---
title: 'How to Grow Your YouTube Channel: Insights from a Successful Creator'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=zYNpmGwa_1w'
video_id: 'zYNpmGwa_1w'
date: 2026-07-14
duration_sec: 0
---

# How to Grow Your YouTube Channel: Insights from a Successful Creator

> Source: [How to Grow Your YouTube Channel: Insights from a Successful Creator](https://youtube.com/watch?v=zYNpmGwa_1w)

## Summary

In this live stream, YouTube strategist Derral Eves interviews creator Hau, who shares his journey from college vlogging to building a successful channel focused on learning new skills. Hau discusses the importance of consistency, strategic pivoting, and understanding audience data to grow on YouTube.

### Key Points

- **Introduction and Guest** [00:00] — Derral Eves introduces Hau, a YouTuber who started with college vlogs and evolved into a channel about learning niche hobbies and skills.
- **Hau's YouTube Origin Story** [02:30] — Hau started with a $300 used camera, making college vlogs. His first video was a kale cooking tutorial, inspired by his own diet.
- **Early Struggles and Persistence** [05:00] — Hau's early videos got few views; a BuzzFeed-style video took 50-100 hours but got only 200 views. He made a promise to stick with YouTube for a year regardless of results.
- **First Viral Video** [08:00] — A 'Day in the Life of a UBC Student' video got 50k views in a week, giving Hau motivation to continue.
- **Pivot to Shaolin Series** [12:00] — During COVID, Hau created a 6-episode series training with a Shaolin monk. He filmed 4 episodes before posting the first one.
- **Slow Pivot Strategy** [15:00] — Hau advises against 180-degree pivots; instead, make small, gradual changes to retain audience and build momentum.
- **Finding Your Rhythm** [20:00] — Hau discovered his audience loves fitness and physical challenges, leading to videos like 'I Trained Like Steph Curry for 7 Days'.
- **Rubik's Cube and Format Evolution** [25:00] — Hau tested a non-physical challenge (Rubik's Cube) and later used the 'Level 1 to 100' format to make it more viral.
- **Short Form Strategy** [30:00] — Hau started taking shorts seriously after seeing 20 million monthly views from low-effort clips. He now plans shorts alongside long-form content.
- **Ideation Process** [35:00] — Hau holds weekly pitch meetings with his team of 6, where each member brings 5-10 ideas. They refine ideas based on viral potential.
- **Working with Subject Matter Experts** [40:00] — Hau collaborates with experts who provide depth, while he ensures the content appeals to a mass audience by avoiding overly niche details.
- **Data vs. Intuition** [45:00] — Hau uses data to inform decisions, but notes that some creators succeed purely on intuition, like Jordan the Stallion who never looks at analytics.
- **Final Advice** [50:00] — Hau emphasizes being obsessed with learning—taking courses, analyzing what works, and treating long-form as a different game from short-form.

### Conclusion

Hau's success stems from a combination of strategic planning, audience understanding, and a willingness to experiment. His key advice: make small pivots, use data to guide decisions, and always keep learning.

## Transcript

all of you that are on YouTube there's always a sense of trying to figure things out and as you go and navigate your audience and try to figure out okay what type of content is going to work on YouTube what doesn't uh we learn and grow now I'm really excited for today's live stream because I actually have someone that has been on YouTube for a while now and started over here and now he's over there which is really exciting and ultimately as YouTube uh produces new formats uh you know like shorts and live streams and uh long form you know I think we always need to kind of be conscientious of who we making content for and the value that we're actually bringing in to them and ultimately doing that consistently and so I'm really really excited for you to learn today all about what you can do to improve on YouTube and it all starts right here now I can honestly say that the the uh biggest struggle that we face as content creators is being consistent and then ultimately knowing how to improve every single time we post a video and for me with my students I always try to help them create plans execute on those plans and then really deep dive and analyze the things that we need to do the things that we can improve upon things that worked things that didn't work and then really hone in the uh modification which is the adjustment of the new plan moving forward and so really excited for the student today because I met him a while back and I really loved his content I I I really did and it was kind of Hit or Miss and and and then two he had some series that worked really really well which I can't wait to kind of Deep dive into that and ultimately it's like okay what next what do we do how do we actually come up with these ideas and I'm excited for you to meet uh Hau so let me uh bring in Hau Hau how you doing I'm good I'm good thank you for the introduction yeah I I'm really excited for the conversation today because I you know know of your journey um on YouTube and and it's not it's not um unfamiliar with a lot of content creators of what they're doing here today so I think you're going to bring a lot of value for them and so just in short would you just kind of share what your Channel's about and then and then how you got started yeah I mean my channel took a lot of twist interns so initially my channel was a um College Vlog channel so that's where I started like in first year of University I was kind of lost just looking for a hobby and um I picked up YouTube as something that I just wanted to try so I bought like a $300 used camera off of Craigslist it didn't even have autofocus Canon q3i no autofocus that was a good camera though back in the day though come on now yeah um so I did that and I just made Vlogs of my life of my school life and stuff like that and that's how I got started and um along the way I took a lot of twists and turns uh eventually I graduated University and I'm like can't be doing College Vlogs all day right because I don't want to go back to school when I'm like 30 years old making videos with students it's kind of creepy um so uh I basically did a series where I was like I've always wanted to do this and it was like kind of 180 it was the shallin training Series so I did 30 days training with a Shon Monk and it was like a um entertainment series and that's how I transition away from college into more entertainment and learning and now my channel is all about um learning different Niche Hobbies different skills and just exploring my Curiosities yeah no I I love it I love the the evolution of the journey in fact I was watching your first video that you posted I don't know if it was your actual first video or if you you you unlisted your first video but it was a cooking video I'm like what the like I didn't I didn't even know that you did cooking you know you had like this cooking tip or whatever um and I I want to I want to kind of dive into that because uh I know with your background uh you loved acting and you loved uh performing and and why why did you start with a cooking video like was it just cuz it was like a cooking video in college or was that just was that even prior of doing College content no um so like like I said I was trying to like find things that I wanted to do right so like I just made whatever that came to mind and at the time I had a very like special diet all I ate every single day was chicken breast and kale so like I C kale for some of my friends and they're like this is the best kale I've ever had because it was like tender and it wasn't bitter because I like s it so I just made a kale cooking tutorial okay I I love that I love that for multiple reasons because you're just like okay it's all I ate kale and and chicken um now let's kind of let's kind of dive into it so at the time um that that you posted your first video are you thinking in your head I'm going to create YouTube content I'm going to be a YouTube Creator or was it just I'm going to post a video just to show my friends how to cook for the Kale like what was what was going through your thought no I was it wasn't that serious I mean like I was just like I was just like wanting to get a video out it was just kind of like uh I had an idea I wanted to create the idea that's great that's great and then that evolved into uh you know making content as a student and and um what where did you get like and I know this is so long ago so if you can't remember it's fine but um where did you get your inspiration of you know how to do YouTube like what what was the channels that you were watching or was there anything that was inspiring you at the time um when you're creating content or you just pull out the your your Canon and $300 camera and start vlogging um it was back in the Vlog days actually so Casey neistat was daily vlogging at the time when I started so that that was like a huge inspiration every day I wake up and start my day with a ky ni Vlog yeah love that I love that and you're like okay that's so cool and I'm GNA go do this that's great and so did you uh did you try to do a daily Vlog or were you just doing a weekly or what was your kind of your strategy at the time strategy is like a bit of an Overkill of a word don't think I had much strategy um I I I just went at the pace that I could because like I had no skills going into YouTube yeah like my first video I was uh learning to edit with a YouTube tutorial on the side while I was editing the video so like I I couldn't upload that fast but I was like about weekly you know I was like uploading pretty like consistently in the beginning yeah yeah I I I love that because I mean we all love YouTube for multiple reasons and can't tell you how many people are like oh I want to learn this and so they have YouTube they have like a a player in and they're trying to do it at the same time and then trying to get stuff out it it's so great um okay so when when did it start to get uh get serious for you like like this is something that you wanted to do and you wanted to do you know for for your work like what when did that actually start H it took a long time actually I mean I was still studying right so like school was my primary focus but I kind of View University and college and school kind of like a playground because it's like a safety net right like I can focus on other things for example YouTube if that fails I'll just go back to focusing on studying so that's how I view things so um like I really didn't do YouTube fulltime until like two years after I graduated okay but every um but ever since like my first viral video when I was like logging it was like a day in the life of a UBC student that got like 50k views within a week so after that video I took it a little bit more seriously where I'm like I'm committed to making