Mr Reis Shares The Truth About Making Money on YouTube in 2026

Meet Philipe Reis, entrepreneur, YouTube creator, and the founder behind Mr. Reis, where he shares insights on making money online, personal branding, creator business, AI systems, and building more freedom through the internet.

In this episode, we talk about Philipe’s journey from starting YouTube as a teenager in Brazil to moving out early, building online businesses, experimenting with dropshipping, and eventually creating a successful English-speaking YouTube channel focused on finance, business, and digital leverage.

We dive deep into YouTube monetization, audience building, creator economics, CPMs, personal branding, niche selection, storytelling, content strategy, visual identity, and what it actually takes to turn a YouTube channel into a real business.

Philipe shares why creators should not rely entirely on platform revenue, why owning your audience through email lists and communities matters, and how losing access to traffic can force creators to rethink their entire business model.

We also discuss the difference between creating content as a hobby versus building a media business, why clout can be an illusion, how to avoid building the wrong audience, and why ideas, analytics, positioning, and consistency often matter more than personality alone.

Philipe breaks down his perspective on AI, automation, creator workflows, content research, scripting, retention, personal branding, and why he believes creators should learn to work with new tools instead of being afraid of them.

We also talk about authenticity, why so many people become self-conscious on camera, how to develop confidence as a creator, why trend-chasing can hurt long-term growth, and how creators can build an audience around real experience instead of copying whatever is currently working.

Whether you are a creator, entrepreneur, YouTuber, freelancer, agency owner, aspiring online business owner, or someone trying to make money online through content, this episode is packed with practical insights on audience ownership, creator growth, online business, personal branding, and building a more independent life.

Learn more about Philipe:

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@mrreis7

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/philipereis7

Wealth Academy Lite:
https://www.mrreis.io/makeyourfirst1konline

Wealth Academy Pro:
https://www.mrreis.io/proacademy

Build your one-person operating system:
https://www.mrreis.io/onepersonos

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today we're joined by Philip, a creator and entrepreneur focused on YouTube, online business, AI, and personal branding. We talk about content strategy, authenticity online, AI tools, storytelling, and what actually makes creators grow. Let's get into this.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

So basically, we spoke before, I'm an entrepreneur from Italy, also living in the US. Worked on social media my entire life. When I was 14, I started doing YouTube. This worked out for me. After I started doing YouTube at 15, I moved out of my dad's house, went to move live by myself to do YouTube full-time. I started doing dropshipping and many other online business models. Did that for like five years, stopped, went to the UK. Then I tried to do uh YouTube once again because in back when I was doing dropshipping, it was on the hype at the time. But then it actually fell off, didn't work as as well as before when it came around. And I re-went back to YouTube full time. And I've been doing that, still do it till today. How long did it take for you to be able to live full-time off YouTube? Actually, not long. Uh, when I started doing YouTube, I posted a video. Uh it was how to hack uh Facebook accounts, Instagram accounts, and then I posted another video about a game that how old are you? I'm 28 so maybe you know this game. I might uh in Brazil it was known as uh Colheita Feliz on Facebook. I remember this game, yeah. At the time it was really popular, yeah. So I also made a video on how to hack this game, and those two videos picked up millions of views, and my channel grew quick very quickly. On the second month, I received this letter from Google uh to register an AdSense account, and I started generating ad revenue. And after like four or five months, I decided to just do it full time, and I started using my YouTube channel to promote my products that I was selling as a drop shipping.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

And were you doing content? Yeah, it worked really quick. Yeah, were you doing content to an English-speaking audience in the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

No, I was doing content for a Portuguese-speaking audience in the beginning. Actually, I actually still have this channel up on YouTube, 15 years old channel. You can go and watch the videos right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I'll actually check it out. And what's the difference, would you say, by actually creating content in a non-English speaking country, in an English-speaking country?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

It's huge because the difference is the biggest difference uh is that you can get a lot less views with an English-speaking audience and make a much higher amount of revenue. For you to be able to make a living with a Portuguese-speaking audience, you have to have millions of subscribers. Uh, so it's really hard for anyone to break into this barrier. And with an English-speaking audience, you can make a lot more money. They have more purchasing power. The CPM is higher, CPM is just how much you get paid for you. Yeah, let's say with a few, not a few thousand, but tens of thousands of subscribers, you can live pretty well on an English-speaking audience, let's say.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Did you have any sort of strategy going into this?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Or was was it like just luck? No. In the beginning, it was usually most mostly luck. But I actually liked what I was doing. I didn't do it for work. I actually didn't even know you could make money from YouTube when I started doing it. I actually discovered I could make money when they sent me this letter. They sent me a check for $116, which was at the time a lot of money for me. I was 14. So like 15 years ago is a lot of money. And that's when I discovered you could do it as a business. But I was just doing it for hobby, like posting out things that I was interested in.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

