rSlash - Special Episode: My Interview with "That Viral Moment" - How I Gained 1M Subscribers In 1 Year

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

I was interviewed by "That Viral Moment," a YouTube channel that interviews popular social media influencers to explore how they grew on their platform. In this interview, we take a look at the decisions and strategies I chose to start my YouTube channel rSlash, and how I grew it to 1.75m subscribers.  Check out That Viral Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWCdoj7Vupw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Doing all right. How about you? I'm doing moment. Thanks so much for your time to connect. How's your investment? Yeah, absolutely. I saw you actually just uploaded a video nine hours ago. You, you put out videos every single day, right? Every single day. I put out a video every day for close to about five years now across multiple channels. There's a time where I was doing two videos a day across two channels. So it's been a minimum of one a day. I've published thousands of videos easily. Wow. And would you attribute the consistency?

Would you say that's it been a huge part of your success in growing these channels? For me, yeah, I think so. I mean, I know there's a lot of people out there who find success just uploading sporadically or once a week or maybe even once a month. But for me, I know that I've got sort of like the drive and energy to put out daily videos.

So I know that I can sort of build an audience around it. So I think a lot of it's just that I first found success with daily uploads. So from there, I just sort of never really stopped because I know that works for me really well. I know people come back every single day to watch videos if you just put it out. Yeah, so let's take a step back here. So you've been in the YouTube space. You said, you know, four years, that means you've done some other types of channels. What types of channels have you done in the past? So I started my YouTube career, sort of as a fluke actually.

I basically just wanted to get a beta key to Overwatch, which is a video game, and I saw that the company was handing out beta access to the game to content creators, and I was like, okay, this can't be that hard. So I started making videos for that with the intention of just getting my key and then a basic shift immediately. So for me YouTube was just a means to an end basically, but they never sent me a key.

So I kept making videos, I kept making videos. I initially kind of discovered that it was enjoyable. And then after that I discovered that it was profitable. So I had an Overwatch channel for about a year and then after that Fortnite, which is another video game, and is in the same genre as Overwatch blew up and got super, super popular. So I decided to make a Fortnite channel as well. So I had two channels running concurrently And I had those two channels going concurrently for about two years.

So over watch for one year, then over watch and Fortnite for about two years give or take. And then after that, I started R-slash kind of on a whim. And R-slash, gosh, it got really viral really fast and just kind of blew up and it clips my other channels. And so at that point, I was like, okay, I'm looking at three daily videos and our slash is more successful than my other two channels. So maybe it's time to pivot away from Overwatch and Fortnite, which by that time had, you know, decreased in popularity a bit because the game's been out a couple of years. So I decided to go all in on our slash. And then that became my new daily upload channel.

Yeah. Yeah, so for those who don't know our slash, I assume is a tribute to when you're on Reddit and you're looking for a subreddit or something like that, you have to do reddit.com slash r slash the topic of choice that you're interested in. Such a great name man. I was very, very, very self satisfied with that. I was very proud of that. Oh yeah. Because I was looking for a name that would be algorithm friendly and that makes it really clear

instantly what people would be getting when they come into a channel. So it's like welcome to our slash, you know, relationships. So it's just truly, I'm really proud of that one. I like that name a lot. Absolutely. Happy with that one. Yeah, it's super on point. I think it's so cool when your channel can kind of give away the type of content you make just by the name of it. I think that that's really important because you know, if you comment on other videos, people see R-Slush, anyone in the Reddit community would be able to make an assumption as to what your content may be about.

Well, I was just going to say when I started my first channel, it was called Dabacab, which was like my gamer tag. And as I grew my channel, I would compare it to other channels that would be called things like Overwatch Funny Moments or something like that. And those names are very descriptive. And I don't really think that like,

for the most part, I don't think that the name that you select for your channel will really hurt you if you choose, you know, a random name. However, if you pick a name that's related to your topic, it certainly could help your channel. So I think that might have helped my early success just a little bit. Definitely. Yeah, so going back to those early channels, I assume there was a lot you took away. Like when you first got on YouTube four years ago, did you know anything about the platform? Was it just kind of, let me, you know, where do you get these ideas?

Was it just you were passionate about games? Like I see World of Warcraft, you got frame behind you. So, you know, I assume that you're familiar with the, you know, all those types of popular games. And so, you know, did it just start as, hey, you know, this is a passion of mine. Let me see how this goes. Or did you have, you know, I guess where the ideas come from. And what type of content did you end up making since gaming channels? There's a variety of types of gaming channels you could have.

of types of gaming channels you could have. Sure. Well, I'm the type of person who absolutely has to have a project to work on. If I'm not making something, I tend to go crazy and just like I'll literally look for projects to do. For example, at the moment in my off hours, one of the things that I'm doing when I'm not playing video games is I'm making a board game. And I don't really, like I have no plans for the board game, I don't think I'm ever

going to publish it, you'll probably never see it on Kickstarter. I'm probably going to make it, play a couple of games with my friends, and then just never play it again. Because for me, the joy is in the actual act of making things and figuring things out. So when I started my Overwatch channel, I didn't know, I never made it into my life. I didn't even know. The first step that I did when I decided to make a YouTube channel was to look up what the type of software I would need to use to make a video because I didn't even know that. Like, how do you make a program to use make a video?

