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  3. #296: Meet The Man Who Solved YouTube (With Data)—Richard from 1of10 [Greatest Hits]
Creator Science with Jay Clouse

11 Aug 2026 · 52m · 16 chapters

Episode artwork

#296: Meet The Man Who Solved YouTube (With Data)—Richard from 1of10 [Greatest Hits]

In short

How to use data to create YouTube videos that go viral, and how to measure “AI visibility” (mentions/citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Copilot) using Ahrefs BrandRadar. Then, Richard’s framework for ideation: Audience → Research (find outliers) → Remix (escalate/invert/replace + “viral vector”) → Validation (feasibility, uniqueness, packaging, seasonality, experiment cadence).

Key claims

80–85% of virality comes from idea + title + thumbnail; “rip the band-aid” by starting a second channel when a viral hit attracts the wrong audience; video length sweet spot often 20–30 minutes (varies by niche); test packaging even on older videos if retention is solid.

Notable examples

Ed’s second channel quadrupled income; Callaway’s stuck video rose from ~10–20k to 150k; Mike Shake’s “I built a transparent Katana” (25M) from “making transparent” outlier; Dantic’s “I tried gaming in every airplane seat” (39M) using “first class” viral vector; “Japanese rule” formats replicated across niches.

Guests

Richard (co-founder of One of Ten; YouTube strategist behind 2B+ views via data-driven outlier research).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:00

Understanding AI Visibility

Learn about the importance of visibility in AI platforms for creators.

“When somebody asks ChatGPT who are the best creators in your niche, does it say your name or does it mention your competitors instead?”
1:10

Meet Richard: The YouTube Strategist

Introduction to Richard, a YouTube strategist who analyzes data to drive views.

“Angelia Moore, who did I Made a Clear Sandwich, we saw that doing well, and we pitched it to Mike, and that became his most viewed video of all time with 25 million views.”
2:19

The Importance of Knowing Your Audience

Understanding your audience can significantly impact your channel's success.

“Basically, me and my team, we try to break down everything.”
3:56

Navigating Channel Strategy Changes

Learn when and why to pivot your content strategy or start a new channel.

“People realize that, hey, there's actually a segment of my audience that I want to serve more or focus on, but they're only a segment of my current channel.”
6:06

The Dangers of Irrelevant Viral Videos

Discover the pitfalls of attracting the wrong audience with viral content.

6:39

Four Phases of Video Ideation

Explore the four key phases of creating successful video content.

“Okay, so here is phase two, which is research.”
9:43

Analyzing Outliers for Success

Learn how to identify and model successful video formats and topics.

“So let's start with Method 1 inside channel.”
14:00

Strategies for Niche Content Creation

Learn various methods to create engaging content across different niches.

“For example, here in the gardening niche, you have this format of buried something and then this happened.”
24:11

Refining Content Ideas and Validation

Understand how to refine and validate content ideas through effective strategies.

“We've found five ways of doing research.”
28:03

YouTube Content Strategy: Experimentation Matters

Learn the importance of experimenting with video formats for YouTube success.

“So we have a checklist that we'd like to go through.”
Show all 16 chapters
29:14

Video Length Insights: Finding the Sweet Spot

Discover the optimal video lengths for maximizing views on YouTube.

“And so maybe I can talk a bit about a report we did.”
33:01

Maximizing Viewership: Addressable Topics and Ideas

Understand how to choose unique and relatable topics to maximize views.

“I love seeing some of these things from your study.”
36:45

Crafting Compelling Titles: Key Drivers of Attention

Learn the secrets to writing titles that attract clicks and engage viewers.

“And you guys have now title and thumbnail generators inside of one of 10 also.”
42:00

The Importance of Titles in YouTube Videos

Learn how changing video titles can significantly impact view counts.

“But then number three is add emotional trigger power word and make it capitalize.”
44:21

Thumbnail Strategies for Increased Engagement

Discover key elements of effective thumbnails that drive clicks.

“So what are the most important aspects for us to understand about thumbnails?”
47:29

Using the Thumbnail Generator Tool

Explore how a thumbnail generator can optimize video presentation.

“For example, here is a video of me interviewing Will Tennyson.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00When somebody asks ChatGPT who are the best creators in your niche, does it say your name or does it mention your competitors instead? Because a response will only share a few names. And with LLMs, if you're not sighted, you might as well be invisible. And that's at the exact moment when someone is deciding who to follow or what to buy. The first step is finding out just how visible or invisible you are to LLMs like ChatGPT. And Ahrefs built a new tool called BrandRadar to show you where you actually stand. It tracks your mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI overviews, and Copilot, and gives you an AI share of voice against your competitors.

0:39That means how often you get named when your topic comes up, and whether you're being mentioned or actually cited as a source. It's built on 481 million real prompts, making it the largest AI visibility database out there. This isn't about gaming AI, it's about finding out whether the work you're already doing, the content, the authority, and the backlinks are translating into AI visibility. Try a free preview of Ahrefs brand Radar at creatorscience.co slash radar. That's creatorscience.co slash radar. That got 2 million views when he would average 35 ,000 views. Angelia Moore, who did I Made a Clear Sandwich, we saw that doing well, and we pitched it to Mike, and that became his most viewed video of all time with 25 million views.

