cycles of promise, progress, and payoff, with the host arguing that conflict, not structure, is what makes a story worth hearing.
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The promise is laid out: five areas with the highest impact on growth, in order. Number one is ideation, called the single most underrated part of a video.
01:33 – 04:08
02 · Ideation: generate, then filter
Ideas should be a daily timed habit, not a weekly scramble. An idea is a combination of topic, format, and angle. Filtration uses two tests: total addressable market and remarkability.
04:08 – 15:52
03 · Workshop: Gwen's pitch
An audience member pitches a value proposition and learns it is not an idea yet. Together they build topic (how to pick a mentor), format (guest conversation), and angle (a known guest), then filter it by looking for outliers and setting a view goal.
15:52 – 20:41
04 · Views are not the only goal
Chris calls it the most business-sober YouTube conversation he has had. Aprilynne lists other valid goals: converting a qualified audience, experimenting with a format, deepening an existing audience. A third phase, elimination trials, checks feasibility and brand fit.
20:41 – 40:13
05 · Workshop: the $100M YouTube exit
Tyler's breakout video gets dissected. The lesson is idea versus packaging: people clicked for the sexy exit and stayed for valuation advice. Two titles are compared live to show how a curiosity gap changes the audience it pulls.
40:13 – 59:58
06 · Titles: the broccoli present
A title is the presentation, not the description. A timed thirty-minute sprint produces thirty variations using your own brain, five model channels, outlier tools, and finally ChatGPT. Rules: skimmable, under 65 characters, key words top-left, one major curiosity gap, fifth-grade language, browse before search.
59:58 – 1:06:18
07 · The three click triggers
An audience title gets reworked around desire, fear, and curiosity. The group argues through a testosterone example until the difference between a desire-based gap and a what-happens gap is clear.
1:06:18 – 1:30:54
08 · Thumbnails: contents, composition, contrast
Start from the curiosity gap and list every visual that could carry it, then arrange by hierarchy (position, size, depth), then make the key element pop with luminosity, color, or saturation. Faces are scroll stoppers. Text supports, it never leads. Chris warns against face-plus-redundant-text thumbnails and shares his balance-beam logo thumbnail story.
1:30:54 – 1:43:41
09 · Hooks: confirm the click
The first five seconds must confirm the plot promise visually and audibly. Keep time to value under thirty seconds, drip-feed context, front-load stimulus, and state one differentiator. An audience member's five-credential intro gets cut to a single ten-year claim.
1:43:41 – 2:03:10
10 · Storytelling: two frameworks collide
Aprilynne's story cycles (promise, progress, payoff) get applied to a dull competition story. Chris pushes back that this is essay structure, then rebuilds the same story around its highest point of conflict and an emotional lesson.
2:03:10 – 2:23:20
11 · Making viewers care
Emotion drives memory, so even educators benefit from it. Idea creators versus relationship creators. For case-study channels, the client is the protagonist and the creator is the mentor. Kitchen Nightmares proves formula beats originality, and a format needs a constant, a variable, tension, and a payoff.
2:23:20 – 2:29:40
12 · Podcast trailers and the live format
Audience question on podcast cold-open trailers: keep them short, open questions, mix voiceover with clips. Chris on playing the podcast game as a slow burn and using an in-person studio as the differentiator.
2:29:40 – 2:33:51
13 · What changed in 2026
Instant success is not instant: experiment, then double down on the hit. The biggest shift is the definition of quality. Polish is no longer scarce, so the best video is the one that makes people want to keep watching you.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
The idea sets the ceiling on a video's views and the execution only decides how much of that ceiling you reach.
An idea is a unique combination of two or more familiar things, so generation is a daily timer habit, not inspiration.
A value proposition is not an idea. An idea is a topic plus a format plus an angle, and you can write it as a title.
Judge an idea on two numbers: the total addressable market and whether it is novel enough to be remarked upon.
Proof of prior success means outliers, videos that beat their own channel's average, not raw view counts from huge channels.
If the best video on a topic has 15,000 views and your goal is 100,000, the idea is risky no matter how well you execute.
Deliberately shrinking your audience is a valid strategy when 10,000 qualified viewers convert better than a million casual ones.
You cannot create and judge at the same time, so generate ideas without limits and run elimination trials afterward.
When a video hits, you usually do not know why. Replicate the idea and the packaging separately to find out which one worked.
A title is not what the video is about. It is the presentation that makes someone glad they clicked and glad they watched.
Write 20 to 30 title variations per video in a timed 30-minute sprint before you pick one.
Keep titles under roughly 65 characters and put the curiosity-driving words in the top left, because viewers skim.
Every strong title opens at least one major curiosity gap: a question the viewer cannot answer without clicking.
People click for three reasons: desire, fear, or curiosity. Decide which one your title is pulling on.
Browse viewers are problem-aware but not solution-aware, so technical keywords belong in search titles, not browse titles.
Thumbnails run on three C's: contents, composition, and contrast.
Text should be a supporting character in a thumbnail, never the main character, because humans read images faster than words.
A thumbnail that repeats the title wastes the one chance to add a second curiosity gap.
Confirm the click in the first five seconds, both spoken and on screen, or viewers scrolling on autoplay bounce.
Keep time to value under thirty seconds and drip-feed context later, once the value has already started.
Front-load every stimulus you use later in the video into the intro, because viewers assume what they see first is all there is.
Do not list your resume in an intro. Pick the single most remarkable credential and say only that.
A story cycle is a promise, progress, and a payoff, and every video is a nest of those cycles.
Without conflict there is no story, so start at the point of highest friction instead of with context.
Not every video needs a moral, but every video needs a payoff, and emotional payoffs are retained longer because emotion builds memory.
Relationship creators outlast idea creators because viewers come back for the person, not the next novel idea.
A polished video is no longer scarce, so the new definition of quality is a video that makes people want to keep watching you.
Takeaway
Decide the video before you record it.
WHAT TO LEARN
The idea and its packaging set the ceiling, the first thirty seconds decide how much of it you keep, and story cycles with real conflict carry the viewer the rest of the way.
02Ideation: generate, then filter
Make idea generation a daily timed habit and treat an idea as topic plus format plus angle, written as a title.
Filter every idea on two tests: how many people it can reach, proven by outliers on the topic, and whether it is novel enough to be remarked upon.
03Workshop: Gwen's pitch
A value proposition is not an idea. If you cannot say what one specific video is about and how it delivers, keep generating.
Set a view goal first. If the best outlier on a topic has 15,000 views and you need 100,000, the idea is risky however well you execute.
04Views are not the only goal
Views are not the only goal. Shrinking your audience on purpose is correct when the point is converting qualified viewers to an offer.
Run elimination trials after filtering: can you actually make it, and does it fit your brand. Generate without limits, judge afterward.
05Workshop: the $100M YouTube exit
Separate the idea inside the video from the packaging outside it. People may click for one curiosity gap and stay for a different value.
When a video hits, test the idea and the packaging separately in the next uploads to learn which one did the work.
Two titles on the same topic can pull different audiences. Compare the questions each one raises before choosing.
06Titles: the broccoli present
A title is the presentation that makes someone glad they clicked, not a description of the content.
Spend 30 minutes producing 20 to 30 title variations: your own brain, five model channels, outlier research, then AI seeded with your list.
Keep titles skimmable, under about 65 characters, with the curiosity-driving words first and one major open question.
Write browse titles in fifth-grade language. Save technical keywords for search titles where the viewer already knows the term.
07The three click triggers
Name the trigger your title pulls: desire for an outcome, fear of a loss, or curiosity about what happens.
Desire gaps ask how do I get this. Curiosity gaps ask what happened. The same topic can be titled either way.
08Thumbnails: contents, composition, contrast
Build thumbnails from the curiosity gap outward: list the visuals that could carry it, then arrange by hierarchy, then make one element pop.
Faces stop the scroll and familiar faces stop it harder. Swap to a better-known face after the first week if you want a wider audience.
Text supports a thumbnail, it never leads it. A thumbnail that repeats the title throws away the second curiosity gap.
You cannot predict which thumbnail wins. Have five ready and keep testing after publish, because the work starts when the edit ends.
09Hooks: confirm the click
Confirm the click in the first five seconds, both spoken and on screen, so autoplay scrollers see they got what they clicked for.
Keep time to value under 30 seconds and drip-feed context later, once the value has started.
Front-load every stimulus you use later, and state one differentiator, not a resume.
10Storytelling: two frameworks collide
A story is nested cycles of promise, progress, and payoff. Every payoff needs a setup and every setup needs a payoff.
Structure alone is not story. Find the point of highest conflict, start there, cut the context, and land one lesson at the end.
Not every video needs a moral, but every video needs a payoff, and emotional payoffs are remembered longer.
11Making viewers care
Emotion builds memory, so even pure teaching retains better when it makes the viewer feel something.
If you run case studies, your client is the protagonist and you are the mentor. Their stakes supply the emotion.
Formula is not the enemy. Define the constant, the variable, where tension lives, and the payoff, then repeat it.
12Podcast trailers and the live format
Keep podcast trailers short and built from clips that open questions, or mix voiceover introductions with supporting clips.
Play a podcast as a slow burn and differentiate on the thing you have that others do not, like an in-person room.
13What changed in 2026
Experiment broadly, then when something hits, study exactly why and repeat it. Instant success is years of prior attempts.
Polish is no longer scarce. The best video now is the one that makes people want to keep watching you, not the best-produced one.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
TAM (total addressable market)
The largest number of people who could plausibly be interested in a given video idea. Used here as the first filter for deciding whether an idea has a high enough view ceiling to be worth making.
Remarkability
How novel an idea is, measured by whether viewers would actually remark on it in comments or conversation. The second filter on an idea after audience size.
Outlier
A video that performed well above its own channel's average view count. Outliers on a topic are treated as proof that the topic can draw views, independent of the channel's size.
Packaging
The title and thumbnail together, meaning everything a viewer sees before clicking. Treated as a separate decision from the idea inside the video.
Curiosity gap
The distance between what a viewer currently knows and what they want to know. A title or thumbnail opens one by implying a question that can only be answered by watching.
Click triggers
The three emotional reasons someone clicks a video: desire for an outcome, fear of a loss, or curiosity about what happens. Credited in the talk to title strategist Jake Thomas.
Model five channels
A pre-chosen list of five channels that use a similar format to yours but a different topic, mined for title formulas and thumbnail patterns without copying direct competitors.
Browse vs. search traffic
Browse views come from the home feed and suggested videos, where viewers are not actively looking for a solution. Search views come from typed queries where viewers already know the term they want.
Plot promise
The expectation created by a title and thumbnail together. The first five seconds of the video must visibly and audibly confirm it.
Time to value
How long a viewer waits before receiving the thing they clicked for. Longer intros and excess context raise it and increase early drop-off.
USP (unique service proposition)
The one reason a viewer should watch your video on a topic instead of someone else's: expertise, visible effort, or proof you did the thing.
Story cycle
A unit of narrative made of a promise (setup), progress (working toward it), and payoff (receiving it). Videos are built from an outer cycle holding several smaller ones.
Idea creator vs. relationship creator
Two creator types: viewers return to an idea creator for the next novel concept, and to a relationship creator for the person. The second tends to have more longevity.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
01:45channelRyan Trahan's daily 10-minute idea timer
45:22channelAli Abdaal (example model channel)
47:29tool1of10 (YouTube outlier research tool)
57:20toolvidIQ and TubeBuddy (search keyword extensions)
49:10toolChatGPT, for title variations only after your own list
1:22:50toolGemini, suggested by an audience member for title iteration
1:02:53channelJake Thomas, originator of the click triggers framing
“Sometimes we have hits and we think we know why it's a hit. But we actually don't.”
Contrarian, every creator has felt it→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
38:22
“Bigger views is not better conversion.”
Five words, counterintuitive→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
41:55
“Most people think that your title is what your video is about. That is not true. Your title is the presentation of your video that will best get people to click on your video and be satisfied watching your video.”
Reframes a basic assumption→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
44:32
“You should be coming up with at least 20 to 30 title variations per video that you make.”
Specific number, actionable→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
49:27
“ChatGPT just asking it to give you a YouTube title, terrible. It will not stop using colons.”
20:41 – 40:13denseIdea vs packaging (live case study)
40:13 – 1:06:18denseTitles and click triggers
1:06:18 – 1:30:54denseThumbnails
1:30:54 – 1:43:41denseHooks and intros
1:43:41 – 2:23:20steadyStorytelling and emotion
2:23:20 – 2:33:51steadyQ&A and wrap
The Script
Word for word.
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We're going to be covering the five core areas that have the highest impact on YouTube growth. And by the end of this video, you'll know exactly what you need to do to grow your YouTube channel in 2026. Let's get started.
Let's get into the five things. What do we need to know? What's number one?
Number one, ideation. Every single video starts from the idea. And the idea itself that you start with is, I would say, probably the single most underrated part of the entire video.
So we have to start with the idea. Okay. How do we know we have a good one?
Because everybody has an idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
So first, why are ideas so important? We'll just start with that one. There's the saying that the idea sets the ceiling.
The execution determines the result. And so from the idea stage, you basically determine right from the very get -go, what is the upper cap of views that this video could possibly get? And then how good of a job you do executing on that determines how much of that you actually get.
So that's why ideas are so important. But I'll answer this. What makes up a good idea?
I would say when we think about ideation, we have to split it into two different areas, which is idea generation and idea filtration. You say that ideas are a dime a dozen, and that is true to an extent. I do think that every single person...
needs to be generating more ideas than you do. I would say most people think of ideas as like very passively. So they kind of sit down and they're like, okay, what is the video that I want to make this week?
Think about, okay, I might have this like little list of ideas or I'll think of an idea right now. Let's do it. Ideas should be something that becomes a daily habit.
I know some of the top YouTubers like Ryan Trahan, for instance, will literally have a timer on his phone. That goes off and I'll spend 10 minutes every day just writing down ideas. And I'll make sure that that happens every single day.
An idea is basically just a unique combination of two or more familiar things. So it's really about getting a lot of inspiration from things around you and seeing how you can connect them or combine them in different ways. Usually this means...
connecting some sort of topic. So what is your video about with maybe different formats? Are you doing it in a tutorial, in a challenge?
Are you doing it in a vlog, in different angles? Are you doing it in terms of a versus, a comparison? Do you have like a money angle on it, a beginner angle on it, an expert angle on it?
And combining these different things to generate from maybe one original idea into 10, 50 more ideas that come from that. So that's kind of... an overall thing to think about when it comes to generating more ideas to begin with.
And then we have idea filtration. So once you have all of those ideas, which you should be doing, again, a habit every single day, you should be having so many ideas, then how do you filter into which ones are the good ones? And with that, I would say when it comes to what makes up a good idea, through my research, I've determined that it's really two main factors.
One is what is the reach that this has? What is the TAM? What is the total addressable market of this idea?
And that is really like, okay, how many people can this idea reach? We'll talk about that. And the second thing is remarkability.
So how novel is this idea? As humans, we are drawn to novelty. We are drawn to remarkability.
And so you want to make something that is... Different than what people have seen before. And those two things make up a great idea.
All right. That's very good. So we have a couple of people in the studio audience with us.
How many of you want to grow your YouTube channel? Show of hands. Okay.
So pretty much everybody. And can we try and freestyle workshop this? Yeah, let's do it.
Why don't you guys pitch an idea? Don't worry too much about it. And then April Lynn will tell us.