And, you know, download a Premiere Pro, watch a YouTube video and how to use Premiere Pro to make videos and how to edit. And from there, that's just kind of how I learn, I just sort of dive into the deep end and just learn as I go. So that's basically how I started on YouTube. I just literally started. And that's huge. It's eventually you get kind of good at it. That's so important. I feel like a lot of people put a lot of time into the thought of and they want it to be perfect. And so when you said you just did it, it's kind of like Nike slogan, you know, just do it. Just go out, have an idea, test in. Would you argue that one can't really learn until they actually put out, like for example, I'm sure your content, your titles, your tags, all of that has improved once you had data to look at in terms of what's getting views and what's not? Well, I get over the years,

I've gotten a lot of emails and messages from people saying, hey, I'm a young kid, I'm looking to get started on YouTube. Do you have any advice for me? Well, I definitely understand where they're coming from because when I started, I was really hungry for information as well. To me, it seems really clear because it's like asking, you know, you go up to a famous soccer player and you're like,

hey, how do you get good at soccer? No, because it's plainly obvious. You play lots of soccer. Right. So if you want to get good at YouTube, you just make YouTube videos. And if you want to get good at TikTok, you just make YouTube videos. And if you want to get good at TikTok, you make TikTok videos and you learn along the way. You can't really expect,

like my first couple of videos were just awful. I got no views, I posted them on Reddit, I got trash on, people were like this contest, bad, got no uploads. And I mean, I put out probably 20, 25 videos before I put out one that did kind of successful. It got about a thousand views. And I was like, ah, this video did something different than all the

other ones. So now, instead of doing all that other junks that was completely unsuccessful, I'll make videos like this new thing. And then like that moment of realization of like, aha, this is the content they want. That was not the content they want. Then just that sort of step that process over and over and over. Oh, this is this is the thumbnail they want. This is not the thumbnail they want. This is the duration of video they want. This is that was not the duration. And you just learn as you go. So, um, I would say to anyone, if you really want to get started on YouTube or TikTok or Twitch or whatever, then literally just start and learn along the way because experience to me is the most valuable resource you could possibly get. That's all I did anyways.

Yeah, and it sounds like you followed. You put out content that the audience wants. I think a lot of times people put out content that they think is cool, but I think it's so important to almost put the ego to decide if your channel is exploding because of content that you originally thought this isn't that great, but everyone else thinks it's great. You should probably focus on that. That, the thing that you just said, I literally cannot agree with you more because I had moments like that, I've had many, many moments like that throughout my career where I'll have my channel and I'll be, I'll, look at some other YouTube channel and they'll have more views,

more success and I'll feel, you know, bitterness, resentment, like how come they're more successful, my stuff should be doing better. But at the end of the day, there's always a reason. It's not just dumb luck that one channel successful and the other one isn't. So it kind of like took time to really swallow that bitter pill that the reason my content isn't doing as well as these other channels is because my content just is not as good as these other channels. So I think having a certain amount of humility and just understanding that your content sucks is really important to grow. But now sort of the mentality I have is my content sucks now. Like if I start a new channel, which will probably happen eventually because of my nature, I know that when I start

my content, we'll start, we'll suck to start with. But you know, you just improve and iterate and things will eventually get better. You have to get with. But you know, you just improve and iterate and things will eventually get better. You have to get better. If you keep doing it, it's necessary. I love that. And you know, in your situation, it wasn't your first channel that was the huge success, right? Like you started a channel and you learned YouTube

and you took some skills and you took some insights and you applied that to your next channel and then you applied that to our slash channel. And then you applied that to our slash. And I assume, I guess like, you know, what were some of the big takeaways you learned in terms of building an audience, making content specific to YouTube or just in general as a creator, that helped you kind of expedite your growth in our slash. In the main takeaways to expedite growth, I would say the single biggest number one piece of advice

that you give to anyone who really wants to know YouTube is to say this. Understand or you need to learn how to understand YouTube. You need to be able to look at the platform of YouTube and by that I mean the algorithm and I mean the actual audience that consumes the content and be able to learn from the information is available to you what is good and what is not good. Because everything out there is a data point both your videos and other people's videos. So, like, if one video gets a million views and this other video gets 10,000 views, there's a reason for that.

So you have to be able to identify what those reasons are. And I realize this is a really nebulous and vague answer. But I mean, it's critically important because if you can't understand what makes the video successful, then how can you be expected to make a successful video? Yeah. So I would say really, really become a student of YouTube,

just watch videos. I watch YouTube videos every single day, every single day, for five years. This is a pretty cool part of my job, to be honest. But that kind of a desire to learn more is a pretty important component to my success and my adaptability, I would say. Yeah, and it's that patience too, right?