1:23and that led to a 6 million views video. And then he did one more recently that led to another 9 million views. So that's an extra 15 million views. That's Richard, the YouTube strategist. He's the co-founder of a software tool called One of Ten and his team has quietly been behind the scenes of some of the biggest channels on the planet, helping them rack up over 2 billion views. And it's not luck. Richard and his team obsess over the data. We went through over 300 ,000 outliers to see like what makes a video go viral. And in this video, he shares it all step by step. Basically, there are four phases of ideation, audience, research, remix, validation.

2:05You'll even learn how you can get more views out of some of your old videos. Callaway, that video that was stuck in like 10 ,000, 20 ,000 views became a 150 ,000 views video. So it's never too late. So strap in, grab a notebook, it's time to learn. Basically, me and my team, we try to break down everything. Why does a video go viral? And in the end, like 80, 85 % of the reason why a video glows up basically is because of the idea, title, and thumbnail, right? Basically, there are four phases of ideation, which we call ARRV, which is audience, research, remix, and validation. So first things first is audience.

2:46Audience, basically, as a creator, your goal is to understand exactly who is watching you, right? Like what are their goals? What are their pain points? Basically why they're watching you. And like that, you'll be able to maximize your views for your audience without going too broad. I'll give an example. Let's say Film Booth, popular YouTube educator, had hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of views. But the problem was he was going too broad. He was reaching video editors and beginners when as an educator, his offer was more tailored to business people and people more advanced in the YouTube space.

3:28So what did he do? He just completely stopped uploading on that big channel and went on a much smaller one at the time, which had 10 ,000 subscribers, but only focused on the avatar of his audience, which were business people or professionals, people in the education space. And that led to him make going from$100 ,000 per month to$400 ,000 per month. And so that shows really the importance of who's your audience. This comes up in our community from time to time. People realize that, hey, there's actually a segment of my audience that I want to serve more or focus on, but they're only a segment of my current channel.

4:07The hope is they can kind of pivot that channel towards that audience over time because they're afraid of doing this thing Ed did of losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers that they've worked to build. So when does it make sense in your mind for somebody to rip the bandaid and start a second or a new channel? That's a really tough question because it depends. But in the end, if you've been uploading for a while, if you've been optimizing for weeks and months, trying to get that market share of audience that you want, then yeah, maybe it's worth to just create a new channel. Because I've seen a lot of channels where, well, some they've done paid ads, which is really bad.

4:48Some they will have gotten one video that went mega viral, but brought in the wrong audience. And then they've tried for months and even years to try to get out of it and they didn't succeed. when they could have started a new channel. And so I would say to rip the band-aid sooner than later from my experience, from what I've seen out there. Can you expand on what happens when somebody has a video that goes really viral, but it's the wrong audience and why that's problematic? Yeah, so the thing is it'll go viral. And let's say you're aiming, I don't know, for 35-year-old audience, but then that video brought in a bunch of 15-year-olds.

5:27The thing is your next videos that are tailored to the 35-year-olds will be shown on the YouTube homepage of those 15-year-olds. And those will not click. And YouTube will see that as a signal that, hey, it's actually a bad video. It's not getting those clicks. People are not watching until the end. AVD is low, CTR is low, everything's low. So then why am I going to push this video? But then if you do that repeatedly by showing to those 15-year-olds, which YouTube thinks is your audience, then it's it's it's a it's a loop downwards basically so this obviously worked for Ed he he pulled the the trigger started a second channel literally quadrupled his income per month yeah exactly so focus all in on on that second channel but really as you can see with the video titles it's really just focused to to business people and and professionals it made sense with his offer, a good product market fit.

6:26And that's what's important for your audience, basically, especially in the education space, is to always remember who's your audience, who you're targeting, what is the pain point you're trying to find for them, to solve for them. And then you just rinse, repeat. Okay, so here is phase two, which is research. So here, your goal is to find outliers on YouTube and see which one have a good format and good interest topics, which I'm going to get to. But first, what is exactly an outlier? So if you think about a channel that normally gets 100 ,000 views, but one gets a million, that's a 10X outlier.

7:01And the reason those outliers do well is because of ideas titled thumbnails. So here, for example, on your channel, Jay, this had 200 ,000 views two years ago. Well, at that time, you were averaging 20 ,000. So then that's a 10x outlier here. And then here is a 4.5 million. That's 150x versus the videos around it versus the average of the videos around that video. You need to inspire from those videos that have performed well in the past. They are data backed and see why they did well. And then after phase three, where you're remixing into your own style. So again, with my team, we're broken down into five methods of research of finding those outliers.

7:46So you have inside your channel, inside your niche, adjacent niche, outside your niche, and external, which I'm going to explain one by one. Now that you know what's an outlier, for those who didn't know, there are two things when you're looking at those outliers that are important to keep in mind. One is the format. The format is what determines the structure of the video and gives context to the topic and the interest topic is basically, you could see that as something that gets a lot of views inside a niche. Let me give a clear example. Let's say here, the format is I tried every, but then the interest topic, so something that gets a lot of views inside your niche, changes every time from airline to train to Airbnb.