How many subscribers do you think people need to in in order to actually make a living off of YouTube? Do you think there's a number?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Do you think it depends on your audience? It depends on your audience, heavily. Um, it depends on where they're from. That's number one, as we just discussed. Number two, it also depends on what you're talking about. If I'm speaking about gaming, for example, the audience that's going to watch those videos are usually kids. They don't have any purchasing power, they don't have money to spend. So, YouTube, by default, they will know this and the sponsors will have less money to advertise on those videos. Therefore, you get paid a little bit less. For example, on the finance niche, which is the niche that I'm in right now, I would get paid anywhere from 11 to up to 60, 70 dollars per 1,000 views, depending on the niche of the topic of the video, all these things. Gaining, they get paid one to three dollars per 1,000 views. So it's a bigger difference. There's also the fact that they can get more views, less people are interested in making money, more people are interested in entertainment. So they can, you know, make up for it by selling products, but also you can sell products in my niche as well. The difference is you will need less views, less subscribers to make either a similar or higher amount of revenue.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

If anyone comes up to you right now and they're like, I actually want to start doing YouTube full-time, I want to make money off this. What niche would you recommend them? Do you think your niche is a profitable one for people to start, you know, in you know, actually getting into this?

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I think it's a great niche. I think it's pretty hard though. If you want to start, I wouldn't recommend starting with finance unless you have some type of prior experience. I actually also didn't start with finance. I started with uh technology, as I said, like hacking stuff, teaching people how to format their computers. Then I jumped into uh um pranks, then I started doing prank videos. And then when I learned YouTube, when I had a lot of experience, and you also have to have some type of proof. When you're teaching people how to make money, you need to have a background in finance, you need to have made something yourself, achieved something, or else people won't trust you. So, based on this, I wouldn't recommend people to start on finance, just start in something they're interested in, learn the game, get some background experience, get some proof real life that you can use afterwards, and then you can jump into finance if that's something you're interested in.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

When did you start getting into finance? When did you realize that was um you know something that you're into, and also how helpful was it when it comes to managing your own business and your internet personality?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

So basically, I started getting into finance in 2023. That's when I started actually the new channel that I have now. Before I used to be, I created a different channel for every niche. This one, which is the one that I have about finance, came about in 2023. Um, that's actually when I jumped into it. I was always interested in finance, but I never did it as my job. It was very helpful because you cannot speak about something you don't understand. I mean, you can, but you're gonna be copying what everybody else is always saying, so you're gonna be generating more slop, let's say it. Yeah. Just regurgitating things that you heard online. When you speak from experience, people can actually tell. And you have your own unique point of view, which is what actually makes you grow. Yeah. I think it's really hard to grow on YouTube if you don't have that your unique point of view, your own experience. Yeah, some niches actually require this. Let's say that I have a friend he's trying to go into the masculinity niche, talk about like family, masculinity, health, dating. These are niches you need some type of experience in, or else it becomes very hard for you to teach people.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

It's interesting that you say that because uh one thing that I notice about you is that you feel a lot of people think that content is marketing, but you seem to think that content is the business itself, right? So why is that?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Content is a form of client acquisition. So it can be both. Um, it can be for Mr. Beast, it's both. Yeah, it's the traffic, which is the client acquisition, which is what most people believe content is, they're not wrong, they're correct. Uh, but it can also be the business itself. I usually don't recommend it be the business itself alone. One of the reasons I don't recommend is because in 2025 there was a new change to YouTube's policies and it deleted over 2,000 of my videos because all of a sudden they couldn't be posted on YouTube anymore. They were against their new policies. So if I was relying 100% on those videos to live, then it was a snap of a finger, my entire business would be gone. What systems do you feel like most people, um, most creators completely fail to build? Um, I think they failed to own their the contact to their own audience. They rely too much on platforms, they think it's always gonna be there. And if you don't actually have the contact information to get in touch with your customer, then when something like what happened to me happens to them, yeah, they're gone, which actually did happen to many YouTubers in my niche. When YouTube changed their policies, it affects many, many people, thousands of people, and many of the people that I know personally. Yeah, and they just quit YouTube because their channel got deleted and now they don't have a way to make sales, they don't have a way to reach the customers that were buying from them in the past.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

How were you able to still keep generating revenue? And you know, what did that experience teach you about real leverage?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

The first question is I have an email list, which is exactly what I'm saying. Uh, I believe in controlling the content for your audience. So I'm still able to email them, make sales by emails and stuff, things like this. So when my own traffic was gone, I could still get in touch with them and sell them new products, new courses, coaching, um, like school communities, all of these things that I actually have, not using my YouTube channel, which was very helpful. Actually, I had learned this before. Uh, when I quit dropshipping, I actually had the same issue. My business failed. After four years running the same exact store, it wasn't making any sales, so I had to jump into YouTube back again. And I already knew that if I didn't have access to those customers, then it could become a real problem in the future. But when I started this new YouTube channel, I already took precautions in the beginning. I started building a list right from the first month. I started doing all this thing. Real leverage, you you have to control the there. A thing that MJ DeMarco teaches in one of his books. It's the commandment of control in business. If you don't own this, you're screwed. And when you do own this, you're always protected in the future. And it's also leverage. Speaking one too many is uh very, very useful.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Is there anything that people think it's leverage, but you've noticed that it's an illusion?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