Like you knew that your first video wasn't going to be the rock star. It was going to take time, but like you're consistent and you stay to it and you have a great mindset. And I think that that's probably also contributing to your success. I mean, you have 1.76 million subscribers on our slash. Does that ever, you ever like just wake up or have moments where like I have 1.76 million subscribers? Like that's kind of crazy.

So, there's, I didn't think of it as like a staircase. Every time you climb, there'll be a moment where you'll hit a milestone and be like, oh my god, I can't believe I did that. I remember my first day that I made $20 in one day. I was thrilled. I was absolutely thrilled. I surprised my wife by buying her some beef jerky because she had mentioned randomly the last week that she wanted beef jerky. So I was like, hey, my each channel made 20 bucks. I'm here. I bought you beef jerky. And that was like a cool moment.

Like I never expected to make money from this. And then I remember like a couple months later, one of my videos went kind of viral. And on that day, I made $270. And I was like, wow, that's so much money. And I was like, hey, wait a second. What is 270 times 365? And I don't, wow, that's so much money. And I was like, hey, wait a second. What is 270 times 365? And I don't remember the exact math,

but I wanna say it's $272. I think $272 times 365 days equals a $100,000 a year salary. So that was like a light bulb moment for me, where I was like, oh my gosh. If I could just make a video This successful every single day of the year then I wouldn't make a hundred K off of this YouTube channel And that was like moment like oh my god. I wouldn't become a professional YouTuber

so I think that moment was kind of one of the big Points where I was like okay, I'm gonna put out daily content because if I can just replicate that success every day, then I'll have a good income. Right. So yeah, it is definitely moments of like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. A million subscribers, but it's, you know, steps.

Every single step is another moment of realization, I suppose. And I love how you phrased it earlier where you were like, you know, you still look at it as your content sucks in the sense that you can still grow. You can still get better. You can still improve. And I think it's important. Remember to just hit a peak and be like, okay, I did it. I maxed out, you know, you have to keep improving and keep learning.

In terms of your education, I think this is one area that content creators out there or future content creators were watching this video are going to be really interested in. Take me a year ago or whatever you started our slash, the second you get the idea for the channel in this situation, you're like, okay, I'm going to go on subreddits, I'm going to find interesting content, I'm going to narrate it and you know, give it my own twist. What do you do from the research standpoint? Are you heavily like research the niche you're gonna go into on YouTube?

You see what's getting the most views? You watch those videos like, you know, how did you, you know, upskill yourself on the, you know, within the industry that you were about to tackle? I'd say, when I got the idea for R-slash, actually when I got started with R-slash, how do I say this? The YouTube algorithm was deciding that Reddit content

was going to be a trend. I discovered this content very early be a trend. It was, I discovered this content very, very early in the trend, in the trend. And at that point, luckily for me, I remember I clicked a video and I looked at the person's channel and I was like, oh my God, this guy is, this guy's channel is brand new, he's getting nuts so views for brand new channel. This is a trend and I saw like tons of recommended content from similar channels. I was like, oh my gosh, YouTube algorithm is eating this up. So once I identified that this was a trend, I probably watched like two or three hours of videos and was like, I can do this. I love Reddit. I'm very, very

familiar with Reddit. I've been wanting to get into commentary and like more personality-based stuff for a while. I can do this. I know how to do it. And I mean, if I can say this, how do I say this in a way that's respectful? When I entered the Reddit space, I saw that the people who were already there were newcomers and I was much more of a veteran. So I knew just by looking at their channels that they weren't as far along in their YouTube journey as I was. So I could come in and really hit the ground running and leverage the algorithm in the way that I knew that the algorithm love to be leveraged. I knew how to engage audiences. So I literally just started making videos the exact same day that I got the idea and then just learn from there and then applied my four years of experience that I had from being a full time YouTuber and a combination of, I think, my experience plus, like, literally, the wave of the

trend was just starting to appear. That's when my channel appeared. So the combination of those two things made my channel blow up extremely quickly, almost overnight, getting like 10,000 subscribers a day. I got 300,000 subscribers in a month just because the algorithm was absolutely starved for this content. It was like, we want, we want Reddit videos. I want to serve these videos to as many people as possible. And I was there saying, yes, Reddit, or YouTube, I have these videos. Here they are. Here are the good thumbnails you like. Here's the good watch time they are. Here are the good thumbnails you like, here's the good watch time you like, here's the good tags,

you like, please serve it to as many people as possible. And YouTube said, thank you, please give us a similar video to serve out. So, you know, I'm sure viewers of this out there might be saying like, hey, Debbie, what's the secret sauce? You know, like, and obviously there is no specific thing, but if you were to more descriptively share some of these specific things you learned, or, you know, again, someone's starting a channel, any, any general tips around

algorithmically friendly advice, what would you say? Sure. Um, well, I think if you ask pretty much any professional YouTuber, they would say that the absolute key to a successful YouTube channel is two things. One, good thumbnails and titles, two, good watch time. Because if you can get a good click for rate, that's some, excuse me, that's a measure of how many people click your video versus how many people actually see your video for I think a second. And then if you have a high watch time within that video or across all of your videos,

then those two things will just result in viral, highly successful content. Nothing else really matters. So just give people a click and then give people to stay after they click. However you manage to do that. Yeah. I guess that's a good content. Right.