8:32And then you can see it the other way around where interest topic here is water parks, but then the format is changed every time, right? I tried five levels of water park, 24 hour overnight water park and so on. So you're saying when I'm looking at these different videos, I'm searching for outliers that I can model my future videos after. And each of these outliers have within them, these two aspects for me to kind of play with these levers. You have the interest topic and the format. I need to understand that both of these things can be a lever towards being an outlier and I can mess with either one.

9:07Exactly. Because there's a reason those, those did well, like I tried five levels of water park in the entertainment niche will do well because, uh, there's progression, there's natural progression. You want to see from the lowest to the biggest water parks, how cool it is. And, uh, and it's a, and water park does well because it's so broadly appealing, for example, but those you might not have thought of with a blank sheet of paper, but by researching around, you get to see what has worked. And then that inspires you into your own niche. This is in the entertainment niche, but it works in the educational niche as well.

9:47So let's start with Method 1 inside channel. When I joined this creator, he used to do all kinds of skills type videos. Why I proposed I tested the world's five deadliest weapons, which led to a 2x outlier at 10 million views, was because of the phases I said. So phase one is trying to understand his audience. So I asked him, like, who recognized him on the streets? Who are the people commenting? And basically they were like teenage boys in the end. That was phase one. Then phase two is seeing what has worked in the past and see if there's a ways to, if there are ways to double down. And so here I would see the interest topics of carambit knife or nunchucks or butterfly knife, all weapon types videos.

10:42Right. And I also saw in the, on the channel that he would try, like I tested, I don't know, 126 skills. This is what I learned. And those would get millions of views as well. So I just combined it both. Combined a few weapons inside one video. Natural progression. And that led to that 10 million views video. I see. So the format is I tested. And the interest topic in his case was some sort of deadly or intense weapon. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because Carambin Knife, Nunchucks, Butterfly Knife, they all had like similar characteristics, right? Like weapons types content. So I was like, ah, this could be good to combine it all with a sword and other types of weapon in there.

11:30And it turned out it worked out quite well. And then that led to doubling down even more inside the channel, turning weapons into ancient weapons. And that led to a 6 million views video. And then he did one more recently, like years after that first video. and again with Ancient Weapons, and that led to another 9 million views. So that's an extra 15 million views because we understood who is the audience, what is the format that worked, and what's the interest topic to play with. It's so interesting that he posted essentially the same video with a slightly different title. Like he didn't put a number on it.

12:06It wasn't the five deadliest, but it's literally everything else is the same, different thumbnail. But that video there had 50 % more views in the previous version. Yeah, exactly. Because that's maybe like two years apart, those two. And so there's a new audience that came in, right? But still in the same content strategy where it would bring in the right audience. So then with those new viewers that he kept building over time, it made them interested in this type of content. So creators that end up to the next level don't only double down, they triple down, they quadruple down. So like here, for example, with Hangtime, he did I Melted Every Gum, that got 11 million views.

12:55And so the I Melted Every is the format that worked, and then the interest topic changes every time. Same for I Cooked 100 Years of School Launch, that gets 20 million views. So you take the format of I Cooked 100 Years Of, and then just change the interest topic every time. So if you think about it, had these two not done the double down, triple down, quadruple down, they would have lost on literally tens of millions of views. So it's super important for any creator listening that once you have a format that works and that makes sense with your audience to really try to think, okay, what are different interest topic that would make sense for that format that worked well?

13:37Guilty. I've definitely had successful videos. I've been like, okay, well, I covered that and moved on. Exactly. All right. Method two is inside your niche. Simple. You look inside your niche and you see what format is working across your competitors or other YouTubers in the space inside your niche. And you see if you can change the interest topic for you. For example, here in the gardening niche, you have this format of buried something and then this happened. so buried common kitchen scraps and then this happened but then you change the interest topic of kitchen scraps to bananas or to forest in the ashes and then this happened or you can see more educational six years of trading knowledge in 20 minutes can lead to 27 years of trading knowledge like everyone has different ways that they've grown as a trader and so or as a crypto trader even.

14:37And so that's how you're thinking of a format, but then remixing into your own style. Here's more in the gaming niche, where we look at the other way around, where you have the interest topic of, let's say, stir a brainwad or grow a garden, but then you change the format every time based on the game. Method three is adjacent niche. Your goal here is to find channels that are parallel to yours. So like similar in characteristics. Let me explain with a few examples. For example, here, again, 30 years of business knowledge is in two hours, 26 minutes. That got 15 million views, which went insane and got replicated all around.

15:20Why? Because it makes sense. It attracts the audience that he's looking for. People are trying to learn. They're trying to make money. And so you in the make money niche, you have investing knowledge, you have sales knowledge. That's totally transferable to take that format, but then remix it into your own style. Same in the YouTube education space. You could see that as parallel. Why? Well, one, you're trying to grow money. Well, here you're trying to grow views. And so it's very parallel. And maybe there things in the money-making space, that would make sense for the YouTube space. Maybe a little less obvious, you have video editing into music production.

16:08Again, at first, you might not think you could inspire from one or the other, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Both have similar characteristics in the sense that both you're working on the computer, working on the timeline, basically trying to turn raw assets into a finished product. So when you see five different editors on, so I hired five different editors on Fiverr and here's the result. That can become paid for mixers to mix the same song. And here's the result. And so that's one way. Another more concrete way, basically that's one of our consulting clients in the trading niche.