Using her filtration. And she'll give you like a critique and maybe some advice. Yeah.
Gwen, why don't we start with you? The pitch is bring practical knowledge and wisdom to new age situations for younger women who want to be inspired yet have self -doubt. So I would say what you just described to me was a value prop.
which is still very important. So like, you know, in a channel, we like to think about things like, who is your audience? Who are you speaking to?
What's the value? So why are they watching your videos? What do they get from watching your videos?
That's what you just described. Then there's a format, which is how do you deliver that value to your audience, which is still not an idea. The idea itself is kind of like, okay, a single video idea.
What is that video? Like what, like what's, what's, what's the topic? So what is this video about?
What is the format? How are you delivering that topic? Is this a tutorial?
Is this a podcast? Is this a challenge that you're doing? And maybe we can like pop an angle on there as well.
But like those specific things, like what's the topic? Like this video is about blah. In this video, I will blah.
That is your idea. Got it. More generation needed.
No, let's do it right now. Oh, do it right now? Yeah.
Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Do you understand her feedback that you were talking about a value prop, not an idea?
Yes, like what they were going to get from it, not how it's going to deliver it. Yeah, we need a format. Let's just come up with a format first.
Okay, I'm sorry. So could you ask me that? Yeah, so let's talk about format.
I like to break an idea into three main things typically. So that's... Your topic, what is your video about?
Your format, how are you going to deliver that value? We'll talk about those. I'll give you a list.
And then angles. There's a lot of different angles. I can give you some examples.
So a topic, let's give you an example about a topic. So let's say for this conversation, the topic is how to grow on YouTube. That's what we're talking about.
Let's say you're having a challenge and the challenge could be, I want to try to Make a pizza in 50 different ways. Making a pizza would be the topic.
So that's kind of what the topic is. Then we have the format. The format is how you deliver that.
There are, I would say, five or six main different formats that we tend to see on YouTube. There's a tutorial that's a classic how -to. So, you know, how to grow on YouTube.
Let's take the pizza example. This would be how to make a pizza. That would be a tutorial.
Then we have challenge. With the pizza, I'd be like, I tried making the biggest pizza. That would be a challenge, for instance.
Or I tried making a pizza for each of my friends. That would also be a challenge. Then we have commentary.
So this is often like React creators can be commentary or some video SES can be commentary. But it can be, what would a video idea about pizza be? It could be like.
We rate the number one pizza in LA. Exactly. It's in LA.
I love that. There's breakdown. So this could be like a video essay.
So it's like, it could be like the, the anatomy of the perfect pizza and like going into like, okay, like what exactly scientifically makes up the perfect pizza? That's, that's a breakdown. You could have a vlog.
So maybe it can be like day in the life of a pizza maker. for instance, the kind of like, what is that like? That, that, that can be a vlog.
And then there can even like be a podcast perhaps where people come in and maybe like talk about pizza on the podcast. So those are a couple of different formats. Yeah.
Like we invite the top four chefs who make pizzas to have a conversation about what makes the best pizza. And then you're the host. Okay.
That's a format. That's, that's, I think that would work. Cause I, the first topic I can think of is how to choose a good mentor.
Okay, great. You know, how do you nail it down? How do you know if this is the right fit for you?
And then I could invite different mentors, how they've mentored, and I could interview. Let's pick one format. Okay.
You just picked two now. Tutorial, which is the how -to, how to pick a good mentor, or let's invite people and talk about. Invite people.
Okay, so it's more like a podcast. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. So now we have to get to her topic, right? And then her angle.
Yes. So right now we have the format. So the format is going to be, you're going to be inviting people to your show to talk about mentorship, right?
Okay. Then when it comes to like an individual video, when it comes to a conversation like this, you can go about it in two ways. Either you could start with the person and that can be how you decide what exactly, like what more specific topic you want to talk about, or you can try to be like, okay, this is a specific topic.
And let's invite the right people for this. So you said like the topic is overall how to pick a good mentor. That could fit.
So we could like the topic of picking a mentor with the format of inviting people on your show so that we have the start of something here. And then we need some sort of angle on this. So why are people going to be interested in?
this? What do they get out of it? What can we do to add more interest to this thing?
And this is still in the generating an idea phase. We've not started filtering this idea yet. A great way to define an idea is a video title of this idea.
And so like for you, what is, does not have to be a good title. There's like a very basic title for this video.
Mentor me. I don't know. Okay.
Let's So mentor me is interesting. We're still in the idea generation phase.
Mentor me put this concept in my head of like you could be live mentoring people or they could be live mentoring you. And you could be talking about how to choose a mentor through your experience of being mentored. And that could be one way in which they do it.
We're still in the idea generation phase. That's like a slightly different angle and a slightly different format there too. Let's start with the most basic version of this.
This could be a, you know, like how to pick the right mentor, parentheses, featuring Chris Doe, for instance, right? So it's like, okay, like you're having Chris on your show. You're talking with Chris about, hey, Chris, what does it mean to be, you know, what's your best advice for finding a mentor?
What is the best advice that you would give young people when they're trying to find a mentor? Is that like a basic understanding of kind of like the most basic version of this idea? You said, I want to teach people about how to find a mentor.
And the format will be a podcast where you're talking to someone. And then she asks you what might be a sample title, and you're like, mentor me. Mentor me does not take into consideration that you have a guest.
Oh, I was thinking about me, the people listening. No, no. Okay.
So you're trying to come up with a title that sums up what I'm about to get. You're creating an expectation of the experience, and so we need to land that plane. So what she's like, why don't we try on the title, for example, pick the right mentor with my guest.
Now that's the first title or an idea that brings some of your ideas together, how to find the right mentor, but with the context of this other person I'm bringing in. Okay, so at this point we have an idea. We have a topic, how to find the right mentor, how to choose a mentor.
We have a format. This is going to be a... conversation, a podcast.
We potentially, like Chris Doe himself might be an angle because Chris might be a well -known figure. And so you're bringing us maybe some familiarity bias, maybe some of the people that you want to target knows Chris. You can bring that in.
Great. Okay. We have these things.
Now let's filter this idea. Let's determine, is this a good idea or not? And let's start with the first thing, which is What is the ceiling that this idea can possibly get up to?
How many views, if this was the best executed video, like the best executed version of this idea, how many views could that get? How would you go about finding this ceiling? Well, first I would look for, is there any proof of prior success for topics like this?
Look up other videos on the topic of picking the right mentor. how many views do those videos tend to get? And when looking at this, I wouldn't just look at the absolute number because there could be some people who like maybe every single video they get, no matter what, even if they just talk about a bug, gets a million views.
They also made a video about mentorship that got a million views and every of their videos get a million views, but it's all like very random. I would not use that as great proof of prior success because it's like anything they make because it's more about them versus the topic. So I like to think about this concept called outliers, which is if you look for a topic.
And there is signal that previous channels have made videos about this topic. And those videos have outperformed that channel's view average. That is an outlier.
And if you can find evidence of outliers about the topic of picking the right mentor, then there's like, okay, there is some proof of prior success here. Also, how many views are those getting? If the highest viewed video you can find.
on picking the right mentor has like 15 ,000 views, then it's a question for you of what is your view goal? If your view goal is, you know what, if this video gets a thousand views, I would be so happy. That is, and if other videos have gotten 15, 20 ,000 views, great.
That is enough proof of prior success. If your view goal is, I really want this video to hit a hundred thousand views and all you're seeing are videos hitting 15, 20K, that is a lot riskier to take on this idea. Because the ceiling might be so low that even if you execute upon it perfectly, you still wouldn't get those views.
Got it. And then the other part would be the remarkability. So is this video remarkable?
Have other people made this video? That's why the concept of bringing on Chris potentially is like a great angle because maybe other people have talked about picking the right mentor, but no one else has brought on Chris. And if Chris is someone who has a lot of familiarity, if Chris is someone who you think a lot of people would respect to and would want a lot of people to hear from him, that could be something.
And you could also take a look at, hey, what are other podcasts that have featured Chris as well? How do those podcasts perform other like their average view count? Maybe.
Every single podcast that Chris is a guest on overperforms their view average, or for the most part they do. That's a great guest to bring on. Maybe for the most part, every time Chris is invited on a podcast, for some reasons, episodes get fewer views than the rest of them.
Maybe I would rethink bringing on Chris as a podcast if your goal is views. Now, not everybody's goal or number one goal is going to be a high view count on a video. So that's really important to go into, but that's how I would filter this idea and determine whether or not it's a good one.
I have to say this. This is the most business sober conversation I've ever had with anybody about YouTube content. What do you mean?
I really like your approach. You're talking about Tam. People don't even know what Tam is.
You're looking at this like you're a venture capitalist investment banker. So on that note, do we invest in this idea or no? You would have to do the research.
So you would have to go. What's your gut telling you? For Gwen specifically, knowing that she everything is contextual, right?
Like every. The answer is going to be, it depends for her. I would say yes.
Like you are starting your channel. You need to try new things to get off the ground. Maybe your criteria is going to be different.
You also need to figure out what you like. If you were just starting out, you have to try different formats. You have to try different things because maybe you love podcasting.
Maybe you realize I hate talking with other people on camera. I would rather do it just myself. And that becomes a different format, but you need to try it.
So for you, I'd be like, yeah, go for it. Okay. Before we move on to the next person, first of all, do you have any quick follow up?
Are you good? I just have one follow up. Okay.
And she, you said goal is views. What might be another goal? Yeah.
I mean, I think the question I was sitting there thinking, why are we making YouTube videos? Hey, you're redeeming yourself. You're back on the train.
You might be in the engine room right now, girl. Good for you. One.
let's say you have some sort of paid offer that you want to convert viewers to. You may not care if this video gets 100 ,000 views. You may prefer that this video gets only 10 ,000 views because those 10 ,000 viewers are going to be much more qualified and much more willing to convert to your paid offer after watching this video.
And so for you, you may intentionally decrease your TAM, limit your total addressable market, because you only want business owners with eight figure businesses to be watching this video. You're probably not going to get 5 million views on that video, but the people who do, if your offer is targeted towards them, much more likely to convert.
So that's one, again, very business sober version of this. There's also more wishy -washy goals that I personally think are really great. For instance, maybe your goal is, I just want to experiment.
with this new format. I've never done this before. I want to see if I like it.
That can be your goal. Views might, you might not care about at all. It's like, Hey, let me try this format.
I just want to see if I like it. That can be a super valid goal. Maybe your goal is I want to.
deepen my relationship with my current audience. You could cap your tan because you don't want to attract new viewers to this video. The goal of this video is to deepen that relationship, to connect more with them, to let them more into the way that you work, share more about yourself.
That is also a valid goal. So not every video, the goal has to be views. But for you, let's keep it on views.
It's good to play. Let's play to win. Absolutely.
Okay. Good job for getting back on the train one more time. All right.
Very good. So I have a question for you. You threw out this whole like angles.
Oh, just get this guess. Is some part of your thinking process working within the constraints and resources that you have? Or do you just pie in the sky this thing?
Because I'm not getting on anybody's podcast. I'm just putting it out there. Yeah.
So that's that's I would say. After filtering your ideas, you're going to have some ideas left over, and then there's actually a third secret phase, which is the idea elimination phase. You send your idea through the elimination trials.
The very first of the trials is feasibility. Is this idea feasible? If the idea is not feasible, you can't make the idea unless you do something to make it feasible.
So that is one of the things that I would say I would eliminate. Another thing in the elimination trials is simply... Does this idea align with your brand values?
Maybe you come up with this great idea, but it's like, oh, if I made this idea, it would actually kind of throw off my mission and my values and what I'm trying to do with my brand to begin with. So there are other things to think about beyond just will this get views and is this remarkable? I love the way that you said that in creativity and traditional design creative circles.
we separate the two processes when you're thinking of ideas don't limit it by anything and then after the fact you can judge you can't create and judge at the same time this is true about writing and design so i'm just putting it out there so i love that you clarified that for us okay we're gonna move on to tyler who definitely wants a gazillion views the biggest tam i believe so tyler give us your pitch case study breakdowns.
I want to start a new format basically of doing a podcast interview where I bring on YouTubers and I break down their business live and I show them, you know, how do they grow out their business so that they're attractive for an investor or for an exit. So that's sort of my new, that's my pitch is what do you think about that idea?
You know, I think. A lot of people are interested. You know, I did the scorecard and over 2000 creators have taken the scorecard wanting to be, you know, part of case study or to work with me.
So what do you think about that idea? Before you answer. It's really interesting to me that we're all like in the jar and we can't read the label.
You're like, oh, who would watch a video? A hundred million dollar YouTube exit. Everybody would watch that video.
What are you talking about? So you can't judge your own stuff. Well, so that was the experiment for me, right?
I was going to just put it out there. I wasn't going to care on how it was going to do because I couldn't predict it. And now I have signals from the market saying there's a lot of people interested in this.
Every time you're confused about a title, just call me. I'm like, that's a loser. That's a winner.
Okay. You don't have to be like, well, I don't know. I'm going to just bump around in the darkness.
I will say what's... different from $100 million YouTube exit versus what you just pitched. One of them, it already happened, right?
You're breaking down an exit. You're breaking down something that happened in industry. We talk about TAM.
Talking about copyright strikes can impact people, probably people who have previously been impacted by copyright strikes or are Very sensitive to copyright strikes. Unfortunately, most creators, unless they have firsthand experience getting burned by a copyright, they're not really going to care.
It's not like the sexiest thing. They care about growing their channels, not protecting it. Unless something bad has happened to them.
$100 million YouTube exit. YouTubers could be interested in that. But a lot of people related to the industry could also be very interested in that because that's like a state of affair with the industry as a whole.
I would say that TAM is way higher for this. Plus it's something that has already happened. So they're getting news from you.
They're also getting a breakdown of how was this possible? Where's this industry moving? What maybe could they dream about in the future?
What you're, the series that you're talking about or the format that you're talking about, that is really interesting. I will say it is different from your prior proof of success. Not saying that it's bad or wrong, but just saying that it is, I would say distinct.
Okay. Because I thought it was just a kind of a continuation of that video, right? Because in the video, I actually gave to three case studies of creators I talked to and how I show them where their channel is either going to grow or not grow.
So that's sort of, it is connected to that video. Know how to thread it. Okay.
The next $100 million YouTube exit. Yeah. Yeah, I would say that potentially for sure.
I think that here we're going to format. So like if you did like in that video that did so well, you had case studies with creators who had not yet exited, but like setting them up to exit or something that is, that's getting a lot of views. That's getting a lot of great feedback.
That's great. I do think that what's really an important distinction here is idea versus packaging. Those are often thought about together, but they are different things.
And so here, when we're talking about this idea, it seems like the inside of this video that did really well for you was very similar to this type of thing, which I think is great proof of prior success. Can you break that down? Does that make sense?
I want to do it. Okay. Sorry.
No, no, that's selfish. I'm trying to prove myself here. I just want to say you're such a nerd.
I admire you. Thank you. I don't know what I was expecting.
I spent the last five years of my life on this, Chris. You're such a freaking nerd. I love it.
I've never heard anybody talk about it in such an investment banker way before. You understand the difference between packaging and the idea itself? That's what she was asking.
You're like, no, no, explain. Well, I do understand like packaging. You mean like thumbnail and title?
Because I do know I have to think about that 80 % of the time before I even start my video. I didn't do that. with my first 50 videos.
