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How Ryan & Matt Data Science Turned YouTube Into a Career Asset

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Meet Ryan Nolan, creator behind Ryan & Matt Data Science, as he breaks down how AI workflows, automation, and YouTube can be used to build real career and business opportunities.

In this episode, we talk about Ryan’s journey from data science to AI content, how he built a 40K subscriber YouTube channel, and why he chose to build a channel instead of pursuing a traditional master’s degree.

We also dive into practical AI workflows for creators, how tools like Claude and n8n can save time, why AI can help with hooks, titles, thumbnails, scripts, and content systems, and how creators can use automation without losing quality or personality.

Ryan shares why YouTube can act as a portfolio, resume asset, and lead generation tool, plus what creators get wrong when they focus too much on SEO instead of building a real audience.

Whether you’re a creator, agency owner, freelancer, or business operator trying to understand how AI can improve your workflow, this episode is for you.

Learn more about Ryan:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RyanAndMattDataScience

Skool: https://skool.com/data-and-ai

Website: https://ryanandmattdatascience.com

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ryan-p-nolan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanMattDS

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SPEAKER_00

Ryan built a YouTube channel that actually helped him land jobs. In this episode, he explains why SEO is not the growth strategy people think it is, how he uses AI to improve content, and how creators can turn YouTube into a real career asset. Hi Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. And usually the way I start this is asking people to describe themselves a little bit and for people actually discovering your content for the first time, what do you do today on YouTube?

SPEAKER_01

I have actually multiple YouTube channels. I know the one that today we're gonna be talking about is the one that's really focused around AI and was more focused around data in the past. But I see uh the landscape changing quite a bit. My other YouTube channel is actually focused around uh cards as like collectibles, stuff like that, like kind of nerdy stuff, but back all the way from the 1800s to like 1930s and 40s. Well, really won't talk too much about that right now. Um, but even outside of YouTube, I my full-time job is using a mixture of data as well as AI uh to help out a fintech essentially with payments and compliance.

SPEAKER_00

And you focus a lot on practical AI workflows instead of just theory. Like, why did you choose that angle?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, because I run AI work full-time, so ideally, like I'm I obviously can't tell people what I do at my full-time job because of compliance purposes, but I want to give people practical things that they could utilize, whether it's on their own YouTube channel or in their daily life.

SPEAKER_00

And what were you doing before you started doing YouTube and what got you to start both channels? Like, what was your idea behind it?

SPEAKER_01

I kind of discovered on the YouTube side of things back when I was in college, I was actually working for a SEO YouTuber. So I was kind of in the SEO space. I knew someone that had a YouTube channel and I worked under him for a little bit. Um, most mostly on like the client side and then teaching side rather than how to actually build out a YouTube channel. But I saw that he was able to build out a business on that side of things. After college, I decided to start kind of my collectibles YouTube channel, and that's always really fun, but you know, it's not really a huge revenue driver, it's more of just a hobby channel. And then a few years ago, I was deciding whether I wanted to get a master's degree in data science or start a data YouTube channel. And I told myself like uh it could easily get a master's degree. Obviously, it's a lot of work, but at the same time, a YouTube channel is an asset that I can continue to build even after a master's degree. So I did not go for the master's degree, I actually started the YouTube channel and I looked at it a way as you would have a portfolio, a way to also um just leverage that on job applications. Most people applying to jobs aren't going to have a YouTube channel focused around their career. I said this will make me stand out. Plus, when you have an audience, you have a lot of people out there that watch your content that are probably already in those roles. And if I ever need to find a new job, there's probably someone on the channel that I could reach out to or make a video saying, hey, I'm looking for a new job or a new opportunity and connect from that because I know on my card channel, there's some crazy connections that I was able to get in the business world and like the card world, uh, just from making content. So in my mind, I'm like, let's forego doing the master's degree, let's build out the data channel. And it's honestly been great. I've been able to get two different full-time jobs over that period. I've had the channel for about three years. Uh so kind of a few months into the channel, I had a job. And uh this year I actually got a brand new job as well. And this is just from building out a lot of content and connections on that side of things, which really kind of increased my personal revenue uh from getting that job. I will say also like building out that type of content, if you're trying to get into freelancing or anything like that, another really good opportunity. Uh, because if you have that as an asset, you can talk to customers and say, listen, I have 100 videos or 200 videos on my channel talking about this subject. I'm an expert on that side of things. I have credibility behind it, I have a portfolio of videos. Not every single person applying to a job on, like you can say, like an upwork platform is gonna have all of that out there. And you could also compound that with like a website, with blog posts. Uh, you are really gonna stand out because I know a lot of people struggle getting freelance opportunities or anything like that, but they have nothing that really differentiates them. And I looked at the YouTube channel as kind of the asset that could help me if I want to get any type of freelance customers, and then for my full-time career, uh building that out.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's interesting that you mentioned having a YouTube channel as an asset and to stand out in like let's say LinkedIn or whatever you're applying for a job. But how was the process to actually stand out on YouTube for you? Did you have any sort of strategy? Which channel grew first? And what did you have in mind? I knew you worked in SEO in the past, so you had an idea. Was it easy for you to grow on YouTube?

SPEAKER_01

So, like the card niche which I'm in, I think there's a ceiling associated with what I kind of collect. Uh, so I got that channel to about 10 to 15,000 subscribers, and I noticed the subscriber count just kept decreasing. Now, again, it's like a very small niche. So I don't expect that channel to have 100, 200, 300,000 subscribers, even like people that collect modern cards, which the audiences way larger, they struggle hitting that 100,000 growth. So as that channel scaled, I'm like, I need to eventually do something different, uh, at least career-wise. And then I started this one, and really I was focused more on the SEO side of YouTube, where I was trying to SEO different YouTube videos and try to rank them. In the beginning, it was a lot of kind of machine learning and kind of sequel videos. Um, over time, though, I don't know if that's kind of the best strategy. I think the best strategy is to really optimize for more of an audience growth. Whereas I think when people search for specific keywords, they're gonna watch the one video call today if they got their value and then kind of leave your channel. Maybe they'll subscribe, but they don't really engage as much. Rather, going off like non-SEO focused videos. Hopefully, that kind of makes sense. But just something I've been noticing with my data. Uh, when I focus more on non-SEO, like hyper-focused keywords, it feels like these people stay around a lot longer and want to watch other content.