Content is a bit more nebulous and kind of hard to define, but those are the things that YouTube cares about. I can tell you that. Yeah. I mean, you know, in terms of getting people to watch, I think it's so important. You find the right audience, right? Because for example, you know, I could see my family or, you know, a friend or whatnot, seeing your channel and there might be millions of people who love the content, but that person might only watch it for five seconds because they're not

your target audience, you know? So, you know, early on in terms of, did you do any self-promotion? Was there communities, Facebook groups, you join, Discord servers? Are you posting on Reddit? Like how did, or were you just straight up leveraging the title and the thumbnail to have YouTube direct the video in front of the right people? This is actually something that drives my wife absolutely nuts. So remember going back to what I said earlier, my drive isn't success, it isn't money, it's the project. I love making things. So for me I really love the challenge of starting from nothing and building something from scratch. So even though when I started our slash, I had two channels which

combined I think had about probably seven to eight hundred thousand subscribers between them. Yeah. I didn't cross-promote. I didn't post on Reddit. I didn't post on Twitter. I literally just started making YouTube videos and exclusively leverage the YouTube algorithm. And keep in mind, you know, I'm making our slash entitled parents video. I could have gone to our slash entitled parents to subreddit and posted it and probably

got a lot of views. But I didn't want to do that because I really enjoyed the process of starting over from scratch. There was even a little bit of like drama slash mystery when I got started because I was growing so quickly people were like, who are this? Who is this guy? How was he, you know, getting so many subscribers overnight? And the answer, you know answer that would have dispelled everyone's concerns was, I'm a freshman YouTuber here and my other two channels. But I didn't do that.

I intentionally kept my identity hidden because I wanted to see if I could nurture a channel, a third channel from zero to nothing without standing on the shoulders of my first two channels. So I didn't cross promote at all. I stood up. I was intentionally gimping myself, but I enjoy, I like the challenge.

Taking off my weighted boots, the VBZ reference, I guess. Oh man, that's crazy. So you had this opportunity to leverage 700,000 subscribers combined, two different channels. Of course, the audience is a little different. You didn't do one post pinned comment, hey, I'm starting this new channel or community type of,

you said to yourself, it's almost like an integrity or a pride thing. It's like, you're really challenging yourself to see if you can do this the third time. And if you do it a third time, you know, you've figured it out almost. You know? That is exactly what happened.

I sold my first channel, I mean, God, my first channel was not successful because of talent or good content. The first channel was successful just from raw grit, just because I sat down and churried out videos every single day and just made my whole life YouTube learning everything possible. Then my second channel, I did promote from my first channel and it was the exact same type of content.

So I sort of was like, hmm, I wonder if I didn't have my first channel, could my second channel have been successful? And I always had that kind of nagging doubt. So with my third channel, I made the decision that I'm going to do this kind of solo. But at the same time, I think it's probably less of a hamstring than you might think because the audiences are different. And it would have given me like a really quick early boost

and views and subscribers, for sure. But fundamentally, if I didn't have the core content that people like literally just sat and watched the 15 minute video from start to finish, then I didn't have the core content that people like literally just sat and watched the 15 minute video from start to finish, then it wouldn't have mattered if I did promote that stuff. So, I guess that approach probably did slow me down a little, but not as much as you would probably think it did. Right. So actually, let's say you cross-promoted, but the audiences were totally separate.

Let's say you could get an extra, you know, to 3,000 views initially to this new channel just from your old channel. Would you say if the audiences were different, you'd actually hurt yourself because the watch time would be much smaller given that that's not the type of content these people are trying to consume. So many of us think one day we'll find a way to buy our first home, but what if there was a faster way to turn one day into one day soon? Introducing the Questrade Tax-Free First Home Savings Account. Contribute up to $8,000 a year, tax deductible,

and watch your investment grow tax-free. Now there really is a faster way to save for your first home with the new QuestTrade first home savings account. Learn more at QuestTrade.com. We're North America's number one sports book, 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamlin Tom called 18665312600 or visit connectcentario.ca. This thing you're describing is very much like an edge case with the algorithm. I personally don't know enough about the algorithm

to be able to answer that. I think it's possible that it could hurt you, but realistically, I think that if you got a really huge burst in views and subscribers kind of out of nowhere and people didn't really stay along, stay around for very much, then that alone would probably be enough for the YouTube algorithm to be like,

okay, something's going on with this video. It's getting a lot of attention in some capacity. People are staying as much as I would like them to, so I'm going to experiment and try to serve this to the people that I think will watch it. So it probably would have helped your traffic some. But again, I just don't have enough experience, right? Right. Specific edge case to say. Right. Well, I mean, it's important to mention there's a lot of factors YouTube considers, right? Like is someone commenting? Are they liking? Are they subscribing? Are they watching for a while?