Now I have, now I do, but I think I'm still not quite clear. I am. Okay.
That's why I just asked you, you're like, yeah, then you're like landed. Like, I'm not clear. I'm like, I think I am.
I want to impress teacher here. Okay. And if teacher says, no, that's stupid.
Get back on the line. I'm like, okay, so sorry. I'll go take more notes.
Impress us. So here's the thing. When you first said, hey, this video blew up, I don't know why.
I'm like, yeah, that's pretty obvious. $100 million YouTube exit. And they're like, okay, I want to continue down that path, like case studies, breakdowns, and I'll do them live.
So we're like, that was, it sounded like a different idea until you explained, no, actually in the previous video, I did breakdowns. So me being a packaging guy, I'm like, well, you just need to call this something that's similar to the other one because the actual idea is the same. I see.
See? Okay, I got it. You know?
The Asian thing? Brilliant, brilliant. Now, teacher, tell us.
Give him a gold star. I am pretty brilliant. No.
She's brilliant. I'm just like jumping on top. Yeah, I mean, I think that, so, mostly yes.
Oh, shoot. No, no, it's good, it's good, it's good. No, no, no, no, no.
Hey, hey, hey. We all have Asian parents here. I would never threaten you with a B minus.
I won't be able to go home. That's the problem. Okay.
Can you explain to me, Tyler, why this video was titled $100 million YouTube exit? Because I was talking about how I worked with my client to get him to that $100 million evaluation. Because 18 months ago, we got to $35 million and I convinced him to not sell.
And we did certain things in the last two years to get him to the $100 million. So that's what I'm doing with creators. This is what I do every day.
Creators come to me and ask me. get me to an exit. So I'm just taking those case studies and I don't do them exactly verbatim because I'm trying to sometimes protect, you know, privacy and who they are.
And so I, like in that video, I broke down two clients, you know, I kind of changed their niches, but I kind of explained what I did for them and why I gave them revenue streams that they hadn't thought about. And I think that's maybe why it was so interesting to viewers. that's the most common I got was I didn't even know this was possible for me.
So, but like in the video itself, did you talk about a client you worked with who did get a $100 million YouTube exit? And then you also talked about other creators. Did they also exit or?
Oh no, they're, they're just on the, on the path. Right. Okay.
So mentioning, right. Because we have packaging versus idea. Inside of the video versus outside of the video.
The outside of this video, why people clicked on this video is probably because they were really interested in what does a $100 million YouTube exit look like? What does that say about the industry? Who did this?
How did they do this? These are curiosity gaps which are created. And we're kind of digging into packaging, title and thumbnail, which we'll get into later.
How are we going to get through all five of these things? I don't know. You guys brought your lunches, right?
So the reason why people clicked on that is probably a different curiosity gap than the main value that they actually received. after watching this video. So they came for what was this $100 million exit?
How did this happen? What channel was it? Who did they sell to?
Like, what's the plans? Like, that's why they probably came. But then once they were in it, they're like, oh, hey, I didn't realize I was going to learn about all these things that I can do to grow my, like my own channel's valuation.
I didn't even know that was possible. So that's all the comments that you're getting. And that's why I think that for an idea, I do think that the fact that this resonates so much with people, that's a little bit about the concept of remarkability.
Like what does it mean to be remarkable? It means that something is novel enough to be remarked upon. And so the fact that people are leaving all of these comments being like, wow, I didn't even know this.
I didn't even know this. That was novel information to them. That was remarkable to them.
But that does not mean that that is. the main thing that is going to get them to click in the first place necessarily more so that we, we don't have proof of that from that video. Maybe we can go out and we can find different videos that package it and frame it in that way.
But if we can't, then what you got with this from this video is people are interested in these big, sexy exits. So if we can package more video around big, sexy exits, like maybe each one talks about one big sexy exit that has happened and then talks about maybe these or potentially we can frame it in a way.
where the packaging itself is around a hypothetical sexy exit that the viewer doesn't know is hypothetical until after they click on the video, but it's satisfying and useful enough to them that they don't feel click baited. But that's more of a packaging conversation than an idea conversation. To, I guess, wrap this up when it comes to the idea section itself, you have your idea.
Great. Two things that we're going to look at. One, what is the TAM on this?
And I think that... I would say you probably have enough proof of prior success of success to at least try this format again. It seems like people really liked it.
It seems like it got a lot of views, at least enough. It depends on what your own view goal is, but it sounds like this is like, if you have more videos like that, that would be a great idea. Um, I would maybe look to see as anybody else also making videos around YouTube valuation, YouTube exits.
See if those, if no one else is doing that, that can be. your remarkability factor. And that's one of those things where just because proof of prior success does not exist does not mean that it's a bad idea.
It just means that maybe you need to create your own proof of prior success. It might be a little bit more risky, but you already have some from your own video. So I would say I would green light that idea.
I would work on the packaging of it, but I would green light that idea. Are you going to say something? There's a lot there that you just said we have to slow down.
We have to pump the brakes a little bit. Okay. First, I just have to address, you put a lot of sauce in there when you're like, oh, who's this?
The way you said that part, you know, when you were saying that the title, the $100 million YouTube exit had a lot of hooks that create this curiosity gap. Did you notice how her body language changed? So she was like embodying the end user, the viewer.
Here's the one thing I want to point out to everybody. Sometimes we have hits and we think we know why it's a hit. But we actually don't.
That's why it's so hard to have, you know, sequels that are equally as good as the original. We think we know what it is. And that's one thing that she brought up.
It might have been this. It could have been several different things. But I think the $100 million YouTube exit has a lot of novelty in it in the title.
So that would get you over their first hurdle, which is get people to watch the content. Then you deliver the goods. But because I haven't seen the video, it may or may not have delivered on the promise of the hook.
So now we go and replicate the ingredient and then we can either find out really quickly if it was the video or it was the hook that got people in. Right. Yeah.
So, so yeah, it's like, okay, do you, is it exactly what you were saying? Was it the format and the way in which you delivered this value? The reason why this video did so well, or was it the outside?
Was it the packaging? Was it the, like the big sexy exit framing that made the video do so well? And then I would experiment.
I would try both of those two things and see which one of those gets closer to replicating the success of that first one. So now you want to say something and then Gwen wanted to say something. So the case study, you know, that's probably a few videos down the road because I do want to experiment a little more to see what from this video.
made it do well. So the next one is already, I already recorded, it's being edited right now. The title is something in the realm of views will not get you to a hundred million exit, right?
And that, that the idea that huge views or huge numbers, that's not what like AdSense and brand deals that doesn't get you to the a hundred million dollar exit. That's what most YouTubers don't understand, right? It's actually other revenue streams.
It's a, product launch. It's a technical app.
Those are the things that get you to 100 million. Something I'll say with this, the framing. So what was the exact title of the first video?
100 million dollar YouTube exit. And then the title of the second video is? Views will not get you to 100 million dollar exit.
I'm going to test you.
What's the difference between those two titles? Oh, snap. This is an open -ended question.
In terms of specifically the curiosity gaps that were created by those two titles. All right. Shoot.
I was just sipping my tea. My Asian sisters are feeling the heat that you just threw on me right now in this room, right? Okay.
What's the difference between those two? First, let me write.
Sorry. Your second title is why views won't get you $100 million exit. Views will not get you to $100 million exit.
Okay. I like this. Do you guys know that?
Do you know why they're not the same? Do you? Maybe.
No, I'm not asking you to tell me the answer. She's like, Chris, I asked you the question and you just threw it to the audience. No, do you know?
But do you say yes? You kind of know? Rox, you know?
When do you know? Driegel, you know. No, I know.
I know. Okay. $100 million YouTube exit has this like, what?
I didn't even know that was possible. Which YouTuber has all those things that she said? And when you said views will not get you to $100 million exit, I'm like, duh.
Duh. Because if I had a lot of views, there's not that same surprise factor and the curiosity is now not so great. I bet you if you rephrase that a couple of different ways, you can create a stronger curiosity gap to hit a higher TAM.
My answer is different from yours. Okay.
$100 million YouTube exit. There is that novelty factor there of somebody hit $100 million YouTube exit. The curiosity gaps created.
Who was it? How did this happen? How long did it take them to get there?
Who did they sell to? It's noticed that a lot more of these questions are around the piece of remarkable news itself. So the audience of that is people in industry who are just interested potentially in the creator economy as a whole.
That would be news to them. They would watch that video. Views will not get you to $100 million exit.
Audience is not now to everyone in creator economy. Audience is specifically you as a YouTuber who are already looking for an exit. Like you are already thinking about, oh, I'm thinking about exiting my channel and I'm thinking about exiting my channel for a lot of money, you know, or I might be thinking about exiting my channel one day.
But again. large majority of people are not actively interested in exiting their channels or not actively thinking about it right now to the point where if it came up on their homepage, they would be like, oh yeah, I'm interested in that and click. So can you see how the audience of these things are different?
And the curiosity gaps are different. The curiosity gap of the second one is what will get me to a $100 million exit? which is still a curiosity gap.
And once again, we're saying views are not the only goal. So if you want to decrease the type of person who is watching this video to only people who are personally interested in exits in order to convert to your own offer, then that is something that's worth considering. But just that is kind of what the difference between those two things are.
And that is actually my goal. Bigger views is not better conversion. I want those creators who want to exit because I want to talk to them and I want them to come talk to me and potentially work with me because I have billion dollar funds who want to buy YouTube channels and we do not have enough inventory.
That's my biggest pain point right now. Yeah, so I think we're... We're going to talk through packaging next.
We should get going on the back of this. We're already talking about this. I would still package this video in a different way, but I like the idea for all the reasons you mentioned, for what your purpose of these videos are, for the concept that other people have been really interested in the topic of exits.
I think the angle we can still work on, but like the topic of YouTube exits and big YouTube exits. validated, love it. The format of case studies, validated, love it.
The angle is something that we can tweak and we'll talk about that in packaging. Don't love it, not validated. What?
I'm just kidding because you did two love it's and validated. The third has to be don't love it, not validated. Just following the pattern here.
I'm on the train. Yeah, the angle not necessarily validated yet, I would say. Yeah.
The angle of the concept of views will not get you like that concept of that angle. I think I might switch into, for instance, like, you know, I, how this YouTuber tripled her valuation or tripled her exit.
That's another case study, but a different type of angle on that. So, but we'll talk about packaging with that. You have to say it to the mic.
Otherwise it doesn't exist. You're a genius. Thank you.
Thank you. Oh, you're talking about April Lynn. Yes.
Oh, okay. Clearly. I'm just catching them.
Okay. Let's go to number two. Let's go to number two.
Titles. So let's say you have your idea selected. You've generated a bunch of ideas.
You've filtered it down. You're like, okay, this is feasible. This aligns with my brand.
This idea is selected. I want to make this idea. What comes next?
A lot of people will jump straight into making the video first.
I think that's fine. It's very common YouTube advice. You may have heard, make sure you make your title and thumbnail first.
Why do a lot of people say this? Well, because your video doesn't matter if no one clicks on your video. You can make the most well -polished, the most beautiful, the most valuable, the most heart -wrenching, emotional masterpiece of a video, but if no one clicks on it, it doesn't matter because no one's ever going to watch it.
So that's why a lot of people like to work on their title and thumbnail first, because if they cannot come up with a clickable enough title and thumbnail, then what's the point of even investing all the time to make the video? So that's why a lot of, especially the bigger YouTubers will do this. I understand that in reality, it's tough, especially if you're doing things yourself to be like, oh, I have to come up with my title and thumbnail first before I do everything else.
That's not realistic for a lot of people. However. Title and thumbnail, very high leverage.
I think most people do not spend nearly enough time thinking about their titles and thumbnails. And even if you don't do it first, this is still one of the highest leverage places to put more of your time and effort in. So that's why titles and thumbnails are so important.
And we'll talk about titles first. Let's do it. Most people think that your title is what your video is about.
That is not true. Your title is the presentation. of your video that will best get people to click on your video and be satisfied watching your video.
It's kind of like I can have a present and the present could be some broccoli. And I could just say, hey, Chris, I have some broccoli. Do you want this broccoli?
And Chris might be like, okay. Sure. But he's not going to be very excited about it.
And he might be like, you know, why? Why would I want broccoli? I want chocolate instead.
Versus if I tell Chris, hey, Chris, I have something that is going to.
Increase, I don't know, your lifespan by testosterone. Is that is that what broccoli does? No.
OK, but. But you're just giving an example. Broccoli doesn't increase your lifespan either.
OK, well, OK. Hey. Chris, I'm going to...
What is happening out there? What the fudge is going on? Asian women and their snacks.
Can you just open all your snacks right now? Not only... Just open it.
Just open it right now. Is it open? Draco, we have to make a new rule.
It's like the movie theater. Only silent snacks. People bring in their crinkly bags.
So, yeah, I guess I don't know enough about broccoli to know what broccoli does. But let's say, for instance, it is something that would increase his testosterone. I'm like, hey, Chris, do you want to increase your testosterone?
I have something for you if you do. And then Chris is like, yeah, yeah, I do, actually, because that aligns with something like a desire that he wants. Then I can be like, OK, here's your present.
And then he'll open it, be like, wait, it's broccoli. And then I'll tell him, yeah, this is all the cool things about broccoli and how this relates to your testosterone. He's like, oh, sweet.
He's going to feel a lot better about eating the broccoli. So that's kind of what a title does. It's not just point blank saying this is what my video is about.
It's presenting the video in the way that a viewer would feel happy clicking on it and feel happy having watched it. Let's talk about titles and getting titles right. And once again, we're going to talk about.
generating titles first, and then criteria of what makes for a good title. First of all, similar to ideas, most people are not making nearly enough titles for their video. Most people think about one, two, maybe max three titles for a video.
You should be coming up with at least 20 to 30 title variations per video that you make. I know that sounds like a lot. I know that sounds like a lot of work.
It's not that bad. You can do all of this within 30 minutes of a brainstorming session. Like it does not have to be that long, probably less.
How would you do that? Well, one, I would spend the first five minutes just brainstorming from your head. Okay, here's what my video is about.
I'm just going to like set a timer, five minutes, brainstorm all the titles that you can think of. Great. After those five minutes are done, maybe you only have five titles.
That's better than two. Amazing. Second, set another timer.
And this time is going to be like for another five, maybe 10 minutes. And this does require a little bit of pre -work before. There's this concept called your model five channels.
And what this is are channels that make a similar type of video as you do, a similar format, let's say. So if you make. educational tutorials this is another channel who also makes educational tutorials if you are making breakdown case studies these are another channel who does breakdown case studies but these are people try not to pick people who are in the exact same niche as you are try not to pick people who are doing the same topics as you are because you don't want to rip them off too much because that's just like a not so great thing to do.
Like we like taking inspiration from people, but not just stealing from them. So for instance, I could be like, okay, like one of my model channels is Ali Abdaal. I make educational kind of like how to videos and breakdowns.
Sometimes Ali will do the same thing. I talk about YouTube. He talks about productivity.
And when I look at these channels, what am I looking for? I'm looking at their videos. I'm trying to extract formats.
So let's say Ali makes a video. titled, how to be more productive without having time. That's a really bad title, but like pretend he has like a video like that and that video has a bajillion views.
I can take that and be like, hmm, that's really interesting. How can I extract a format with that from that title? It is how to blank without blank.
And I think, okay, this is a format that he's done. How could I apply that to the video that I'm thinking about titling right now? And so that's when I would spend, again, I would have pre -written down my five channels that I like to check.
