Is being a YouTuber a Recession-proof job?

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.

0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.

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. Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to this episode of The Colin and Samir Show. Today on the show, we're going to be answering some questions. is being a creator recession-proof? How do you go from 1 ,000 to 100 ,000 subscribers? And lastly, we deliver some non-typical YouTube advice. We also answered the question, why don't we have an upload on YouTube today? That's a good one. All right, if you make it to the deep end, let us know.

1:48All right, man, audio only this week. You know, it's nice to go back to an audio only. It just feels safe. It is nice. I do love audio only. We are here because we did something we haven't done in a very long time, which is can an episode. Which we can get into in this episode if we want. I think we are getting it. Oh, I didn't know if it was like a cliffhanger of like, well, let's talk about us. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying it's something we haven't done in a while. We're not afraid to do. We will do it. I'm not afraid, man. I will work all week on a video and not publish it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:23So it's been a while. It's been a while since we've done that. And a lot of that is because this year we're experimenting again with episodes that are you and I and actually starting to get into like subject matter and topics and experimenting more. And part of experimentation is sometimes it's just not it. Yeah. And that's OK. Look, hopefully in the entire scope of our career, we will look back and think that we made, you know, we put out enough things that we're proud of and it's OK sometimes to not put something out. I'm not going to say the full concept, but in this video, we were experimenting with reacting to TikToks.

3:00And there got to a point where there wasn't enough sort of education on the back half of the episode. It was kind of just, you know, we were watching some things and laughing and it's fun. And I still think it will come out in some way, shape or form. But we didn't have enough time to get it out by Monday. what the episode needed was some actual reflection about how we felt about watching these TikToks instead of just us reacting to them. So. All right. So this episode right now, we are going to do some Q &A. We posted on Twitter, asked you guys for questions and actually got some really good ones.

3:36I'm very excited to dive into these. The theme of this past week has been YouTube on TV. If you read Neil Mohan's letter, the CEO of YouTube, he talked about how YouTube series should be up for Emmys. And that is actually now something that has happened. Hot Ones and Chicken Shop Date are now eligible to be considered for the Emmys. As they should. As they should be. But that is a big moment. And a lot of YouTube's narrative over the past week has been around how much people are watching YouTube on TV. There was a Nielsen report that just came out that showed that in terms of watch hours, YouTube is number two on TVs.

4:20Like they take up more time than Netflix on television. Number one is Disney. Number two is YouTube. That is a huge deal. And our first question comes from the boys at the editing podcast. They said, in your opinion, do YouTube videos need to be edited differently now that more and more people are watching on their TVs? Or does what works on an iPhone screen always translate to larger screens? Hmm. You watch YouTube on your TV, right? Almost exclusively. Yeah. And I exclusively watch YouTube on my phone. Okay. This should make for a good debate. So I think this is interesting, but I'm curious what your take is here because you are one of these viewers that watches YouTube on TV.

5:01I think this applies whether you're making something for a phone or a TV, but currently I am actively looking for things that don't feel like TV that I can watch on my TV. Right? Explain that. What feels like TV? I will go to Netflix and choose a show that is highly produced, highly scripted. And I'm feeling this urge to watch something more raw and authentic where I know who was behind the camera. Even with YouTube videos right now, I was just telling you before we started recording, sometimes I'll click on a video and if it feels too produced, it's like I'm no longer feeling connected to the person behind the camera or the creator.

5:49I don't believe their journey as much and I'm really searching for that. So I would say in addition to that, I am looking for longer time codes. I want to watch something that's in the 20 minute range, at least. Yeah, I think right now I am not interested in the like overwhelm of choice. I kind of have my shows that I want to watch and I'm willing to give them the time. There's a lot of factors happening with this YouTube on TV moment. A lot of it is also that we have formats now and formats that you know and trust. So Challenge Accepted from Michelle Carey, which was mentioned, Hot Ones is a format.

