12 things we've learned from 12 years on YouTube

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

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1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. What's up, everyone? Welcome to Creator Support, the show where we answer your questions about the business of being a creator. Today on the show, we are talking about 12 lessons we've learned from 12 years of being on YouTube. We also talk about our experience at VidCon, the announcement of A-B testing on YouTube, and we discuss walking YouTube, a very interesting genre on YouTube. All right, if you make it to the deep end, let us know.

1:45All right, back from VidCon. First live episode of Creator Support. Yeah, what an experience. That was an experience. First of all, thank you everyone who came to that. That was really cool. to do this show live in front of people at VidCon was really special and to meet all of you. And one of the biggest teams that showed out for that was the Discord team, meaning literally the people who work at Discord. I appreciate that. Thank you, Discord, for coming out to that and thank you guys for supporting this show and sponsoring this episode. I want to talk about something that Discord launched before we get into the rest of the show, which is server subscriptions.

2:20Now, when we first started talking to Discord about doing a partnership, This was something that we were really excited about and a large part of why we launched our Discord because we knew it was coming. Server subscriptions is essentially launching paid tiers inside of the Discord where we can actually gate content. So we can launch a media channel where we have BTS content. If you're a subscriber, we can have different tiers. We can even do gated access to live stages, which we've been doing a lot of. And the split with Discord is 90-10. So creators get 90%, Discord gets 10%. So here's why I like server subscriptions.

2:51Hit me. As a YouTube creator, you want to intimately get to know your audience, right? Yes. Before you end up launching anything that they can transact with. 100%. I believe the same thing applies to community. Discord is where we truly get to understand our community. We've added channels. We've done live AMAs. We can actually understand what's valuable. What would someone want more of, right? And then you can put something in place where there's a paywall. And I think people kind of don't think about the fact that you need to understand community before you can start charging for anything. Yeah, when we launched the Discord community, it was kind of like, we have an idea of what it could be, but the community takes it and says, here's what's valuable to us.

3:32And so now we can gauge that and say, okay, here's where the community has taken things. And not only can we look at that, we can also just ask. Yes. Because we have a built-in community. And say, hey, what do you guys think would be cool for a server subscription? Now, there will always be free channels that you can engage with, right? Like, we have no intention of making the whole thing gated. But I think it would be cool to have BTS content, videos, show you stuff that maybe like only a specific group of people are interested in, maybe some gear stuff. Conversations that maybe don't make sense for the creator support channel, but do make sense.

4:06I have a lot of interest in experimenting with different types of content. We were with Ali Abdaal recently and I was like, I want to share some stuff that I'm really excited to share. And I would love to test it in a community that's not only like a safe community to share, but also one that's asking for those things. And I think subscribing to something and like paying for something is the best vote of saying, I would like this, right? I find this to be valuable. And the great thing is, if you don't want to pay for it, you don't have to. Yeah, there's an element of accountability there when you pay for something.

4:39Yeah. Similar to paying for a gym membership. You're like, I should go to the gym. And I feel like with content, there's a similar type of thing where there's an accountability to the creator as well as to yourself are you happy with where you're investing your time and your money? And it makes the connection to the content I think that much greater. Because you are weighing those options, right? You're like, I'm paying for this. So I want to give feedback. I want to make sure it's really worth my time. Yeah. So we are planning to launch server subscriptions. We're playing around with the media channels right now.

5:07And they also have a server shop where you can sell like downloadable things. We can sell PDF, you can sell worksheets, you can sell templates. So all in all, it's really cool that you can build a community. and then, like you said, build value into that community. So stay tuned for our server subscriptions. And if you're a creator and you want to learn more about how you can use Discord or you want to learn more about server subscriptions, we put a link to their blog post in the description where you can learn more about it. All right. Thank you to Discord. So VidCon kind of kicked off some thoughts between you and I.

5:36You know, not only of like this VidCon felt really different to me. We've been going to VidCon since 2017 where you and I walked in, had one meeting with Nestle where they told us we were like moderately in shape. We may have to explain that now that you've brought it up. Let's just leave that and move on and walked right out. But now like, you know, it's a marker of like the midway point to the year. It's a marker of a lot of reflection on the industry, a lot of reflection on our own experience. And felt like this would be a good episode to recount lessons that we've learned. Yes. Now we've been on YouTube for 12 years.

6:12So we figured we should do 12 lessons. Six from you and six from me. What? That doesn't make sense. Yeah, six from you and six from me. Okay, so let's start sharing them. You're going to share one, I'm going to share one, and we're going to riff on these, and then we will get to your questions in this episode as well. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen. and keep striving. Visit Strayer.edu slash Jack Welch MBA to learn more.