And I would spend five to 10 minutes just looking at their channels, looking at their videos and seeing if there are any title formulas that they've used in their videos that I might be able to apply to my topic and my idea that I'm working on. After that, so now we're like 10, 15 minutes into our brainstorming session. I'm going to set another five to 10 minute timer.
And this time I'm going to look at outliers. So there are tools I like to use for this. I personally like using a tool called one of 10.
It's a YouTube tool. And basically instead of you having to manually search for outliers, it presents them all for you. And I'll look up my topic in one of 10 and I'll spend the five, 10 minutes just scrolling through.
How are these? videos talking about this topic positioned. Are there any similar words that pop out either in their title or in their thumbnail?
So maybe I'm doing something, I'm like, hmm, I realize that they use days a lot. Like it's all about, like I'm seeing many videos that are outliers on this that talk about 30 days or nine months or some sort of timeframe. Maybe I should think about, can I fit some sort of timeframe into my video title, which.
The upside of doing this before making your video is maybe you might see something there that sparks an idea or where you want to even transform your video to make it better positioned. So maybe my original idea didn't have any sort of time element in it, but I'm saying, wait, there are a lot of similarities here. A lot of these power words are related to time.
Maybe I should adjust my video idea so it has some sort of time element as well, because it's all of this within 90 days. Great. So that's what your next five to 10 minutes is.
And then finally, your last five minutes, take everything that you have generated in those first 20 minutes, 25 minutes or so, pop in ChatGPT. Now, I have lots of thoughts around using ChatGPT and AI for video creation. This specific way, I like using it to be like, hey, this is what my video is about.
These are title ideas that I've generated so far. These are what I like about my ideas. These are what I don't like about my ideas.
Can you give me 50 more? And then ChatGPT will give you a lot. I like giving it your list first because it'll tend to use similar formulas or similar power words that you've already picked up in your list and apply it to their own versus like ChatGPT just asking it to give you a YouTube title, terrible.
It will not stop using colons. It's bad, terrible. But that's why we give it everything else that you've already generated so far.
See it typically from that, I'll come up with like another maybe five, 10 that I like. And by the end of this period, I will have at least 30 title ideas for my video in under 30 minutes. So that's how I would start with generating that volume of titles.
So the thing that you're talking about titles and studying other, the model five channels, what you're referencing there, I believe is headline copywriting 101. which is if you use the rot format are you familiar with this rot no okay rot stands for results objections and timeline and you could do it in any order you could do just one and sometimes you could do two on all three so learn spanish as a result the objection is even if you've never spoken a foreign language before and in nine weeks would be the time and you could do it in nine weeks learn how to speak spanish even you could do it in any order and you could just play around with that so copywriters know this basic copywriting rot for a headline and that's what we're talking about right now yes yeah um and you know the different channels will have different formulas and you can just kind of put yours into that and it can really work so after this point you have 30 plus titles great how do you choose which one is the right one fun fact you don't have to choose just one you can choose up to three because we have ab testing in titles and thumbnails but
some overall title rules to help you narrow it down. One, in general, I'm not going to give you an exact number, but in general, the shorter the title, the better -ish. Try to keep it under, I know I just said I wouldn't give you a number, but try to keep it under 65 characters if you can.
It's less of a hard and fast rule. What matters more than length is skimmability. So the problem with really long titles is that people are going to be looking at your title like they are just scrolling on their phone or really like browsing or it's on the sidebar of a video and they just like glance over for like half a second ever so often.
So if your title is too long and they cannot skim it, they are not going to read it. And it's just as well as not having any title at all. So in general, the shorter the title, the easier it is to skim.
Also to that point, if people are skimming your titles, you want to keep the more curiosity inducing, the more important words towards the first half of the title, specifically in the upper left corner, because we read left to right, top to bottom. So in the upper left corner of your title, you want the more important words there.
The worst place for an important word is going to be at the bottom right, because like we don't, we barely get to that point anyway. So it's like, Read, make sure that your most important words are there first, and make sure that your title opens some sort of curiosity gap.
I've mentioned this term before. What is a curiosity gap? A curiosity gap is the gap between what we currently know and what we want to know.
It's kind of like an unfinished story or a question without an answer. Your title should invoke some sort of questions for your viewers. For instance, let's say a title is let's take Tyler's example, actually.
So we have this concept of like how this YouTuber doubled her valuation, let's say. OK, what are the questions that come up from this? OK, how did she double her valuation?
What was her valuation before? What was it after? Like what were the things that she did?
Maybe some like supplementary questions of. Did she sell? Who did she sell to?
Why did she do this? But the biggest curiosity gap is going to be how did she double her valuation? And that is the largest curiosity gap.
In general, your title should evoke at least one major curiosity gap. And the stronger the question, the more the viewer wants to know the answer to that question, the better the title is going to be. We've used a lot of educational examples in this.
talk so far, but this goes for entertainment as well. So let's say you have, um, you know, like I tried making fifth, like I tried eating a pizza every day for 30 days. Okay.
This is not an educational video whatsoever. You're watching this for pure entertainment. What's a curiosity gap that comes from this title?
What happened? What happened to you after 30 days of eating a pizza every day? That's probably the biggest question that comes from that, which gets them to click.
There are also some supplemental questions like, Why did you do this? Maybe what kind of pizza did you eat?
But most people are not going to be interested in that. Most people are going to be in what was the result of eating a pizza every day for 30 days. That is the curiosity gap.
And if your title does not have a curiosity gap, if you're looking at that title, like you kind of have to guess of like, like maybe this is the question that they'll have to get them to click. It's probably not a strong enough title. Do you put in there also in your rules for titles to use simple language versus complicated language?
100%. 100%. This kind of goes to skimmability as well.
Like in general, try to aim for a fifth grade reading level or below is pretty standard. But if you want that high TAM, you want a lot of people to be able to understand what your video is about. And if you use really complex technical language.
it'll probably turn off a lot of people who just maybe are not familiar with that or get intimidated by that. So yeah, the more simple, and simple is more skimmable as well. So also shorter words.
Maybe there's a word that is within a fifth grade reading level, but it's like 15 characters long. See if you can find a synonym that's only 10 characters long or less. All right.
Do we have questions for April Lynn on this part? So when it comes to title, when... is a good time to use complex title, complex wording over simple wording?
I would say there are a couple of reasons why you would. One is if you are talking about the thing itself, that is very technical. Like let's say you're making a programming tutorial and you're talking about a specific thing, especially when it comes to search -based versus browse -based.
Browse -based titles, people are coming at it and they are typically not already aware, like they are not actively looking for this video. They are maybe, as we can say, like problem aware, but not solution aware. They are aware that they have a certain problem that they might want to solve passively, but they're not actively looking for a solution.
This goes for, again, both educational. with literal problems and entertainment when it comes into the problem of like, I want to be entertained, but they're not searching for something specific to entertain them. But when it comes to solution aware, this is when, if someone is very solution aware and that solution is something that is technical, then I would put that technicality in the title because usually they're searching for it.
And so you want to use that technical term in your title so it shows up in search results. So how often can you optimize your title for SEO? What is like the best strategy?
How often can you optimize? You can do it with every video if you want to. It depends on what your goals are and what your strategy is, I suppose.
I think that there are a couple of reasons when you would go for search. One, when you are just beginning is a great time to go for search results because the odds of you making a great enthralling piece of content. that will beat out in interest everyone else on someone's homepage is probably pretty low.
But the odds of you making a video about a specific problem that is better than other people's videos on that specific problem are higher if your problem is specific enough. When you're searching for what to rank for, you're looking for keywords with a high search volume and low competition.
There are in general tools that can help you find this. Like I think like vidIQ and TubeBuddy both have free extensions that can, you can like look for search terms and see how they rank in that. But that's kind of, it is a different strategy to go for search versus browse.
In general, the most views on YouTube come from browse -based videos. And even in my own experience and the experience of many of the other creators that I've worked with, Most of their videos that even do do well in search eventually also do well in browse.
And so I think that search is a great way if you're like, OK, I have a specific video that I want to make. I know that there's a lot of search volume for this thing or maybe just like, hey, I really want people who are interested in specifically this thing to click on my video. That's a great time to optimize for it.
Otherwise, in general, I would say. Aim for browse first and maybe just take a little peep into the search results. Maybe change a keyword or put some stuff in your description or spoke in your video out loud to try to rank for that search result.
I want to clarify something because I thought you said it one way, but then you said it a different way afterwards. So when someone's browsing, they're not solution aware. Not when they were searching.
Just wanted to clarify. So you were solution aware when you were searching. Yes.
I just want to clarify. Okay. In case I heard it wrong.
We got through two. Two. Amazing.
Okay. Let's do one more. One more.
I think we can do one more. Are you okay? Yeah.
Yeah. You sure? Yeah.
No. The last three are all my favorite. So it's tough.
Let's do all of them. Okay. How can we improve this title?
Here's the title. Once you learn this, clients stop choosing your competitors. I might flip it.
Clients will stop choosing your competitors once you learn this because you have the most important part first. There are three main click triggers or like click triggers or emotions of why people click in the first place. There's desire, fear, and curiosity.
Desire is because they want something. to happen. They want to get that thing.
If I'm telling Chris about this thing that I have and I'm like, oh, his desires to increase his testosterone, I want to package it around that. And there's fear. You want to avoid something.
So I would say, hey, Chris, if you don't want to die in the next 30 years, you should probably eat this. It's like, okay, here's something he's really concerned about. That's going on his fear.
There's that. Then there's overall curiosity. And these are the things like novelty of like, oh, this is something that's really interesting.
The curiosity gap that is opened, what happened after this guy ate 30 pizzas in 30 days, that's curiosity. So for you, your clients will stop choosing your competitors after you learn this or something, you know, once you learn this. Is that the thing that they're afraid of or are they actually afraid about losing money?
Are they afraid about growing too slowly? Like what is the main fear there? They have a lot of fears, but the video specifically addresses a way that you can win when you're in a competitive bid situation.
OK, and do you think that is the audience for this? Are they already problems aware, solution aware? Are they already aware of the solution of like, OK, like I like my my problem is maybe I'm not growing fast enough.
And I know that it's because. I'm losing clients to competitors. Therefore, I need to go and find something to help me not lose clients to competitors.
I think they're problem aware, but they might not phrase it that way. They're just like, I'm losing bids. That's probably the most base way I can think of it.
Are they phrasing it as they're losing bids? I'm losing jobs. I'm losing clients.
Okay. Those are all things that they would probably say. Okay.
Then... Then, yeah, I would say that's if that's like the thing that is that they are like aware of and that's like their fear that they are trying to avoid, then you could title it around that. OK.
Yeah. I want to take it back to this thing. And you gave me some ideas.
So you say like the curiosity can exist, I think, in desire, fear and I'm sorry, what was the category for these three? Desire, fear, curiosity. But what was the category?
What did you say that there's three things that... Click triggers. Click triggers.
Thank you. Yeah, this was also not my term invented by me. This was a term invented by Jake Thomas.
He's like a great YouTube titles guy, by the way. Legal disclaimer, we're done. Okay.
A click trigger, desire, fear, and curiosity. So I want to get back to the example. I mean, hypothetically speaking, Chris wants testosterone.
Chris wants to what? Chris wants testosterone. Right.
Back to broccoli. So... do this to boost your testosterone.
That's a desire. The fear version of that is something around not having enough testosterone, why you're losing muscle mass. Yeah, exactly.
And the curiosity could be two things you can do that are natural that'll boost your testosterone. Yeah. So I just wanted to stick with a desire, fear, and curiosity around the same topic versus...
pizza well yeah testosterone is something else yeah yeah i i'd say curiosity this is again i know nothing about testosterone but like you know like milk milk versus protein shake testosterone challenge i was like an idea of like okay like you know you the idea of you were drinking you know you have you have two people they are each drinking this thing and seeing who is testosterone is increased most so you're you're thinking of like you know uh two ways to naturally and uh increase your testosterone i would still say that's desire i see there's still the desire to increase it and maybe increase it naturally versus curiosity is is less so based in a desire but more so around what is the outcome do you guys get that explain that back to me right the the desire is the outcome being I have more testosterone, right?
So like if they're chasing an outcome and this video is describing how to get that outcome, that's a desire. But she's not describing in the latter half of, you know, it's protein shake versus something. They're not necessarily chasing an outcome.
They're just more so entertained around a topic, more so interested in a subject that is less specific. So it's like, oh, cool. I wonder which of those two things is better as opposed to I'm coming to this video to learn how to get protein.
Yeah, it's... It's less of a how can I do this thing or how can I get this thing? It's more of a what happens is curiosity.
Okay. What happens? Because I would argue that the outcome is still the same.
I'm not tuning in to milk versus protein bars for any other reason to know which one is better for me to reach an outcome. Yes. But your description of like what happens.
It's the type of curiosity gap. So it's like, you know, one, like how to. increase your testosterone in just 20 days.
The curiosity gap is desire based because the main question you get from that is how can I increase my testosterone that quickly for something that is, you know, like let's say like a competition between two people, brother versus sister testosterone challenge. You, you look at that and the main curiosity gap is who will win or like who's testosterone will increase the most or what will increase the testosterone the most.
but that's more curiosity versus the main thing being desire. Yes, the reason why they care could be because they want to increase their testosterone, but that's not the main point of the curiosity gap. Okay, perfect.
Let's move on to number three. Thumbnail. I love thumbnails.
Okay, let's talk about thumbnails. Apparently other people love it too. Thumbnails are always fun to talk about verbally because they usually involve pictures that we can just visualize all together.
Thumbnails work with your titles to help open curiosity gaps and get people to click. We already talked about why they're so important. I don't have to rehash that.
A lot of people get really stuck with thumbnails because there's a lot of different directions that you can go with your like 1080 by 1920 pixelated rectangle. Like what do you put in there? And I would say the biggest thing to start with is once again, I'm going with your titles.
What are the main curiosity gaps that you want to create? So let's go back to say how to increase your testosterone in 20 days. Great.
what are like that? That's the main curiosity app that's created here. What are like the, you start with your contents.
So what are the elements that you could put into your thumbnail? And you think about what are maybe images, visuals, or text phrases that can help contribute to this curiosity app. So let's take their example, how to increase your testosterone in 20 days.
We have 20 days, so maybe some element of a calendar, for instance, could visualize 20 days. How can testosterone be visualized? Maybe there's like a pill or supplement or something.
Maybe it's like muscle and that is how you visualize testosterone. Then how can you visualize an increase? Maybe there can be a before and an after as an instance.
And that is like one type of like comparison. thumbnail that you can have. There's maybe the, like the, the result itself.
There are a few different main thumbnail formats that you can look at. So one is the results. You just show the results.
So you show someone being super jacked and say in just 20 days or something. And like, that is, you're very visually seeing the result. You can.
visually see a transformation so it's like a result but it has it before so you see like what is the before state and what is the after state that's another type of thumbnail you can do a novelty thumbnail which is just showing something that people have never seen before that's like another thing that typically goes well with a curiosity based curiosity gaps Let's see.
There's comparison thumbnails. So it's not a transformation. It's not a before and after.
Maybe it's like a left and a right. It's a this person just drank milk and this person just drank protein shake and showing them on the left or the right. A tier list is also an example of a type of comparison thumbnail where you're showing many different things.