SPEAKER_00

At what point did you realize your channel was actually gaining traction? Was there like a specific video that you feel like things shifted for you? Because I I noticed that your channel, you have like around almost 40,000 subscribers now, right? And that's a big number comparing to a lot of people. How did you get there and how long did it take to get there?

SPEAKER_01

I've been at this data and AI channel almost about three years now. And like 40k numbers is a really good metric, but I do know there's other people in the niche that have been able to scale to 100k, 200k within a year. And I think kind of like again, looking at it, I think I kind of overoptimized on the SEO side of things. Obviously, having an SEO background, that's what I was really focusing on. And I looked at my like YouTube data, one of the things that I've noticed as one of my biggest issues is the majority of my traffic is essentially new users. I don't I didn't have a snowball growth effect with casual and then regular viewers, which kind of pivoted my content. Like the views, they would go up every single month because I'd make more videos and I would just kind of focus on topics. But again, because the SEO side of things, people would watch it, but that really didn't turn into regular viewership. Um, so I think kind of pivoting over that over the last year or so, where it's like more videos that people will want to watch rather than search has helped it a lot. You know, there's a lot of growth even in year one because machine learning back of what 2023 or so was a very still pretty hot topic and there wasn't a ton of content out there. So not only I was able to rank for it, I was able to get a lot of views. And you could look at my channel, some of those videos have 20, 30, 40,000 views on it. Um, and that was obviously right before all the AI stuff came out. But regardless, uh, if you're watching the channel, you're trying to make uh YouTube content, definitely focus more on something that someone's gonna browse for, look at the home screen rather than SEO content because you those are the right viewers you want for your channel. If you're a content creator and editing is hitting up your week, pay attention.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_01

I have a free school group and there is a decent amount of people that join our calls every single week. Like we'll have between five or ten people, which isn't a lot, but I know those are people that are gonna watch essentially every single video and want to learn more. And I think there's opportunities like that, whether you want to join a Discord or a Facebook or a school, whatever resource you want to funnel all those people into, you can kind of build that group. What I would also recommend if you're building any sort of group, start collecting people's emails because I feel like a lot of people aren't focusing on that. They get a lot of views on the technical side of things, but they aren't building out that email list, which is an asset. It's another way to kind of build out a community because uh when you have that, you might get 20, 30, 40% open rates every single week, and people want to engage in the email. And then you can also funnel them to your YouTube videos in the future or any type of product that you want to potentially sell.

SPEAKER_00

And at what point did you realize that AI automation was going to be a big opportunity on YouTube?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, I just saw it from my my job. So, like I was focusing highly on data, but I as I try to learn more and more, I saw how AI had a lot of opportunities to automate sections. I started off as a data analyst, then move into data science. And there's a lot of parallels between data science and if you want to go into like a machine learning engineer or an AI automation engineer, or I should just say in the past an AI engineer, but I just kept seeing how you could start automating a lot of data tasks for it. And I was like, it's a no-brainer. I need to start getting ahead of the curve and really start learning as much as I can about AI, apply it to my job as well, build out a portfolio on that side of things, which then goes with YouTube, right? I would build out something full-time job. Okay, cool. I need to learn extra on YouTube side of things, make videos for that, so then I can apply it back to my full-time job.

SPEAKER_00

But is there a difference between learning AI and actually using AI to create create content or make money?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, anyone can learn AI, but at the end of the day, and this goes back to any type of tutorial-based channel, you can't just watch videos over and over again and not take action. Like if you learn something, you need to start taking action at it right away. I think there's a lot of use cases, at least for like the content creator side of things, where you can automate things with AI, and I can talk about that. And no, on the other spectrum, we see a lot of slop of AI that's online, which kind of gives it a bad uh taste in a lot of people's uh the thing is like a lot of automations can even go back to machine learning. Like we've had automations for a very long time, and some of them are gonna be really good, but because we see so much slop online, people always kind of have that negative connotation of AI.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's one thing that I was actually gonna ask you because a lot of people are very hesitant when they hear about AI. So, when it comes to your channel, did you face any sort of issue when it comes to that, like in the comment section or anything? Did you notice that people were a little bit taken back? And how do you actually break that barrier and explain that we can actually integrate AI into our new reality?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I didn't have any pushback. I mean, coming from a data science background, you're already going to be building out machine learning models which are kind of predictive to determine like a scenario. I'll give you an example. Like one of the first uh machine learning videos that kind of took off on the channel was a Kaggle Titanic project where you predict like if a passenger ended up perishing on the Titanic or not. Very popular beginner entry level project, but you're sort of making predictions on that. It's an automation of some sorts. Um, so I don't think there's really any pushback on that side of things. Obviously, I'm more of a technical creator rather than someone that's just making other type of content. And specifically, a lot of people go from that data analyst pipeline into data science or like an AI or machine learning engineer.

SPEAKER_00

And a lot of your content actually revolves around tools like Claude and NHN. That at a high level, what are you actually building with these tools?