6:29I will watch an episode of Hot Ones because I know the format of Hot Ones. I will watch an episode of Chicken Chop Date because I know the format of Chicken Chop Date. So I think I'm less willing to take a risk right now on a brand new video, brand new format. That's not as interesting to me. And I think for me, that's whether it's on my iPhone or on TV. Now, I'm part of the crop and everyone out there who's listening right now, tell me if you're with me but i watch netflix exclusively on my iphone oh i think you're a maniac for that why would you do that i don't know i just that's how i watch things i watch things on my phone put it up on the big screen let everyone else enjoy it a lot of times i'm in my own world i don't know man i hate looking at my phone really yeah i just feel like even in my own home if i'm looking at my phone no one else can take part in this experience.

7:20And I look at my phone enough that I'm not going to stare at it. I will not for 20 minutes. So I will say the difference between your phone and your TV is how much of your attention the device has. The TV could have close to 80 % of your attention. If you're really watching it, maybe 90%. If it's really good, 100 % of your attention. The phone, I think at maximum, like it has a smaller percentage of your attention because your thumb is always capable of doing something different, clicking on something different. You can also minimize the screen on YouTube and then open Instagram and be watching YouTube and watching like scrolling Instagram at the same time.

8:01So like the opportunity for the phone to occupy less percentage of your attention is high. So I think all you need to know as a creator, and this is whether people are watching it on a TV or a phone. I think you have to understand what makes a story gripping, gripping enough to grab someone's attention. And something that we talked about in the episode that we ended up canning was the concept of questions. Do I have a question still while I'm watching this? And I think if you have a question, if you're still like, hmm, why did that happen to this person? Or what's going to happen next? Then it's a gripping story.

8:37So I would just say as a creator, like for Hayden and Jordan, you guys are obviously great storytellers, but for all creators, just to, as you're watching back your video, keep asking yourself if there's still a question. If there's no question, then people won't watch anymore and they'll move on. They'll use their thumb or they'll press the back button on their TV and find something else to watch. Last thing I'll say, I think if you're thinking about your videos being watched on televisions, I do think if your packaging is good, if your title and thumbnail is good, you are given a little bit of time from the viewer.

9:11Because like you were saying, on a phone, the opportunity to click on the next thing is just right there on the same platform. I think with something that you put on TV, when I look at a title thumbnail, if I'm interested in that journey, that experience, and I see the time code is 20 minutes, I am much more confident that I will finish that video on a TV than on my phone. So this comes from Tyler Keim or Kime on Twitter. He says, what is the number one key to going from 1 ,000 subs to 100 ,000 subs. And I actually think there is just one key to this. And I think it's compound interest. And compound interest on YouTube comes through people binging your content or watching multiple videos.

9:52And that to me is developing a format. Like I think when we really grew, shorts played a huge role in that. But I think what really played a role beyond like the actual number of going from 1 ,000 to 100 ,000 subs, like to going from us being like startup creators to us then, you know, having a show in the space that could attract big guests, I think was just having a lot of episodes of the same format. Because when you have a lot of episodes with the same format or the same concept, like we had a show called the Colin and Samir show that just over time, you go from one episode to 10 episodes to 30 episodes to 100 episodes.

10:30Those are all out on YouTube finding new audience. and the more of those videos you have out on YouTube finding new audience, the more the audience compounds. Yeah, I mean, I would say for us specifically, we made a video called How to Get 50 ,000 Subscribers. And in that video, we tell you the videos we made to get there. They are completely different. Right. They are totally random in terms of who they are for, what the format is of those videos. and it wasn't until around 60 ,000 subscribers that we at least decided on who our audience was, which was people interested in creators, that we were able to get to 100 ,000.

11:10Once we committed to at least talking about the same thing, were we able to really get to 100 ,000? Yeah, so format is the key there so that your success can compound. I would say choosing your audience first, format second. Yeah, yeah. All right, this is from John Coyle. before you guys became the premier pod slash guest-based show in the creator economy, how did you get good guests at a high enough frequency to put out a weekly show? Actually, this comes back to some really great advice that our friend Paul Rabel gave us. He turned to us when we were first starting out our podcast in 2017, I think.