So it's almost like you plus one minus one for something you have and something you don't have, but it's kind of the net net of Overall, if you're getting engagement, it's going to be positive more than not. Um, so yeah, you know, all of this is super interesting. Um, I mean, what were some of the biggest challenges like This is super interesting. What were some of the biggest challenges like balancing multiple channels or just as you brew these channels, posting every day, was there ever times where you felt like you wouldn't be able to continue at that speed or is your drive so significant that it's never been an issue. So, for me, keep in mind, I do this for fun. So my brain's a little bit weird.

So when I got started, I was probably working 80 hour weeks. I would go to my normal 9-5 office job. And then I would come home. Gosh, let me back up. I would wake up. I would go downstairs and I would work in my YouTube videos. Then I would go to work. Then I would come home. Gosh, let me back up. I would wake up. I would go downstairs and I would work in my YouTube videos. Then I would go to work.

Then I would come home. Then I would work on YouTube videos non-stop until I went to sleep. And then on the weekends, I would also work on YouTube videos. And that's because I found it fun. I really liked the challenge and learning and finding out how to how YouTube works. Yeah. So I think that probably for most people, that would be a little bit kind of a burnout situation. Right. And I will say that it did create some sort of like some work life balance issues.

I mean, my wife wasn't the biggest fan of my sort of obsession, as you might expect. But I sort of told you know, hey, I'm trying to get this channel started. Once it gets more regular, excuse me, I'll be able to quit my day job and then work on this full time. Then I'll go from, you know, 16 hour days to eight hour days. And once we sort of like crested the horizon and got to a sustainable channel that was making comparable money to my standard nine to five job, actually got fired before I could quit.

Yeah. But nonetheless, I'd say that was probably the biggest struggle was just the grind. But again, that's the personal choice I made to do daily content. Most people don't do that. I was going to say, like, would you say being passionate about the type of channel you have is a key ingredient to your success? For example, let's say you go on YouTube, you find this new random trend and you realize that it's on the upcoming, right? Or you could focus on a topic that's medium-sized interest,

but you're passionate about it. Would you choose the one that you're passionate about just thinking about the longevity versus the one that's a trend that you think the algorithm would favor? Well, that's an interesting question because certainly when I started, my number one drive was the creative process.

But over the years, my channel, and I guess the business itself has kind of become the passion. So now, for me, starting a business and building it into something successful has itself become, like I've discovered the joy of it. So I could literally, like if I saw a content that I wouldn't be good at,

that I didn't think I could do well or just had no personal interest in, if I thought that there was a lot of potential there, I could very easily see myself starting a channel, hiring help, hiring editors, hiring voice actors or performers or whatever. Wow, pretty much seeing the content from like a behind the scenes standpoint,

publishing it and just sort of managing it and outsourcing. That's kind of become the new thing that I really like to do in addition to the creative process. Growing. I guess it depends on how big the trend is. If the trend was huge. I really thought that I could get in early and the trend was going to blow up, then I probably would.

That was more exciting to me. It says, you know, money is also exciting. But it's so interesting because every person I talk to has a different opinion on this. Some are really passionate remote, they do. Some see the opportunity. In your case, it's kind of a bit of both, but also you like the challenge. So it's always cool hearing different people's perspectives on this in terms of like your audience.

Would you attribute early on, if someone starts a YouTube channel, are there any things you would place of importance in terms of engaging and nurturing your community? Whether like, did you respond to comments like, you know, with our slash, I think you might have said you have a discord server at some point. So, you know, are there certain things that have helped you facilitate continued engagement and people revisiting your channel? For that, I would say you really, really have to be a student of your platform and understand your platform really,

really well. For YouTube, I would say no. I mean, I did do a lot of that engagement stuff like discord, replying to comments, things like that. I'm actually one of the things I used to do in my first two channels was the channel was called DabbaCab. I would do a thing where I had a dabba fan of the day, where I would go into a comment, and I would find some sort of positive or funny comment. I would just show that at the end of the video as like a thank you to that random fan. So,

you know, I do care about engagement, but YouTube is much more of like a One-way conversation You just publish the video and people receive the video. It's not like streaming or it's not like TikTok TikTok feels a bit more like conversational and casual than YouTube does so as for YouTube videos I would say Social stuff certainly wouldn't hurt you, but you can succeed without social stuff. But if you want to get started on Twitch, obviously social is extremely important. If you want to get on TikTok, I'm not successful on TikTok, so I don't really know.

I would guess you'd probably have to be pretty engaged with your audience and I'm reactive to what people are asking for me. But on YouTube, it's a bit, it's just a bit one way. What if your personality channel though, right? Like in your situation, you're more of like a narrator, so it's almost like the channel is its own brand, right? But there are some channels where the person is the content, you know, it's like just them talking vlog style

or something like that. Do you think there's different, you know, even going back to view duration, right? And you're like, you find this key time that YouTube typically likes for how long a video should be. If you're a music channel or you're a podcast channel or you're a gaming channel, those times are going to change just based on the nature of the the niche you're in. So I'm curious if you have, you you have any thoughts as to the varying, just kind of the variables of what type of content you're making.