I think clout. They imagine a lot of people think social media is just like fame. Yeah. This just doesn't exist. People are interested in value, uh, in my opinion. Unless you're like someone like Mr. Beast, that's genuinely entertaining, they're coming to you for some type of value. And uh it depends it doesn't matter how many numbers on the screen you see on your subscribers, it's not gonna bring you anything. That's a genuine illusion, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Why do you think so many creators build audience but never build like ecosystems?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

What type of ecosystems?

SPEAKER_02 10:36

I would say just some sort of like the sense of community and making sure that that's not like the only revenue that you have and the stability that comes from it. Because a lot of people think that just by being in front of the camera and by having a video that is going viral, you're set and you're gonna live off of Ed Sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

In my experience, I can't spike speak for everyone, but from me, this certainly happened to me as well, especially the first time when I started doing YouTube. When everything is going well, it's really hard to it's actually very easy to forget to set yourself up for the future. It doesn't really cross your mind when you don't have any experience that all of this could disappear. Nobody told you this before. But when you have either someone teaching you, which is very good if you do have that, or you have prior experience, then you can protect yourself. But when everything is going well, most people don't think this could ever happen. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

And you also seem pretty into brand perception and aesthetic. How much do you say does visual identity affect authority online?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

It affects to a certain extent. Definitely when I started, I didn't worry myself about visual identity that much. I just wanted to put things out fast. Because when you're starting out, that's your the advantage. Bigger YouTubers they usually take a while to prepare things because they're always worried about their visual identity and they need to look good. They have sponsors, they have all these things that they need to prepare. As a new creator, you can just put content out really fast. So your advantage is not in the visual identity in the beginning. This is something that makes a difference after you're already established. So for people that are starting, I recommend speed. And for people that are already established, I recommend, you know, going more with a brand identity, visual things. This will give you more of a long-term benefit.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Do you think speed equals quality? And do you think quality is important in the beginning, or do you think it's more about quantity?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

I think uh you should try to achieve a balance. Both are important, but speed is even more. Let's say that you're in the AI niche, which is now popping off. Uh I'm also going into the AI niche right now. I noticed, yeah. There's things releasing every single day. So if you can put out content as soon as it's out, that's one competitive advantage that very few people will be able to compete with.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

And why do you think AI is growing exponentially? We know why, but to you, like what is so appealing about this that you want to start making content about AI?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Because I think most of the things that we teach now are going to be AI driven in the future. For example, I'm in the finance niche, make money online, how to do dropshipping, how to do agencies, how to do content, personal branding. All of this is literally automated by AI, especially in my business now. It does I fired all of my employees almost. All I have now is a video editor, and it's just like I go into cloud, for example, run a command, and it's all done. Everything is just so fast. And I believe this is not going to change, it's only going to get better. AI is the future, in my opinion, and I'm gonna double down on this.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Yeah, and who knows if like in a year from now we we'll even need editors, and it's coming from me who works at a video editing agency, and that says a lot. And yeah, how how has AI helped you with your content today? Would you say have you tried doing editing with AI, for example?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

I have tried doing editing. The only thing I have not been able to automate is editing, but all of the rest, research for videos, generating scripts, uh, generating uh things like carousels posts for every single social media. I can just go into call right now, say, look, I have this topic. I want you to create an ex post about this. And it will create an ex post, threads post, community post, all at once, really fast. It's always already trained on my information. So I have like a database of all of the things that I studied myself on. It will pick uh really um relevant info and create those posts like in a single in less than a minute. Do you understand? So it's all automated now, it's really fast, it really works.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

I I see that a lot of people in you know, when they're in the business or education niche, they try to pretty much breach hustle. And I noticed that that's not really your message. Your message is more like feel like it's more like precision and leverage. And I do think that's connected to AI in a way, right? Because I do you think that in the future now, because of AI, there will be less hustle and more precision, leverage, and automation?

SPEAKER_00 15:15

I think so. Yeah, and that's exactly you're nailed it. I don't believe in the hustle too much. I think you should just automate it and create things with quality quality, and exactly what you said.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

One thing that I want to know more about is your aesthetic online because it seems like very luxury discipline. And why do you combine those visuals? And was that intentional? When did you start choosing your aesthetic?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Very recently, actually. Uh, after 2025, I started worrying more about aesthetic. And this is also created with AI. So, first, uh, this is something I teach in one of my programs. You create your brand identity, and the idea is to use the same identity over every single piece of content that you create. Therefore, when someone sees that thumbnail on YouTube or that title or something you posted, they instantly they recognize and they know it came from you. So this gives you an edge and recognizability on people. So it makes them click on your stuff, it makes it easier for you to do business.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