6:50Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street North in Arlington, Virginia. Okay. So number one for me, biggest lesson, if you're going to start YouTube, I think you need to have some sort of element of visualizing what it will look like down the road or manifesting it. Because even for you and I, when we started, there was some sort of belief that we would be successful, that we could eventually build a team, have an office. Yeah. From very early stages, we knew what it meant to hit some level of success. And I think you have to believe that it can happen, right?

7:29Even us being on stage at VidCon, speaking with YouTube, things like that, you have to believe that that's possible if that's what you want, right? Whatever your version is. Yeah, that's a good one. I think one thing that we did early in our career is we literally took pen to paper and wrote out what the vision for a perfect day in our life was and week in our life of like, where are we trying to get to? What should our days and weeks look like? And then actually drew with pen and paper what our office looked like too. I'm just like, what does the perfect office look like? Where do we want to go every day?

8:01Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that. I think like, you know, there's a nebulous concept of making it. Yeah. What does making it mean? You have to define that for yourself. And many times you're trying to build something that's never been done before. Like whatever you're going to do is not going to look like what someone else is going to do. Yeah. So no one else is going to believe it for you. Like you have to have that belief first and foremost. All right. My number one, what do you got? Is directly riffing off of a quote from Rick Rubin. Okay. Cause how could I not? I thought maybe you'd go in like a harsh analytics perspective and be like, your CTR needs to be above 10%.

8:32Number one is it's a practice and you just have to commit to getting better at it. So there's a quote from the Rick Rubin book where he says, living life as an artist is a practice. You're either engaging in the practice or you're not. It makes no sense to say that you're not good at it. It's like saying, I'm not good at being a monk. You're either living as a monk or you're not. We tend to think of an artist's work as the output, but the real work of the artist is a way of being in the world. It's kind of the premise of the whole book, but I think that's true of being a creator. And it's not about being outcome oriented, right?

9:06Like when you, when you come into being a creator, which you want to be really careful of, uh, and what I think sometimes we struggled with early on was being very outcome oriented of being like, I want the outcome of this video to be X. I want, uh, the outcome of this career to be money. I want like these outcomes to happen when actually it's just a daily practice. And part of that practice is just discovery. You're like letting the world unfold in front of you, but that only happens if you're just in the daily practice of like the minutia of, is this video good? Is this story good? How could this hook be better?

9:43Is this frame good? Is this thumbnail good? Like that's it. And to this day, 12 years in, that is what we do here. And like all we do is the same thing that we did before. We're just better at it. And this moment we will be worse at it than we are in five years. Yeah. And all it will be is a practice of this craft of making videos and posting them to the internet. I like how Rick Rubin also talks about it as. Wait, you like Rick Rubin? Love. Anyone know that? That I'm a big Rick Rubin fan? You think we could get Rick on the show? I would love that. The funniest thing is like Rick Rubin would not work in a YouTube thumbnail, in my opinion, I don't think, but would be the most enjoyable conversation to have.

10:25And I think that's why we should try and get him on the show. Yeah, I would love to talk with him. Yeah, like he's not like a YouTube native creator to interview, but I think he has impacted us so much that we should explore getting him on the show. I mean, if it's possible, yes. Or interviewing him. We talk about him enough. You think he's just annoyed? He like listens to the show and he's like, oh, stop talking about me. I think Rick Rubin is not listening to the show. Yeah. Wow. He's like standing barefoot in like a field. getting in tune with himself. What do you know? All right, next. Well, what I was going to say real quick is that he talks about creativity and being an artist as being aware.

11:00And there's another quote from that book of, he says, focus on what you notice, but no one else sees. Yeah. And I love that one because it is so true that like the practice is actually just being aware of how you feel, stories you want to talk about, what you think is interesting and what's going to inspire your work. Yeah, also just aware of like, when you're looking at a story, what are you noticing? What is your unique perspective? That's the only way to stand out on YouTube is to become really in tune with your own thoughts on this thing. Because otherwise you're making the same video as everyone else.

11:32He makes an analogy of, imagine if you went throughout your life with the same awareness of as if you were landing a plane. Yeah, the same focus. The same focus as if you were landing a plane. On every task. Yeah, on every task. The things you would recognize. Never landed a plane, but I can imagine. I can imagine. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. All right, number two? Yeah. Number two is that good art is irrational and that there's a big difference between what you want to make versus what you have to make. And specifically, I'm talking about this physical newspaper. Yep. If you're listening, Colin's holding a physical published press newspaper that we made.