Sure. I would say if you're a really personality based channel, then I think that would indicate to me that doing, if you do social stuff, then you're almost guaranteed to be successful. Like if you're a heavy personality and you sort of twitch, you're very likely to experience success on twitch. However, you won't really need to rely on those sort of external social things to be successful. On YouTube, fundamentally, if you just put out good content and people click and watch the video. That's the only thing that matters. Everything else is just sort of sprinkles and whipped cream,

whatever. Even without creation. Yeah, even with Twitch, for example, I know that like if you're a great gamer, you could not talk to your audience the entire time. If you crush it, if you're the best at Fortnite or you're the best at Mario or whatever, like you're going to have people watching you just because they're like, you know, they look at what you're doing, they're like,

oh my God, so it's almost like you're right. It's like, where's your core competency as a channel? And is the emotional aspect a key reason why people are watching you, or is it the content itself? Sure. Yeah. Have you ever thought about other platforms than YouTube more seriously like, or is it something where you're like, hey, you know, become a student of the platform, you had a contract with Facebook Gaming to stream on Facebook Gaming, and I discovered I do not like streaming at all.

Yeah. It's a little bit too, like always on for me. And it's a little bit draining, because you have to stream for two, three, six, eight hours, whatever, and I'm just not built, built like that anymore. So I tried it, discovered that I don't really like it. So right now, I'm really, I'm like 95% focus on YouTube. However, I did have like tons of tons of people

in my comments, requests to watch my content on a podcast because my content is really, really well suited for people just listening while they're doing other stuff. I have people telling me they cook while they listen or they do homework, are they exercise or whatever. So people are saying, hey, I'd love it if I could download this and listen to it on the bus, could you please make a podcast?

So I've started transferring all my files on my videos into MP3s and uploading them to them to my podcast. And I found a lot of success from my podcast, which I didn't expect at all. But right now my podcast represents probably 33% of my overall business. But luckily for me, I don't have to put much work into it because I've already made the videos. So I just have to convert them into audio files and just throw them up on the podcast. I'm Spotify, right? You spy use anchor at them and anchor up them, distribute to Spotify and wherever.

So it's all you podcasts listeners out there. Check me out, our slash. I mean, your podcast. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So it's also kind of an advantage where you chose a segment or you chose a type of content that can be consumable on multiple platforms. I think a lot of people get in this thing

where they build their entire audience on one platform. And then if anything ever happens to that platform, we talk about the algorithm, we've talked about that for a lot of this call, right? Like, if the algorithm changes and it suddenly doesn't favor your content, how are you gonna pivot, you know? So in a situation like that,

it's awesome that you've built other areas, other avenues to continue to engage your audience, should anything like that ever happen. That was a source of, let's say, complete nutter terror before, because YouTube's very fickle, the algorithm does change very frequently. I don't know if you know this, but if you get three content strikes on YouTube, you're done. They just take down your channel and the content strike system is awful. So for a while, I had all my eggs in one basket and I was really always just scared

that something would happen in my YouTube views would plummet and I wouldn't have any success anymore but now that I'm diversified into both YouTube and podcasts, I have a lot more comfort now because if one of those crash, I can go all in on the other and I'd be okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In terms of, you know, we talked about personality channels and, you know, obviously, if you're

narrating the content, in fact, you don't show your face on the content because it's a background. But you do have something like, I was, you know, you have these puppy bloopers. I know you have a puppy, and I wanted to learn a little bit about that. So there are other ways that you kind of evoke emotions from your audience. Right.

So first off, I know from my demographics that my audience skews a little bit younger. So, you know, I always keep that in the background minus to what sort of content people will be interested in. And I got a new puppy, and one day I'm just recording, and he kept barking and whining and begging for pets and to play with me. And I got a really high-quality microphone

that picks up sound really well, and that house has to be completely silent and he's in the back. Or just like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh hear the frustration in my voice, which is contrasted with the puppy, yelping in the backgrounds. And so I just tried it out and my audience eats it up. They absolutely loved it. And so throughout the days, whenever you go would bark or whine, I would just throw a video called Puppy Bluppers,

and that's become very much a thing on my channel. I know some people don't like it, but I always put it at the very end of the video. So it's like, we don't like it. Just don't watch it. Yeah. And it's kind of been kind of a cool little community thing that people really like or, you know, don't care for whatever. It's there if you like it.

So, you know, in terms of, you know, it says that your audience liked it. Do you do a lot of listening to your audience like you read the comments and if they, if everyone's requesting something, will you do it? For example, something I could see people asking is how do you choose your subreddit? Like do you consume Reddit for hours every day yourself or are you scanning for content to post? You know, or is your audience telling you, hey, you have to do this one? content to post or is your audience telling you, hey, you have to do this one. Right. So in terms of consuming Reddit, I would say that Reddit was my number one source of content before I started our slash. I mean, I probably watched more hours of YouTube, but that

was more for business than it was for pleasure or slash entertainment entertainment. Right. So I, you know, whenever I was at the computer on my phone doing nothing, I would just bring up Reddit and browse. So that sort of baseline gave me an extreme level of comfort as I moved into our slash because it was already very familiar with what subreddits, like I knew what subreddits I liked and I knew what subreddits would do well in text form because I was just so familiar. So that was a very seamless transition for me because I was already very well versed. And in terms of listening to my audience, yes, I do listen very, very closely to my audience, but not in the way that most people would expect.