16:51we again turned the YouTube into trading, growing views, growing money. So this is boring, but you'll hit a thousand subscribers fast on the left. We took that format, brought it to this scalping strategy is boring, but made me a profitable trader. And that led him to getting 300 ,000 views and a 3x outlier. And so that's one way to, those are ways to transfer from one to the other using adjacent niches. And then we have method four, which is an outside niche. Basically at this point, you're getting inspired by literally any video out there. You're trying to see if there's a format that will work for you.

17:33Here's another example with a client of ours is I tried every legal performance enhancer from Will Tennyson got 7 million views. Well, that was actually inspired by the entertainment niche. I tried every legal addiction, which had gotten 9 million views. And so by seeing that, and funnily enough, that also led to all kinds of niches taking inspiration from those. Since they've seen it do well, it just replicated it for them. It worked in the gaming niche. I tried every legal Fortnite cheat, or it worked in the beauty niche. I tried every legal beauty enhancement. And even in the criminal niche, I tried every legal criminal activity.

18:16What does that even mean? Every legal criminal activity? I guess that's why I click. But it turned out to get over a million views. So I guess that's why we click. It's a good open loop. Exactly. Or here's another example with a client of ours, Dr. Mike Diamond. So the Japanese rule to staying lean got 500 ,000 views. And that was actually inspired by two videos, two outliers. So one, the Chinese secret to saving money revealed. So we took that format, the Chinese secret, but transformed it into the Japanese rule. And then at the bottom, why is it so easy to be thin in Japan? Got 24 million views.

18:59So the thin in Japan being thin interest topic, combined in both, became the Japanese rule to staying lean. So what I said earlier about understanding why an outlier does well. here if you think about it most people most most of the viewers would think that a Japanese person is thin so when a person from his audience in the fitness niche sees that title they're like oh that there's already social proof in his head that Japanese people are thin maybe there's information that he doesn't know on how to be lean and so he clicks to to watch and that gets 500 ,000 views. And to show how DataBank also works across all niches.

19:43So we saw that doing well for one client, and then we transferred it into another channel in the parenting niche. And it led to the Japanese rule to obedient children, which got 700 ,000 views and 4x outlier. And again, if you think about it, most people would think that a Japanese child is disciplined in general. And so when a parent sees that title, they're like, oh, maybe there's a way to better raise my child that I've never heard of. So I'm going to click to see what can I learn. But even the idea of the Japanese rule, I could probably change that to really any culture or country that is not the predominant culture or country that your videos are typically for.

20:31Because if my audience was Japanese viewers, they'd probably be like, I already know this rule. But an American audience is probably like, oh, this is like some secret of a different culture that I don't understand. So even this format could have dozens, hundreds of variants, I suppose. No, yeah, exactly. Actually, we saw that recently. Like, check this out. So we did that. And then we saw other like faceless channels taking why Japanese rule did well. And they just did the Korean method to calm tantrums in 60 seconds. and that led to a 1.9 million views. And then they went with the French rule as well.

21:08And that got to 360 ,000 views. So it is quite interesting how once a format works, it can be, like you said, you change the interest topic inside of why it did well and try to find an interesting way. And yeah, I just want to make it clear that in the outside niche, you can literally transform one format into the other. So like 30 years of business knowledge in two hours, 26 minutes can become nine years of photography knowledge or to music, or even in the gaming niche, 10 years of aiming knowledge at 500 ,000 views. And from tennis here to filmmaking, and even as niche as nine years of camera setting knowledge in 29 minutes.

21:52And so that got 22 million views when he would average 35 ,000 views. So as you guys can see, you can And literally take any niche and then just transfer it into yours. Wow. And then we have method five. Yes, exactly. External, which is outside YouTube. So from movies, TV shows, books. For example, here you've got America's Got Talent that became Discord's Got Talent. Or a talk show becoming the Hot Ones. Or cooking shows with the babish world. and even like the mobile app tinder becoming a popular format for jubilee sideman and hundreds of channels out there that's something that i haven't thought about or heard talked about very much at all is like can you take formats from legacy media or even just other forms of entertainment and bring them into a youtube context i think that's really interesting Yeah, because the concept of data back works out there, right?

22:51Those shows did well, got millions of views on TV. Those mobile apps got their hands on everywhere. So you try to understand why outside of YouTube, those things did well and see if there's a way to repurpose into yours. We'll hear more about Richard's ideation process after this quick break. As we approach the holiday season, it's time to start thinking about your Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaigns. I know it sounds early, but for years, I ignored this time of year because I thought it was for e-commerce and not for content businesses like mine. But then I ran a campaign in 2024. And do you know what happened?

23:30Not only was it my best month of revenue for the year, but it was my best month of revenue ever, nearly$98 ,000. I'm now convinced that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a huge opportunity for creators like you and me, and we run a sprint in the lab every year because of it. We're about to reopen the lab to new members on our waitlist. If you're a full-time creator earning more than$100 ,000 per year or on pace to earn$100 ,000 this year, I invite you to join us. Head to creatorscience.com slash lab to get on our waitlist. We'll invite new members on October 1st, which is the perfect time to join our Black Friday sprint.