11:46We were having breakfast in Santa Monica. I'll never forget it. And he turned to us and we were talking about how hard it was to book guests because we were a new show. And he was like, you need two people to have a conversation. You already have two people. Don't overcomplicate it. And I thought it was such great advice. And it reminds me that when you first start out on YouTube or doing anything, you have to reduce the friction of requiring anything external from yourself. So it's like if you and I are committed to making the show, we have to make the show that can be made with just you and I.

12:24We can't basically base an idea off of a third party and a bunch of variables. And so if you go back, if you look back in time, most of our first episodes were just me and Colin. And over time, what ended up happening was those episodes got the attention of other creators. And those creators then reached out to us and then we were able to book them as guests. And then again, back to the last answer, your success compounds. Everything compounds. So once you have MKBHD on, now you can get the next creator. Once you have Mr. Beast on, now you can get the next creator. And then that just starts to compound over time.

13:05But we can always come back to the lowest common denominator. I mean, this is incredibly meta right now, but like this on a Friday night, we can always record with you and I. Also, we're still trying to figure it out. Yes, we have Samir and I both to be able to do this, but when it comes to adding video, like we said at the top of this episode, we canned an episode that was supposed to come out today. This process of figuring this out started when we uploaded a video titled Why Walmart is Buying TikTok. August 27th, 2020. Wow. On another channel. You're right, yeah. Called the Colin and Samir Podcast Channel.

13:42Where we were just testing it. It's a 20-minute video where Samir and I I just loosely riff on why Walmart is buying TikTok, which did not happen. It's an interesting title. And the next episode to come out was an hour-long episode interview with Eric. Eric, right. Yeah. And that was an experiment because, yeah. That's 2020. That's four years ago. But it's important actually to go to this podcast feed and go further back. Because the first episodes of this podcast were in 2017. It was just you and I. Yeah. So like we had a lot of reps over time. So to answer the question, how did we put stuff out at such a high frequency?

14:16I think you have to reduce your format, your content idea to something that you can control 100 % because then no matter what, you can put something out. All right. Donovan Conway. Is being a creator a recession-proof job? Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah. No way. Yeah. The thing that you have to recognize with this question is in a recession, what's one thing you don't really need? High priced advertising, right? In your business. Probably your marketing expense is one of the first ones to cut if you aren't seeing like a direct ROI. So if that is how we operate as creators, that we're tapping into those marketing budgets, then in a recession, oftentimes those budgets are the first ones to go.

15:14Now, there's strategies to make yourself, quote unquote, recession proof that I think every creator should explore because it is an up and down ad market and up and down industry. But I would not, I don't know if any job is necessarily recession proof, right? Not that I can think of. Outside of like being the president. Sure, you're going to hold that job, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, the way to solve against this is one, to not base 100 % of your revenue off advertising. Two, to keep your expenses extremely low and always make sure your content can be made just with yourself without high cost expenses.

15:54And to make sure you understand your finances and understand how long is your runway. Yeah. There were a lot of times in our career where our runway was one month. And it happened to us multiple times. Like, where I remember getting toward, like, maybe it was the third or fourth time when we had a really short runway and being amazed that I was even comfortable with it. Like, I understood. Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah, we don't have much time. And it's a huge relief when you know that you do have more runway if something is to happen. So the answer is no. There. Yeah. The answer is no. No. Again, there's ways to do it.

16:33I bet you people who have large memberships like Patreons or membership platforms probably are a little less prone to a dramatic decrease in revenue. Because what you have to think about there is most people who are in the brand deal business have a few partners that pay a lot of money. But the membership business is a lot of customers, a lot of audience members who pay probably a little bit of money. So if you have 10 ,000 people who pay$20 a month and you lose 20 % of those people, it's not as dramatic as losing 20 % of your brand partners. That's actually a lot more money you're going to lose if you're in the ad business.