videos I didn't think of it like as a job I didn't want to make money from it but I I committed myself to making videos yeah so when that first video took off and it was kind of like the day in the life of and I I actually watched that video that was one of the videos that I that I prepped for um but that day in the life and you're like oh my goodness like there's a lot of people that were interested in this video and and I I would assume that it it generated a little bit more money than your other your other uh videos but was it just the success of the number of views and the the the type of comments that were there that kind of fueled your fire to want to create more content or was it going hey this is actually doable I I was able to succeed on this one what happens when I really hone in on this and really focus in on this um I mean I think it was like I finally saw some light uh after like a year of Despair cause CA um I remember vividly there was like one video where it was uh BuzzFeed was also very popular at the time I was trying to like copy BuzzFeed style so it was like best coffee shops in Vancouver where I lived and that video took me me like 50 to 100 hours to like film edit and everything and when I publish it I got 200 views that was like very demiz yeah so finally seeing a video get more than like a thousand views within a week that was just very exciting just seeing the numbers like go up and feeling a little bit rewarded for the amount of effort I put in yeah that's one thing if I um if I look back of all the the people that started YouTube and the point where they're about ready to quit not saying that you're in that in that scenario but it was just like they put so much time energy and effort and passion behind a project and then when they release it it's just like okay no one watched this like like you know we kind of had a couple hundred people but it it deserves to have more you know more views and and just all the energy and effort and it can get super demoralizing like what you said um and and I know for the people in the live stream right now I think all of us at one time or another um have have fell into that category right like we get really excited about a channel we get really excited about a video and and then you just you you put a lot of energy and effort into it and then it's just like does nothing um and so when when that happened to you what did you do cuz I think cuz I I I would really like to to toine this cuz were you you probably weren't full-time at the time right no okay and so what what did you do is just like oh man maybe maybe I shouldn't put so much effort into it or this they don't they don't want that or was it just the bad topic or what what do you what was kind of going through your mind um I mean like I wouldn't say so okay so there were a couple videos I uploaded and like initially it was fun it was fun to do right um and then like it became hard work because it was like a lot of work editing these videos um at the time I was a student I was like young and I had a habit of like quitting things when they got hard and I recognized that about myself because like there were a lot of skills or like Hobbies I try to pick up but then I just quit when I it was getting really hard so um I made a promise to myself that I will stick with YouTube for a year no matter what results I got so that's what got me through it wow so so you you set a goal hey I'm going to do this for a year I'm going to be consistent for a year I don't care about the results I'm going to just create content and um that that's pretty powerful I think I think a lot of people can learn from that uh just because I think they they so they're so focused in on the numbers um that they miss out on on the joy of creating and connecting and and really you know going through that process and and I think for you to do that that's great and then in that year did did you have a video take off and it brought more energy and excitement and and um and then you kind of honed in on it you said okay I can do this yeah I mean for sure there were like a couple videos that like got uh good views um but like I was averaging like a couple hundred views per video um and then I also got mixed signals so like that kale video got like 100k views but I didn't want to be a cooking channel yeah so like I I almost became a cooking channel too because I'm like this is getting a lot of views should I do this but um but yeah I don't know it was it was just like a lot of like trial in there I guess yeah like my goal was like kind of like proving it to myself that I could do it for a year yeah and and I think I think too a lot of content creators feel pigeonholed if they have a video that take off I guess that's what my audience wants and then that's what they create um and and and they make a decision and it's just becomes um not fun like like there's no passion behind you're like oh I I guess this what the algorithm wants or the YouTube Gods want and that's all they do um but you you didn't necessarily do that you you saw okay there's success there um but you kind of leaned in and started creating content that that you were passionate about and then two um one thing that I did notice is is it started to evolve you you thought okay what what's this internet stuff like what what's going to be you know more clickable you know from from videos from the internet and I know the BuzzFeed was kind of one of those things and then you kind of branched out from there but when when you graduated and two years after the fact and you're like okay I I'm going to I'm going to make this uh my my business like I'm going to I'm going to do this fulltime um what was your strategy I mean I I would assume that you were getting some views that you're like okay this this can be Um this can support us um but what was the strategy right out of the gate well actually I didn't go full-time right after I graduated so well two years after right didn't you get two years yeah yeah um yeah so like I I was working a job um and because it was like almost covid so like like it was half like one of those years was Co like I was able to save up enough money where I would be comfortable like living just like I can survive got it so that gave me a lot of confidence to like kind of quit the job and go full-time onto YouTube and what did your family think when you like put it put it aside and you're like okay I'm going you know I'm going to do YouTube full-time well I mean I'm Asian do do tell do do tell uh I mean like my parents are very like traditional right because like um when I was doing uh YouTube during like one of the summer years during school like during not summer during school year my dad was like really hounding me to get a job like a a real job yeah yeah like I worked at the call center L lemon so like yeah um like they obviously didn't know what YouTube was they didn't know that was a viable career path and they thought I was just like slacking you know I just on the computer like slacking but um with Asian parents if you don't ask them for money like eventually they'll come around to it like if they can see that you're like surviving by yourself yeah that that that's great that's great so let's let's kind of um go into the shallin series like that like that's when I actually um found your channel is with that series I thought it was really really a great idea um and and I want to I want to go through um what why why was that something that you felt like you wanted to create and then what did you learn from creating it and posting it I I think that's that's important for a lot of people that are here cuz I think they're really passionate and they might be hesitant to actually create a certain piece of content because it's not like what the current content they they have been creating because this was a pretty big shift uh for you uh and your channel yeah it was um like I said like at the time like I wasn't uh the most strategic about it I was kind of just like kind of gun ho about it so my video right before the Shin series was like studying 24 hours with the smarter students so like it was like a very like student Centric video and then uh it was Co actually no it was it co um yeah it was Co actually time yeah yeah it was Co so like I was kind of stuck in my house uh I couldn't do the series that I wanted to do which was I had a series where um I travel around to different campuses and give campus stor it's called Campus Crawl so that was like the best performing series at the time but I couldn't travel so I'm like what can I do in my hometown and one of the ideas that came up was like as a kid I was always fascinated by like K Fu Shon stuff and one of my friends told me that there was a Shon monk in my town so that's how that happened so like I reached out to him um and then like we talked and after like a month of like deliberation between like me and proposing to like the Shon Temple and stuff like I finally got it to work and uh that's how I made the series happen yeah so at that time you've probably been uh evolving as a Creator in the sense that you you're getting editing down you understand some some Concepts um and then and then you had this idea this very passionate idea which is completely opposite of everything that you've been doing um you know which was more hey this is all student type content and here's what you can do you know um in dating or you know I think you traveled like 10,000 miles for a blind date or whatever there's certain things that were there but it was like more Centric and then you're going to do something that you're super passionate about and and then how did you approach it so you you talk to him which is great um and you got him on board but how did you approach how you wanted to create the video um because um what were you thinking in a series or were you just thinking one video at the time no I proposed like a six video series so I wanted to yeah like I wanted to be like kind of like the modern day Karate Kid where there was like a storyline between all the episodes yeah yeah I love that I love that so so you're thinking okay this is going to go at least six videos and and I'm going to put all my energy and effort into it and uh you did and and were you capturing multiple videos at the same time or did you do one video get it ready and then post it like what was your what was your process then um we filmed about like four videos before we started posting that's so great that's so great well I want to I want to kind of pull up the page itself if we can and we'll just kind of we'll kind of glance at it right here so so we have this uh shallin Series right here surviving 24 hours with the Shon Kung Fu Master um and and when you when you posted that um you already had four other videos well I guess three other videos including this excluding this one um that was was ready to go did this video right out of the gate just start to pop off or did it