24:08That's creatorscience.com slash lab. You'll be glad you did. And now back to Richard. Okay, so we've looked at our audience. We've found five ways of doing research. What comes next in your process? Yeah, it's remixing. So you have the format, the interest topic, and you can also add a viral vector, which I'm going to explain, which leads to your viral idea. So the three ways of turning those ideas, those formats is one is escalation. You can go from, let's say a gym membership that's 30K per year to ones that's 10K per month. That led to a 7 million views video to a 10 million one. Or you have that Ryan series going one week, 30 days, even 50 days with a different interest topic.

24:55Or number two, you can go the other way around. You see a format that's work. Maybe this is a way to inverse it. Here you have the world's largest becomes the world's smallest Nerf gone. 48 million views becomes 74 million views eight years later. And finally, you can replace interest topic for the format that you see working, which we've been talking here. And so those three combined plus the viral vector. So just a reminder, interest topic is something that gets a lot of views inside your niche. Well, viral vector is something that gets a lot of views outside your niche. And so for example, Lamborghini works across niches.

25:34Squid game at the time when it was super popular, it would work in gaming, food, literally any niche possible, squid game would go viral. Japanese across the board works well. We saw with parenting, fitness, DIY, fast food, and even first class. So I want to give a concrete example. I interviewed Dantic and he told me how he got his his most viewed video basically he saw the format of I tried every working well for Ryan here and then he took the viral vector of first class he knew that that worked across YouTube and then combined with the interest topic of his channel around gaming combined it all together which led to I tried gaming in every airplane seat which became a 39 over 39 million views video but here's another example with again mike shake that i'm gonna explain basically the viral format viral vector here is invisible here you have this video this outlier that got 23 million views making transparent wood we have here angelia moore who did i made a clear sandwich was a huge outlier for her at the time because she saw making transparent would on oneoften.com and that became a huge outlier for her.

26:52So we saw that doing well across YouTube, the invisible part, and we pitched it to Mike and that became, I built a transparent Katana, which became his most viewed video of all time with 25 million views. So that's like how we think around for the first three phases. I really like these ideas for remixing, escalation, inverting, replacing, specifically escalation and inversion are things I haven't thought about, which I think could be really, really interesting. You know, we were showing that example of Simon Squibb of X years of knowledge in this many minutes. You try to inverse that and say like 30 years of business knowledge in five minutes, you know, like how do you make that really small?

27:35It's already kind of crazy to say 30 years in 46 minutes or whatever it was, but going smaller, I think people would be like, okay, prove it. Yeah. Or like 30 years of business mistakes instead of knowledge, for example. So you're like inverting, okay, that was the pros. What were the cons of running 30 years of business knowledge of business? So yeah, it's like trying to see the opposite of it and see if it makes sense for your audience. Finally, we have phase four of ideation, which is the validation part. So we have a checklist that we'd like to go through. Like, is it feasible? How unique is the idea?

28:11Is the packaging good for tie on thumbnail, which we're going to get to? Seasonality, for example, you might want to do ideas around fitness if you're a vlogger or something more at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year. You should try to always experiment one in four uploads. What does that mean? So basically three videos that you know are formats that work well, that have worked well in the past for you. So inside your channel, you just try to keep doubling down on the formats that have worked well, just changing the interest topics. And then one that is like a totally new experiment, just to see what happens.

28:47Because that new experience then becomes a new format when one of them breaks out. So it's always good to continuously experiment, which I've seen a lot of YouTubers not do. They'll just rinse and repeat what they know work. And that just leads to a channel going down over time. So you always need to try to keep fresh and try to basically find more unique angles. And then we'll also have like when you have a bunch of ideas, what is the content for it? What is the video duration for it? And so maybe I can talk a bit about a report we did. Basically, using our software, we went through over 200 ,000 outliers on one of 10.

29:32That's worth over 60 billion views, 50 ,000 channels. to see like what makes a video become an outlier, what makes a video go viral. And as you guys can see, this is pretty interesting. Okay, at the beginning, if you do too short your videos, they're competing with like shorts, they're competing against other shorter videos. Well, that in general, as a median views, it'll lead to lower views. You can see maybe the sweet spot is between 20, 25 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes. that's basically the time it takes to finish lunch or to quickly over a break to watch something. And so that in general will lead to higher median views across all niches.

30:18But then what's interesting is when you go over 80 minutes, so the one hour plus videos, it picks up, it picks back up. And that's because TV is being pushed a lot by YouTube. Because if you think about it, it makes sense. In the end, they make more money with longer videos because people are staying more. On TV, there's less distraction. So when you're on mobile, you get notifications from friends, family. There's like a hundred apps that you can just switch to. Whereas when you're watching on TV, well, it's really just one thing that you're doing. So it's a win-win for everyone if it's being pushed to TV, which is why one of the reasons why longer videos are getting more reviews in the end as you guys can see here so interesting and there's a lot about um podcasting right now a lot of podcasters are doing longer and longer interviews so i'm looking at the the middle of this curve from a podcaster's lens and saying okay from about two hours up until almost three hours that's like the big hump two to three hours and then there's this far end which is gosh four hours um wild yeah but i will say the sample size goes down as as uh as it goes up here but also you need to think that there's not that many videos at those length that will be high quality let's say so if you're one of the ones inside your niche that do a very long video that is high quality, there's more chances that that gets pushed because maybe it's less, it's basically much less competitive.