And you also talk a lot about freedom, right? So, what does freedom actually mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Everything, trust me. I that's the reason I went after many passports. Everything I do is to have more freedom in my life. Everything. Yeah. So if I I I make money to be able to not have to worry about money, that's one thing. So I don't like to go shop somewhere and keep looking about the price. I don't like to, when I have to travel to a country, worry about how long I can stay there. Like these things are all they represent freedom. I don't like to be bound to a country's tax laws, for example. I want to be able to take advantage of everything. Just like be free, do whatever I want, whenever I want. It's really important for me.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Very after you started making money online and after you found your freedom, has your definition of success changed?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yes, a lot. When I was younger, I thought it was just like money, cars, all these things. And I definitely went this way when I was a teenager. Over time, it changed to more of like um just live your life, be healthy. Like I started in waste, not wasting, but spending a lot of money on health, like drinking water from glass bottles and these kinds of things. Uh, investing in the way that I sleep, quality of sleep, the clothes that I wear, the just these things changed to me. Spending more quality time with family, not worrying constantly about money. This is my definition of success today.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

You also quit school, right? So uh do you think traditional education is becoming less relevant for creators right now and for business owners?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Uh university will not even exist in 10 years. So my son is just born, he's a month old. So I think when he's 18, he won't have any need to go to university anymore.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Do you think AI is gonna have um something to do with that in a way? Because I one thing that I always ask the guests is if they can imagine what AI will look like, let's say in five years from now, and nobody has an answer to that. What do you think is going to happen?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Pretty hard to uh to know what AI is gonna look like five years from now because it's evolving so fat. Can think of a future that most of the things that we know today, professions, they're gonna be done by machines, not only just AI in our computers, but physical robots doing them. Uh in the US, that's also almost already a reality. Um, you go there, you can see like Elon Musk implementing robots. There are other companies as well. Yeah. I think it's gonna be huge. It's just gonna be a huge part of our lives.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

And also, like you've advised like hundreds of channels, like to you, what do you think separates a channel that becomes you know business from a channel that is just hobby?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

I think that when someone starts as a hobby, like I did, it's usually either they don't have a necessity to make money yet, like I was very young, yeah, or they're just kind of coping. Like they're gonna they're gonna say, I'm gonna try this as a hobby. If it works, then it works. If it doesn't, then I don't have to blame myself. Do you understand? But deep down, I think people really want to turn it into a business because it's a business model that a lot of people like. Yeah, and being able to record content for a living is in my opinion, it's really good. So I don't think people usually want to start YouTube channels as a hobby, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Why would you do that?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

When you audit a creator, what tells you instantly that they will make it or they won't make it?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

It's hard to see in the beginning, but uh a few signs was when people are actually willing to be obsessed with it. Like obsession is what I think breaks or makes the person. Right. Most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Do you have any example of um any creator that you've worked with that you don't need to mention, but you've noticed that their obsession was actually hurtful to their content?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Not really. Um, I have a few creators that are pretty obsessed, and uh they're actually very successful because of it. It hurts their personal lives. Yeah. It does to me too. Usually it affects your personal life.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah, I would say so. A lot of my friends that were obsessed with with YouTube, I would say they've done really well. So I do think obsession in a healthy way might work. It just might. But uh, do you think that most people misunderstand the algorithm? Because there's a lot of you know generic advice out there, but what do you think actually works? And what do you think that people think works, but it's not really that important?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Biggest one that people think works and is the thing that hurts them the most, is not just it doesn't work, it actively works against you, is to promote your content. For example, um, platforms today they're highly trained in algorithms to find the person that is actually interested in your content. Yeah. And when you're promoting that, like you're pasting the link and in groups in Reddit, and you just sending it to your mother, your cousins, this will actually hurt your content because when they watch it once, the algorithm will then promote it to them again. And if they don't click it in the future, then it will understand that your video isn't good. But if you just post it, don't promote it to anybody. Let the algorithm do its job. It will actually find the people that are interested in that content and will watch your videos the next time you post it. So this will actually make you grow a lot faster than promoting your content to other people manually.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Just let it do its job. If you're a creator or a business owner trying to stay consistent online, editing can easily become a full-time job. That's why vidPros exist. You upload the footage and your dedicated editor handles the cuts, captions, sound, color grading, thumbnails, and short form clips. You can try vidPros with a $100 try a week that includes 10 hours of editing. Go to vidprolls.com to get started. Stop editing and start growing. What would you say to people that They post a video, the video goes viral, but they say that the audience that the algorithm you know promoted it to was the wrong audience. How do you fix that?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

It's pretty hard to fix. I've been in this situation before, actually. Yeah. Uh, for example, the type of content that I'm interested in is uh very high-level uh entrepreneurial content. Yes. And the content on my channel that exploded was for beginner-level content. There's very few things you can teach for beginners. Yeah, you have to keep repeating the same type of content. And this is what actually gets kind of like boring over time. You speak about the same beginner level content all the time. When you want to speak about more in-depth topics, especially if you're interested in what you're teaching, this is actually what people say, oh yeah, I have the wrong audience. That's what they're talking about. When that happened to you, what did you try to do to fix it?