wait a week or two was it a couple days what what what was happening there do you remember yeah I remember exactly um so that's why I said like I wasn't I didn't have the best strategy at the time I would do it differently now if I were able to go back but at the time you can see like the previous two videos got like pretty good views um yep right here yep and then when I posted the Shaolin one right out of the gate I think it was like a five out of 10 like it wasn't like it wasn't the worst it wasn't the best and it actually took I think I think around three months before the video like hit a million views but then after it hit a million views like YouTube found the audience and it just like pushed out to like a big audience yeah yeah I wanna I want to talk about this because this right here is when you go from a certain type of content to a different type of content um it it takes a little time and I think everybody expects oh I put all this energy and effort into it if it's a good video it's a good video and YouTube will do its thing of getting it in front of the right type of people if it's done right so um you uh you said very specifically you do it differently um and that's what I want to kind of hone in on how would you do it if you're doing it now because this is what I believe all content creators need to learn uh is what would be the intentionality and the process that you'd go through um when you're doing this series now instead of doing a 180 pivot I would pivot very slowly so instead of like going from student to Shon which is like completely unrelated I would probably like split it that up into like different buckets points yeah Bally like maybe like student and then like go somewhere like into like learning into like maybe like training or something like yeah basically like small pivots until I eventually can hit with the video that I want to make yeah now I want to talk about why you would do that um because this did work I mean it it it did go just within 30 you know 30 40 days or whatever it was it did work why are you more apt to do that uh uh what your current strategy would be now uh looking back versus versus what you did there's a couple reasons one is like after I published the Shon video and like it completely went viral after three months my channel was a different Channel it was like a completely different audience than what I had before it wasn't students anymore it was like people interesting in like K Fu yep so I wasn't able to keep my like audience initially so you'll lose a lot of people if you just go 180 and then the second thing is like uh the performance of the videos uh could have been better if I transitioned slowly yeah so I want to I want to go kind of with my thoughts on this because I don't see it being out of line I I do agree with you in the sense that you'd be a lot more strategic in trying to figure out okay what is the best content strategy based on your current viewers and so one thing that I always do and Hau knows this because he's one of my students he just like I'm really obsessed with what's happening right now on a channel like I I really want to look at real-time analytics and know what's happening and he had some really amazing videos that that were performing really well where it dealt with uh students and and so how do we actually build that out so that that you're not losing the audience that you've developed but you're you're exploring uh with that audience the things that can lead them where they need to go so for me I think your your strategy of what you do now is really sound because uh realistically you're a student of from a shanan master to you know if you if you're really uh uh you know that story didn't change you're just kind of going out of the classroom into um the Shon Temple right um and so there's there's that opportunity but doing it where um you're leading them along the way where they feel like they're a part of of this journey because like I can guarantee you um if if it was uh the audience was like super invested to see what you're going to do next and and it's it's related or somewhat related to what you currently have done they're going to be more apt to click and they're going to be more apt to watch because they liked liked your content before cuz I you had a couple videos it's like studying for 24 hours had like 5.9 million uh views on it and I think that could have happened after too but you know at the time it could have had a million views or whatever but um and then you had some other other things there and so I think um one thing and you know this uh that I want everyone to understand it's like be very strategic in your content strategy just don't always say this is a banger video we got to put it out now it's like okay how can we how can we build momentum to that Banger video or that Banger series and and that's what you're basically saying here um and so once um once you started to get into the shin series um that that literally transformed because it took you know two or three months and then it started to get momentum and you had other videos that were really engaging at that time and and you got really honed in on a kung fu viewer audience um and did you feel kind of stuck at the same time as you were you know what you did in the beginning with cooking videos like hey this is really performing do I always have to do this like where where were you at in your thought process yeah um so like after my six videos of the Shon K Fu stuff uh before I published K Fu I was at 250,000 subscribers and after I published K Fu I was at 500,000 subscribers so half my channel was basically from the K Fu audience and like I tried publishing a couple videos that weren't confu related they did yeah I dated seven girls in seven days when this happened then I dated seven girls in seven days and this happened part two and then surviving on a penny U but the penny one's actually interesting I want to talk about that in a second but um yeah I would say that's completely the opposite you know from the viewer if they're like oh I totally into this Kung Fu series and then yeah yeah it's like from like celibacy to like the opposite of CIS yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so no no um yeah but uh so like at the time I think my mindset was it's like oh I'm just going to do whatever goes viral and the confu St one viral yeah and then I'm like okay I want to make more viral videos and what's viral like Challenge videos so I tried a couple like real life Challenge videos actually they did really really bad I deleted them um but um so that like basically gave me like a hint it's like you can't just really do 180 pivots like all the time CU I tried it before it kind of worked out but then I tried it this time it didn't work out so that's when I started getting a little smarter so instead of doing um just any challenge I started doing fitness challenges which is very related to what I was doing with a K Fu Master yep and and I think too it's like it's like when when you're creating content your video should be Standalone and and they should be able to consume it get everything from it but it's about the journey and the con to the content and you as a Creator and if you and this is what I want everyone to know cuz like like Hau knows this you know um for sure but when when uh a viewer watches specific content and you release something that's not related or it's so 180 it's still going to show up on their homepage um it's going to come up because they're an active viewer at that time they're an active viewer they just watch the stuff and if they go what the heck is this and they don't click on it and they just skip it that that actually sends a message to uh YouTube when you put other content they might not see it they might not see your other videos and so momentum is really important especially when it comes to where the views are coming from and the relationship of those views with with current videos and so uh what what he said is really sound in the sense of hey guess what if I'm making food videos I'm going to move into fitness cuz it's not that far removed it's not 180 completely going dating but it's not that far removed and then and then it can kind of have me go closer because it's really a challenge video I'm trying things I'm doing stuff that's uh extreme with my body or whatever and it's you know fitness challenges or whatever and it's going closer down the road um I want to um I think this is where we met CU I remember you were um kind of frustrated with oh I just don't want want to just do you know um Shaolin uh Kung Fu type videos um and then and I want to I want to go to this um the bow staff one U because the bow staff is still kind of related but then I want to go to this I tried the world's hardest exercise cuz because like that that is pretty much what you're saying here um it's like okay I'm doing an exercise it's not that far out and I want to I want to uh hone in on that one so uh go through the concept of what the um the idea was with the Bowa bow staff uh from scratch what's the value for the viewer and then let's go right into the same thing with the world's hardest exercise what's a value for the viewer well I think one thing that people loved about the K Fu series was uh there was a journey like there was an end goal um they obviously love uh Master yand D which which was my teacher yeah and then they loved like how hard everything was like looking so um I didn't have like a like like another teacher that was able to replace master y d because he is such a character but I was able to like pick up like hard exercises and have like an end goal so that's kind of what I did with the bow step like I was learning all these tricks and I wanted to like perform the tricks at the end of the video same thing with uh uh world's hardest exercise I wanted to to see if I could recreate the hardest exercises yeah yeah that and and that's great and I really like the the thumbnail and I think it's just like really uh it it pulls you in and then and then it did I tried Thor uh love and thunder workout routine um with once again that that's awesome um and then and then you did uh basketball I trained like Steph Curry for seven days um and I I think this is kind of where you got your Rhythm down in the sense of I tried I trained I learned you know aspect um and and what uh did you at at this time when you're like okay I'm now moving and and I'm I'm starting to see I can do other type of content that's just not uh Kung Fu related martial arts related but it's like okay I'm doing a training series and and and now I'm doing even basketball what did you learn from that about your audience and then to how did that change your decision making for your future content well I learned my audience really likes like Fitness stuff like anything Fitness so like just physical challenges I know that's what they liked um and then also at the time those videos were like