12:10Because it was really cool at VidCon to see people reading it, to see how well it was received. And we had a conversation with John Green about it. and he was asking, you know, do you want to do this monthly and make it a subscription thing? Yeah. He was like, this could be a good business. This could be a good business. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know. I was kind of hesitating on my answer. And then he goes, well, yeah, that's going to totally change how you feel about it. Yeah. He's like, it's fun when you want to make it. Yeah. Cause you can make it exactly how you want to make it. He goes, but it probably changes when you have to make it every month.

12:42And he's right. It does change it. You start to make different decisions when you have to make something as opposed to when you just want to. And I think when you're a creator, sure, there will be things you have to make, but it's important to always recognize the want to make. And can you stay in that pocket of this is what I want to make? I actually don't think that, because this is number three for me, so I'll just read it off. I said money complicates things. You need an engine and a creative outlet. Be aware of what happens when you commercialize your creativity. Um, hold on. I'm just writing down mo money, mo problems.

13:17Yeah. That's, that's actually just in summary. That's what it is. Okay, great. But, um, I actually think you need both. I don't think you can fully remain in the pocket of like, I want to make this. I agree with that. I actually think you need both. You need like creatives need deadlines. Creatives need constraints. Uh, creatives need to make money, but I think you have to separate like, uh, we used to say this a lot to young creatives that we'd meet with, if they had like a passion project, we'd be like, save that one for yourself. Don't try and sell that one. You know, if you have a list of ideas and you're like, that's the one I'm really excited about.

13:50Don't try and sell that one. Don't, don't, you know, get a sponsor behind it. Don't do it. Just be like, that one's for me. I think that's like incredibly crucial. Um, but you do need an engine. So you'd also need to observe the industry and be like, what's a commercially viable, you know, version of my creativity that can get out there on a regular basis, get me, you know, paid, give me a good foundation to go pursue the irrational creative stuff. And sometimes you also need an audience to do that stuff. Like it feels better to create with an audience. So like totally find that engine that's bringing you audience and monetization and then find time.

14:25You know, that's the next hard thing is to find time to explore those creative outlets. That was my number two or my number three. Did you do number two and number three or? No, no, no. I haven't done two yet. So you still have to do number two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Number two is pick an audience and community that you truly want to provide value to and that you are a part of. That's probably the most important. The most important thing. I mean, I don't know what you have coming next, so maybe it's not the most important. So keep listening. You don't know my list, man. Yeah, I don't know your list.

14:51You don't know my list. But that truly is, if you want this to be fulfilling, if you want it to be also probably commercially viable, you have to focus on an audience that you want to serve over the long term. Yeah. Yeah. I think also it's just like everything comes into full picture from a purpose perspective when you care about the audience that you're providing value to. Everything. You know, you're like if you deeply know, then you're also filling a need of your own because you're part of the community. And every time that we've experienced that, we've been in like lockstep with our creativity, especially specifically on YouTube, because YouTube is this dance between what you're making and what the community is watching.

15:29And so if you actually honestly are like, what I am making right now is valuable to these people, and I know that because I am one of these people, you will feel good about your creativity. At least me, anytime that's not been true, it's felt really weird. I also think from a business perspective, it safeguards you a bit from the possibility that videos don't start performing or algorithms change or things that are outside of your control from a video perspective. if those things happen to you, you're still a member of this community that provides value. Think back to Lacrosse Network. If all of a sudden our YouTube channel was taken away from us, we were still very active members of that community.

16:09And there were so many ways that we could continue to provide value and be a part of it. Same with the career right now. If you take away our YouTube channel. We would still very much be involved in this community. There's so many things that we could do. We could work for companies that work with creators. We could work for other creators. We could do consulting. Like there's so many things you could do. Yeah, we are actually a part of this community, which makes us care about the community. And it also makes me understand who's on the other side of this piece of content. And it's something that in 2019, when we essentially quit.

16:362019, 2016, man. No, no, no. Oh, 2019. 2019, when we quit the Colin and Samir YouTube channel and both started looking for jobs, I was very unsure of what type of job I could get or where I could provide value. and it wasn't until really 2021 with the interview show where I said oh I was like I kind of understand now we'll be fine no matter what at least within this community are you want to go next or you want me to go next sure I can go next okay so number three what I've realized you're not working on a YouTube channel you're working on yourself like so much of this process has been about self discovery and everything whether it's competition or hitting milestones like a million subscribers it's always been more interesting to see what it means about me and what it means about us than seeing like the true growth of the channel.

17:26Yeah, in the Conor McGregor doc, which I told you about, he talks about like competition. And he was like, when you're in the ring and like, or if someone beats you or if you're feeling like jealous, like you're actually not competing with that person. You're competing with the emotion inside of yourself. You're trying to temper that emotion enough to get you back into the space where you can compete at your best. And I thought that was a really interesting, you know, exploration of like on YouTube, when you have a video that underperforms, it's like a gut punch. But what you're competing with is actually that emotion and being like, can I pick myself back up and try again?