32:02And here you can see we looked into per niches, basically the video duration per niche, and we could see where it peaks inside each niche. And it kind of makes sense when you think about it. Like for tech, for example, you have 28 minutes versus vlog being 14. 28, you want them to be longer because people are watching for those tech reviews. They want the in-depth review of a phone that just came out. Same for engineering and DIY at 26 minutes here versus 14 where that's more of a casual entertainment that's bingeable. Same for gaming around 21 minutes. And so it's interesting to see. And that doesn't mean you have to do exactly 21 minute videos, but just means that maybe there's higher probability of success if you go around that area instead of shorter.

32:57In the end, you try to go for longer in the end. Very interesting. I love this data. I love seeing some of these things from your study. That's the goal to help all of you guys use that report and try to grow on YouTube. Finally, on that checklist, we have the tab, the total addressable viewership, because you can have a format that works, but how do you know which interest topic to choose as your next upload? So that's where you try to think which interest topic will maximize views while not going too broad. So here, for example, in the entertainment niche, I Melted Every Gum is much more unique, much more remarkable than I Mixed Every Fruit, which sounds a bit more normal.

33:41or here for example i cooked 100 years of school lunch is much more relatable to a broader general audience than well hopefully than jail food and hospital food okay very interesting i mean this it's always good to be reminded that so much of what makes a video successful comes down to the idea and the packaging. And so this covered everything around really kind of both idea and packaging. The big question for me still is like, how do I make this process something I can easily do in whatever time I'm able to allocate? And obviously one of 10 was built to make that easier. So could you show us how to use one of 10 to do this research process?

34:30Yeah, of course. So you can just click random, which I quite like. Is there a threshold on how many views is being pulled in when I just hit random? How does random pull videos in? Random will take any video at all that was an outlier. But then what we do is you can use the filters. And one trick people can use actually is look at, let's say, sub 50 ,000 subscribers, So under 50K that got 100K views. And that will probably be at least a 2X outlier. And you look at the last three months. And then like that, you're able to see what format has worked well for a smaller channel. And maybe that gives you ideas that you would not have thought of.

35:13But it's also fresh. Because if a small channel was able to blow up, then there's a reason that blew up. And maybe there's a way for you to transform it for you. For example, let's say I have a data analysis channel and I see 10 brain boosting activities to make your baby a genius. That's totally outside your niche. But let's see what comes out. It can become 10 networking tips to propel your data analysis journey. There you go. That's one way. Or 10 resume hacks that will get you a data analysis job. Basically, the goal of one of 10 is that you keep getting inspired by bouncing around and remixing those ideas that have done well for that niche.

35:57That's cool. So I can find whenever I hit random or I set my filters here and it pops up these ideas. Now, besides just being able to save them and use them as my own inspiration, you add a button there that basically remixes that based on my channel. Yeah, exactly. It's not always intuitive how to transform a format from a totally different niche into yours. So we try to make it as easy as possible for creators to save time. And basically you can, I don't know, generate here, Canada tax changes for 2026, what you must know before the new year, then becomes for a data analysis channel that is inside your community.

36:32and that becomes data transfer 2026. You need to understand that's maybe a new idea that you would not have thought of or what every data analyst must know about 2026 jobs. Very cool. And you guys have now title and thumbnail generators inside of one of 10 also. So can you show us how those work? But yeah, there's no point in having a great idea if there's no good packaging. So let's talk about titles and thumbnails. So what I learned from Jake Thomas, I've learned that there are three core drivers of human attention, fear, curiosity, and desire. Like my team and I, we tried to see if there were like other ways, but really we quite like this.

37:14And basically your goal as a creator is to try to find the highest, find the title that will create the highest level of intensity for any of these three. So like, for example, curiosity, your goal here is to create a curiosity gap, make your viewer wonder to force them to click for the answer. For example, how does Bluetooth even exist? You read that everyone has Bluetooth on their phones, headphones, and you wonder, oh, how does it actually work? And a more concrete example is the one which I work with, with Mike Shake. How dangerous is a whip at 8 million views video? as you guys can see on the right how dangerous is a whip how powerful is a whip how deadly is a whip all of these could have been a title how dangerous is a whip is the title we went because it's the most uh relatable and the one that leads to the highest intensity for curiosity because when you think about it everyone watching you know what's a whip you've seen whips on tvs and movies but 99 99 % of people have never used a whip.

38:20So when they see that title, they're intrigued right away. Then we've got desire. So here you want to sell the result so that the viewer is interested in the process. So for example, hire grew from zero to 100k subscribers in five months. You see that title, you want that outcome, you want that result. So you click to know the process to get to it. And then you have fear. So here your target viewers are clicking because they want to avoid threats or ease their concerns. So like here on the right, my worst financial mistake. You see that from a financial expert. So you click to avoid those financial mistakes.