SPEAKER_01

I'll give you an example on the YouTube side because I know a lot of people are gonna watch us that have YouTube channels. So one of the things that I've realized this year is I really suck at either writing hooks or pretty good titles. So what I ended up doing with Claude is I took a lot of content on YouTube that I was listening to, podcasts and stuff like that, and I started building out different types of skill files. So I'd watch different YouTube uh consultants to go on and talk about hey, this is what makes relatively a really good hook. Okay, awesome. Let's start take all the main points of this video, let's put it into a Claude skill file. I'd watch maybe 10 or 15 of these different videos, not only for my education, but also to build out some sort of skill set. So now anytime I want to build out a YouTube video, I go out there and say, hey, let's come up with five to ten different hooks that we could try in this video, and then it'll generate those hooks based off of the knowledge that these YouTube consultants have. Now, are these as good as if you hired a consultant? Absolutely not, but you got to think about it in the grand scheme of things. Like, I'm not gonna go out there and spend $100, $200 an hour for a consultant when I can go out here and build this out initially. Now, for bigger channels, that makes sense, but like I'm a very small channel. I don't make thousands of dollars every single month. And I know a lot of creators are in that space. 100% agree. Like, as you scale, you should try to get and start working with consultants. But when you're very small, I think this is a way to kind of help leverage and build out things because there's just so much out there that you're gonna have to do, whether it's like really good titles, really good ideas for the hook, uh, how you want to engage your story or present your information across the board, updating copy. I think AI has a lot of use cases and it can get you like 80 or 90 percent there. Obviously, I think humans still are the best approach in the long term, especially people that really hyper focus on a skill. But if you don't have the budget to hire people, this is a great way. I mean, a Claude subscription is either $20 a month, which you'll run out, or $100 a month versus uh going out there and spending thousands and thousands if you don't have that yet.

SPEAKER_00

And don't you think actually by doing this and doing this prompts and scripting with Claude for a while, you've learned something that at this point, if you had some time and you were to do an intro by yourself, maybe you learned something from AI?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I definitely think I've learned a lot, even just like reviewing my videos and things like that, and have gone better over time. But again, it just goes back to the trade back like building out titles if you and you're also your hook that could take hours just coming up with something really, really good. And for someone that I might only get a thousand, two thousand, or three thousand views, are you gonna spend three, four hours building out hooks and titles for it? It's like 50-50 if you're gonna do so. Versus if you build out these with skills and build out these as automations, if you get yourself 80 to 90 percent there and just tweak that last 10 to 20 percent, uh, you can save a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00

And at this point, do you still think about SEO when you're posting a video, or is that something that, as you've said before, you don't think that's actually the best way? So you don't really think about it anymore. You just use Claude and you just do what you know how to do and it's working.

SPEAKER_01

I think there's some aspects of SEO that I still try to do. Obviously, I think we know the timestamps work pretty well on YouTube videos, so I'll still look at you know what I'm talking about uh subject matter-wise and throw in those timestamps. Also, I do try to repurpose my videos into articles because it's kind of a no-brainer on the SEO side of things. I already built out the content, um, and I actually have skills that take the videos and build them into blog posts based off of references from like AHRF, Sumrush, and things like that. Um, I hadn't hadn't too done too much on that in the past just because of time bandwidth between full-time job and obviously doing this on the side. It it's a lot, but now with the AI, I've been able to build that out.

SPEAKER_00

And for someone actually hearing about NHN for the first time, how should they think about it in a content or business context?

SPEAKER_01

Essentially, NAN is a really great way to jump into AI. Honestly, I think if someone's starting with AI today, I would say jump into NAN before you even jump into anything with Claude. The reason why is essentially you have an interface that you can start building out AI agents relatively in a fast manner, maybe 20, 30 minutes once you understand how the UI works. What's really cool about NAN is it kind of takes away the complexity of coding. Uh, each node is essentially like a piece of code, and you can tell it essentially what to do. Now, there's a lot of nodes, there's a little bit of a learning curve associated with it, but I think kind of the problem that I see right now with the AI space is a lot of people are pushing everyone into the cloud environment. Like, hey, you can just vibe code everything, but people don't even have an understanding of how Python code works, and they're just gonna vibe code everything. And it's like you're as we've talked about with like with a slop issue, you're building out a lot of sloppy code if you don't have the fundamentals. So, in my personal opinion, if you don't know how to code, start with NAN, have an understanding. Okay, cool, this is how an AI agent works, this is how data flows through an AN workflow, this is some automations that I can build. Once you get a little bit more comfortable, then maybe jump into the cloud environment.

SPEAKER_00

And what makes it different from something like Zapier?

SPEAKER_01

I think there's a lot more opportunities within NAN. Zapier is actually pretty quite limited, whereas NAN has a lot of different integrations, it has a lot more complexity when it comes to building out stuff. For example, this week I built out with one of my customers uh a full workflow where we essentially take in an email and then look at different patients to determine if they're available for like a cancer trial. Um, that if you built it in Zapier, would probably not be possible based off of the different branches and the nuances associated with it. Whereas in NAN, we're able to build that out over a few different coaching sessions.

SPEAKER_00

And why would you say this workflow-based tools becoming are becoming important for creators or business owners today?

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, it just saves time at the end of the day. I mean, we see how AI is helping businesses save time, and uh, you know, you don't have that complexity of coding. Because if you go back a few years, you'd have to use a technology like Langchain and put that in Python code to start doing AI automations. Um, but now it's just drag and drop, and really the time to build out automation, it just keeps going down. Years ago, it was hours and hours, um, if not weeks, and then NAN came around and really decreased that time. And now even Claude has gone around and you can build out some really cool automations within code or co-work within an hour, even at that.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think most people are underestimating automation?

SPEAKER_01

I think so. And partly the reason again goes back to slop. You see a lot of people that just, hey, let's go and use Sora, which rest in peace, Sora, or any other type of video model, and throw up a short and it just like it's junky. Or you see like the AI graphics that are all incorrect, and people have that like negative connotation of oh, AI is just all terrible, or they'll see something online like there's a pretty bad hallucination, which there still is, and there's ways to navigate hallucinations, but they'll see that and they'll have that negative connotation, like, oh, AI sucks. I think there's a lot of opportunities within AI, especially as newer models are released, so like between Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6, and I know Mythos just got released as well. Um, not publicly though, like what they've been able to achieve is pretty extraordinary.

SPEAKER_00

And when you build a workflow, how do you decide what should be automated versus like what should be human?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, obviously there's like human in the loop nodes on there. And I would say anytime that there's critical information that could damage a business, you'd want to have some sort of human in the loop. Uh so you can imagine, like, if you're building out some sort of social media automation where, hey, my business needs to have social media posts, maybe you should have a set of eyes look at that post before, especially if any of the text is incorrect.