And I think when you're thinking about from the base, what sort of curiosity gap do you want to invoke? What thumbnail format? can best fit that curiosity gap and what different visual elements can best represent the elements that go into this video or the parts of the title.
So that's where I would start in terms of contents. Okay. Can we apply this to Tyler's example?
Yeah. Okay. So her next video is going to be called what?
Let's say her next video could be. Like, how Insert YouTuber Here doubled her YouTube valuation maybe in just one year? Is that?
So the problem is the video is already done. I focused on sort of the reasons why views will not get you to 100 million, right? So how do we package that in a way?
knowing the video's already done. And the next video, I will do that. I will go find somebody where I was able to double or triple their evaluation.
But I never want to clickbait my audience. So I want to make sure the video... What is the video about?
It's about how you have to launch a product, basically, and why views like AdSense and brand deals will not get you to that exit, an actual product launch will. Okay. So there are a couple of ways that we can go about this.
So first let's start with the contents. Let's start with the visuals. Okay.
So, uh, I see a hundred million dollar valuation. How can we represent that? Well, there's the text.
You could literally write dollar sign, 100 million. Um, maybe having that be in like green, there's just the visual of like money. like cash stacks or some sort of money stacks could be visuals with that.
You're talking about, so views, how can views be represented? Maybe there's like a down arrow or an up arrow or like the UI, the familiar UI that every YouTuber knows of like the, you know, viewers are higher than average or lower than average with the green arrow or the gray down arrow. That's like one way to visualize views.
How else can you visualize views? Well, there's the, Be like, if someone has high views, they probably have a YouTube play button.
They might have like a silver one, a gold one. They might have a diamond one. What other ways of like visualizing success in views could be like the verified check mark that people get if they've done really well, if they have like over 100K on YouTube.
Those are some things that pop into my mind. But we're not just talking about how it doesn't. So that is like success, but maybe.
How can we visualize that that is not working? Maybe it's like lots of views, but maybe that's like grayed out. Maybe another thing that just popped into my mind because we're talking about this is a whiteboard.
You're talking about like, you know, this doesn't, but this does. And so maybe you're holding a whiteboard or having some sort of whiteboard with the bottom or top having the $100 million valuation. And under it, you're like writing down all of these small things that do contribute to it.
And maybe views is even like X'd out or something. And then all of these other things are underneath it, for instance. Or some sort of comparison there of like high views and like.
a $100 ,000 valuation. And then all of these other things, $100 million valuation. Maybe that's visualized on a whiteboard.
Maybe that's visualized on the thumbnail itself. What I'm getting from this is it's probably not enough to have just the views and the sad valuation. You probably want some sort of teaser of what...
does, which goes into that curiosity. Okay. Views don't do this.
So what does, can we give them like a little bit of a teaser in the thumbnail to show them something that they, that it doesn't give it away. They should not be able to guess the answer by just looking at the thumbnail because otherwise why would they click? But tease is something that they don't understand yet, but they want to understand.
And then they click on the video to understand that thing or to understand what that thing means. So that's kind of how I would think about like the contents in terms of what is what are the elements being shown, which is the first step of thumbnail generation is like, what do we want to even visualize? What are my options of things that I can even put on this canvas to make my thumbnail?
Tyler, you have any feedback or follow up questions? So I was taught the across the room test. Right.
That you should be able to see a thumbnail across the room and know what it's about. So I typically don't do any visuals on my thumbnails. It's usually me, my face.
And then so for the last one, I actually wrote out 100 million. I wrote out all the all the zeros. Right.
And then I wrote, I think, YouTube channel. And I did repeat YouTube and title. I said 100 million.
But I did. I count it as like 16 characters, right? I did, you know, the dollar sign 100M YouTube exit, 16 characters.
It was really short. And I knew kind of my spidey senses when it was short, it was going to do well. So this next one, I don't quite know like what to do.
You just gave me a lot of great information, but it seemed really busy in my mind. Like all these things on a whiteboard, could you see that across the room and actually understand? what that is.
And maybe it's the views being grayed out and that that's like kind of the primary. Yeah. So I'll say for one, everything that I said, you don't have like, don't put all of that into one thumbnail.
Right. So, so I start with like, these are options. So that's like step one, step two will be, let's put, let's combine some of these elements onto this to see, because you know, one, one element could be your face.
One element might not even be your face. So like they're, To represent a $100 million exit or a valuation or a low valuation, maybe you're showing YouTubers who, if you talk about them, if you don't talk about them, don't show them.
But maybe for the future, you can show a very familiar YouTuber who maybe has a high valuation or maybe has a not so great valuation because they're not doing things right yet or a valuation that could be lower. You could go into the familiarity bias there. What you're talking about is like, I have a similar test called the glance test, right?
So if someone sees this for only like two seconds, would they be able to see what was on there and make sense of it? When it comes to this, if your words are meant to be read, they should be legible and very skimmable in that time, but not every element in a thumbnail needs to be completely seen. So for instance, let's say you had some sort of like whiteboard with an equation of like, or not even like a whiteboard, like something like blank plus blank plus blank equals 100 million.
Like that by itself can maybe be on the top and you could like see what that is. And then maybe on like underneath that, you have some visuals that people. don't really know what they mean, but they don't have to.
You don't have to be able to read everything if it's not meant to. Like a whiteboard that has a bunch of stuff drawn on it, it is not meant for people to like see every single element. They're supposed to see, oh, there's stuff here to learn.
And that is like the element is in and of itself the thing. Another instance I'm thinking about for your 100... million dollar evaluation to you're talking about what views doesn't so for instance it can maybe even be like a pie chart or a donut chart with different colored elements around it each adding up to 100 million and the smallest one you can see is views and maybe that's labeled views and that is the thing that they see but they instantly see oh look at all this other stuff around it that makes up a bit a much bigger portion of the 100 million but what are those things?
And you click to figure out what those things are. So I don't know if that fully answers your question, but basically, yes, thumbnails should be understandable at a glance. It should not be in order to understand this image.
You have to spend a long time looking at it. But that's different from you have to be able to individually know and read and understand every. element in this thumbnail within two seconds.
Do you see that difference? I'm going to be sending you money later for this session because it's amazing. I'll give you my Venmo later.
No, hers. Oh, sorry. I thought you were looking at me.
Abra Lynn, one of your best performing videos has that amazing, like, like that color. scheme in the back can you can you talk about that because it's so compelling and it's such a good thumbnail and i think wait before we get to that can we land this plane oh okay the ladies on the trains you know they just want to go to another train um yes um very quickly to to drill in on the something plus something equals 100 million are the two things actual words that they get to see or are we blurring them out so they don't actually know what they are They could be blurred.
I actually don't love blurs in thumbnails that much. They just never look great. For some reason, they never look great.
You could pixelate them. You could like put boxes over them. You could just leave a blank, just have like underline plus underline equals thing.
And there's just nothing there. Okay. Yeah.
I'm good. I have my thumbnail now. Let's break down what I did.
So what we started with was, once again, thinking about what are the different... elements that we could use to visualize this thing. We got a little bit deeper into like, not just her title, her title, just like views are not this, which makes me think, okay, what is then?
So how can we visualize some sense of there is a greater hole here and views are maybe not contributing the majority to this thing to show what is. So that's why my mind's like pie chart or donut chart. That is all actually just step one in the thumbnail process.
The step two after this becomes composition. So we have our contents. Now we need our composition.
We got to figure out where do things go. And when I think about composition, you think about what elements do you want the viewer to see first? Where do you want your attention to go?
What is the most important thing? In Tyler's case, in that instance, it's either the text itself. Or what's probably going to be is like whatever the chart is, for instance, like that's going to be the main visual.
We want that to be seen first. If we want things to be seen first, we want to put it, there are a couple of different places we can put it. Things in the center tend to be seen first.
So where things are at, things on the top of the thirds tend to be seen first. So those are the two places you want things to be seen first. Your main characters are probably going to go either in the center.
or in the top. If you just think about hierarchy, which is the order in which you see and understand things from composition. But composition is not the only, or position is not the only place, it's not the only way to establish hierarchy.
You can also do it through size. So let's say the biggest element of your thumbnail is over on the left third. Even if something is centered but is much smaller, your eye is going to go to the biggest thing first.
You can establish hierarchy through position. You can establish hierarchy through size. You can establish hierarchy through things like blur and depth of field, things closer to the camera.
You're going to focus on first versus things further away from the camera, foreground, middle ground, background. You're going to think about things typically in that order and the way that things are closest to you as long as they're not blurred. So that's kind of what I would think about.
Like, where do you want to place things in general? thumbnail text is very rarely going to be your main character why it's possible you can but as humans we interpret and understand and are able to evaluate images much faster than we can read text so if possible you want text to be a supporting character for your thumbnail not your main character go ahead tyler my question was about Using us as sort of edutainers, right?
I notice in most of your videos, it is your face. And I use my face because people recognize me as the creator's attorney. So when I tend to use other people's faces, like Mr.
Beast or whatever, it doesn't tend to do as well. And I love to hear your thought on how do you choose? Do you believe in the spirit of like generating 30 titles before you zero in on the one that you're going to use?
Me? No, no. I'm asking people here.
Generally, we are like, that's a good idea, right? If we're going to take this seriously, we're not just messing around. It's not a hobby.
We want to get really good, and we want the video to be seen by as many people as we want it to be seen by. Yes? Generally speaking, yes.
Yes, and the one thing I would add to April Lynn's suggestion was to use Gemini, because Gemini is owned by YouTube. That's fine. I'm just saying, I do the same.
I do five or ten, and I feed it through Gemini. So if we think that's a good idea for titles, we probably then logically would then conclude that maybe we have to do the same for the visuals. I'm going to throw out a warning for folks, okay?
I've seen a lot of channels, I'm not saying yours is that channel, where they do the minimal. They put your face and they put just all text. And the text is, the worst thing is it's redundant to the title itself.
So now I'm like, it doesn't add anything. There's no curiosity here and you're wasting a lot of screen real estate. And when you start to develop in your own personal brand and people recognize your face and they want to see what you have to say, when they see the exact same thumbnail with different type, sometimes they get confused.
Like, did I see this video already? And it's really not that good. So don't waste the opportunity.
There is a cliche, a picture's worth a thousand words, and it's true. If you try to communicate something really complicated with words, it will use a lot of words, but you can do it with one image, even an icon or a symbol. So what I want you to do, I want to encourage everybody to just open up your mind and take the visual part as seriously as you do the title part.
Here's an example. Our most viewed video ever, something about how to price a logo or something like that. I've gone through 100 different thumbnails.
And the thumbnail that we are with now isn't even my idea. A young designer, I don't want to say young, a designer, she made a thumb for this thing, like visual notes. I'm like, I love that.
I messaged her on Twitter back then and said, hey, Can I use that idea? And the idea was this.
Because before I had my face, I had all kinds of weird stuff in it. The idea was this. On a balance beam, a scale, on the left was a diamond, on the right was an hourglass.
What's more valuable? And that is then took it to the next level. And so don't ever rest.
Just sit there and think, how can I communicate this? So she gave you photographic. illustrative, symbolic, and even symbols and equations.
And then the pie chart seemed to tickle you a little bit. And here's the other thing I want to warn everybody about. As experienced as we are, we can never predict what thumb works.
We will just try. I'm like, dang, that was really clear to me. And you might do the pie chart.
It could just bomb. We just don't know. So you have to have like idea three, four, five, six, seven, ready to go and just drop them in, keep doing tests.
In fact, there's a video that we did. that Drigo and I had high hopes that would just take off like a rocket ship. It did 7 out of 10.
That's terrible. But we keep changing it. Different titles, different thumbs.
We're at 4 out of 10 now. We're not going to rest until it becomes 1 out of 10. And that's the kind of dedication we're talking about.
So a lot of people think the work is done once you record the video or edit it. The work has just begun. Plus one to so much of that.
I think that it's... Thumbnails matter so much. YouTube is a visual platform and it is opt -in content.
It's not content that is served for you. It's the main difference between short form versus long form content on TikTok. There's no thumbnail.
It doesn't matter what your title is. It's served to you. You're instantly watching.
On a thumbnail, literally, as we said before, if people don't choose to click on it, they will not watch it. So thumbnails are incredibly important. I think that visuals 100 % as a practical tip, if you're like, I don't even know where to start with this.
My producer and I, we always start our thumbnail ideation process by once again, looking at our model five channels and looking at outliers of similar topics. We're like, okay, what are their visuals? Even if we don't do exactly what they're doing because we don't want to copy, what are visual elements that tend to show up on these things frequently?
that goes into our image bank of things that we can add onto there. So it just helps generate. But 100 % visuals, whenever you can, text can be fantastic for supporting things, for labeling things, for clearing things up.
Very, very rarely should text be the main character of your thumbnail. If you can avoid it, try to avoid it. Okay.
Now let's answer Tyler's specific question about what are your thoughts about featuring your face versus other people? Yeah, I think that... Faces in general as a visual image is great.
It's what I call a scroll stopper. So biologically humans are wired to pick out and identify faces. That's just the way that we work.
We are really good if there's like a completely empty room and there's a face in there, our brain will just find the face amongst the other stuff in the room because we're really, really good at that. And within faces. We're even better at identifying familiar faces.
So within a C, like we're really good at like looking at 50 people and finding our mom or our significant other in that C. That's just what we're built for. So when it comes to faces in general, great, our eyes stop and that our scroll stops on that.
A familiar face, even better. So then it comes the question of. Which is better, the familiar face of the creator or the familiar face of maybe a different YouTuber or a different figure?
I would say, unfortunately, it kind of depends. What does it depend on? Well, for one, who is the audience that you're trying to reach from this?
If it's your own audience who you want to watch this video. great. Your own face is probably going to do a lot to be able to bring them in versus someone else's face.
If you're trying to reach a broader, like a much broader audience than just your own audience, it might be worth putting in like the, the other more familiar face. They're going to be a different type of people. I've even seen YouTubers do both.
So in like the first week that a video was out, they'll do their face. So they hit all of their audience who already loves and knows them. And once it starts to slow down being pushed out to less people, they'll do that thumbnail swap to the familiar face of the other person that's not them.
So it has a chance of being more clicked on by people who might not recognize you as the creator because they don't really watch you very often. But hey, this face of Mr. Beast, I know who that is.
They might click on that. Really quickly, I'll just say the third C of thumbnails. We've talked through contents.
We've talked through composition. Really quickly, I want to talk through contrast. It's like the last way to focus attention or direct attention.
to make things stand out in a thumbnail is to make thumbnails pop. There are different types of contrast. There's luminosity contrast.
If everything else is dark and something is light, the light thing is going to stand out. There's color contrast. If everything is one color and one thing is not, that thing is going to stand out, specifically when it comes to complementary colors, but you don't have to do complementary colors.
And then finally, there's saturation contrast. So if everything is low saturation, something is high saturation, that high saturation thing will stand out. To Tyler's question, and just because it fits so well in here, in my...
Most viral thumbnail, everything was very low saturation grays, except for one very highly saturated, colorful rainbow color palette element that drew a lot of attention to that one element and that helped that thumbnail stand out. So those three C's of thumbnails, contents, composition, contrast. Perfect.
What's number four? Number four is hooks. I'll try to do this quickly.
So after you have your idea and you have your title and you have your thumbnail, fantastic. Let's make your video. We got to start with the beginning of the video, uh, similar to the logic when it comes to titles and thumbnails.