SPEAKER_02 22:54

And did it work?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

It doesn't work. Uh because I already had hundreds of thousands of subscribers. It could work if I had less. Yeah. But uh if it didn't work for me, I tried teach switching the niche completely instead of teaching the beginner topics. I went very in-depth and my videos dropped from like a hundred thousand views to a few thousand views per video. So I just had to go back and it just doesn't work. It's better if you create a completely new channel and start from zero.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

So do you think people should stick with it? If it's the wrong audience, make it be the right audience.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I mean, if you're really unhappy with it, if it's driving you crazy, then I would suggest uh the best option that you could do is um slightly switch. Do you know what I mean? Like create content for both channels in the beginning. Yeah, and as your other channel grows, then you can fully switch to the new channel. But if you depend on the first channel to live or something, generate revenue, then yeah, I don't know, like it depends on the case.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

One thing that you always mention is about creating new channels, and how important do you think that is in the beginning? Do you think you should try every single niche in one channel just because you're figuring things out? Or do you think you should create multiple channels?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

No, I think you should create one channel in the beginning. Um, for example, finance is a huge niche, but there are many ways people make money. They make money online, they make money working a nine to five job. So you can branch into different sub-niches. For example, if you're starting a new finance channel today, go create one eight videos. One about uh productivity, one about nine to five jobs, one about side hustles, one about drop shipping. One of those videos will get slightly more views, slightly more engagement, and probably that's what you're good at teaching. So then you should decide what to follow on on your channel, but not um really multiple niches in one channel. I don't think that works. What do you think matters most?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Like if you were to you know categorize like idea, packaging, editing, personality. Which one do you think is the most important?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Personality, not so much. The idea is the most important, and also analyzing what's happened. This is what everybody neglects. This is the biggest problem when someone's trying to grow on social media, post, post, post, post, post content, and they don't know why it's working, they never look back at the analytics to see what isn't working. Like the platforms are very good at telling you this, most people ignore it. So I think that is the biggest bottleneck. And ideas, it all starts from the idea. If the idea is popular enough with that niche, the probability of you having success creating this piece of content is very high right from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

And you're also like focused on positioning. Why do you think so many creators with less talent outperform more talented people on social media? What do you mean? Like positioning. I think the way you put create your content is just very much you have a strategy, at least now it seems like you have a goal, you have an aesthetic that you follow, you do position yourself as an authority in your niche. And a lot of people that are not really experienced in whatever they're doing, they still outperform people that are clearly, you know, focused and know what they're doing. Why do you think that happens in the algorithm?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

I think um, especially YouTube's algorithm now is highly promoting new channels. That's one. So if you're a new creator, you do have an advantage. If you're an old creator, let's say that I post a video, there's almost 700,000 people subscribed to my channel now. Let's say that half of those are people that are currently not really interested in my content anymore. At some point they subscribed over the years, but now when my content appears on their like um feed, they just they're not interested in this finance content anymore, they've moved on to something else. This actually hurts my channel. And when you're starting brand new, you don't have this. So only people interested in that specific content you're posting now will see your video. So this is a huge advantage, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

One thing that I really want to know is that you mentioned that in a way in the beginning it was luck, but now looking back when you analyze your content and the videos that didn't perform so well, what lesson did that teach you? What were you doing in the beginning that even though you got lucky, it didn't perform well sometimes? Are there things that you changed?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

It was more of an experience. There are the biggest one is what I'm gonna say right now is when I watched back my own videos, the way I presented something, because when you have something in your mind, you need to make thousands, even millions of people understand exactly the image you have in your mind by communicating with words. So the better you can do this, the better. And now watching my own videos, I've eliminated a bunch of mistakes that I used to make when I'm speaking. I've simplified my way of communicating a message. Yeah, and I understand now how to make an idea that works in my mind be understood by thousands of people at the same time. This is uh actually huge. How important do you think storytelling is when it comes to that? Very I know a guy uh that teaches storytelling, and he said everything is a story. Now people understand thy stories, and he even has a framework. His name is Russell Brunson. I don't know if you've ever seen his content online. I haven't yet. And um, he's should really check him out. I will. And he teaches how to take any anything and turn it into a story. He says, I can tell the same story in one minute and in two hours, it can extend the length. But people understand everything through stories, it's extremely important.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

That's interesting because one thing that I noticed in the past, let's say, five years is that storytelling was kind of dying on social media with the growth of short form content, and now it seems like people are, you know, craving storytelling again. Um, do you agree with that? Did you notice that people were less interested in storytelling content and personal content and stories?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

To be completely honest with you, I believe even the short forms they were very story-based. Just a quick story, like I explained to you. Yeah. What uh exactly makes you think they were less interested in?