getting a couple million views each it gave me a lot of confidence to execute what wasy my mind yeah and like I think a big part of what makes a great Creator is that they have a sense of what will go viral and what will connect with the audience yeah like before they even put it out they know oh this one's going to hit and this one's going to hit and at that time when I was creating those fitness challenge videos I felt like I was getting more in tune with that sense yeah I love that and were you still editing at the time or did you hire an editor um that was editing for you I had an editor uh but then like I still edited like so they kind of assemble it and then You' kind of create it to that point yeah and some videos I was like editing by myself as well okay okay um so I want to I want to talk about that YouTube suc sense of like you're like oh I know it's going to hit I call it it's going to bang you know same same thing right but it's just like you you you can fill it and and why is it just the confidence level of what's happened before or it's just like no you're starting to look at the data now or you're starting to see the comments in that way where you know oh this will actually continue the story or it will go deeper because there's a great storytelling here um what gives you the confidence of just knowing something will hit it's kind of like training an ai ai algorithm uh but the AI is your brain you just like you just feed it enough data like it's like this video does well this video doesn't do well this video does well this the video doesn't do well and they re read the comments from every video it's like oh yeah people like this didn't like this and eventually you have enough data to make like educ educated guess yeah so I I love that I love it and I I do think that as you start to understand your content your audience how they engage with your audience you can anticipate what they're going to like and what they're not going to like and and every uh top Creator I've ever worked with um they really really hone in on the viewer in the sense of oh I really am passionate about this and they're going to really love this or uh maybe I'm not going to do this that's not the best way uh based on previous information now 10 months ago um you're training you're training you're doing whatever and you decided not to do a fitness challenge um and it was I learned to solve the Rubik's Cube in under 60 seconds um I I want to I want to talk about that one very specifically because once again it's in the like I would still say it's in a challenge video but it's not it's not as physical as your other stuff why did you decide to do that because that that is a pretty big leap if you really look at it I I I can see Fitness with with uh Kung Fu but now here you're doing trying to solve a Rubik's Cube what what was going through your mind on that um couple things uh first of all like when I started so right after the confu series I've always had it in the back of my head that I wanted to like pivot away from K Fu obiously live yeah yeah I was just I was just letting you take the full frame but it's all good I was confused I thought we crashed no you're good um yeah in the back of my brain I was like eventually I want to Pivot away from K Fu and pivot away from fitness challenges so I can just eventually like be able to create a challenge video on anything I wanted to do that was always my back of the head strategy so I did it with a um basketball video that that gave me more confidence because like basketball isn't really like a workout thing it's not p f thing and then I did the bow staff which is kind of related and then I did um the Rubik's Cube one which was a big leap of faith uh I it was kind of like a test video I'm like is the audience going to connect with this one even though if it's not like a physical challenge and initially actually it did pretty well um I think when I published it it was like a one or two out of 10 so like that gave me a lot of confidence to Pivot into like the learning challenges yeah and I what I love about haofu is a great learner you know congratulations and you know there's a lot of replies and people from that and and so basically it was like it's an experiential channel right so it's like you're going to go experience you're going to go learn you're going to go uh do something that's going to be hard and you're going to try to pull it off um and then two um the the thing that I love and and what what uh what you did is um the frustrations of a Rubik's Cube I think there's a lot of people that know okay Rubik's Cube is pop culture um um and I know that there's been people at different times get frustrated with a Rubik's cue I think when I got one when I was eight I like peeled off the stickers and like put them even though that not supposed to do that right but it's like because I was like pre YouTube I couldn't figure it out but um but I I think everyone can see it and then two um I think you learned a lot from from all the data of what people would do and you're like okay you're going to do something not just solve a Rubik Cube but you're going to do under 60 seconds and so like o can he actually do it is this something that he's actually able to do and there's some great storytelling because it's like okay it's not about solving a Rubik's Cube but it's just doing it under uh a lot of pressure and trying to do it under time um and and one element I kept in that video was like the teacher role so I was collaborating with sup toy which is kind of like the master yand D version of ruik Cubes yeah now I glad you brought that up because this right here is what a lot of people Miss of what you just brought brought in so there was a master student role uh in a lot of your videos okay it's just like if I'm going to try something I need to learn from someone and and then it's a collaboration in the sense of me helping uh you know me helping me learn this specific trait but that's the content like that that is the content and and for you to do it you could have tried to solve it you could have done it on YouTube or whatever where you're trying to go from there but no no no you wanted to bring someone in to give you tips and techniques and things to learn and then it it it does a multiple things because you can say someone is literally mastered solving the Rubik's Cube I'm a beginner and I'm going to learn from them and that that that is just uh really really powerful storytelling yeah and um I think it's just like more interesting because they actually have knowledge instead of like me like just me fumbling the entire video it's not cool yeah it's pretty boring yeah it'd be boring right it's like okay I'm going to try this okay fumble a couple times I mean that would be a funny Montage for like 20 seconds but outside of that that'd be pretty boring um and so this one performed um you're you're basically judging it off of two out of 10 or whatever it was and you're like okay great I've done you know train like Steph Curry I'm starting to evolve I'm doing the Rubik's Cube and and then two I did notice um on this one that it it was oh well let's do another Rubik's Cube video like why why did you choose to do um this series and this is something that we talk about buckets and stuff like that but um uh level one to 100 Rubik's Cubes like what was um what was kind of in your thought process of of a Creator and then also why would you do this video versus doing something else of trying to learn why did I make the level one to 100 Rubik you video yeah yeah um so this is when I actually got a little bit smarter hey sup Tim is in the chat right now uh but yeah uh this is when I got smarter so like I was saying it's like slow pivots that's yep the lesson I took to heart so I saw the Rubik's video was doing good but I wanted to Pivot into like even more viral videos y so I'm like I don't want to just go and make like a Mr be video so I basically still kept the Rubik's tube topic because topics have a huge influence on who watches the video I kept the rub topic but then I changed the format into a more viral format it's like a Showcase of different Rubik's Cubes so that that was my thinking process at the time yeah and I I love I love what you said it's just like small tweaks U small pivots you know as you're as you're going and then and then increasing the story because in that video guaranteed if they didn't watch the first video that YouTube would say oh here's a video that's related and it's going to show up and you're it's going to lift both videos up and then two um I really love the format the uh level one to 100 that's a that's a that's a format that works really well in gaming and a few other things from there and and uh you adopted it to be a part of your content because you're like hey this is a great way to take it a viewer through a journey through the video and the mechanism is level one versus to level 100 and what you need to do you know through that whole process um and and it's it's it's something that um can be uh replicatable as well you know around that series and we'll get to that here in a second um but but um why did that one get 4.5 million views versus the 1.6 million views uh from your first uh you know solving the Rubik's Cubit under under a minute I think he's just cooler man yeah it it it is it's like that's a banger that is literally a banger thumbnail you know it really is and it's a good idea Banger thumbnail but you probably learned stuff from that first original one you're like o if I Tred this or if I could do this and that video um it should it should perform well um I I look at it it's like I I've never seen a Rubik's Cube like that so I'm like o that like I'm I'm leaning in on that oh funny story about this uh after I published this level one to 100 Rubik tube video like a bunch of the Rubik's tube channels started copying this video so you set the trend I love it I love it yeah no that that's great that's great and then to if they post similar content then then your video is going to be recommended because they're they're kind of saying okay here's some new audience that was coming in um and and you're able to kind of evolve from there so love that so um what I what I want to do is go through just the last few of your videos uh because it seems like you got a rhythm down now and you're really having a strategy and then I want to I want to go back to shorts because we haven't talked about shorts yet and um uh one thing um I I know that we had in our Mastery call for our students like I I I'm actually a fan of the channel I I I'm I'm one of your viewers and I love the content um and um I know that um a lot of people struggle with being consistent and really hitting the viewer and I I don't feel like you've ever deviated once you got into the Rhythm I don't think you ever deviated from um the the what makes you unique um and your style and your humor and your uh the entertainment in the