If people don't make it past your first 30 seconds, they're not going to watch all the rest of the video. You spent so much time and effort on the largest drop -off in your retention graph is going to mean those first 30 seconds. So if you can increase that, if you can like, decrease that drop off.
If you can increase that retention, just your first 30 seconds, you will by default increase the retention for the rest of your entire video, which we want to do because average view duration is great when it comes to sending happy signals to the YouTube algorithm. So how do we do that? How do you prevent that drop off?
You can never fully prevent it, but you can do things to decrease that drop off. Number one, by far, the most important thing to do in your hook is confirm your click in your first five seconds. What does that mean?
Well, your title and thumbnail together make what I call the plot promise, the promise of what is this video going to be about? And if in your first five seconds, you do not mention anything to do with that plot promise, people are going to click off. So if I say this video is going to be about growing a YouTube channel in the first five seconds, I do not mention growth or YouTube or channel.
People are going to drop off instantly. So first five seconds, you have to confirm your click. I would recommend doing this with your both audibly with your words and also visually with the things that they see on screen.
So if I'm talking about starting a YouTube channel, the first five seconds should probably see some sort of a YouTube logo maybe on there. Maybe it's like an overlay that you have. Maybe I have something YouTube related in the background within like.
in my background as well, but some sort of like visual to represent and confirm the click. A lot of people scroll over on autoplay so that they don't even hear what's being said, but visually they should see that even scroll over autoplay the first five seconds. Ah, yes, this video is going to talk about what I thought they were going to talk about.
After your first five seconds, one of the biggest mistakes I see in hooks are people make them way too long. There's this term I like to use called time to value. So what is the length of time it takes before you start?
giving the viewer the value that they came for. The longer the time to value, the more people are going to drop off. In general, you want to make your intros at least like 30 seconds long or shorter.
Any longer than that, you start to get into the danger zone. Where most people go wrong on this is adding way too much context in the very beginning of their video. Most contexts, you can actually drip feed to them later on as they need it.
So really, really think about with discernment, Does this viewer need to know this piece of context right here, right now in this prime spot in the very beginning of my video? Or can I tell them to them a little bit later once the value has already begun?
And then after your context, what you really want to do, once again, we're talking about curiosity gap. You want to help extend, once again, reiterate, make that curiosity gap that people want to know. even bigger within your intro.
Let them know, yes, that was what you clicked for. And once again, we're opening that. So you want to keep watching until the end.
The last thing I'll mention when it comes to intros is really try to front load your stimulus. So anything that you associate with a good video, let's say like maybe it's a visual effects, maybe it's pacing, maybe it's music, maybe it's a sound effects, maybe it's a visual variety and your shot types changing. Any cool thing you do later on your video, make sure you do that cool thing.
in your intro even more. Otherwise, if it's not there, people are not going to assume it's going to be there later. So really front load all of that stimulus, all of that value, that signal of value and effort in your intro.
I know I said that was the last thing. One last thing to mention about intros as well. Some sort of...
Differentiator, if possible, can be really great to put in your intro. I call this your USP or unique service proposition. So basically, if there's a lot of other videos on this topic that people can be choosing from, why would they want to watch yours?
There's a lot of different types of USPs you can put in there. Maybe it's your expertise. So you could say like, if you are talking about...
uh nutrition and food maybe you can say that you are a certified dietitian or maybe you've been studying this for so long like what is your expertise that makes you worth listening to on this thing there is also input bios the efforts like how much effort did you put into this video maybe you spent a hundred days working on this video, or maybe you, you watched a hundred videos to learn for this video.
Like what is the effort that you put in that makes that value more, that makes the video more valuable and makes it worth watching to your viewers, even just proof. So if you say you did something and then you prove that you actually did the thing that you said you would do, that can be a great USP as well for people to want to keep watching.
So yeah. I know that was like a lot, but those are general intro thoughts. What's the quiz question to throw at the audience?
Be ready. Yeah. Okay.
What's the biggest mistakes that people make in their intros? Here we go.
Just give me one second. Yep. Go ahead.
That they don't, they spend way too long to get to the point. They don't talk about what they promised in the thumbnail. or the title, and they don't, that's the main two that I remember.
Yeah, how long should your intros be at max? 30 seconds or less. Great.
Yay. Another question for them. Another question.
What are different ways to signal your unique service proposition in your intro? There you go. Throw her the mic.
She just said this.
Think of how, like, look at your model channels and look at how other people are differentiating themselves and think of ways how you position yourself and think of, you know, your own differentiators and put it up front. Yeah, that's a way, yeah. What is your differentiator?
I ran a podcast called Two -Side AI. I responded to the channel yesterday. I have no idea what to expect at this event.
Sorry, I'm late. That's not the question I asked you. Sorry, sorry.
Can I ask a question? Don't worry. No apologies necessary.
That should be at the door. What is your differentiator? What makes you so special?
I interview AI founders. I'm an AI researcher myself. I live in Silicon Valley, and that's what I do.
I run a podcast, and I want to ask you, like I put a trailer of all the highlights. If I say I interview Crystal, I'll put all the really insightful things Crystal said in the interview up front. I want to ask, is that the correct way of running a good podcast, like the DOAC stuff?
Hold on, hold on. You still haven't answered my question. You're an AI researcher?
Yes. What are your credentials? What makes you qualified?
I've been working in AI search for more than 10 years. I built the first version of Fargo Bot at Wells Fargo. I used to work in the banking industry.
I led AI development over there. And I'm also a winner of Anthropic Developer Tournament. Published two books in AI related stuff.
Okay. Let's just do the shorter version of that. Let's do that one more time.
What's your differentiator? What is your name again? Angelina Young.
Angelina? Okay, so Angelina, what is your differentiator? What?
I'm very honored to meet with you guys. Go ahead. Give us your...
I try to leverage my extensive experience in AI. and get the best stories from people who are actually building AI and helping them to get the visibility that they deserve as well. That's not your differentiator.
Can you just say your differentiator for her? Yeah, Draco, go. Every once in a while, Draco wants to throw himself into the lion's den.
Angelina? Go ahead. I got this.
Go ahead. I want to try. Hey, so my name is Angelina.
I've been in AI for over 10 years. I built Wells Fargo's first bot and won a competition with Entropic. And today I'm going to interview some of the top founders in AI.
Perfect. Yeah. A little long, but good, right?
Yeah. So I don't think you would need all of that in your intro. But specifically, I like the expertise of how long you have been in the industry for.
I think like... That is the single strongest differentiator for me is how long you've been, especially because it contrasts so much with AI. So many people are like, oh, AI.
I just got into AI six months ago, and I'm an expert. The fact that you've been doing it for 10 years is the single biggest differentiator, the most important differentiator to me. So that's the thing that I would highlight in your intro.
But with that being said, a lot of people are like... We're going through this as we're looking for designers. I've been designing for 10 years.
It doesn't mean that you're good. No, no, but hold on. I already know where you're going with this.
AI for the general public is like a new thing. They say like you're an OG means something. Just by the fact that you were doing AI 10 years ago means you're so far ahead of the curve.
I did AI before it was cool. With that being said, though, the fact that she built the first AI for Wells Fargo or that she won a contest for. But she could have built the first AI for Wells Fargo a year ago.
We don't know that with me, I can say, hey, I got featured in Gary V's book and I work with influencers like Chris Doe. Don't you want to tie some kind of name and credibility? I'm just trying to say like she done some incredible things along with it.
OK, I got you. She listed five things. Why did you choose?
I want to explain to you one more time of the five things she could have listed. Why did you choose the one you did? Yeah, I would say.
There are five things to choose from. That's another interim state. Do not list your resume in your intro.
That is too much credibility and no one really cares about you. The only point of what you're doing is so they get to care about what you're saying a little bit more or trust you a little bit more. So don't list all five things.
Let's narrow it down. We could maybe list up to two verbally. That's another thing you can list.
You can list more visually because it doesn't take up. space. So of the five you mentioned, I chose the 10 years more.
One, when I heard you say things out loud at 10 years, I perked up a bit. Why did I perk up a bit? Because AI has not been trendy for too long.
So for someone to be in industry for 10 years, I'm like, okay, her perspective on this is probably going to be. really freaking interesting versus people who call themselves an expert after six months I do think that the credibility of a like a name brand like Wells Fargo I think with Drigo's point like mentioning that he's mentioned like in Gary Vee's book and then he works with Christo I think those are people that a lot of people associate with the things that you're thinking about I don't think a lot of people associate Wells Fargo with being like poppin and hot and AI They think about it in a different light.
So if you wanted to mention that, I would maybe have it be like a quote, like newsletter clipping or like article about like, you know, Wells Fargo's first AI bot or something. It does not be a real one. You can like make your own and like highlight certain keywords and put that up there with you.
But I would not mention it verbally. Okay. It's embarrassing.
So what she's saying. Of the five things she said, she's looking for the most remarkable novel thing, Driegel. And the answer will be different for each person.
And the reason why he brought up the fact that somebody's like, I've been working in design for 10 years. Because everybody has. So what?
But if maybe they are judged art director, British design in art direction, then that's something. Then that's the part you would bring up. So every industry is going to be different.
And your individual accolades will be different. We're just trying to get credibility really fast and move on. If that is the USP that you want to focus on, which is credibility, which is just one of them.
Number five is going to be storytelling. And some people roll their eyes at the word storytelling because they're like, oh, like it's very much a buzzword. Maybe story is important if you're an entertainment channel.
But if you're an educational channel, why would you care about story? Like you're not really telling a story here. You're teaching something.
When I think about story, I think about the rhythm of. information that is going to keep people retained and caring about what you have to say. And storytelling is a very complex thing, but we can really simplify it into what we call story cycles.
A story cycle is just a promise, a progress, and a payoff. A promise, a setup, what is coming up, a progress, telling you about the thing or getting you closer to what the thing you were promised was, the payoff, you receive what you were promised.
That is a story cycle. And all a video is, all a story is, is just a series of story cycles. So typically you have the overall, I'm doing this because in my head, a story cycle is kind of like a parentheses.
So you have the outer parentheses of like the main story. So let's say in Hilary's example, like the main story of what this creator did. to double her valuation.
That is the main promise. I'm going to get that the main payoff at the end. I'm now going to understand within that you're probably going to have separate, smaller story cycles.
Like first we have to talk about this. Then we're going to talk about this. Then we're going to talk about this.
Each point of your video, almost like if you're talking about an essay, each body paragraph, each of those are going to be its own story cycles with their own promise, progress, and payoff. There's a little bit more I have to talk about this, but the easiest way to do it is going to be through an example. So Chris, do you want to give me an example about a video topic?
I'd love to give the opportunity to our audience. What makes a brand tied to you emotionally? Perfect.
That's great. Great job. I'm getting points with Chris here.
Okay, so let's say we're making a video about... how to, um, make your brand high to emotion, like how, how I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to rephrase this a bit, but like how to create super fans of your brand we'll say. Okay.
So you have the overall story cycle where in your intro, you are going to last on your intro. You're going to set up that main curiosity gap, that big promise of, let's say you are going to learn the, uh, four -step system for creating an irresistible brand.
Great. That sets up, that's the promise, that sets up the payoff of at the very end of the video, this is the four -step system, or you now know the four -step system for creating an irresistible brand. That's the payoff, right?
Everything in the middle is going to be progress. So after that first promise, you're going to learn that. Then we start to go to like mini, like the first of the inner story cycles.
And to do this, I would typically start with the purpose. So what is the purpose of the next thing that you're going to be talking about? Why does this thing matter?
So we can say, like, step one is give me a step of making an irresistible brand. You can do it. A memorable experience.
Okay. Step one is architecting a memorable experience. That's like the setup, the promise, the premise.
This is what we're going to be talking about. Then for some videos, that will be enough. For some videos, we're going to need a little bit more.
We're going to need proof of why. So the first thing is this. Because a memorable experience is what blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That is like the why. Like we're going to talk about this. Why are we talking about this?
Why does this matter? Talk about this versus this because this is the thing. And then at that point, we're like, now we know that that.
So a memorable experience is or so to get or so to form a memorable experience, you need to. And that's like that promise that's coming in. That's what we're going to learn in this section.
Then comes the progress where you are actually teaching the framework or giving them anything they need to get to the payoff. Then they have the payoff. Now you have a memorable experience, but, and at the end of that payoff, we're going to open the next story cycle, make them care about the next thing.
What is the why here? But a memorable experience does not matter without what's next thing? Emotion.
Without emotion.
So, or like perhaps it's like, because emotion is a blah, blah, blah. So to evoke emotion with your branding, you need to, and then you go into the framework, the thing that you're teaching. And I know this is like a very educational example, but this can be applied to entertainment as well.
It can be applied to anything, but that's like the main, I guess, concepts or frameworks to understand when it comes to building any story. This is interesting. I hope it's not semantics.
What you're describing to me doesn't sound like actually story structure. It just sounds like essay structure. There's a thesis or topic sentence, supporting paragraph, and a conclusion.
Because I do teach storytelling, it would be a very different conversation than the one you're having. So I'd love to get nerdy with you if possible. Yeah, let's do it.
Okay. What it sounded like was, like you said, it's very educational. be curious how this applies to like a real story.
Yeah. So let's take another example and let's apply it before I, I find the friction point between where you are. I may or may not disagree.
I don't know. Somebody else want to try? Oh, look at that.
Oh my God. Angelina's raising her hand. I just can't even believe myself right now.
How about the time that you won the anthropic prize? Um, it was very boring. Well, we're gonna make it interesting.
We are going to make it interesting. I don't have to trust us. So So yeah, so it was early 24.
Wait, wait, wait, hold on. We don't need you to tell the whole story We just need to know what the shape of it is. So then April is gonna do her thing Okay, the shape of it is format is there was an onset on Twitter and then open to all developers.
I Accidentally accidentally saw that And it was it was open has some some choices that you can do And I go ahead and did it. And I submitted it.
That was it. Great. Okay, cool.
Before we go, pretty boring story the way it was just told. On a scale of interesting from 0 to 10 or 1 to 10, it's pretty low. I'm sorry.
That's why you don't want to tell that story. Now we're going to watch the doctor at work here. Dr.
Cornell just working her magic. You know what I'm saying? No, no, no.
Cornell University, right? I just went to art school, so what do I know? Let's go.
I love this. What's really interesting is I'm really interested to see what your storytelling framework is because I think mine is very YouTube, like YouTube specific. I love it.
Let's rock. Yours, like I feel like conversational storytelling probably looks different from YouTube storytelling. But from a YouTube storytelling brain, I'm like, okay, first off, this is a story.
What are the payoffs? The main payoff you're going to get is Angelina wins the Anthropic competition. Incredible.
Okay. Within that. What are different payoffs that she gets along the way?
Well, I think probably at some point she completes the thing that she submitted. So that's probably going to be a payoff because there's probably going to be some turmoil in her like seeing, like trying to make the thing in the first place. I think that's probably going to be the payoff that's like the closest to the final payoff.
The other step she said is. Like her deciding to apply to begin with is probably going to be a payoff. That's probably going to be like a turning point at this point of like why she decided to go for it.
Those are probably going to be like I'm trying to think if there's a payoff earlier in this story. I think those are probably going to be the main. like smaller story cycles within the bigger story cycle from what I remember about your story.
Okay. Each of these payoffs now need a setup. So the payoff of she wins the anthropic competition, there has to be some setup in the beginning, probably around your intro about, you can either have it directly of like the story of how you won the anthropic competition, or maybe like how one application or how one uh, submission or how one thingy changed your life.