17:11So you want to explore your pie chart in a way that makes sense for your life. All right, this is from Dave the Bard, host of Tavern Chat on Twitter. What is the most notable change in the YouTube landscape from the time you started creating content to now? Wow. I mean, there's so many. The sheer number of creators, the term creator economy. I might say formats. I actually think formats are the biggest change. If you look at the landscape of YouTube when we first started, were there people making regular formats at that time? In like 2010, 2011? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there were sketches, there was reaction, there was how-tos.

17:55Yeah. But the sophistication of the formats, the leveling up of some of the production. To me, that's one of the biggest differences in terms of like when I log on to YouTube. Also, who says log on? Should we play like that modem sound effect? It's crazy. I just said log on. But when you open up YouTube, there's like formats, there's shows, there's brands, and like it's all that. I think back then I remember the world of like Jenna Marbles. Like that wasn't like a show. you could understand it like that but that was like a person making stuff and I feel like a lot of what YouTube was back then was that maybe like Smosh I guess was kind of like a brand and a format and a show of sketch comedy but I feel like Good Mythical Morning was kind of the start of that era of hey this is a show I feel like there were just fewer creators like you think about how many popular creators there are now today that you maybe have never heard of You meet someone, find out they've got millions of subscribers and a big business on their hand.

18:58Whereas 2011, 2012, you kind of knew who the key players were. And that's just not the case anymore. The other thing I'll say is we used to spend a lot of our days convincing advertisers that they should buy sponsorships on YouTube. So we would start our pitches by explaining what YouTube was. You remember that? We would step into a room and be like, let me talk to you about how many people are on YouTube. And why it's different to watch a YouTube video than to watch television. So we would explain like what a YouTube viewer, why a YouTube viewer was different. How many people were on YouTube, the sheer scale of YouTube.

19:39Then we would transition our pitch into what we were doing on YouTube. But you had to sell the concept of YouTube first in a sponsorship meeting. of the fact that it matters that we're behind the camera as well as in front of the camera, that there's a making content with our audience, not just for our audience thing happening here. Yeah. By the way, did you see that TikTok is testing 60-minute videos? I did. It doesn't feel realistic to me unless there's some sort of TikTok TV app. But even so, I just think it's so far apart. I actually have found, I know that like the most popular TikToks as well as the ones that qualify for monetization are over a minute long, but I still feel uncomfortable watching like a three minute TikTok.

20:29It feels wrong. Do you know what I mean? I've never found myself watching a three minute TikTok, so I've never felt in the wrong like you in that moment. Last night I was, TikTok now has the, where you, similar to YouTube, where you can hold down and it goes 2X. I've seen that. Last night I was watching TikTok and I intuitively did that. I didn't even know that that's how it worked. And I did it and it was like a five minute TikTok. And I was like, this feels crazy. That I, like I swiped into this. I don't want to be that guy that's like, I don't watch TV. Yeah. But I don't watch TikTok and I don't, I try not to watch short form content.

21:04I really do. it's not to say I don't have other vices like I will scroll Instagram feed yeah but like I don't know I just I like I mean this with no disrespect truly to everyone who makes really compelling short form content but when I'm watching a short form for you feed I just can't help feel like I'm rotting my brain and wasting my time you don't feel like a sense of community in the brain rot? No. That's something that one of our editors, Tyga, said to us. What did he say? He said, it's like you're participating in the brain. In his brain rot. In his brain rot. We were watching someone else watch something really simple.

21:50Yeah, it was like a TikTok of someone duetting something else. Yeah, like watching glass bottles break. I feel like I just, I watch TikTok because I feel like I just need to know what the cultural landscape of TikTok is. at all. Like I just need. And you know what? It's working because you know, I do know. Yeah. You ask, you say words sometimes and bring up people that I've never heard of. Yeah. So you're in the know. I need like a weekly rap report of like, Hey, here's what the kids are talking about. Okay. Speaking of that, we were on a flight back from North Carolina last week and I turned to you and I was like, you know, the band laundry day and you didn't know them.