SPEAKER_02 29:26

I did notice that the views for content, let's say vlogs, for example, which was something that five years ago was really big, eventually it wasn't big anymore. People were focused on more technical content or you know, funny short-form content. It seems like actually listening to people talking in front of a camera just wasn't that appealing to a mass audience anymore. Did you not experience the same?

SPEAKER_00 29:53

That's exactly what you're asking. I did. Everybody did. I actually tried to, I had a vlog channel also in the past. I had to switch to finance content. The and the reason for this, I believe, uh, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's just trends, like it's over time trends change. Um, like when AI came about, was that in 2021? I don't remember when ChatGP first came out to the public. Then everybody wanted uh something to do with business, tutorials, and you know, vlogs were there for a decade, so people just got tired of it. But now it's slowly coming back again. So trends they come and go. And yeah, good thing is knowing how to adapt.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

I think people are craving authenticity on social media now. I think we got too technical in a way, but I do think that when it comes to you, for example, because you have this background in vlogging, I do think that helps when it comes to creating building authority with your audience to talk about finance, for example. So, do you think there's any technique that you got back in the day from different niches that you use now in finance that it's a little bit subconsciously? There are actually.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I think when it you give you have a different edge in your niche is when you don't just watch content in your because when you're creating content, you have to watch content, get ideas, get inspiration, see how people are doing, see what's trending, what's good in your niche. But if you only do that in one niche, then you don't have an edge. Do you understand? So it's good if you're in a finance niche to watch tech videos, to watch uh fitness videos, and you see what those people are doing, maybe you can tweak it a little bit and see how you can implement this in the finance niche. This is highly important, so I think it works.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

If anyone comes up to you and they're like, I want to create business content, but I want to be authentic, how are they gonna do that?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I would look at their past and see you you don't want to be authentic, you are authentic by default. What makes you authentic and try to identify this and give them a type of map to follow?

SPEAKER_01 31:54

And you're not something you yeah, I wanna be, you just are, do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Because that is a concern, you know. A lot of people and they're like, I want to start, you know, I want to be on social media. And I would say that I faced that problem, I would say maybe five years ago, that whenever I I I I was like, I'm authentic, but whenever I turned the camera on, automatically I was being fake. Because I was just like creating this persona because you're so worried about what other people will think and what type of content you're making, and if the algorithm is gonna like, and if you're using the right keywords, and it gets to a point that it's not authentic. And I it's why I I asked this question because I noticed that a lot of people they are authentic in real life, but when it comes to creating content, it seems like they just can't do this, they can't be vulnerable enough in front of the camera.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

This comes with experience. When you start out, like there's a camera recording you, and for most normal people, like being recorded is this highly stressful thing. And yeah, speaking by personal experience, after a while, after one year, two years doing content. Now, when I'm recording content myself, what I do is turn on the camera. I don't even see it's there. For example, it's right in front of me. I'm just focused on what I'm doing, and I'm teaching like I'm speaking to someone else, like a friend. Yes, and it just doesn't exist. The camera doesn't exist in front of me anymore. So I think it's just like um experience thing that you have to get over, and it comes with time. More the more you do it, the easier it gets.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

I think it's hard in the beginning to not be too self-conscious about this. So, is do you think there's a technique or any advice that you can give anyone that is like very self-conscious, but they still want to create content?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

I would say stop trying to be something. Like you said, well, how can I be this? When you're thinking about being something, you're already not genuine. Yeah, so stop trying to be anything, talk like you would talk to any of your friends. So if you're you have to speak and teach on camera, don't try to be anything because when you try to be something, you're automatically copying someone else that you heard, something that you saw. Just try to speak from like naturally, and it will come out much better on camera.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

One thing that I also want to mention that is that it seems like you mix mindset, business, AI, systems, you know, personal branding, everything together. Why do you think those topics connect so well?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