And that can be the thing that you set up. And like what we actually get is the anthropic competition you winning. And then a little bit about like how that changed your life.
So we can do that. Let's take it out that first story cycle. It's, it ends with the payoff of her applying.
So you need to have some sort of setup. The setup can be what was your like emotional state or her, who were you in the before? you decided to apply.
So before, maybe you were hoping for X, Y, and Z. Hey, that sounds like another setup that you should probably get at the end at that payoff. Now you have that X, Y, and Z.
So you're hoping for this. Maybe you are struggling. Maybe you have been applying to places and haven't been getting in.
So you need something to like amp up your resume. You're like unsecure about your job. Maybe you have a great job, but you've always felt like you haven't been doing enough.
I don't know, like, you know. Kind of what is that before? And then boom, this thing happens.
You see this thing on your Twitter feed. And then we get into that payoff of do you decide to apply? Yes or no?
That payoff that goes with the, oh, but you thought all of this and this was your chance to maybe get that. I decided to apply. We feel good as viewers.
We feel satisfied. You're like, oh, like. yay, a story beat happened.
I'm excited. Then you set up the next thing, which is now that you've applied, we have a problem. I have to actually make this thing.
So how, um, when, when I say, so how that sets up the next thing of like you making the thing. Um, maybe they're even smaller story cycles. Well, first I need to do this.
Then I had to do this and then I had to do this in order to make my submission. Each of those will have their own first thing to do this because this needs to happen. And then you do it and then, okay, step one is done.
Now we have to move on to step two. And maybe that's how you make your application. Then finally you apply and we get that satisfaction of you are finished.
You are complete. You have all these hopes riding on it. You apply.
And then we set up. the next thing, which like, I don't know how long you had to wait after you applied. You know, so I applied there, the story concept of, uh, yes, but no.
And did you do the thing that you wanted to do? If yes, you achieved it. It's yes, but, and then the thing, so yes, you, yes, you submitted, but you had to wait X weeks to hear back.
And then what happens during that waiting period? Or maybe the opposite is a no and. So let's say you applied, you waited, you had the interview.
Did you do great on an interview? Maybe the answer is no. So it's like, no, I thought I bombed it.
No and. So no, this thing did not work out. And because of that, worst thing happened.
So and, so no, I did not do well. And because of that, I felt. like the worst human on the planet or something, right?
And kind of like dig into that experience a little bit. So that's kind of how I would build up these different parts of the story. A lot of this to me in the YouTube sense is, let's say you have a lot of different clips.
You are understanding as you're building out your timeline, like what story cycle does this, is this a part of, and is this part of a setup, a progress or a payoff? And that kind of like can help you build out your timeline if you have a lot of footage to work with. And then in terms of scripting out, you can look at your script and be like, okay, does each payoff that I have, is there a setup to support that?
For each setup do I have, does there a payoff to support that? And that can be like to help you shape up your script. My approach is going to be very different.
Yeah, I'm really interested to hear what yours is. I'm all nervous. Dr.
Connell is here. Here's what we're going to do. I just have to ask you a couple of questions.
Number one is let's pretend that you wanted to tell the story because it seems like you don't want to tell the story. But in order for this to work, I need you to like feel like you want to tell the story. Is that OK?
Right. All right. So just pretend.
OK. If you tell the story, what is it you want me to learn by you telling the story? You have a lesson.
I think the lesson I want to share is, you know, when you think something is maybe not achievable, it's still worth a try. OK. So then you can say like the lesson is you miss 100 % of the shots you never take.
Right. So take your shot. There's a thousand ways to say that.
Yes? Yes. Okay.
All stories need conflict. If there's no conflict, I'm bored out of my mind. So I want you to try to find the greatest point where the conflict is the highest.
Between the time in which you first thought you want to do this and the time in which you're the winner of this, where's the conflict? Because there's no conflict, there's no story. I think the hardest part is, you know, as a technical person at the time, I was struggling with, because itself is very open -ended.
It's like you're going to an essay competition and you're given a piece of blank page. And it's like, I'm going to make my first YouTube video. What should I do?
And my end goal, my payoff is I want to win the contest. And then now I'm handed over a piece of blank page. Whereas, you know, I'm working with the most prestigious company in the AI space.
Okay. So your conflict is I don't believe I can win. I don't know what to do to win.
Which is the stronger emotion? I don't, I guess it's more imposter. Yeah, I don't believe I can win.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
All right. Is that true, though? Did you not think you were going to win?
I think it crossed my mind, but I didn't really think too hard about it. Well, my question is, did they give no instructions? Is that what you're trying to say?
Is they didn't tell you what the actual competition was? It's an open brief. It's open.
You can build basically whatever you want to build. So that would be very hard. I mean, that to any normal human would be like, oh, my God, what do I do here?
Well, it depends which human. Creatives like open breeze. They really do.
I'm an attorney. I hate that. Yeah.
That's why I said it depends on which human. Now, Angelina, I'm just curious. What did you study in school?
Data science, machine learning. Data science, machine learning course. Where did you study?
Sorry. Where did you go to school? Ohio State and Stanford.
I knew it. I just knew it. Do you know why?
How did you know it? You said you knew it too? My statement was crazy?
Well, we'll get into it a little bit. I mean, I don't want to derail the whole conversation, but you're like doing data science, machine learning, nerdy stuff. My brother went to Stanford.
It's kind of like there's a few schools you go to to do that at the highest level. And I don't know anything about Angelina, but I just feel that she's right at the highest level. You know, just put it out there.
Just she didn't have to believe me. OK, now we get into the storytelling part. OK.
The thing that we don't often realize is we don't take inventory of the emotions and the feelings we have. So we communicate very complicated things. So you just have to boil it down.
We all have the same fears. We all have the same hopes. We want to take care of our family.
We don't want to be ostracized by society. We want to be loved and appreciated. It's just some basic things.
And these are the things that other people want to hear in you. Because in telling your story, they see themselves. So when you're like, well, you don't know what it's like to go to Stanford.
You're right. I'm not really that interested. But if it's just like, I don't believe I can win.
So now I'm going to totally make up a story for you to see if we can make it more interesting. And then I'll break down like why I would tell the story this way. Okay.
I would start off with something like this. And I would just drop people into the story right away because too much of a setup is really boring. That's why in movies they say start at the car chase or the crash.
You have to just begin right there. where the highest point of friction is. Something that you can say something like this.
I've never wanted anything in my life. In fact, when I was growing up, my mom would always tell me, you're the unluckiest person I know. Something like that.
Something super abusive, like verbal, like violently tiger mom -ish things to say. She said I destroyed her life. Yeah, yeah.
See? Stuff like that. You would drop stuff in there like that.
Everybody's like, Fudge, what a mom, you know? And then you're just like, so I'm on X or I'm on Twitter. And I see this thing and I keep thinking to myself, well, who am I to even to apply?
There's all these big companies and I just don't think so. But then I see something or I know something and then I can do this thing and I just take my shot. And I spent all night and then you can tell some of the details of the story.
The details are not that interesting, but you're just looking for all the conflict points. And then at the end of it, I hit send and I don't want to. It takes me like 10 minutes to hit the send button.
Then you just highlight all the fears that you're feeling. Like what if people see this and they're like, I can't believe Angelina submitted this piece of crap. Just go through all the inner demons, all the conflict.
And then whenever the announcement happens, and to my surprise, my friends text me, did you know you won this thing? And it's hard to believe. And the reason why I told you this story is because like Michael Jordan said, you miss 100 % of the shots you don't take.
So I hope to encourage you that when you don't think you're ready, if the brief is too open to shoot your shot, and then you end the story. Now we'll stop there and we'll go back to April Lynn's breakdown of that, perhaps. Of your story?
No, no, no. Of like the structure. Yeah, I think there's still payoffs.
But I think like what was interesting about that is that the actual payoff is an emotional one versus the thing that happened, which I think is a super, super fair approach to it. And honestly, in today's day and age. with how much content there is, the more emotional pull to things tends to draw us in more than just necessarily things happening by themselves.
A lot of people love an emotional message. I don't think every YouTube video on YouTube needs to have a moral to it. I think that's like a type of YouTube video.
That's a type of YouTube video that can be great and that I love watching. I'm sure you love watching as well. Not every video has to have a moral, but every video should have a payoff or multiple payoffs.
And it's up to you what payoffs you want and also a good understanding of which payoff is going to be most interesting to your audience. Do you think an emotional payoff is going to be more satisfying to your viewers than a payoff of... I won the competition and I was happy.
You know, it's like, okay, what's the more emotionally, like what's the most, the more satisfying payoff to your viewers? Not every audience is going to want to have an emotional payoff. Like some educational videos, they don't want to, as they're looking up a tutorial about how to use Procreate.
have an emotional arc at the end of like and now your life as an artist is beginning and you can do I mean like they might but some like bro I'm here to learn procreate like I don't want more of this so I think that I like your framework when it comes to those types of stories and I think that for anyone who's looking at that like I love that I'm going to use that for sure I think for anyone who's looking at that is like oh but how does that apply to my video my video is not blah blah blah blah blah I think about like What is the payoff?
And there's a lot of opportunity for more emotional story beats and payoffs than a lot of people give their videos credit for. So I think it's because we just used the word story. If we were talking about teaching frameworks, then I'd have a totally different thing.
And in a tutorial, you've got to get right to it. In fact, when I search for it and you tell me a story, I'm just skipping to the next video because I don't really need to see that right now. So if the promise is to learn something, teach it to me.
And there's a lot of different teaching frameworks you can use. But I guess we use similar language but different applications and meaning of the word story. So I'm thinking like the Moth Radio Hour storytelling or TED storytelling.
And it's like really just hooking human emotion. And that's the only difference. So now we understand that, right?
It feels very like conference keynote. or just human to human i'm telling you a story versus now there's there's you're right i think 90 of the stuff that maybe i just pulled that number out but content on youtube should try and teach me something there's a structure to it and a smaller percentage is like what you would see or like what you see on hbo or the disney channel where there's a story and you're kind of wrapped up in it and emotionally tied to the characters and their vlogs are more like that where it's like you have to learn how to set up the story Yes.
Okay. So I just made that assumption that the word story meant that. You don't always have to make a point.
It's not necessarily like a moral, but you crystallize it by saying the reason why I tell you the story is because I wanted you to know I love you. There's not a moral or a thing, but just that's why I told you that story. Otherwise, people can't always connect the dots.
So you just land the plane that way and they're like, oh, I get it. That's why she told me that story. Yeah, I think a lot of what I think about story, too, in my definition of it is related to plot as well, which is similar but different because that framework that I got came from Brandon Sanderson.
He's like my favorite author and he's the author of the Stormlight Archive and Mistborn. He's actually getting a TV show soon. But anyway, that's his storytelling framework for building out plot as well.
I think that a lot of it can be applied to YouTube, but not necessarily the same way. Okay, do you have a question? But it sounded to me very interesting, even though you guys have different perspective on storytelling, but I could totally see April's structure in your own storytelling structure, if that makes sense.
I could see it. I wanted April to see it. I saw it.
Did you? Yeah. What is the structure?
So because April was talking more about, you know, how to build the plot. And so that's why you have all these different like subcategory. You introduce one idea and then you give more context and it leads to the other.
And yours talks about how you have a very beginning. You have one goal and you're trying to hit that conflict point. And at the very end, you go to resolution.
And so in that whole story, like, again, when I was just listening to you guys. it just really sounded like there are so many ways you can play around with it. And you guys can even combine the two methods that I guess just mentioned when it comes to storytelling to both emotional storytelling, but also educational.
And also all these different variations. Yes. You just reminded me of something I really wanted to say and kind of make a point to.
You know, professors who speak in the academic realm, they're very good at downloading a lot of information to you. And they may be the foremost expert on XYZ subject, right? But what we don't get with them a lot is an emotional connection.
Like I want to get to know you. I'd love to have you over for dinner or to introduce you to my friends. It's just a lot of information.
So I'm guilty of this a lot of times too. You go on stage, you do your thing. Like I'm just teaching all the time.
And then I've recently realized in the last couple of years, like no one cares about you at all. You just are the, like Johnny Mnemonic, you're an information courier. And you just bring them information.
And then they go on with their lives. But you notice like. Especially as I watch my now adult children.
How they consume content. Like dad you know this creator. And it's like all they're doing is watching them all day long.
I don't know what I'm learning. But I'm fascinated by the character. So there's like plot driven.
And now there's character driven story. So maybe April Lynn will get into that. Well a couple things with that.
I think that one. If we look into. memory formation, emotion is highly linked with the formation of memory.
And so I think even if you are an educator and you're like, oh, like the only thing I care about is maybe we're getting this value. Know that if you evoke emotion, you don't have to tell a sob story, but if you evoke emotion, the likelihood of them retaining the information that you impart them is even higher. So even with educators, there's a case for evoking emotion.
Also, There was a Colin and Samir episode recently where they were talking about the two different types of creators being idea creators and relationship creators. And the idea creators, there's a lot more to do with like the plot and the idea of like, okay, the novelty of this idea.
The idea is the reason why people watch these videos. They come back to watch more of these ideas. Relationship creators, people come back to watch more of the creator.
even if they're doing lots of different types of ideas. And I think that when it comes to longevity, a relationship creator is going to have a much more deeper relationship with their viewers and be able to have more longevity, more sustainability on the platform. And honestly, in the long term, we'll have to try a lot less for each view that they get than the idea creators.
Everything you guys are talking about in terms of like storytelling, emotions, it's really hard. Like, I would love to incorporate some of that into my content, but it's hard for me to do that.
Because, like, what am I going to share? You know, I want to share all this information about how you exit as a creator for $100 million. Now, I could say something like, you know, when I started this law firm two and a half years ago, everyone in Hollywood told me not to do it because they said, you'll be babysitting kids.
There's no money in this space. I suppose I could say something like that in my video, but does that evoke an emotion? Does that connect my audience to me?
Do they care? So I'm just trying to figure out how would I evoke emotion? How would I make myself more of a character that people would care about?
Because I actually don't know how to do that. Yeah, so I think... There's a couple of different ways to go about it.
One option is if we kind of hero's journey, this type of thing for your particular format, what's really interesting is that I think the protagonist of your videos are not you. The protagonist of your videos is the case study. Getting a $100 million valuation or a high valuation is a highly emotional thing.
There's so much emotion with like, why do they want this in the first place? Like, what do they hope for? What do they strive for?
What are their fears? What's holding them back from doing that? you are not the protagonist.
You are the mentor that comes in. You are the supporting character that comes in to help them get like, you are the Gandalf to their Frodo essentially. Right.
And you're there to like help them along, to help get them to the place of self -actualization through YouTube valuation or whatever it is at the end. But I would argue, and I think Chris would probably say something similar that like. Trying to exit or get to a point where you can exit your business that you've worked and built for for so long is a highly emotional process that a lot of people would relate to.
I don't think the emotions need to be your emotions in order for the emotions to be present and to resonate with the viewers. So do I just tell it in the third person? Not in the third person, but you can talk about the creator in different stages.
think about promise, progress, payoff, right? The payoffs are she's getting to the next step in her valuation, right? So if the goal of the payoff at the very end, the goal set up from the very beginning is get this valuation.
All right. Along the way, the mini payoffs are she does this, she does this, she does this. There's probably certain emotions that happen in each step of the way that like, yes, but, and no, and, as she tries different things.