SPEAKER_00

And what does a good AI workflow look like for someone creating content?

SPEAKER_01

It depends on like what aspect. Are you talking about like just YouTube, or are you talking about like writing out a description, like what part of it? I mean, there's AI workflows for anything, like as we already talked about, there's ideas for titles um as well as hooks, which for the titles alone, if you're making out YouTube videos, you should definitely at least use AI to build out a second or third title for split testing. Because if you have that available to you, which I believe everyone has it available in it yet, correct me if I'm wrong, um, you might as well start testing out different titles to see what clicks for your audience or uh just for that domain in general. So easily, if you have one YouTube video, uh you have a title in mind, at least ask AI, hey, give me two or three other title ideas uh in different aspects so that way you can see or different power words scripting wise. Obviously, it's gonna be different depending on the domain. If you're an education channel uh versus if you're entertainment, you're gonna have to build out two completely different things. I think on entertainment, you have to focus a lot more on the retention side of things and a lot of different jump cuts. Whereas education, it's more the value on that side of things and kind of progressing the user along the way. Um, but also, at least for the hooks, I mean, one of the things I've really struggled with again for years is I never added hooks into videos thinking education niche, no one needs hooks. And uh the data shows differently. I definitely need to have a hook. I need to talk about credentials on there because people are more likely to stay around.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I feel like it's in a way you're trying to build trust before you actually give them some sort of information, right? So do you use your when you're creating a hook, do you do you think about building trust? What is the first thought that comes to your mind?

SPEAKER_01

First thought is like confirming the click because no one cares about, and again, this is my opinion. I'm nowhere near an expert YouTube or anything like that or consultant. Uh, but when someone goes and clicks on a YouTube video, the first thing they look at is like, did I confirm my click? Like if you're going into a Claude video, do you see Claude right away? Okay, cool. Live we're talking about Claude. The second thing or third thing in there should be using your credentials. Like I use AI every single day at work, or I have uh X amount of AI videos, or I try to build out automation or whatever the case may be, uh, something to give someone a reason, like, hey, this person just didn't randomly start out uh making this type of content. Even though, like, I do have 40,000 subscribers, someone watches the video has no idea about my content backlogged. So I need to confirm A that they clicked on the right video, and then B also that I have the credentials to talk about a specific subject matter. There's other parts of hooks as well, like there's curiosity or like going down later in the video, hey, we're gonna talk. About this, but let's start off with example number one. And again, I just trained it off of a lot of different YouTube videos that I saw online with consultants saying what is a good hook for YouTube, and then kind of throwing the education side.

SPEAKER_00

And what are the biggest mistakes you see people doing when trying to build the systems?

SPEAKER_01

I think people are complacent. Like they'll build out a system for the first time and then call it done, but that's not correct. You should always kind of monitor what the outputs of the system are, see if they're consistent or ways that you could improve them, especially as new models come along. Uh things are changed off of the different parameters. Like they're getting trained on more and more data. So there is chances that your results could degrade. I don't think that's always going to be the case, but you should always try to monitor what models are being released, what the results, what could always improve things because no automation is always perfect out of the get.

SPEAKER_00

And you seem pretty technical about the things that you do. How technical do you think people need to be to start using AI to improve their workflow?

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, like cloud cowork, I don't think you have to be super technical on that side of it. I think someone could spend five hours and have an understanding of what cowork is and start saving five to ten hours every single week. I mean, it's relatively easy to add in some sort of connection to a third-party tool. In my opinion, if you're going to start with a first automation on the cowork side of things rather than NAN, you're like, hey, I have no interest in building out AI automations. I just want to use it for personal use. I'd say start with cowork instead of any n. Um, but on that side of things, you can build out like within five minutes an automation that takes over your email inbox, tells you, hey, these are things that you need to respond to, these are high important priorities, and then you can just tweak it over time. Like, hey, this actually isn't high priority. Don't show me this information.

SPEAKER_00

And what are some real use cases where AI workflow is directly improving content output from all of the videos you've done? Is there like any specific video that you've noticed that because of AI, it changed completely the final result?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, really with like the hooks and titles, I'm seeing they get a little bit higher CTR going into the videos, which I know CTR is like a good but also bad metric to measure things on. But I've been noticing a little bit higher CTR, but really is the retention within the 30 seconds. Um, I used to struggle a lot with it, and now I've been seeing it's actually increased quite a bit ever since I've been focusing on more of a hook framework, uh, which obviously leads to a higher AVD down the line.

SPEAKER_00

And is there any secret that you've noticed that people can produce more content without losing quality? Because one thing that I notice is a lot of people they just go and they just prompt something into Cloud and whatever comes up, they just copy and paste it and use that. And I noticed that we are overflooded with content that is just AI heavy, but there's no personality, there's no human knowledge behind it. How can we uh improve that and we have more content but still have quality and that human touch?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so those are things that you can put in your different files within like Cloud Cowork if you're gonna use that specific ecosystem. So you have something called global instructions, you can put information about yourself. So if you're making a YouTube video, hey, these are personality traits I want to have in this script. You can start it over there. Uh, same with on like the project level for each specific video, you can have instructions within a project saying this is what I want, X, Y, or Z, throw in these interesting tidbits, and then goes back into the skills file uh that you have that it essentially does some sort of automation. You can define what you want in the skills file. And I think throwing all that type of stuff in there will make things unique to you rather than just a broad, hey, write me a YouTube script for XYZ.

SPEAKER_00

And I know you use AI for your intro and your outro, but uh when it comes to structuring your content, do you use AI and do you actually create scripts for everything, or do you create topics and then you just talk on top of it? What is your process like?