Most people would probably think, you know, down in the comments, what are people saying, what are people tweeting me, things like that. And sure I do read them, but I've discovered that the most powerful source of information you have is YouTube itself. The views will tell you what people like, the like ratio will tell you what people like subscriber growth will tell you what people like. So if I want to know what so great as a popular or not popular, I don't go to the comment section. I go to the analytics.

Yes, I know like, pro revenge, entitled parents choosing beggars, malicious compliance. Those are my like big heavy hitter, almost always do well subreddits. And I know that because the numbers reflect that. So I would say learn to love analytics because analytics will tell you everything you know

about what you're doing well and what your audience wants to see. How much has that informed your decisions as a content creator? Like if analytics didn't exist, would that drastically, would you feel like that's been a huge, you know, are you in there every day looking and analyzing the

data points of what's working and what's not? If YouTube didn't have analytics, you and I would not be talking right now because I would not be a pro YouTuber. Like, you know, going back to my first channel, I put out, like I said, 2025 videos that had a lukewarm response. And then I put out one video that got tons of views, tons of subscribers. If I hadn't gotten that immediate feedback

and known that that video did well, I wouldn't be able to know that's the video that I need to replicate, not the ones before. The other ones before we're garbage. So that's just what you do. You make videos, you make videos, you make videos, then one pops off, you're like, okay, what was it about this video? The pop top wasn't my thumbnail was at the subject matter.

Did I do something different in this video? And then you just double down and then that becomes the new normal until you pop off again. And then you're like, okay, what did this video do differently? And then once you figure it out, that then becomes the new normal. And you just keep doing that over and over and over. And you're kind of evolving your content to make it better and better and better every time that happens. Yeah. Feel like you're like part, part YouTuber, part YouTube scientist, you know, just based

on how analytical you are, but it's clear that that works. I mean, it seems like you kind of work backwards in a way where it's like what is doing well and from there focused on the content around that versus a lot of people who are just like, I love food. So I'm going to make a food channel, you know, it's like, well, what type of food channel are you going to make or how are you going to go about the content. I think it's really cool that you, you just study, you know, like you said, you're a student versus just a content creator, you're also a student. Well, it's, you can't, you can't brute force YouTube. You can't be like, I'm going to make this type of content. I'm going to make this type of content good because that type of content may just be destined to fail.

There's certain things that people like. It's your job to discover it. Like the thing that drives me nuts is like right now, there are thousands, literally thousands of YouTube channel ideas that I could do, that you could do, that anyone who's watching this video could do and literally could do that anyone who's watching this video could do and literally become a millionaire.

All you have to do is figure out what that channel idea is before someone else. That's all it takes. So it's almost like a gold mine. The information's out there. It's up to you to find it, to read clues to figure out how, like, where's this gold vein? So you have to be, you have to be a scientist, you have to be a good listener to the algorithm, you have to look for trends, you have to see where things are going, because otherwise, you're just sort of hoping that you guess right. And unless you're a professional YouTuber,

hoping that you guessed right. And unless you're a professional YouTuber who's already proven success, what are the odds that your first guess is the correct one? Right. Sure, it happens sometimes. There's that, I forget her name, that girl who does the bus life videos. She got a van and she's like her first video, she got like two million views or something. Oh, I her first idea You see them. Yeah, no, I I've seen I know the reference. Yeah, Call of Colo of Frado I forget the name of her channel, but her first video got like two million views. Yes. She did it, right? She heard very first idea was an absolute banger. She figured out something That people want to see and she delivered it on her first try. Most people

She figured out something that people want to see and she delivered on her first try. Most people, 999 out of 1,000 other people, don't get it right on their first try. So you just have to expect to fail. Because if you don't, then you're just gonna keep grinding your gears basically. But the other thing is though, I do think it's, I think it's hard,

like 99% of YouTube channels have less than 10,000 subscribers, right? Like they are, but if your channel was showing small steady growth, for example, let's say it was your first year, you uploaded a video every day and you got two subscribers a day. So you're looking at near 800 subscribers. Would you keep going on that or for you or, you know, Would you keep going on that or for you or you know, I mean, given your success, obviously, you know, you have a different perspective, but for the average YouTuber who's you would want to ask you, Hey, I've been on YouTube for two years. I have 900 subscribers. My views and my likes and, you know, comments and click the rate.

It's been improving, but I'm just not at that level of trajectory as you. Do you still think I'm onto something? What would you say to them? No, I would not think that you're onto something at all. If you haven't found success doing X, then there's no reason to think that continuing to do X will ever get you success. Like, why would it?