videos I just I really enjoy it and so I want to I want to talk about this um the yo-yo one um so so we we know that there's formats so level one to 100 uh Rubik's Cube okay because you tried that new format it's it's kind of the mechanism in the video and then um I know that Mr Beast and and others do like one versus the the super expensive whatever um this format is by far uh different now now um from the title thumbnail it's different uh could you explain about the yoyo's concept was it just buying yo-yos was it engaging with yo like learning yo-yos was it being involved with yo-yos how did this how how was this building upon your content strategy well I mean the title's different but like the video itself in terms of the structure is actually very similar it's I I I we call it like the segmented approach I don't know what other people call it but like it's just like different segments of like showcasing different yo-yos so technically it's the same as the Rubik's Cube one but just in the yo-yo one I um also learned tricks along the way so and were you were you just learning tricks online or did you have a master or no it was like the Australian yo-yo Champion exactly exactly so so th this is where a lot of creators go wrong is they don't see the elements for their content they they just don't they think oh all it is is like a a one to 100 video or whatever or you know I'm learning this but you you realize no no no I need someone to teach me and the more credibility if it's like soup soup Timmy or whatever you know that's great they're going to help bring credibility and and and then two they're going to teach me very specific things and then two having the Australia yo-yo Champion that that's it's great because that is great storytelling but it's still the components that make your content you unique and what people are looking for and so by by doing this if you didn't do that then it would be like okay what is he trying to do here now uh because it's those small subtle things that that actually uh uh create consistency in the content strategy and that's what I love about your content it's it's really really engaging and good um so um the yo-yo one um and then and then we'll go uh these last few uh few ones uh then you did another one to 100 science experiments that's a dope um you know uh dope thumbnail and then your Lego one like it seems like you got your Rhythm down now um and and then has has that improved your ideation like how how do you go through your ideation process based on what you're doing currently right now like what's what's your process of figuring out what you want to do next um my ideation process is actually pretty unique uh because I I work with a small team right now about six people and on a weekly basis we do a pitch meeting so everybody comes with their own like five to 10 ideas and then we hop on a call and we go through them and we basically like it's kind of like free flowing process uh at the end of the day the goal is is this a viral topic or not and there's no like exact like filters that we're putting on this but like over time we just learn things and like as a team we kind of like kind of have a sense of what's going to work and what's not going to work so that's how I go about ideating has there ever been someone that brought a really bad idea that turned into a banger idea like did did it evolve into that based on that discussion or how did that work yeah plenty of times so like in the ideation process I mean in the pitch meetings we're not really looking for like a finished idea I mean that'd be great but if they bring like elements we can use that as like a seed to generate a different idea for example if they bring like a thumbnail and a title as a package but then I don't like the title but I really like the thumbnail then I can come up with another idea just based off that thumbnail like yeah you know just I love it brainstorm and then once you lock that in what's your process from there like what do you what do you do next um uh it'll be research seeing like what's logistically possible and like what can we do within that like for example let's say it was like we came out with level one to 100 yo-yos or like $1 to $100,000 yo-yo we just research like what are the yo-yo that are fitting within that title right right and and then and then you're starting to get all the yo-yos and then probably stories and then realize that oh this is a weapon in the Philippines and you this whole this whole thing and then and then how do you start telling the story do do you do do a lot of prep work of saying hey we're getting ready to record this is kind of the flow like how do you go through the flow process of what your video is going to be um a part of it comes into the research process where kind of like organizing which like segments would go where and then another part of it would depend on the subject matter expert so like they might want to do things a certain way they might want to teach things a certain way so it's like a lot of back and forth well let's let's talk about that because I think a lot of people um when they do collaborations they do it way wrong it's not a collaboration it's just more you're inserting someone into your video right and so you're reaching out to the subject matter expert and and let's just use the yo-yo as an example so you reached out to them say hey you want to do this video they say Yes um and and then two what are the questions that you ask them um on how to collaborate together and what to get out of them because like if they they're obsessed and they're an expert at it they've gone through a lot of experience yeah so like I think the unique perspective that I provide is that that one I'm a beginner and two I know what appeals to mass audiences whereas subject matter experts a lot of times they're like too In The Weeds about their skill so they don't know what's interesting and what's not interesting so having the combination of both is what makes the videos interesting so like I know what's interesting to the audience and they know like what's needed in order to like learn the skill and I basically like tweak what it's needed in in like like a more entertaining way yeah I I love that I love that so through through a lot of conversations and you're starting to figure out okay this is going to be the flow of the video here's the story this is the mechanisms and then two um here's here's the sharable moments that would work really well in the video um and then I I hope everyone that's watching this just understood what you said because this is some of the most valuable content for YouTubers like especially if you're bringing outside parties in um but I I even look at it it's like even having you know um any any type of content you'd be doing the same thing you're just kind of looking through the the the the vein of the viewer but then two how are you going to make it interesting in the other part of the world that you're experiencing right so if it's like oh I'm hiding like let's just use one you know you're hiding in the world's scariest Castle or whatever it's just like you know go going into it if you know who your viewer is and what to expect um and then two what are some of the elements that can really amplify the storytelling right and like what well why is it the most scariest you know place in the world or whatever what what led to this and you know you're doing research and so on so you have these elements that are interesting along the way that leads to the journey of why are you doing it and then what's going to happen through the process and there's a lot of surprise in but there needs to be elements to keep them in and the only way to do it is when a content creator really understands Their audience with the value that they're coming and then two understanding oh it's much greater and better than what we're what we're actually thinking because we've we've taken the time to do the research or to connect with our our our collaborator uh from there so I I really love that um so before we switch on to uh shorts because I I I think a lot of people have questions like how do you do your short strategy and long form strategy um do do you enjoy making long form content is this does it feel like a job or you or you just wake up and you're like man I get to make videos like what's where you at with this you know sometimes I miss the days where I can just like pick up a camera and Vlog you know and that'll be that'll be the video and call it a day but nowadays like we do a little bit more elaborate things there's like more like moving pieces like we got to find people we got to find like uh props and like like stuff like that do a lot of research so it's it's a longer process than what it was before but um I still find it enjoyable it's still like very um it's very like what I loved is two things one I love learning so like I just like I'd love learning about like different things right and then two I love data and YouTube has a lot of data so like I'm basically combining those two into my channel so it's like basically what I want to do yeah I mean you you basically explain my love language F I love learning and I love data I just and I I love I love making uh connections I love seeing patterns and then and then realizing how I can apply it you know and I think we're a lot alikee in so many different ways um maybe that's why I like your content so much I don't know but um but there's there's things that um that I do believe creators need to understand and it's something that you're you're well aware that I teach and preach you know to my students which is have a plan and then just don't pick up the camera like literally go in and prep for that video like try to go in and do a lot more research instead of being uh reactive you're being proactive and then once you release a video then then analyze what worked what didn't work you know could you have done it better like we can always do better we can we can we can just always do better what what do we need to do better at and then two what what do does the audience how do they do they get what was going on are they disconnected where where's the retention you know do they feel connected you look into the comments um and then and then you adjust you take that adjustment and you put it into your next video and and you've done that perfectly from my perspective you're always learning you're always growing you're looking at the data you're always improving your content has elevated quite a bit since I've been following you um and and what what would you say with someone that that cringes to look at data and and what should they look at what should they avoid um what should they learn from and what should they stay away from I mean it's like like it's actually a like personality thing it's like some people they love data some people they like never look at it and both types of creators can be successful so um even just