SPEAKER_01

Because I have to deal with like a lot of data generation, I will ask for AI to help me build out data or examples for videos because, like in a video where I'm talking about cloud code, I might go over 10 different examples. Um, it just would take too much time for me to go out there, build out the fictitious data sets, and go and record that specific video. So, and purposes like that, and I will alert the audience like, hey, this data was generated by Claude, it would just save me time. It doesn't make sense for me to spend an hour grabbing a resource just for one part of a particular video. I think Claude is also really good at helping you give ideas. So sometimes if I'm working on a subject, I'll say, Hey, can you do a little bit of additional thinking? Uh, maybe we can extend this out. Anything else that I'm possibly missing on this topic, let it do its research. And I go back and forth. A lot of people just assume the first response is what you should use, but it's really not. You should keep prompting it and try to get the best results as possible.

SPEAKER_00

How do you actually simplify uh complex ideas without actually losing depth?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know, I just kind of picked it up over time to be honest with you. I some people will still say that my content is pretty complicated, so others will say it's too simplified. I mean, it really just depends on your audience. In the education space, I think it's okay to be technical if your audience expects that.

SPEAKER_00

And what actually keeps people watching a technical video? Because we have to think about that. We have to think about retention somehow. If you want people to watch your full video, what do you think about? Is there any catch in the middle of the video that you're aware of now?

SPEAKER_01

Retention is still something that I'm trying to figure out a little bit more. I just try to give the videos like a lot of different ideas. Um, let's say I have like a seven tips video, uh, so that way you have to keep watching every single tip, and maybe you allude to a later tip within that specific intro. Again, that's something I'm trying to look at, and I'm still testing out things to this day uh to get that retention higher.

SPEAKER_00

And is there anything that you've done in the beginning that now you look back and you notice that it's wrong? And if there's anyone trying to create educational content you would advise them against doing?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean there's quite a few different things. Number one is uh don't really focus on the SEO side of things, really focus on things that people are just gonna click on because they want to watch your content over and over again. If you try to hyper focus for a specific problem SEO-wise, those people aren't gonna watch those other videos. Number two, if you're in the education space, try to focus on one domain. Now, obviously, data does roll up into AI, but uh all those people that watch the data content don't necessarily watch my AI content, which I do think hinders my channel. Um, but I didn't want to make a new channel specifically for that, uh, which kind of sucks, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. So really try to hyper focus on one topic. Uh, don't really focus on the SEO side of things. I would say even if you're an education channel and you think, hey, hooks are stupid, do the hooks because at least on the data that I have, hooks do work really well in the education space. For the longest time, I ignored it, thinking, you know, people are gonna watch a topic, they don't really care about the hook, which again goes to the SEO mindset. If I rank for a specific keyword, they're gonna go there, but those just people just never see it around. And what do you think actually drove the growth that you've built on YouTube? I think partly like the AI stuff has been taking off across the board. Like, if you see any type of claw content, a lot of people are really interested in learning this stuff. So, like, if you build up really good content on that space right now, they do get a good amount of views. And I think uh partly just taking a look at adding in the hooks, adding in better titles, working on better thumbnails. Like my old thumbnails used to be complicated. Now I've really simplified them down. Uh, just really just listening to what YouTube experts are saying out there, take what their advice and audit your channel. Is your channel doing the right thing? Because I know, like looking at my channel this year, which wanted to grow it this year, um, rather than just having it as an asset, I was like, man, I I'm doing a ton of things wrong. I need to really refocus on there.

SPEAKER_00

And is there any specific topic that you've noticed that is performing really well in your niche right now?

SPEAKER_01

Anything, Claude, because they keep pushing out so many different features. Everyone wants to know, like, what's the latest feature? What are ways that I could save time? I mean, it's uh as much as there's a ton of content out there, there's still a lot of sections that are a bit unexplored. But the reason why it's unexplored is there's just so much to these tools that it's impossible to stay up to date.

SPEAKER_00

One thing that I've noticed is Claude is becoming so massive, even in mainstream media, in a way that it's surpassing GPT, which is what people usually use, um, traditional people. One thing that I also noticed is that now some companies are using Claude to hire. So what they're doing is challenges to for people to beat Claude and see if you're actually better than Claude. So I think it's really what you're doing is really important because that actually helps people not only understand this new system is and this new reality that we're living, but also it helps people um opening doors and um in the workspace. So uh have you noticed this kind of things? That is there anything um that you notice culturally or in the workspace that changed everything after Claude, especially after the latest updates?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I I'll say in like my workspace and other workspaces as well, you're sometimes forced to use specific models. Um, so depending on the company, like you're forced into one specific LLM or not, uh, just based off of regulations and contracts and things like that. Obviously, I can't talk about what I do for a full-time job just based off of on that side of things, but I'll just leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00

What's the process for you for coming up with video ideas? Do you check what's working or do you check like mostly the news or what's the new model out? What is your process like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I think there's a mixture, like new model stuff and new features, I think do pretty well. And then I would talk about like what's going on in an app, but my process has kind of changed a little bit. I'm really kind of focusing a little bit more on the ideation side of things because what I've noticed is I should really focus on what works in other niches and then apply that into the AI niche. Now I don't have enough data as of yet to say if that definitively works or not. I assume it should, but uh, I've been really kind of trying to focus on that. Like, okay, this works in X niche, let's try to make an AI focused video uh around CLOD or any and based around that.

SPEAKER_00

And do you think educational content can be entertaining or do you think it should be separate?

SPEAKER_01

I mean it can be. I don't think I'm super entertaining. Uh, some people might think I am, I don't think I am, but um it really just depends on the audience that you build out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but do you think uh in order to build trust, because I I do notice a lot of people when they come for a technical video, they don't expect it to make jokes or to light up the mood a little bit. Uh what's your take on this? Do you think uh in order to build trust, people should be a little bit more serious?

SPEAKER_01

Again, I think it's on the personality of the creator, because like if you watch a hormozy or if you watch a Gary Vied, like they have a distinct personality uh that follows their channel, and that's not gonna work for every single creator. So I'd say just be yourself. If you're like one of crack jokes and that's the type of person you are, throw it in there. If you're not that type of person, don't try to be entertaining. Um, people watching YouTube videos, they're not gonna agree with every single creator. Some people will say, I like Alex Ramosy, some people are gonna say I like Gary Vee and consume all of their content. Some people will watch both. Um, con uh your personality can be polarizing to other people. So just really focus on who you are.