And then you come in and the progress piece. So I would say in terms of like third person, first person, I would still, I mean, I guess part of it would be in third person because she's doing this, she's doing this, or she tried this, but a lot of it is also the, I like she had this problem.
So I did this blah, blah, blah, blah. Like this is what we did. We did these things.
And because of that, she now does this, what's that transformation. And that's where the emotion can come in. So the one part that I don't actually share in the last video is we're actually not going to sell because my client understands now what it means to have an investor or a buyer in the room, which a lot of YouTubers don't understand, right?
Because it means losing. losing their channel losing how they want to do their videos how they want to run their business and so then i advise them then don't sell you know you don't need to you have all this cash flow coming in why do you want to sell so there is a story in there of like why did we do these evaluations twice right because it's almost like he wanted to know what his value was it was like his self -worth was was being confirmed by the marketplace so i guess there is like a story there but i just didn't really tease it out because i just wanted to get to like here's how you get to 100 million this is fascinating to me that you think you have no stories to tell just like who knew 100 million dollar exit would be interesting to anybody it's wild because okay there's a couple of things i agree with april and about this it's like You're not trying to insert your story into every story.
Only when it's relevant. So when you're telling the story about how everybody told you you're just going to be babysitting kids is a dumb idea, you tell that story to the fullest. But you can use the exact same formulas, and there's a lot of formulas here.
In the story or in you telling case studies, you just have to figure out where all the tension and the conflict exists and then decide what is the biggest conflict you want to tell and then create story beats that support that and edit everything else out. The mistake that a lot of people make is like, here's the big arc, but then they want to tell this irrelevant detail.
And it's often a repetition of how we speak in real life. Like people want to give you so much freaking context. I'm bored out of my mind already.
So just get to the parts and edit everything else out. The other thing that you can learn in telling stories is that what my coach used to tell me all the time, don't let facts get in the way of a good story. It doesn't mean you make up things.
But you can exaggerate certain things because that's what storytelling is. It's the expansion and contraction of time with a focus on what is important for us to know at the moment in which we need to know it. Basic form of structure is character one obstacle.
Every case study, the character wants something. What is it they want? What is preventing them from getting that?
And that's how you tell the story. And if you, are you a fan of Robert Greene, 48 Laws of Power? Okay, he's a writer researcher.
He's super nerdy, brilliant, getting up there in age these days. But in the 48 laws of power, the first law of power is never outshine thy master. That's law number one.
But he doesn't tell you that. He tells you this whole story about in France, there was this noble person who was like built in a lavish home. Did you guys read this?
48 laws of power. Okay, it's freaking fantastic. I'm going to totally butcher the story.
and guess what i only read one law of power it was like so freaking good i just closed the book it was that good and he's known for a very specific style of writing heavily researched so because there's a guy in france i'm assuming it's france i don't even know and he's like he he built this amazing palace it's like state of the art it's just beautiful and everybody loves it and he decides to throw a party And so he wants to invite the king of France to come over.
And he's like, I want to source the most amazing food. So they go to Africa. They go to Asia.
He throws the most lavish party ever. They come. He's like talking to the town.
He's like, you're amazing. This is incredible. What do you even call that dish?
And so the next day, for whatever reason, the king sent over his finance person and audited him and found he was guilty of embezzling money. And then he was thrown in jail and he lost his house. And then the next thing you know, the king built the house just like his house.
So the 48 laws of power, the first law is never outshine thy master. Know your place. He reached too far.
Like Icarus to the sun, his wings burned. And so it was just a fascinating story of history and like super well researched. And he's talking about these things.
Your case studies can be like that. My recommendation to you, and it's been keeping in theme with what April's been saying, is find somebody else who's doing something really cool and just bring it over to what you're doing. And no one knows the source.
It's called originality. Because the source. So every single person you're talking to has a very interesting thing about what they're trying to achieve, but why they can't get it.
You just need to highlight that part. And then you become a masterful storyteller. You're not the part of the story.
You're just a storyteller. So you want to have it rich with dialogue and sensory details. That's what you want because you're painting a picture.
You want to drop us in there so we feel what that person is feeling in that moment. But the problem is every single one of my case study, they all have the same problem. Oh, okay.
Hold on. I'll just spell that right now. Every romantic comment is the exact same story.
yet you've seen most of them. And you feel like, oh my God, it's a new story. And I'm the most annoying person to watch a film with because I'll tell you what's going to happen next, even though I've never seen it.
To the point in which I actually literally say the lines before they say it. Literally. And my sons are like, Dad, how'd you know that?
I'm like, every freaking story is the same. Back to Romeo and Juliet. It's the same story.
So your belief that they all have the same problem is just how you're limiting your ability to tell their story. I promise you it's similar, but not the same. Okay.
Next challenge. How do I make my case studies interesting if it's sort of always the same problem? Have you watched Gordon Ramsay's show Kitchen Nightmares?
Have you ever seen it? Yeah. Yes.
You have, right? Yeah. Is it not the same show?
Over and over and over again? Sure, but... What are the problems that he always encounters?
Do you remember any of them? It's almost the same problems. If you've seen one Kitchen Nightmares, you've seen them all.
What's the problem? In fact, if they deviate too much from the formula, we won't watch anymore, which is the weird part. I just always remember him screaming at people.
Maybe you can say screaming is part of it. When will Gordon lose his ass? Because he will at some point.
Almost always, the menu is too complicated. Almost always. And he has various ways of showing you how complicated it is, right?
Number two, the food quality is always bad. There's a reason why no one eats there and someone's cutting corners. So we're always looking for where someone cutting corners.
This is, oh, this is the bad chicken. You're going to kill somebody, mate. You know, the whole bit, right?
And probably number three is like, like, who's the idiot? Is it the husband? Is it the wife?
Is it the head waiter? Or is it the bartender? Somebody is the idiot in there is messing up their business.
Always. And if you watch them. Now, with this perspective, you'll see it's very, very formulaic.
Hollywood is the most formulaic industry in the world. So one thing to help you here, because I've been talking about formats in a different way than April Lynn has been, which is a format needs four things. What's the constant?
The things that never change that you can do over and over again. You got to figure that out. It could be the opening question.
It could be I will always talk to one guest. It always be underwater. It'll be on the street, whatever it is.
what is the constant and there could be more than one thing but it needs to at least have one thing number two what's the variable what are the parts that change sometimes it's just a person that you're talking about that's all it is okay and because people are people that's usually enough variation in there we're in jersey we're in las vegas it's a burger joint oh they make sandwiches they're an italian place it's a fusion place those are the variables number three where can tension be created and expanded.
Because without tension, there's no story. So look at your format and say, where can I drive greater tension? And it could just be that we don't find out what happens to each one of these creators until the very, very end.
So we just delay that conclusion, the payoff, until the very end. And then lastly, what is the payoff? Did they or didn't they?
And that's all you need. Did they or didn't they? Did they stop doing this?
Did they listen to you? Did they make a million dollars? Did they make $100 million?
Whatever it is. I think you're getting caught up in this, that every story is original and different, and it's really not. There is a place in cinema where there are original stories that don't have formats.
They're called art movies, and no one watches them. 100%. You understand?
Yes. When was the last time you saw an art movie? I know when I was going to school, it was like, oh, we got to see an art movie.
I'm like, my God, they're terrible. I don't even know what the point is. Where's the camera again?
It's pointing in the corner. It's like, what are we doing? Okay.
Yep. Got it. Are you okay with that?
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome. Now there's questions. There's two questions and we got to run.
Trailer highlights for a podcast is a good idea. And how to increase retention for a long form video like podcast. Okay.
Great question. Once again, I'll say podcasting specifically as a format is not my like area of expertise. So I'll give my two cents interested to hear yours, seeing as you do much more of this than I do.
One, I would not keep your trailer too, too, too long. I think that, again, that longer that time to value of people like wanting to get to the point, the more frustrated they will be and like, oh, just start the thing. I think that typically some clips that.
open curiosity gaps, either like tease things that are coming in the future, but it can't just be like things that people know. It can't just be normal statements. It has to open some sort of question of like, oh, they're talking about this.
I want to know more. I want to know what the three C's of thumbnails are. I want to know this thing that this person is talking about later on.
Those clips can work. I do think that we're starting to veer away a bit from like just a series of clips as the intro in videos.
I've seen more VO of people like introducing their guests. For example, like for you, like this is Chris. Chris has done like, you know, a sentence about his credibility.
And then maybe that's followed with supporting clip from podcast. And then maybe another line of VO from you about what you're talking about. And then.
a clip from him to support that. And then maybe a little bit about you and your own expertise and what you're here to do. And then another clip from him and then starting into the beginning of the intro of the, of the podcast itself.
So that's another format that I've seen do a little bit more, more like a mixture of voiceover and clips versus just clips. But yeah, I'm really interested to hear what you have to say. I'm not an expert at it either.
I just made a lot of them. If you're I think podcast fits into a whole different category and that's why Netflix is now bringing on, is it Netflix or Amazon?
Somebody's like Netflix is doing podcasts. Spotify is doing video podcasts. So I think you just have to play the podcast game like the way it was meant to be, which is a slow burn, long -term audience building.
I think the competition for celebrity guests and for you to interview them means that everybody has the celebrity, but what makes it. different because you interviewed them. And so you have to go back into your differentiator.
And I think about this a lot. The top podcasters seem to have a fairly dedicated setup. They do it in person.
There's a certain lighting and vibe that they create in their pod. And we started thinking about that. The reason why I'm moving away from doing, for lack of a better term, like Zoom podcast, it's not the tech we use, is because something else happens here.
So I thought, What are our constraints and what are our resources? What we have that most podcasters don't have is we're in L .A.
We have a big studio space and we can invite people to come and have a live conversation. So if you were to watch this back, it should sound feel different than if we're just April and myself just chopping it up. And that's what we're trying to embrace here.
And so you have to think about what are your constraints and what are your resources and what makes you different? I think for me, what makes me different is I'm a conversationalist. I'm not a big prep guy.
I'm not a big research person. I just want to listen to you. And if you're an interesting person, we're going to have a great conversation.
If you're a boring person, this podcast will end exactly on time. That's usually how it goes, right? Sorry for everybody else who's ended on time.
I wasn't talking about you, of course. I meant somebody else. Okay?
You follow? So you kind of have to figure that out. We found that in our podcast, the episodes that typically get the highest views or replays or downloads are the ones where I'm doing most of the talking, which is weird because as a podcast format, I'm usually having someone else do the talking.
So I'm trying to figure that out. But that's just something we're trying to work through. I enjoy listening to you, Chris.
Well, thank you. If everyone would give me a shot, I would talk a little bit more. This is just a very dense session.
So learning a lot. Yeah, right? Yeah.
It's a totally different animal. Oh, yeah. Very different.
I liked it. That was great. Great job, guys.
Good job. That sounds so forced. What do you mean?
Oh, is that you? Okay, Rox, we got it. Okay.
Wow. No, I loved it. I did.
It was super deep. It was very cool to, like, apply things to things live. Yeah.
Like, yeah. Working with real examples and also to get your opinions on things. Cause like I have my way, but as you said, it's like, we don't know, like, you know, where we don't have all the answers.
We can just try it just based off of the things that we've learned, but it's been very cool. What I've learned is this format works really well when this person knows what they're talking about. When they don't, this is a, I won't call it disaster.
It's too violent. But it just is not that fun. I'm like, what time is it?
Oh, I'm so hungry. I need to end this. Let's wrap this up.
Drigo, we're out of memory space, right? And he was like, yeah, bro, we're out. We got to end this.
So I like that April Lynn brought in such specific information. And the way that she phrased things and the way she packages it makes it really easy to understand. And I just love, like, I'm sorry if it's a compliment, not an insult, like her nerdy kind of investment banking kind of techie wave talking about it.
Because we've heard a lot of creators come here and talk about stuff and it just feels like it's a lot of feelings and not really, you've not thought about this, have you? Because you're making it up. I feel like you're making it up as we're talking right now.
Whereas she has systems, right? And she can break it down and she could survive the pushing and the prodding that I have just to pressure test her ideas. Which is remarkable, especially because she's so young.
It's fantastic. So thank you for doing that. April, a quick question from the audience.
You launched your YouTube channel not so long ago. And from there, you kind of had instant success. Was there any learning or takeaways from that experience that you could share with us?
I think one is really important to know instant success is not instant. A lot of people look at this current channel and it's like, wow, you got this far in just one year. completely either forgetting or not knowing that I had a first channel a year or two before this one so I think that's really important to know the biggest thing that I can really impart is that once you find your thing get into it deeply I think for me I went through these three phases that I would recommend a lot of people do when they're just starting out one the experimentation phase.
So you can start with like your general ideas of these are the types of videos that I want to try and do those things first. Once you have something that starts to hit really niche down in that thing, really trying to understand what made that video do well, what is the differentiator that you're starting to really be known by and do that thing very, very well.
And I think that. Those are really the main two steps that I focused on. And once I had my hit, I was very strategic about focusing in on why that hit was a hit and repeating that success.
And I think that's why I was able to grow so quickly. So April Lynn, from last year to 2026, what's the biggest shift you've seen happening in YouTube? Yeah, great question.
I think the biggest shift that I'm seeing is the definition of what makes a good YouTube video. I think previously a good YouTube video was a well -produced YouTube video. It was a polished YouTube video.
It was a video that looked and feel and felt good to watch. Now there are different definitions of a quality video of a good video. I think that a video that makes you feel something, a video that makes the audience want to keep watching more of you.
is often a better video than just a polished and well -produced video, especially becomes more easier now than ever to achieve that polished look and feel. And so I think especially moving forward, we're going to see a lot more less picture perfect videos and more, you can call it raw, you can call it authentic, you just could call it maybe even less structured, maybe less scripted, more personality in videos and that being deemed as a very quality, good video now.
Why do you think that's the case? Why is that the case? Yeah.
I think that, you know, with the rise of AI and AI generated content, as well as just much more access for people to be able to make better looking videos a lot easier and sooner in their journeys, it's becoming more ubiquitous. It's content is in a way becoming a little bit commoditized. There's never any shortage of a video to watch.
There's literally endless scroll. There's endless amount of content to watch. So because of that, the well -polished videos are no longer scarce.
So there's less of a deem of, oh, this is what makes for a good video versus a video that makes someone want to keep watching more is really what the best type of video is now. April Lynn, that was awesome. My mind is fried, but in a very good way.
If people are excited and they want to work with you or find out more about what you're doing, where should we send them? Yeah, YouTube, youtube .com slash at April Lynn Alter. And I actually have a YouTube cohort if you want to work more closely with me.
What's it called? It's called 90 Day Breakthrough. Any other details about it?
Yeah, it's a 12 -week guided program across three phases. And from the very beginning to end, you can either use it to start a channel. It's also good for beginners and intermediates.
And across 12 weeks, three phases, foundations, upload camp. And by the very end, you're going to be making and submitting your very own banger video.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The promise is five pillars in order of leverage, and the session keeps it, but the real value is what happens when audience members pitch their own channels and get filtered on the spot. A value proposition gets sent back for a format. A viral hit gets split into its idea and its packaging. A boring competition story gets rebuilt around conflict.
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Fifteen years in, a lifestyle YouTuber lists the 10 things about audience, titling, editing, and money she had to learn the hard way, filmed in the condo she's about to leave.
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