like I'll give you a very concrete example so over the past week I was at Duke giving us uh class for a couple of their social media classes and uh with me was a Creator called Jordan the stallion he's like one of the top creators in the world right now he has like over 50 like 40 something million across platforms and I'm like do you look at your analytics he's like bro I've never looked at this in my life like but he has a very intuitive understanding of his audience he's like every time I make a video I put myself in the audience shoes and I think like what would they find interesting what would they take away from this video and he has a good sense of like certain videos has might hit with like a slight group of audience but it's not going to go super viral so like sometimes he makes a video and doesn't post it just because he knows that in his head right but I don't like I'm not like I'm not so much like Vibes as him so like I use data to inform my decisions because that's what I'm comfortable with but whatever works for you yeah yeah I I think I think we need to learn I I would probably have followed up with other questions with him if he read comments cuz that's data too it's like how do you how do you respond that they actually he reads comments yeah yeah yeah and so and so that that's data that's giving him feedback of oh that worked or oh that didn't work maybe he might not look at the analytical data in YouTube studio right but he is at least yeah I showed him a retention chart he's like whoa this is so cool you're just like hey you're like one of the biggest all never seen this before he doesn't need it he's getting like 10 million views per video yeah no I I love that understanding of retention yeah and and I love it because he was probably going to look at that now you know now he's like oh my gosh it's so great but um he he was using data it just wasn't the traditional back-end analytics you know he was he was like oh this is where I'm putting my state of of the viewer what the viewer would like and then I'm I'm uh validating that through the comments you know and and then two I'm learning from the comments so gu guaranteed that's what uh most creators do when they're we're in that space um and they do um they I found the ones that don't look at analytics they they really hun in on hey did anyone post about my videos so they might see oh there's a subreddit or whatever and they go into that just to get into psychology of the viewer and I I've seen it over and over and over again so yeah well let's uh let's transform into shorts um so um there's not a lot of channels that work really well with shorts along long form it just it's just like hey you might be building two separate audiences or whatever um how did you approach shorts um and when when did you actually start like what when did you actually say okay I'm going to I'm going to do some shorts and and um and what what was your thought process in this um my my shorts process was actually like it was kind of interesting so um I didn't take shorts seriously until the past year yep and before that I was just like posting Clips so like I had this series that was doing well in on La form called a one-inch punch like basically like challenge people to the one-inch punch and those were like really like clippable because I would film I don't know like 50 different interaction and each interaction can be made into a short so if you like uh just scroll down like just a little bit like you can just more like scroll uh let me let me just let me just do the latest and we can yeah so like all I did like two years ago was um just keep going a little bit more like all the way down basically uh more more more more yeah yeah yeah yeah there there there yeah wait wait wait wait wait that's that's at vid Summit few years ago yeah yeah so like I was just posting Clips because I wasn't taking shorts seriously I'm like I'll just do whatever is easy and they were working like some of them had like couple million views well tell tell tell everybody why your un crutches right there oh it was like one of the challenges I did it was like a skateboarding Challenge and then yeah yeah I broke my ankle you're like I don't know if I can post videos it's so funny um I mean I did not yeah yeah but anyway um and then shorts started like picking up after I doing like started doing all these like clips and stuff I started getting like 20 million views per month just from shorts and I was like putting no effort in I'm like that's interesting what would happen if I actually tried and that's when I really found success so like the first video that I've tried is how strong is your one-inch punch yeah right here one with the bicep flexing um so like I put a lot of effort into that one well actually I I put a lot of effort comparative to like clipping and that one like just went super web viral and like that's how I got started like actually creating um unique pieces of short fir content yeah what I love is it's in line with your other content too right so a lot of people just post shorts like ah it doesn't matter what they do whatever but you had a 1-inch punch video you had um you know a Rubik's Q video and and um was this before after like this video was this before after you did the uh before you tested a long form uh we filmed at the same time so that video too so yeah that that's that's great that's great and then oh that's really cool too can you beat the Rubik's Cube uh robot um that's so cool yeah so when I was thinking about like law form videos I also think about like what shorts can be made like it doesn't have to be clipped it can be like because like long form I have everything set up right um like I have the people there I have the like props there so filming a short is very easy compared to like setting everything up from scratch so when you're doing your planning for your long form video you're like okay what what type of shorts can we do or is it more hey we can grab this it might be in the video and it could be a short or how are you how are you processing that no I plan it like as two different categories it's like this is a long form segments and then these are the shorts that we can film while we're filming the law en form yeah and let's go to your uh most popular short and let's kind of discuss that like what like why was this the most popular short the one-inch punch can you break this board um well I mean like 1inch punch was a proven Topic at the time so like that did really well and also I think obviously the people who saw my long form probably like saw the short as well so it got promoted pretty fast out there and then also it has good retention like no one breaks it until the very end so like that's a very good retention and then also um I think it's just like a very broadly appealing topic yep so it was like oh these boards are easy to to break and then you go out there and they're not easy to break until and then when it when when it breaks that's the end of the video and so they have to watch it again if they they go again so you probably had some yeah there's like three levels of boards there's like the easy medium and hard and no one breaks a hard one until the very end exactly exactly and then this one is not necessarily like hey maybe it's like a curiosity I'm learning this like what happens when you trap a smoke uh you know trap smoke in a box um but it doesn't necessarily follow your format um why why do you think this one performed and then two did did this actually get people to watch your other content or do you feel like it was just H it was just over here and it was just something that brought you some some short views um I mean like my shorts Strat like my shorts content has transitioned over time so it's now like more just like General like fun experiments type of shorts yep that's my shorts are like a lot less serious than my La form yep sometimes they're pretty troll it's like what height does a brick break like it's like such a stupid question but it it's it's fun it's it's funny um so like did it bring long form views I mean like yes but a small percentage but a percentage of a big number is still a big number and that and that's the that's the point that I wanted to really get on with shorts it's like um there's a short strategy that makes no sense whatsoever that will never bring long form views and it just it's just not but it's yours is about curiosity and learning and and and learning from a master so that you have that that component of it right but it's still that Curiosity what happens when this happens what happens if I go as a beginner and work with an expert work can I go so it's there so you still have the uh connection of the audience um but if it's so extreme out there that you're going to build another you're going to build another audience but yours doesn't it's like hey they they might not all go into the long form but some will especially if it's a higher number um you know you're going to see that that uh that connection over and I know when we were on and I didn't want to bring this up in in um showing the analytics but because I don't want people to see your back in but it it was like when we pulled it in it was actually a high percentage of people that were watching your shorts is watching your long form and and it was because hey your your videos that you do long form you you put a lot of energy and effort into it and you can only put so many of those videos out but you can do a lot more shorts and they're adjacent they're literally adjacent to your long form content so it kind of weaves in and and works together and it doesn't cannibalize um your your your long for VI in fact it it actually helps um do have you ever used a strategy of where you try to short and you're like oh this works so well let's do a long form or is it just more is it just more lateral like oh we going to hit some shorts we're doing this long form that will actually um build uh momentum uh to and and recommendation to that long form video um I haven't done that yet but I I'm going to I actually have a video planned that's like a test of that that's great that's great yeah that's one of the things that I um recommend people to do is is um if if they're not quite sure you're like hey this would be really cool if I did that uh but I don't know if I want to put all the energy into a video um test it out use shorts to test it out see if it engages see if you can get uh comments see if you can get interaction see if you can get a ton of views and then if it does literally uh I I usually plan out both videos at the same time so I have my short and then I plan out my long form so it doesn't take too much time if it starts popping off that I can have a related video come out uh from there on the long form so yeah well cool well let's uh um is there before we get into uh questions if you have a question go ahead and put it in the the chat uh we'll take super chat questions