SPEAKER_00

And why do you think people watch your videos until the end?

SPEAKER_01

I try to put out some really great content. I obviously work a full-time job that I use AI daily in, and uh I try to have that type of authority associated with it. Obviously, I wish I knew how more people would watch to the end because I see some of these other channels growing really fast, and you know it's always uh you shouldn't always be comparing yourself to others in the niche, but I know I could do better, at least producing the videos and figure out some other aspects of it as of yet.

SPEAKER_00

And it's hard not to compare yourself, especially on social media. It's a it's the perfect place to do that and the most toxic place to. But uh one thing that is very interesting is the school community that you've built. When did you decide to go beyond YouTube? And why did you make that decision?

SPEAKER_01

I looked at it from the perspective of like at a certain point I will want to monetize. Like I really haven't monetized the audience perspective of it, which you know, every education creator eventually does monetize it. Since I do have a full-time job, I don't have to worry about the income coming in every single month. But I do know, like, hey, I built all these type of videos. Eventually, I need to have other sources than just the YouTube ad revenue, which I would not tell people just to hyper focus on rad revenue because it can fluctuate a lot month over month. And even if your video, like one month it takes off, one month it doesn't, that could hurt your income if you have all of your eggs in one basket. In addition, I know with school you can start collecting email addresses, and I know it's with other platforms as well, and that can turn into an email list. One of the things I've learned just in general for marketing is email lists is always one of the best ways to sell some sort of product. So I want to build out that email list. On top of it, when you have some sort of YouTube sponsorship, you can package things together. I have a YouTube channel, I have an email list, I have a website. Let's package all these together and then you're gonna get a higher rate rather than just saying I'm gonna do a 30-second ad read. So I looked at it in a perspective, I'm like, we could have a community which I'll find out from some of the people, like what content they like, what they don't like, and you can engage with people. On top of that, you can store all your resources, you can funnel people in any video, check out my school group or check out my Discord or whatever the case may be. I just thought there's a lot of opportunities there, and I should just really capitalize on it.

SPEAKER_00

And I know EdSense is not reliable for everyone, but in your niche, is there a lot of opportunity for sponsorships?

SPEAKER_01

I think there is. Like I get a ton of sponsorship emails, but the thing is you gotta be wary because people vibe code AI apps all the time, and then they'll say, Hey, I want to do a sponsorship, and do you really want to ruin your reputation on your channel over like 200 bucks, 300 bucks, 500 bucks, even like a few thousand dollars? You gotta think about how long it takes to build out an audience and the loyalty of your audience, and then you start pushing some shoddy products. So, like, I'm very conservative on what type of sponsors I will want on the channel. In fact, I don't really take too many sponsorship deals, but I do know that there are bigger companies that are doing sponsorships with some of these AI channels that have done like five-figure deals, six-figure deals. Uh, so maybe one day one of those will reach out and it'll be a nice payday.

SPEAKER_00

How do you choose the companies that you actually want to work with? Uh is there any metric that you follow to make sure it's a reliable source, a reliable company?

SPEAKER_01

I think like a mixture of how long they've been around and then like the reviews that I see online and things like that. Uh, like there's an SEO company that reached out that I already've known about for years. So if the sponsorship goes through over there, awesome. If not, not that in the world. So something like that I'll take, but then there's something like, oh, we have a brand new web scraper and we started last month. It's like, why am I gonna take on that type of risk associated with it? Because if anything goes bad with that software, everyone's gonna say, hey, you promoted this, this doesn't look good at all. Um, so there's that risk reward side of it.

SPEAKER_00

And how do you think about turning content into a business? Because that's something that a lot of people are doing now. How do you go about it?

SPEAKER_01

Again, I didn't really hyper focus on that because I have a full-time job and I looked at the content side of it. Like I have this YouTube channel as an asset. If I get a new job, that could be a 20 or 30% increase in salary. If I, you know, keep this channel off for a very long time. Let's say I get three jobs over 10 years. You're now you're talking about 30, 40% pay bump every time that you switch jobs. Like the YouTube channel itself could be worth it uh from the revenue itself from the full-time aspect of it. But really, this year, when my focus is to look at like the business side of a YouTube channel because it's been very neglected. Um, at least in like the AI space, obviously, you have customers that could reach out. I've had a few of those over time, and it's really nice to take on an additional work over there. But I think there's also the side of it really helping out people, and like people will pay a membership price every month for someone to give them advice or jump on calls with them. Uh, so that's something that I do want to explore down the line because I think it'd be a nice little ad to the AdSense.

SPEAKER_00

And we know that views don't necessarily equal money. So, what do you think separates creators who make money from those who just get views? And how can you actually turn those views into a profitable source?

SPEAKER_01

I think first is building out the audience, which goes back to why I say don't optimize for SEO, because a lot of my views, I'll just say they are from like SEO-focused videos uh in the data space, and those people probably aren't gonna convert uh for any type of offer that I have today. So, really focusing on you know what type of viewers you have on your channel. You want obviously want to get as many regular and casual viewers as possible, but obviously you still want to have new viewers that are coming in every single week. Um, because those people that are regular viewers or casual are the ones that will spend the money if they have that available to them. Uh, but really solve problems. At the end of the day, people spend money to solve any sort of issue that they have. So, what is their issue? They can't learn AI fast enough, they can't apply AI to their business. Like, if you solve the problems, the money will come.

SPEAKER_00

And when it comes to your full work, I know you cannot talk about what you do, but uh, what parts of the process of your uh YouTube and your school community is automated?