It's uh actually because when I try to plan a business model, I planned it 10 years ahead. And when I started this new YouTube channel, with the experience I had, like most people say to me, start with one niche, focus on one topic only. This doesn't work because over time things change, things evolve. Like uh it was dropshipping in 2018. Now, if you speak about dropshipping, your entire chat channel would be dead. Yeah so when I started this new channel, I thought I'm gonna start different topics and have a broad, you know, tree of topics that I can speak to. And so if something one of those branches come out, then I can continue talking about new things and pivot like I just did with AI. How much do you think about retention when you know, let's say when you're scripting a video? Very much, actually. This is another thing AI actually helped me a lot now. Uh, I'm not a the best storyteller, so I can basically train AI with different storytelling techniques, and I can after I script the video, I can come in with AI and say, look, where can I come here and implement some techniques that keep people watching, like a loop or open loop or something like that? And you know, AI has been helping me a lot with this. I do think about retention is really important, especially on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Do you think that retention techniques are overused right now? Because one thing that I notice is I've talked with a lot of big creators, fortunately. And, you know, for example, I was talking to Mario Juice, who's worked with Mr. Beast, I think you know him. He was talking about like the first 13 seconds of the video and the importance. And I was talking to Nick Niman, and he was talking about the first 30 seconds, but it seems like there's no rule, and everyone is like, oh, you have to make the first few seconds fast-paced, you have to make it engaging, you have to, you know, stimate. And in a way, um, it's all about emotions. To you, what do you think actually works for retention?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I mean, all of these creators, uh, what they told you is all correct. It is, yeah. It really depends on who your audience is. So, for example, if I'm speaking to teenagers, I'm gonna have to be very fast-paced because right now they have like this very short span, watch Rios a lot, they watch TikTok a lot. Imagine the difference if I'm speaking to like a 50-year-old or 60-year-old. So I have you have to be a lot slower, you have to present the content a lot slower. Uh, my audience right now, they're 18 to 35, and they really do like a slower-paced content. Beginning of the video is very important because that's when a person clicks on a video, they're trying to identify if they made a correct decision, if this video is actually what they're looking for. Yeah, so you should try to communicate this message very quickly so they stick around. And for your other question, I do think that storytelling techniques are very overused. One of them that I see the most is the comment something in my video. Oh, uh, it's completely unrelated to the topic of the video. Uh, what what what color is your favorite color? Just drop it in a comment so this is very overused, and it's very unauthentic, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

It's interesting because uh Q mentioned like your audience is 18 to 35, right? That's like my generation, and I remember when we first, you know, started watching YouTube and it was all about content that was very personal, very authentic. It wasn't, I don't think people were making money on YouTube back then. So it was just like all about fun. So now, whenever I look for creators, I kind of look for that. So if I find creators that it's like, what's your favorite color? Drop it in the comments. I automatically feel like I don't want to watch that creator because I kind of try to, you know, connect my idea of YouTube from what I have back in the day to today's age. So uh how do you feel about that? Because I feel like we're the same generation, right? So I I feel like you had the same experience when it comes to YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I have exactly the same experience as you, like it breaks the magic. For example, yeah when I'm watching videos and I can identify what's gonna happen next based on like the hero story. Oh my god, first comes the challenge, then he overcomes it. Like it's always the same thing. It kind of breaks the magic for you. You can't like fully immerse yourself in that experience, especially for people who create content. You can easily see through these things. Yeah, so I have the exact same experience as you probably worse.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

I feel like this technique actually worked, but it worked back in let's say 2017 or something like that. Yeah, I don't think it works now. I it's interesting because I feel like I've seen the rise of this type of content very up close because I remember I was a lot of people don't know this, but I was actually neighbors in a way. I would I used to live on the same street as Logan Paul and Jake Paul in the beginning when they started like vlogging every single day. So I would see them on my street every single day recording those videos, and it was all about this type of content about like let's not make this, uh, let's just make some space and let's just generate comments. And I feel like that was when it was the rise of this type of content, it was and it was kind of like dying, you know, the authentic content was dying in a way. You were already on YouTube in 2017, right? So did you notice that? And did you try to hop on any trend like this when it happened?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

I actually tried, I tried pranking, it was really popular. When I started YouTube, I remember exactly when you're talking. But you're 28, I'm 30. So when I started out, one of the YouTubers in Brazil that I used to look up to, you probably know him. His name is Felipe Neto. I do, yeah. I actually tried to mimic his style for a while. So it's kind of funny. I remember the genuine content, but uh it really did change a lot. And I think uh nowadays people see through in Altensity a lot. They're all on social media, they're exposed to many types of YouTubers, many types of um a lot more content online. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, they've become smarter in regards to these small techniques. If you're going to implement this, you cannot overuse them and you actually need to be good at using them.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Which makes things harder for a creator now, right? Because you have to make people emotionally trust you, especially if you're in you know in education. So, how do you think you actually make people trust you in a world with a lot of people just like you know generating AI content or people just try to, you know, just generate views and comments on their videos?

SPEAKER_00 40:46

What do you do to in my opinion? Uh, what I would do is try to be authentic. But like I said, you cannot be authentic if you don't have the background.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Now, AI is gonna wipe out millions of jobs, in my opinion. All these people are gonna come online because they need to work, they need to survive, they need to go somewhere. So that's gonna be a lot more competition for YouTubers. Imagine how many people are gonna try to create content now. Yeah. So if you're unauthentic and you're trying to do the same copying that everybody is doing, you're never gonna break through the noise. So I think it's really important just to have your own angle. If you don't have that, just create it. Start doing something, document it, and become the person that you want to show on camera. Do you understand? Don't try to fake it. That's the worst way to go about it.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

One thing that I like about social media is that in a way it's like making being a filmmaker accessible to anyone, and you can be anywhere in the world and you can do whatever you want, you can reach any audience that you'd like. Uh, do you think we're moving forward a world where like one person can operate like a media company? I think so.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

At the point where a video editor can be replaced, and if she watches this, it's gonna be very upset. I'm probably going to be that person, a one-person media company. Because it just there's no downsides to it. Like uh you you're fireing employees, so you're saving a lot of money. Things are done instantly, so there's no wait times. Usually, when I wanted to build a website, it took me months and uh hundred like tens of thousands of dollars. So it's just so fast, so much faster, so much better. The quality is higher. Humans are not gonna be able to keep up. And I think that there's already a company. There's this one guy hired his brother, made 1.8 billion dollars. I forgot the name of the company, but this already exists. So it's not it's just gonna get better and better going forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

But do you think uh there's still butt bottlenecks when it comes to AI tools? Like, what is the main one?