18:01Yeah. Is the question. And like the discovery of self of like, am I this person who can do this? And you're just, again, back to like the practice, you're getting better at dealing with all of this and getting a deeper understanding of why, why do I put myself through this? That's what it is. It's completely a process of understanding why. Why am I the way I am? Like truly, when we hit a million subscribers, once the dust sort of settled on that, I started feeling like a desire to do something else to like some hit some next milestone. And then you realize, oh, I'm someone who needs a milestone.

18:35It doesn't have to be a metric always, but I, I have now grown comfortable in, you know, hitting some sort of long-term goal. And then that's something I'm going to, I'm going to need another one. Yeah. Like you just start learning things about yourself. This one is topical that I have. It's my number four, um, because we're about to take breaks, uh, but it's, you can take a break. And then I wrote, actually, you need to take a break. And the thing that I have realized, I said this to you earlier this year, it's like, uh, our most creative project won't happen until we take a break. Um, I actually think you have to step away and experience something brand new and that brand new might even be rest and like calming your nerves or creative energy down, tempering that to then come back and experience something.

19:26Like I think we forget about the kind of like kinetic energy of like a slingshot. You know, like you have to pull it back for it to get released. And the further back it gets pulled, the further it gets released. And I think taking a break as a creative is kind of like reloading the slingshot. But you have to like remove everything and actually do something different. And I felt it for the first time last year when I went to Europe for three weeks. That was one of the most uncomfortable things I've done in a long time. And even like, you know, today, the day that this comes out, I'm on a plane to London.

19:59I can tell you right now, I'm horribly uncomfortable. I'm sitting on that plane and I'm uncomfortable. I'm like, on my phone being like, what's happening? Do I need to do something? Our Mr. Beast episode is out. How's that doing? You know, like, what's the next project we're working on? Who's the next person we're interviewing? How's the next edit going? What's happening on Slack? Like what's happening on discord? I'm just, I can tell you that I'm going to be going a little bit nuts on that plane. But once I settle in over the next couple of days, I will come into a new version of myself that will be more creative.

20:31Yeah. You have to make space for yourself to have something new you want to talk about or new that you want to pursue or new that you want to make. And it has to develop separately from me. Totally. Like I, you know what I mean? I need to also be away and experience new things I want to talk about, new things I want to make. I used to think that it was, to make it, it was actually who could work harder than the next person. You know, like I would pride myself on the fact that I could stay in our studio overnight and work and I didn't need a break. But I'm recognizing now that like, it's not just this like self-compassion of you need a break.

21:08It's actually like, if you want to be a better creative person. Yeah. You need a break. So you have to build it in almost like an athlete needs recovery. Like you have to build it in. It has to be a part of your thing. So I think that's like a huge lesson. It's, and also we took a four month break at the beginning of this year. Channel's doing better than it's ever done. Well, we took a four month break. I'm saying from posting, sorry, posting. So like, but we were still working, even the anxiety of posting. And within that, we were also posting creator support episodes. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm saying the main channel, the main channel, what I'm saying, there's not, we took a break.

21:38I'm saying if you have anxiety around not posting, it's unfounded, in my opinion. Yeah. It's unfounded because we took a four-month break from posting on the main channel, and it's the best it's ever performed right now. That brings me to number four, which is I think brand is more important than reach, especially in the long term. You know, thinking about what does your brand stand for as a creator? Is there iconography that people understand? You know, with Dream, it's like the mask and the green, or with Casey, it was the sunglasses. I think making sure that people will remember what you stand for and your ideas, even if you go away for four months is important.

22:16And not just chasing space on YouTube's homepage, right, on their browse features. Truly holding a place in someone's mind. Yeah, you have to think about the sentence that someone says when they talk about you. Like if someone can't really describe you, if they're like, oh, he makes like viral videos, that's the worst place to be. Yeah. Because you're just - That could be anything. That could be anyone. Yeah. My number five, everything is an experiment. Nothing is permanent. That is true. I think back to interviewing Ty Verdes on the main channel two, three years ago. And he talked about how this version, Ty Verdes, you know, has clicked and it made him into a pop star and he hit it.

22:56But he had like 12 different artist names before that and like different things he was trying out. And he was just like, you can just try everything out. nothing is permanent you know and i think uh there was times in our career where we would try something or have an idea and i would think that like oh i would get anxiety if like on the third episode i didn't like it because i'd be like ah now we've committed to this thing yeah but everything is an experiment everything and it's a constantly changing experiment um and you're trying to like get signals from the experiment at all times and decide on what to do next so i think that's like, that's a really important thing is nothing is permanent.