SPEAKER_01

I think there's a decent part of it that's automated on the YouTube side. I mean, you can look at like the hooks or the titles, like that's pretty much automated. I don't have to really focus on all those aspects of it. I just have to fine-tune it to where I'm pretty happy with it. I have an editor that I pay to help go through this as well. I do have uh one, sorry, I do have a YouTube consultant also that kind of helps me out. So he kind of looks at my videos right now. He's trying to build out his own personal portfolio. So um we talk every single week, like, hey, maybe try to focus on this to make your YouTube videos better and things like that. Uh so that helps me a ton because I don't have to do as much review and kind of going back. Uh, data is pretty easy for me to take a look at what is working or not. Um, but it's really kind of pretty fine-tuned. I just have to record a video. I already have the intro as well as the hooks, and I do use AI as well to help me build out the thumbnails. So I'll have ideas of like what I want for the thumbnail, but I'll say make the lighting better. Uh, add this text over here to the side, and I'll use nano banana for that. And again, like I have Photoshop, I know how to use Photoshop, but I think I can build out a thumbnail in a few minutes rather in the past, it would take me 30 minutes to an hour to build out a thumbnail. I'd rather just have AI get me like 80-90% there.

SPEAKER_00

Did you notice a shift before you actually started using nanobanana enough to use in it? Is it is it effective?

SPEAKER_01

It's an interesting question on there because when I started using nano banana as well, I noticed that oh, I shouldn't say I noticed, but I had people who reached out and said my thumbnails were too complicated, which in hindsight, taking a look at everything, they were. And you know, one of the things I've learned from binging a lot of YouTube consultants, you need to have simplistic thumbnails. Like that gets people over their simplistic thumbnails paired with the title. And going back, I looked, I'm like, man, a lot of my videos they either repeated texts that were in the title and there, which should never do, they were too complicated, like it didn't understand like what was going on in that video. So, you know, it's tough to say because obviously there's that other external data source of knowing I needed to have them simplistic as I was using that.

SPEAKER_00

And you brand your channel as Ryan and Matt. How does that partnership work today?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so Matt does a lot of the customer focused stuff. I do a lot more of the videos, he still tries to do like one video a week or bi-weekly. Um, but I just can't take on customers because of my full-time job where he runs an AI consultant agency. He actually knows so much more than I do, but just doesn't have the time to make videos. So we kind of collaborate on the videos. He does a lot of the customer work, whereas I just make a lot of the video side.

SPEAKER_00

And how do you divide roles between content and business?

SPEAKER_01

Just kind of just figure it out as it goes.

SPEAKER_00

So, for creators or agencies listening, how can they start using AI workflows in their content today? What would you advise that has actually worked for you and it's not generic?

SPEAKER_01

The biggest thing for me, like first start split testing your different titles, feed your title ideas through AI and ask how they could be improved and then give it different angles as well and different types of power words is that way you can start tracking like what actually clicks for your audience or not. If you aren't using hooks and you're a new channel, obviously start utilizing hooks where you can. Are they gonna be perfect out of the gate? No, but you can refine that skill over and over again. I mean, the more that you binge watch different YouTube consultants, they have ideas, take what works and implement that into your skill. If you don't like something, you don't have to add that uh specifically in there. On the agency side of things, I think what a lot of people are starting to do, and people reach out to me with is like, hey, here's your YouTube stats. This was built by Claude Code. And it's like, okay, cool, like I know how to do all that type of stuff. But for someone that doesn't, like they might get a whole page of YouTube stats and recommendations, and they're like, wow, this is really cool. I want to sign on with you now. But if you're an agency, you could build out some sort of code or some sort of automation that scrapes data, uh, scrapes maybe the first 30 seconds or a minute of a video and gives some specific feedback based off of your own knowledge base. Uh, a lot of creators might think that's really interesting. I get a lot of spam emails from quote unquote agencies or people saying, hey, I can make your videos get a hundred times more views. And it's like, cool, what proof do you have? Nothing. All you just said in the email is I can get you a hundred times more views. Uh, versus the people that really have kind of shown and I've worked with in the past, they'll loom, go through my channel, and then I'll have like different reports. And it's like, okay, at least that person spent some time building out a tool, spent some time going through the video trying to review it. And I think that's like the disconnect. A lot of people think, hey, I can start a YouTube agency, I can get on all these YouTubers and make a ton of money. And they see like the best consultants for a reason charge $300, $400, $500 an hour, but that's because they've worked with the best of the best. Like, you're not gonna get that rate out of the get-go. And hey, where's your portfolio? Like the guy I'm working with right now, Inside Creators, he uh essentially wanted to build out a portfolio. He's like, I want to work with five to ten different YouTubers, I want to do it for free. I want to build out my portfolio showing, you know, the growth and different things that we changed over time. Like, if you want to start an agency on YouTube, do something like that. Now, I don't always advocate for free work, but at least that builds out a portfolio and you can share that with other people. I've done these 10 creators. Here's your channel audit, and it makes you stand out rather than that mess of people that can just spam out. Emails, hey, I found XYZ on your YouTube channel. Why aren't you paying me $200 an hour? It's like, first, I don't know you. Why am I gonna pay you $200 an hour for an audit? What are your customers? You said you have no customers. Like it, there's such a disconnect with like, and I hate to say it, with like a lot of these agencies that pop up overnight.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I do think the first example of AI slop that comes to my mind is the spam emails that we get every single day. That it's like that's clearly something that was not thought through. They were not thinking about you, they were just like trying to make money somehow. And I think that's a real issue because people are focusing on crafting those messages using AI, but they don't know how to prompt it properly. So it might even be a good deal. We never know. They might be great, but I feel like the first impression is not the best. So uh what would you advise people that are actually starting an agency right now? How should they approach people when it comes to that? How should they craft their emails in a way that it's that they would be able to get more responses?