SPEAKER_00 42:47

I think so. I think um, like I have experience with AI now, they break. So, for example, I build an automation today, I still need to overlook this automation. Sometimes things change, platforms change, the content changes, trends change, and you always need to keep giving that human touch, the constant updating. It still needs maintenance, it's not going to run 100% fully automated. Even if it does, it's not going to be forever. So you're also going to have to manage the AI going forward. It's not something that you can just set and forget.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

And do you think you have any controversial belief about creators or online businesses or AI? Because AI in a way is already a controversial topic today. So, yeah, do you think you have anything that is like controversial?

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Not really, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

No. Because the the way I'm trying to approach this question is a lot of people are really scared of AI. Um, how do you advise them and tell them, like, hey, this is here to stay? How do you advise them to not be scared and actually, you know, work with it and not against it?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I think that most people are scared of AI because they don't understand it. Uh, you need to understand AI. It's not gonna go away, that's for sure. It's getting Bigger and bigger very fast. Yeah. A lot of people don't even know how to use AI properly. So if you're one of those people that are scared of AI, what you should be doing is learning it as much as possible. When you're in this bubble that I'm in right now, everyone that I know, like they know how to use cloud, they know how to use ChatGPT codecs, all of these things. But most normal people, they have no idea what these AI platforms even are. So if you really become good at them, you don't have to be afraid of it. You have to be excited about it because you're not going to be replaced by it, you're going to be the one using it. So in my opinion, it's a huge opportunity, not a huge liability, like most people believe.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Do you think you would do anything different now if you were to start a channel today and you had zero social media presence, especially with AI in the world?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

I think if I had to start a new channel from zero, I would to try to put as much quality content as much as possible, as fast as possible, especially because things are changing so fast. Uh now I believe with AI I can achieve the bar, like we spoke um a few minutes ago, of quality high very fast. So this is possible now because of AI. Before, if you want it to be fast, you had to compromise quality, but now that's not true anymore. You can put a video script in a few minutes, you can create course modules and lessons in a few minutes as well if you wanted to. So you can actually put really high quality content really fast. And I would that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

And I do have a final question right now, which is if anyone who's watching this wants to do what you're doing right now, wants to start creating content, but they feel stuck, what is the first advice that you could give them to be where you are? What do you think they're stuck at? I do think it's all about. Honestly, from my experience so far, I do think it's all about just starting. People are just scared of just putting themselves out there. So that's the the biggest issue. And one thing that I've faced myself, which is like just not putting yourself out there because, oh, this is gonna be hard. What do you think they're stuck at?

SPEAKER_00 46:06

I think uh I also had this when I started. Uh I was afraid of my family seeing my content, I was afraid of my friends seeing my content and like make fun of me. Um, so do what I did. Uh, try to create different social medias, try to create something that's completely separate from your personal stuff. And most people won't even see that. And even if they do, at the time they actually see it, you're probably gonna be generating some results. Because when you start posting videos, you're not usually going to be good at it. That's the truth. So your videos are probably gonna get zero views or very few views, if that. So this is actually good. When they actually start seeing your videos on social media, you're gonna probably be putting out really good content. And at this point, I think you're gonna be more motivated and also more comfortable with them seeing your stuff. That's true. My family actually started seeing my content. I was already making some type of revenue. My dad was actually impressed. And in the beginning, I had this, so like you're afraid of being rejected, ridiculized by other people.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Honestly, thank you so much for doing this. If there's anything you'd like to promote, just feel free to do so right now.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

This is your moment. Yeah, of course. So they can just go to my channel, uh Mr. Reese, and they can check out all the content there, it's completely free. I also have a bunch of uh things that I'm giving out for free in every single video. I have a free community on WAP on school, I have a paid community on WAP also, and I'm developing two new AI courses that are gonna come out soon: AI Money Systems and LifeOS. And if you guys want to sign up for the waiting list, I'll give you the link for all of those.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

I'll leave it all in the comments and in the description so people can check it out. And honestly, again, thank you so much for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

One thing I really liked about this conversation is that Philip doesn't see content as just posting videos, he sees it as building systems, leverage, freedom, and long-term control over your own audience and business. And honestly, with AI changing everything so fast, adaptability might end up being the most important skill creators can have moving forward. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, subscribe, and check the rest of the Vidge Bros Insiders podcast. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.