38:58So those are the three ways. And your goal is to get as high level of intensity as possible. We have a bunch of best practices like ideas. Like we try to aim for 50 characters. try to see if the hook would be a good hook for the title you're thinking about. And why 50 characters? Again, back to the 1 of 10 report. As we've seen across over 300 ,000 outliers, if you put more words, basically the median views go down across the board. Wow. Five words, six words will be much better than 10 to 15. Wow. And same for characters. I always say 50 and the report really confirms it. If you go from 30 characters to 70 characters, that's 60 % less views.

39:53So obviously 30 characters is really low, but you can see from 50 and downwards, it really drastically goes down in terms of median views per video. Very cool. So basically in the title phase, you're trying to find as many angles as possible and try to figure out which one will hit one of those core drivers of human attention. And there are three ways to go about it. You can go from question to a strong statement or a strong statement to a question. Or number two, you can try to change the words in a title that you have in mind from, can be I tested every to I tried every, or like$1 versus$1 ,000 can become level one to level 1000.

40:36And number three, you can also try to add a power word. Like any of the four videos you see on the right would not have gotten that many views had there not been those like emotional triggers, like extremely mind blowing, subtle, brutal. And one way that we made it easy to get all those title angles is actually with the one of 10 title generator, which I can show here. So this one is one of my favorite features on one of 10. Basically what we said, one is changing a strong statement into a questions. So we can try the video we did earlier. So top data trends for data analysts in 2020. That's the idea.

41:18So you can input either a title or you can put in the idea, the concept of the video. We look at the channel style that you do your titles and then we try to remix it using the concept you put in. or we look at the top outliers on one of 10 and see if there's one that makes sense with the concept that you have. So, oh, this one's pretty good. Five data trends that will define 20-26. What you can then do, which is really cool, is the three methods of changing that title. Then we can go with turn into a question. So not all of these will be good, but that's where you judge which one you think will lead to the most click for the audience you're targeting.

41:58So that's turning a statement to a question and you can do it vice versa. Number two is just changing the words. But then number three is add emotional trigger power word and make it capitalize. So we all see it here. Now it becomes five shocking data trends that will define 26. Just right there, this makes it a lot more appealing than just five data trends. Now it's five shocking. Obviously, it doesn't need to be all caps, but or the future, like the word future hits, the word powerful hits, critical is pretty good as well. So you're trying to find different ways of using those power words. Very cool.

42:44I didn't know we could add like this second instruction in the title generator here. That's very useful. And here's a proof of why changing titles is so important, basically, and finding multiple variations of a title. For example, this channel here created, I built a tool to predict how much money I'll make. He turned it into, I've created a monster. And that led to a video stuck at 10 ,000 views. You see the immediate change and it's actually now at 88 ,000 views. or this one, which is a creator we've worked from zero, actually Callaway. We basically turned the dopamine ladder trick that gets viewers addicted to your videos, turned it into how to become a storytelling genius.

43:31And that video that was stuck in like 10, 20 ,000 views, only a title, that's just a title change, became 150 ,000 views video. Always try to understand why things do well, right here basically we changed the um the angle of towards dopamine which uh which is an interest topic that went viral a bit everywhere but we may we put the focus on on storytelling which we knew uh worked well in the past had two million views uh one of them had two million views with the storytelling angle so we transform it here but we didn't keep the dopamine ladders uh in the title to keep the intrigue. And so combining all that together led to an explosion in views.

44:15Okay. So now that we've covered research and titles, the obvious next step is thumbnails. So what are the most important aspects for us to understand about thumbnails? Yes. So when you're looking at thumbnails from videos that have performed well, you're trying to understand why they did well. And there are two things you're trying to understand one is what is the composite composition and two what are the elements that are part of that composition um see why they did well and see if there's a way to remix into your for your own channel all right so so here you're trying to find a thumbnail right so for mike with who we worked basically did this video can you stop a bullet with an arrow a couple months prior but what we see in the composition is like mic the weapon and the object getting crushed so that was transferred into how into the whip video mic whip and phone getting destroyed and fun fact uh i still remember like uh i was thinking of all all kinds of objects it could have been a brick a tree a car a house that's getting destroyed.

45:23But why I chose a phone was because everyone has a phone. Everyone understands how hard it is. Everyone has dropped the phone. So you know how solid it is. And so seeing it destroyed like that entices you to click more. And so seeing that composition, but then just changing the elements in it, then became a big stable on the channel. And that actually led to other channels taking that composition and then transforming into their own style for their own niches. And you have also the next level is what I call, which is external. Basically, here's an example of a scene in an anime called Naruto, where I remember the intensity of it.

46:12And that I wanted to transfer it for a thumbnail for a client. And that led to this character getting executed or this guy going through a hard workout. Basically, you're able to transfer literally from anything, just like ideas from anywhere and see if you can replicate it to create the same level of intensity. And you can see it here as well. This movie poster became a 9 million views video once remixed, or this one became a 3.7 million views for Dotford. That's how you're taking inspiration from literally anything and then taking that data and transforming for your own thumbnail. And just like ideas and titles, we have a bunch of best practices for thumbnails.