SPEAKER_01

First, don't have these emails. I don't know why I've been getting them now. They'll say, like, my uncle shared your channel, or my sister shared the channel. It's like they're just so cringy to me. And just like I look at that email, it's like you're already starting off on a lie. Like, no, uh no offense, your sister did not share my channel. It's like 95% male. Like, statistically, that did not happen. Um, so there's things like that that you just like kind of chuckle, you're like already starting off a lie on that side of things, and then they'll write like two sentences like, hey, your thumbnails suck, I could really improve them and 10x your views in a month. And you're like, you can say they suck, but like there's no action points over here. Second, 10x views in a month, that's not realistic. Um, so where people really stand out as they have some sort of offer that they actually provide, like, hey, I want to work with you for XYZ. This is what I can provide. These are my past customers. It's like if like I do uh I used to do a decent amount of freelancing. How do you actually stand out? Number one is your proof. Like, if you don't have proof, you're not gonna land higher paying customers. So you need to have build out some sort of portfolio. And obviously, the person I'm working with right now is building out a free portfolio for himself. And again, I don't always advocate for free work, you can always do like some low ticket or something like that, but build your portfolio that is super important. Second, you need to give value to someone. I just opened up that email and just it's all spammy. What value did I get? Someone went into my school group and then was an ideation creator or ideation consultant and said, Hey, based off of YouTube channel, I think this idea could work really, really well. Maybe you turn this into a video and you let me know, and sent me a 10-minute loom just going through my past videos and stuff like that. He went into the school group, DM me over there and sent a 10-minute loom. How many people that are starting agencies are gonna actually do that? Go in there and do a video, record it, and then add a Figma board of everything that was built out. So I know like this guy spent probably 30 minutes, 45 minutes like just preparing it, and then said, I'm happy to jump on a call an hour with you for free. So you look at that, you're like, someone says, My uncle just emailed me about your channel, it says it needs to do thumbnails, versus join my school group, sent me a message, and said, Oh, I'm also happy to jump on an hour call and walk through ideas with you. Who are you gonna more likely to work with?

SPEAKER_00

That's true. And if if anyone comes up to you right now and they're like, I want to do what you're doing, what is the first advice that you're giving them?

SPEAKER_01

My first advice is kind of really figuring out what your channel is. Like, is this something that you're gonna put as a resume adder? Like, hey, I'm in this niche and I want to build out AI for my specific industry, which I think for a lot of working professionals, it's smart tube is I think that's a differentiator, especially if you're applying to jobs. The job market's very tough. You have on there, hey, I focus on AI for a specific industry, like that is really gonna make you stand out in that job application process. Like, again, I work at a fintech. Imagine you work at a fintech as well, and you just have a YouTube channel, just AI for fintechs. If you're applying for any type of operation role and you have AI for fintechs in there, that makes you stand out. If you're in the fitness industry and you're applying for some fitness company, you focus on AI for fitness companies, again, that will make you stand out. So um are you building it for like your career or are you building it uh for entertainment? Like my collectible channel is more entertainment focused. I don't really care about it as much as this. Um, that sounds bad, but like this channel has a lot more growth opportunities than my collectible one, which I just do for fun. Um, you have that side of it. Not every YouTube channel has to be profitable. If you enjoy something, you just want to make videos on it, there's just nothing wrong with that. Or you can look at it the business side uh where you just want to hyper focus and say this is gonna replace my nine to five job. I always will say the caveat, we only focus on the YouTube channel. There is the possibility that that YouTube channel could get demonetized or deleted, or like people don't resonate with your content long term. So it is always a riskier bucket, but there is huge potential there if you were able to make it click.

SPEAKER_00

And do you think the space is saturated right now, or are we still early on in the process?

SPEAKER_01

I think AI has a lot of hype right now, and there is a ton of channels that are popping up overnight. Are people putting in the effort of making videos consistently for six months or a year or two years without knowing, like, hey, I'm not gonna make a profit from this? I mean, legit, I've been making videos for two and a half years beyond just a few freelance customers. I haven't really profited from my YouTube channel. I put most of the money back right into it. Um, a lot of people will give it three weeks and say it's not profitable, I'm gonna quit now. And it's really just a grind. Like, you got to really focus on continue learning, which I didn't make do that the first two years, I just had it as a resume item and uh really where you want to take it in the future.

SPEAKER_00

And is there any specific metric that you pay more attention to?

SPEAKER_01

Right now is regular and casual viewers. Like, I want to see that number go up every single month because those are the people that will eventually buy your product, those are the people that enjoy your channel. Um, whereas I think minus like getting a play button, which would be pretty cool. I think subscribers are more of a vanity metric, uh, where it's like cool, you can have as many subscribers, but if they're not engaging with your audience all the time, it's not great. Same with views, like an aspect, views do bring in money and they obviously help bring in sponsors and all that type of stuff, but in a in a way, it's kind of a vanity metric as well, because we could optimize for SEO and people are gonna watch the one video, subscribe, and that's it, uh, versus like actually really building out that audience that cares about your content.

SPEAKER_00

And I have one final question. We see that things are changing very fast in this industry. How do you keep up? And how do you teach people to keep up with everything right now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think even people that make content every week should really struggle with everything that's happening with AI. I would say don't just learn everything. You learn a specific skill, try to implement it within a project. You're never gonna learn everything within the AI space, and by the time you try to catch up to something, it's already gonna be outdated. So learn the small aspects that you can, implement them into projects and see real world uh solutions associated with them. And if you have like a full-time job, ask to see if you can start building out some sort of automations or try to help out your department. Again, it's gonna make you stand out to something that you can put on your resume, and you should always be thinking of like how can you level yourself up.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. Honestly, Ryan, thank you so much for doing this. If there's anything you'd like to promote right now, your school community, your cards channel, your main channel, please feel free to do so.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, if you guys want to check out my channel, it's Ryan and Matt Data Science. Obviously, it was a data focused uh channel initially, and it's pivoted more to the AI side of things, where the whole industry is in general. Um, and if you guys like uh collectibles, I have a channel also called Breakout Cards, probably upload like once or twice a month on there, and it's just a it's a pretty fun hobby for me on that side. And I have a free school group if you want other resources that deal with either data or AI. But if again, if you're in that space and you're trying to really build out a channel, focus on do you want this for a resume? Do you want this specifically to make money? Like really hyper focus on that in the beginning because that'll uh determine your direction. YouTube is not just content, it's leverage.

SPEAKER_00

If you use it right, it can open doors, create opportunities, and completely change your career. Subscribe, leave a comment, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.