22:27yes so somehow recently i think i liked one of their posts on instagram yeah they messaged me and said dude love the show and i was like what a moment when there's a band you love yeah and they know who you are you've made it that to me is like that's all i need what's the song you showed me that I liked? It's called Bulldog. All right. This comes from Tempolar. Tempolar. Tempolar. Tempolar AI. Does running a YouTube channel require focusing on a niche? How can I balance creating new content for user growth with catering to the preferences of existing users? Well, to the first point, does growing on YouTube require you to cater to a niche?

23:21I think you will experience the most amount of success when you cater to a niche because you have in my experience specifically with the lacrosse network if you find an underserved market an underserved niche that's when there is an appetite for what you're making they are less critical often they they very much welcome and seek out what you're making I think it's the fastest way to grow now there are times like we found in lacrosse where you hit a bit of a limit but you used to say this thing that I liked when like a couple of years ago, it's like you're either niche or you're nowhere. Yeah. You're niche or nowhere.

23:55And I like that. I think that's an important thing to recognize that when you, when you enter the vast ocean of the internet, you're either in a corner of it that already has people in it, or that that's like a specific type of person, or you're just kind of swimming in the open sea. And it's hard to just swim around in the open sea of the internet just kind of making stuff that's not focused or not targeted on a certain group of people. I mean, even Mr. Beast started out making like Minecraft style videos. Right. And Minecraft is a niche. Yeah, of course. Let alone at that time. Yeah. I do think what we realized early on was you do have to evaluate as you're starting to go, like what is the largest possible audience within that niche?

24:40And then recognize it's a huge win if you capture like 5 % of that. So if the largest possible audience is like 100 ,000 people, you have to recognize how big your addressable market actually is. That's an important thing. You know, like if you zoom out and go like, how big is this subject matter? And if I captured five or 10 or 20 % of this amount of people, that would be like insane if that happened. So if that happened, how many people is that. And that's where you recognize like Minecraft was a huge, like that is a huge addressable market because so many people play Minecraft. So that's, that's the important evaluation.

25:19If you're thinking about your niche and wondering like, how am I not reaching outside of it? Sometimes it's actually just that it's a small niche. Like lacrosse, I think is the best example when we first started out, like there was a cap on the total addressable market of lacrosse fans on YouTube who wanted to watch videos. So you do have to reconcile with that. All right, this question comes from Bobby Hobart, aka Bobay on Twitter. What kept you guys going in the moments where money wasn't coming in consistently? I would say number one, enjoyment for making videos. We just liked it. It was fun to take an idea and turn it into something that we were proud of, whether it found viewership or not, whether it was validated with money or not.

26:04I would say, number two, an irrational belief that we were good at it. Yeah. And that we would be successful. Yeah. But it was not easy. I'd also say, because there was two of us, I think this would have been really different if there was one of us. Because when there's two of you, you don't want to be the one to pull the ripcord yeah you know and i think in the in the moments like you can't suggest that there was times where we were always like so mentally strong or um had such firm belief i also think there was a point of like i'm not going to be the one to be the reason why we quit yeah yeah i couldn't imagine doing it by myself because i don't who who would i have fun with Who would I enjoy the wins with?

26:56Who would I endure the losses with? I would have to have someone because viewership and comments is just not enough. It doesn't impact your everyday life. Yeah. Totally. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely, I actually don't know how people do it by themselves and endure. I think you have to have a real belief. You really have to enjoy it. But even then, it's really easy to just move on to something else. So I guess you just have to love it enough. Do something easier. Yeah. it's so hard. Or at least it was hard for us. It was such a long journey for us. Yeah. I think, I think that's like the, the, the important part is like, it's, it's weird.