first um but um is there anything that that you learned along the way that would help just the the Creator that's just kind of grinding trying to figure things out yeah I would say like the biggest key to my success is being obsessed with learning like it's a personality trait but it's also something you can develop because YouTube there's so much depth to it there you can think about like the data side you can think about the content side and like content just like like like unlimited learning right um how do you make your videos better and then also just like um analyzing what does well what doesn't do well so like I am a part of like so many courses and stuff like that like I joined like Patty Galloway's course like I joined your course I joined like Ali apppp dolls course like like I just try to get any source of information I can and even if I just learn like a single nugget like that's all I need exactly exactly I I I I I feel the same way it's just like get as much information internalize it what's going to work for you and if you just get that that Golden Nugget you know that's great you know that helps you make better content or see YouTube maybe Through The Eyes of someone else and you're like oh I never thought about that I wonder if it it can work for me or whatever it's great um so let me go ahead and here's a couple questions that came in this one's from Christian how do you get your Editor to understand your editing style and goal with the video and how do you work with an editor when you also have some uh voice over in your videos um yeah this is this is like very hard in the beginning um just like when I was editing the K Fu videos I was working with an editor but then I still ended up doing like half of the work I still ended up editing half the video I think um a big part of it is I didn't even know what style I wanted at the time so like I was doing a lot of back and forth like I was like piecing together the video in the edit yeah but now I piece the video together mostly before I even like film so like having a very concrete structuring mind for the editor really helps so like I write like outlines and stuff um and then also like I give them uh kind of like some people call them looms but I just like screen record and explain what I want yeah yeah I I'll tell you this is a tough one um just because the edit can change so much of what the content is and you want to make sure you have the elements in and some times when you hire a brand new editor they don't know your style um I I normally hire uh three or four editors at the same time and I have them edit the same thing and I want to know who I can work with very quickly and then two the people that I give instruction to um I want to see that but the first thing I have them do is re-edit an old video um and I'm like hey watch this video re-edit it here's the stuff and let's see if you get it some people don't even uh uh watch the the video video to edit it they just edit it and I'm like K you're gone you didn't follow instructions you're out of here uh but those that do um they're like oh okay and then I'm like okay now what would you do to enhance it and that's that first that that first uh iteration and some of those come back really amazing I'm like I never thought about doing it that's so good but they at least have kind of the mechanism and I know that they find um you know they find the the pattern and the rhythm of the edit um but once once I get that it's just like okay they need to have what a what a good edit looks like and the elements of what those good edits are and then two the progression of the edit um and some editors they get it innately and others don't and I would say if they if they won't learn and grow with you get rid of them because it's not worth it or just make them an assembly editor or make them something that you know can help speed up your process as an editor but uh great qu great great question uh Christian on that I appreciate that we also have a super chat thank you for this amazing interview Shanny uh appreciate that um Also let's go here we got John pm here uh do you ever use AI to get video ideas and if so how and then are your videos dubbed in various languages or other channels in various languages um I I I looked into AI um I really use it too often in the video ideation process um and in terms of dubbing right now they're not dubb but that's something I do plan on doing in the future and I know Daryl has a lot of like dubbing strategies yes I do yeah it's it's good um John I think for me too it's like I think AI is a tool and um I'm a visual idea person so like when I when I see a thumbnail or I go to Google images and I start looking at topics um I I can I'll come up with a million ideas or uh someone would would say oh here it would be cool if you could do this and then my mind goes oh yeah but we could do this and then my my mind goes off I cannot for the right mind ever get a good video idea out of the AI because of the way that I get my ideas yeah um and same here yeah it's like a very like it's like a loose process right like it's like one thing inspires another thing and I I just find it like better to do that with real people yeah and I do know that some people uh they they get their ideas from lists you know and you can use AI to get the list and that might spur on ideas of what would work you know uh but uh I think ultimately at the end of the day it's it's it's really about what works best for you and I'm I'm a more of a visual idea guy um for me so it sounds like hau's the same all right all right um here's here's a question um what would your strategy uh be for a launch day of a new channel five long forms five shorts what would make the most impact to find the Right audience to grow so if you're launching a new channel what would you do yeah I mean like that that's a great strategy um upload a bunch of videos first and then like um have a library for the people to watch and I know like talked about this before so why don't you give your thoughts well I so Matt Pat said he'd he'd upload five videos I say three um Now Matt Pat is great and he's grown and all that other stuff that's great and I think it's just more um I think you can do a lot with three videos and then I just want to be just consistent after that it's just like if I have a you know a brand new Channel with three videos I have three chances to really pull someone in and then for those that don't know this YouTube actually gives a little bit extra love for brand new channels um they just just a little bit of just seeing who the audience is make sure that those three videos are not Polar Opposites they need to they need to impact the the same viewer cuz because what happens if they watch one of them there's a high probability that the other other two videos could be in the uh up next um or or when they go back to the homepage on the homepage and so if we can get them to click two or three videos at that time and and binge watch or they watch one and and go through suggestion or go back to the homepage that will give the the um AI that YouTube uses enough information of oh this type of viewer likes us let's put it in front of more of those viewers and that's where you're able to grow um substantially so um I don't know if I would do shorts though for me if if I was if I was doing long form um shorts um and let me let me kind of explain why because I think this is uh just my own my own belief but um there's no choice in shorts no one gets to choose what they see it's just like you you swipe up you get to see right I like long form because they have to make a choice and and click and and then they they can go deeper and click and so there is that choice and I found that if I can get that to happen uh I can grow faster now shorts I think I can get more views and I can get subscribers but they're not Loy to me they're just they just like the content and and I want them to get loyal to the channel um and that's that's just something that I'd look at I don't know if any other thoughts on that I do think there is a short strategy that could work that would promote the long form views but that's getting pretty technical well let's hear it like we're technical people brother all right okay let's let's hear it yeah I mean so like for me I have like couple styles of shorts one of the Styles is is like a short that's promoting a law form and at the end I have like a CTA to like call to action just like click here to watch the law form videos and I found those convert law form audiences better than like any other type of one one million per I I would not disagree with that I would not disagree with that at all so that's great okay let's do uh another one um so this is from AJ do you use the research tab to get your ideas for new videos the research tab what is that oh on YouTube yeah yeah on YouTube yeah yeah yeah no never it's kind of useless we love you YouTube um uh AJ he actually uh does a pitch meeting so he has everyone in his company brings an idea together and it's out seeing what's happening on YouTube things that's going in in on the internet and they're coming back with ideas um that leads to what videos they're going to do and I think those ideas would be oh it'd be really cool if we did this or our audience would really love if we did that okay one thing I would say like okay the research tab has gotten a lot better like in when it was first released all I gave was like keywords and I feel like those what wasn't a accurate representation of what was happening on my channel but nowadays there's a lot more information in the research Tab and the audience tab too so like it shows you content that you're uh that's like similar to your Channel Channel um and other creators that like your audiences watch and I find that pretty valuable and even nowadays like on the um research tab there's like recent videos it's like videos that like were popular in your Niche so like that's actually very valuable now so like over time it has gotten a lot better and I've been using it more and more yeah I I like to go through um YouTube and just go to the realtime analytics see what's happening right now and then I like to use the audience tab because that's one of the most underutilized uh tabs that people should use and and I'd really like to see what people are binge watching so it's like I already know where they're getting content but then it's like oh the new viewer like what this video uh brought in a new viewer or it converted a new viewer and seeing that it gives me okay what are some ideas I can do around that uh because then then it's just like oh it's not a 180 pivot there some idea out there is just being okay what can I do with this and if I can't come up with an idea I want to go do some research to try to come up with an idea um and then when I have that that's generally when I go okay is there anything else that I can do and I I want to get 30 40 50 video