46:59We try to aim for three main elements. We like to have it as fresh and new as possible as well while taking inspiration of different compositions all around. The squint test, bottom right, you try to not have any text there since there's the timestamp. Little things like that adds more probability that a person will click on that video. Just like titles, you always want to try to find different thumbnails, test them and see what works. For example, here is a video of me interviewing Will Tennyson. It was stuck at literally 3 ,000 views for the longest time. But then we kept changing titles, thumbnails.

47:46And then I was so bullish on the video. And then that led to over half a million views video. Or here, you have the worst enemy of Tesla becoming why Apple and Tesla are scared of this genius. You see the title thumbnail change. Super simple. And that's literally the only change we did on that channel 180 days after upload. So after six months. So it's never too late. So doing so led to an extra 2 million views video. And so you're really missing out if you're not trying to find as many thumbnail concepts as possible. And that's also why we built the thumbnail generator, which I can show now. While you're loading that up, is it really never too late to make these changes?

48:29Like we've had some videos in the back catalog that I just look at and it's like, wow, the click-through rate on this is so far below what is typical. I worry that it'll even get impressions to test new packaging changes. Are there ever times where you think it's just too far gone? No, yeah, it's true. So first there's, we look at if the video had like a good retention, right? If it didn't have a good retention, then there's no point. What I mean by good retention is not, again, the number, but it's more like, was it a flat line? Was it like, was it really lower than most other videos of the same time length?

49:03Now, if after at some point you've tried a lot, then it's time to move on to new videos for sure. All right, let's see how this thumbnail generator works. Basically, we built this thumbnail generator where, again, you can put in your channel. You can either put your title or thumbnail concepts or a video idea and you put it in. And then you'll get your thumbnail generator in literally one to two minutes maximum. It works in literally any niche and it'll take the context of your back catalog, understand the visual style, and then transform it into your next thumbnail. Like we generated this for some in your community.

49:46You can put it as much information as possible and it'll lead to creating the thumbnail you have in mind. And what's really cool is that you can also add in your face to be sure it creates, it takes your face, but if not, normally it will take from your back catalog. But another thing is you can add objects or assets that you normally use inside your channel and you add it in and it'll understand that. But also what's cool is you can do like the most random sketch on a piece of paper and it'll create a thumbnail from what it understands on the sketch. So what I like about this is from a workflow perspective, what you can do is be on the homepage, click random, find an outlier that you think is interesting, remix that outlier from your channel on that, take that idea over to the title generator and play around and find a title that you like the most, and then drop that title in the thumbnail generator here, and you have the whole package.

50:48Exactly. Richard, thanks for sharing so much with us here and showing us how one of 10 can make this research process a lot easier. If folks watching this want to try one of 10, where should they go? If you want to try it out, we actually have a promo on oneof10.com where it's$1 for the first month for you to try it out. You can try the title generator, thumbnail generator, outlier search, everything. And you'll see that you'll be saving money and time. And if you want more help on a one-on-one, basis consulting. We currently have a 30 % off where people can, again, go in the link below to book a call with us.

51:28We'll see if we're much to work with you. Cool. I'll make sure we have those links at the top of the description. Richard, thanks for stopping by.

From the publisher

Richard is the co-founder of ⁠1of10⁠, a research platform built by YouTube strategists, and his team has quietly been behind the scenes for some of the biggest channels on the platform—helping creators accumulate over 2 billion views through a repeatable, data-backed system.

In this episode, Richard walks through his complete four-phase ideation system—audience identification, outlier research (using five distinct methods), idea remixing, and validation—and backs every step with real examples. We talk about what happens when the wrong audience floods your channel, why creators should double and triple down on formats that work, and how a single title change took one creator's video from 10,000 views to 150,000. He also shares data from 300,000+ YouTube outliers on the ideal title length (hint: shorter than you think) and where the sweet spots are for video duration across different niches.

⁠Save 20% on 1of10 using code JAY20⁠

⁠Schedule a 1of10 Strategy Call⁠

⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠

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TIMESTAMPS

(01:12) Where 80-85% of YouTube success comes from

(01:50) Phase 1: Audience

(03:19) When should you start a fresh channel instead of pivoting?

(04:09) The danger of going viral with the wrong audience

(05:40) Phase 2: Research

(07:37) Format vs. Interest Topic

(08:00) Method 1: Inside your own channel

(10:52) Tripling and quadrupling down

(12:33) Method 2: Inside your niche

(13:45) Method 3: Adjacent niches

(16:00) Method 4: Outside your niche

(17:37) The "Japanese Rule" format

(20:56) Method 5: External inspiration

(22:07) Phase 3: Remixing

(23:00) Escalation, inversion, and interest topic replacement

(24:10) Viral vectors: concepts that work across all niches

(25:28) Phase 4: Validation

(27:00) Optimal video duration by niche

(30:45) Why long videos are making a comeback

(31:39) Total Addressable Viewership

(34:36) Titles: Fear, Curiosity, and Desire as the three core drivers

(37:17) Data: Title Length

(37:51) Three methods for generating title angles

(42:11) Thumbnails: Composition and Elements

(45:11) It's never too late: title/thumbnail changes

(46:10) Live demo: 1of10 thumbnail generator

(48:10) The full 1of10 workflow

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ ⁠#282: David Altizer — How to Make Great Thumbnails (For Non-Designers)⁠

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