Unless, I guess it's possible, but it's just really unlikely. If your content isn't succeeding, it's because your content isn't worthy of success, which might maybe that sounds a little bit harsh, but I mean, that's just the reality. YouTube is a meritocracy. So if your content is good, if it's doing things well, it's more likely to get views. So conversely, if you're not getting views, if you're not getting subscribers, it means your content isn't good enough. So it's time to change because you can't just keep reinforcing it. It's just not working. Yeah. What if you say your content is great, but you're in a saturated market? Do you think that's also a recipe for failure,

just because there's too much going on already? That's, yeah, I definitely understand what you mean. In that case, it is possible that you can find sort of late term success. But you have to make changes, right? It seems like, because here's the thing, I can keep my channel, but I need to change what I'm doing, right? Like you're not necessarily saying, get rid of that channel, start something else. You're saying, look at what showed you some level of

success and follow that formula of it. Yeah, yeah, though, this is what we bring in the X factor, because when you get down to it, luck matters in YouTube, especially in heavily saturated markets. Like if you wanted to, she's, let's say you wanted to stream Fortnite. And you could be entertaining and really good at Fortnite, but there's just so many top tier, amazing content creators streaming Fortnite. Even you might even be better than some of the people doing that, but that market is so oversaturated that it would be

tough to find success. You might have to get lucky. I hear you. That's why I would say looking for trends is really, really important. Sometimes the harsh reality of YouTube is, sometimes you don't have to be the best, sometimes you just have to be the first. This is such great advice, man. I think a lot of people will resonate with this. And unfortunately, you know, your thoughts earlier where it's like, hey, it might not be work and do something else. Like, I can see that stinging people, right? But it's all coming from good intent, which is look like you know that it can take a month to get thousands of subscribers if you find a good niche. And not just subscribers because subscribers don't really mean anything, but it's

people who are actually rewatching your content and really opt it into it. Because as you know, people try and game the system with subs, and that never works out because you have a low engagement and things like that. So, but if you find a good, and I guess like the other thing for you is like, you know, never, never give up and keep learning. That's what you did. You've, you've had three channels. You mentioned you probably will have a fourth at some point,

but you know, just don't take one failure as the end of the road. Keep iterating, keep trying. Well, on that note, let me say, when you say, you'll probably have a fourth, the correct way to phrase that would be, you might have a fourth successful channel because I have had a fourth channel. I've started probably, I want to say three other channels

that absolutely do not go anywhere because I mean that's just part of the process. I love it. Sometimes you just fail, but just because you fail doesn't mean that you're a failure, you can just keep going. I thought um artifact if you're familiar with that at all, it's a card game made by steam. I thought artifact was going to be if you're familiar with that at all, it's a card game made by steam. I thought artifact was gonna be really popular. And I made a YouTube channel based on artifact and it was a utter flop. That game was one of the most complete

and utter failures in video game, in the video game industry at the time. And so I was completely wrong about that. But that's just, you know, how it goes sometimes. Sometimes you just fail, but I mean, whatever you just try again. I love it, man. Yeah, keep going. It's all about your at-bats.

You know, the more at-bats you have, the more chances of getting a home run. Right. So, yeah, that, I mean, I really appreciate your time talking today about what's helped you with your success. If someone would ask you what's in the future for our slash as a channel, do you see, is it just, you know, continue finding great content and putting out stories? Do you ever see yourself experimenting with that channel? Or would you say, you know what works stick to it like a formula?

Well, our slash is so successful. I don't really feel much of a need to change things, just because I know that I have a winning formula at the moment. That being said, I have to be subject to the whims of my audience, I have to be subject to the whims of YouTube. So if the algorithm changes or my audience is taste change, then that means my content will have to change too. Also, I don't really have any ideas at the moment, but it is almost a certainty that at some point,

and the next year or two, I will probably start another channel for fun or for proper or whatever, just because that's what I do. I can't stop working even if I wanted to. Yeah, I love that workhorse. And any final thoughts to either your fans who are watching this or people who are looking at this and going to go back to reference your channel after and kind of study all the things you've said, terms of future people who want to start a channel right after this call. Yeah, to all the people out there who are thinking about becoming a professional Twitch streamer, or YouTuber, or TikTok, or whatever, as soon as you stop watching this video, go do that thing that you want to do. Because all the podcasts in the world,

all the YouTube videos in the world aren't going to amount to actual first-hand experience. So just go, go do it. Go learn by doing. There's literally no better substitute than first-hand experience. That's what I would say. Love that, man.

Sweet, well, Dabney, thank you so much for your time. Sure, we'll probably have you back guys for those watching who have not checked out our slash, definitely check him out. Make sure to subscribe, like, comment, you're definitely not gonna regret it. So thank you so much again for your time and hope we can connect in a year

and talk about our slash when it's at 3 million or 10 million subscribers. There's no way I'm gonna get 10 million here. You never get the optimism. Yeah. Maybe 2.5 of of them like a we'll see. Love it. Awesome, man. Well, thank you again. We'll talk soon. Dirt. Thanks. Thanks so much for watching guys. Make sure to subscribe and ring that bell to stay notified

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