ideas um but I want to hone in oh it would be really cool if we did this but this would be maybe not a video but it could be in this video you know I I do I do a lot of that so yeah okay cool we'll just we'll take uh just a few more questions and then we'll um go from there here's another one uh started how to draw uh or how to draw a channel focusing on tutorials through storytelling how do you balance the ratio between education and entertainment uh viewer versus buyer honestly I would say that depends on your goal for the channel it's like are you trying to like sell education or are you trying to like make entertaining YouTube videos and have that be your primary income source so it's like all depends yeah I would say I would rather um enter be an entertainment channel that happens to focus in on drawing tutorials and do it in a fun way um and and be really clever on that and then that will always uh uh give you more opportunity to sell because like it will like you'll have buyers that will go through it I just I've seen it uh very specifically um with that um and so I I kind of lean towards that because then that's if you're you're a content creator that happens to do uh you know um tutorials that's great and then when you have something to offer people like oh I really love this I want to go deeper and like what he said earlier the more views that you have more visibility you have it it it helps on the bottom line too because you'll actually have more customers as well so great question all right uh last question here uh thank you so much for this Hau can you detail on how Recon and research process works for you uh best to identify trends that are hot is there any plugins that you use to pull patterns and stats yeah how do I recognize yeah that's a great question very detailed um I mean I scroll on YouTube a lot so like I'm like I live on YouTube so like for me I'm always looking at like oh let's say for example like this last week I'm like apple Vision Pro MKBHD publishes a video that gets like 10 million views within a day like obviously I'm like wow there's a lot of interest in that video and then I see other people publishing the same topic and still getting a lot of views okay I'm like okay that's probably a trend right now um and then also plugins like there's a bunch of plugins um but like the main ones I use is like stuff that would give me a um view to like like a multiplier basically on their average views so there's like IQ that does that Tu buddy does that um there's other plugins that does that like plenty of stuff yeah I I would say um there's so many of you and and and I and I want to be clear that some of you watch a lot of YouTube but you watch YouTube educational videos instead of watching YouTube and and I'm I'm a firm believer of if you want to improve at YouTube you got to see you got to you got to go out in YouTube in the wild see what's happening watch videos and ask okay why did they do this why did they choose this thumbnail why did they use this title why are they doing this oh this is really clever they did this why didn't they do it this way um and and do less YouTube education of here's how to get views on YouTube now that's contradicts of you coming on and watching these live streams but realistically that's what you need to do it's just like see what's actually happening on YouTube and figure out oh I see these patterns what can I do to here and maybe it's there's nothing you can do maybe there's nothing at all that you can do because it's not relevant to your viewer but at least gets you the idea of seeing what's happening and then two um you're getting very specific on your ideation process and so a lot of uh people that do one-on ones with me or that come into my mentoring program they don't even watch YouTube I'm like how are you going to succeed if you don't even watch the the platform and understand what's happening on the platform um you know if if you're not doing that how are you going to succeed you know so I I just really really really love that um I'm going to end on this one can I just add a quick thing please do please do um so like I do think there's value in these live streams and YouTube Educators because they give you like a framework in order to process all the data you'll get but in order to gather the data you still need to go watch YouTube and see what's working and what's not working very well said very well said see he said that better than me watch my live streams figure it out then goad yeah for sure um uh uh so this one says congratulations on your success to your channel uh Hau go you're giving a lot of ton of value um I'm in chapter 15 of the YouTube formula here we go this book right here um and she's increased her watch hours by 4X I love it um so uh super excited for those that um you know want to learn I have a 30-day Creator challenge you can find it in the the description below or you can buy my book it's in I think 10 languages now I we just got a brand new book it's in Spanish um little little bitter on this one on the Spanish one because I do speak Spanish and they use the YouTube formula the magical formula instead of the YouTube formula because it's a scientific scientific formula uh but anyway it is what it is they I hopefully I haven't read the book yet in Spanish but hopefully they didn't change too much in it so oh that's a different cover yeah it is a different cover yeah like here's here's my tie um my tie one so you can see that pretty crazy huh so but yeah yeah I got that and my my favorite one uh the title one is the German title and the reason why it says Die YouTube live YouTube and die YouTube yeah Die YouTube I'm like when I first saw I'm like what the heck kill off YouTube no but I definitely love it so um but yeah you can find all the stuff in the description below and then to Hau I I have one last question for you and this is probably uh one of the most important questions and you don't need to answer to me now if you don't want to answer me now you can say I'll hold it later but every year I bring all these YouTubers together and and we have uh an amazing conference called vidsummit would you be willing to speak of vidsummit man wow yeah I mean I would love to speak of vid Summit I I've attended vid Summit like for the past two years thank you yeah I I really think that the people at vidsummit will learn so much more from you and I'm really excited I'll get the details I'm I'm really excited about it and the reason why I love vidsummit is it gives a platform for people to get up and share what they know and you've been doing this so long and there's so much value you brought in this live stream and I know that you can bring a lot of value there at vidsummit so I'm super excited to have you uh be there this yeah can I just ask one question to the chat can everyone type in chat what your biggest takeaway was I I would just love to see that yeah let's let's have you do that what in on this live stream what was the biggest takeaway that you learned here um and and we'll kind of put some of these up here real quick yeah because like I've been monitoring chat the entire time and like people like they were asking a lot of questions but I want to hear your takeways like what you're learn takeaways is see he is a student he loves to learn and he wants to understand what you learn from this this process right here I like this one being a YouTuber is like going to college again I do I think you need to be a student of YouTube you do you have to be a student of YouTube um let's see a lot of a lot of people talking about the planning and research process yeah yeah let's see I'll try to challenge let's see oh this one's good one uh try learn uh try test learn repeat yep yep love that you're um they're they're coming in quick here so and some people are learning that uh not pivoting 180 that's good yeah yeah no that that was some solid advice too just like the small tweaks uh as I say small tweaks lead to Big Peaks if you just kind of slowly go there and so many people want to go oh I want to do it now I'm like no put a plan to get there um and and you'll you'll get more impact for sure let's do this one this is a good good one here um I uh think that you just never be afraid to experiment on YouTube and try things that's that was really good you know don't don't don't be stuck in your ways which is awesome yeah a lot of creators like they find success in one thing and then they just keep on hammering that thing and not changing and that just leads to like a slow decline in their Channel yeah it's called the slow death man that's what I call it it's it's the slow hockey stick of death um no I love it so okay well very good well I really do appreciate you your time uh um you know coming on and teaching I'm really excited that you're going to be a part of vidsummit this year um can't wait it's going to be in September um which that's going to come up quick but what's your last bit of advice I mean just at the end of the live stream what's your last bit of advice for everyone that's been with us for an hour and a half yeah um I say this to a lot of Creator friends who came up during the uh Tik Tok period which was like during covid um so I know a lot of people are short form creators right now like strictly short form and they want to transition to long form and I think the biggest piece of advice I will give there is you have to treat long form as a completely different game you have to learn La form from scratch and you cannot expect the same results that you get from short form on your long form right away so like you basically have to learn a new format and put in the time to learn that and darl obviously has a lot of good information on how to learn that so it's like you're you're in a good place yeah yeah no I I I love it I love it and I I think the big thing for me is surround yourself with people that actually love what they do you know and and have discussions have conversations of of what you've learned and be willing to share and that's what I love about vid some I love about my group is like people are willing to share and help um because you can just like like what he said it's just that one Golden Nugget could be the thing that that puts all this this puzzle together for you and you can actually do the right um right strategy or have the right type of video that really connects or really understand the viewer on a deeper level uh so Hau thank you so much for joining me I really do appreciate it thanks again for being a part of this live stream and being willing to speak at vid Summit can't wait to do that and for all of you thank you so much for being on this live stream uh for me it's it's my desire of my heart is to help you have a little bit of clarity of your audience your content how it's going to engage your content so you can grow and be successful on YouTube so guys thank you so much and we'll see you on the next one thanks everybody