You Can Grow Faster When You Stop Trying To Do Everything

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We sit down with Nathan from Unspeakable to talk about what it really takes to grow on YouTube, from 574 uploads before a breakout to building a full production operation that runs like a studio. We dig into focus, reinvestment, AI as a tool, and the mindset shift that hits when success means you finally have something to lose. 

• Nathan’s early growth through repetition and copying to learn before finding his own style 
• The 574th upload milestone and why “viral” often comes after dozens of iterations 
• Investing in what you know and spotting business distractions outside your core skill 
• Building a dedicated filming town with unique set houses and measuring ROI per video 
• Blueprint as a creator-first support system with audits, hiring help, editing, and thumbnails 
• Free Blueprint University courses and why he avoids being seen as a course seller 
• AI in content creation with storytelling and retention still as the deciding factors 
• Daily AI workflows for ideation, scripts, mockups, and faster storyboarding 
• Advice for new creators to pick one platform, one format, and one niche early 
• Why comfort kills channels and how staying proud of the work prevents stagnation 
• A full start-over strategy built around gaming, one game focus, search-driven videos, and learning by volume 

If you're new here, feel free to hit that like button. And at the end, I'm sure you're gonna want to subscribe. 

Transcript

Cold Open Fish Tank House

SPEAKER_00 0:00

One of the houses that we're building right now is a fish tank house. So it's actually a house, it's also a fish tank. So you can swim in it. My first viral video I ever posted was my 574th upload. So it took me 574 videos. You can gain a million subscribers, right? And that's great because now you have something to lose. Now it gets dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome back to the only podcast that isn't afraid to be unspeakable. I'm Travis here as always, and I can't wait to have a return guest that we've had before that's been amazingly awesome, that's done some really cool things. Nathan from Unspeakable. How are you doing, Nathan?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I'm doing good, man. I am excited. I think last time we had a really awesome conversation about what it means to be a creator and how to grow as a creator. And I'm hoping that I can give something very similar to the audience today. So yeah, let's do it.

From Middle School To 40M Subs

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Super excited about that. If you're new here, this podcast is about how to help you grow your YouTube channel. We do it through a lot of ways. Sometimes we answer your questions, and other times we talk to people just like Nathan to give you some tips, tricks, and how to get to the next level. Or if you're just starting, how to get started. Uh, if you want some more information about Nathan or anything like that, we'll have uh information in the show notes. If you're listening to the audio podcast, of course it'll be in the show notes and in the description here on YouTube. If you're new here, feel free to hit that like button. And at the end, I'm sure you're gonna want to subscribe. But first, Nathan, for those who are not familiar with you, give us a little uh little elevator pitch.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Like, who are you? So I'm just a kid with a dream to create YouTube content. As simple as that. I started a YouTube channel 14 years ago and I started making gaming videos. That was when I was in eighth grade. So I was in middle school going into high school. And like every content creator, I was completely lost. I had no idea what I was doing. Um, I simply copied a lot of other creators in the space because I got inspiration from them. The best way I can explain my YouTube journey, and I think most journeys of a creator is when you start making content, you are kind of like playing the guitar. You start playing other people's music to learn. Over time, as you get good at being a creator, you develop and write your own songs. But that just takes time, right? So over time, I was copying all these other creators. I slowly figured out small things that worked for me and also pillars of my brand that I wanted to build. Um, so I leaned into those things. We call them strengths, right? Um, and that slowly built my identity over the years and years and years. My first viral video I ever posted was my 574th upload. So it took me 574 videos, and these are all long form videos. You know, back in 2013, shorts did not exist. Uh, TikTok did not exist, really. Um I think Vine was around, maybe like 2013, 2014, but short form content wasn't a thing. It was only long form. So I had 574 long form videos. Every single video was, you know, 15, 20, 30 minutes long. And that upload finally took off and went viral. And when I say viral, I mean a million views. But the funny thing is, is that video that got a million views, I uploaded 23 different versions of that video before it got a million views. So continue on the story. I kept making more videos, you know, fast forward towards the end of my high school career. I posted a couple thousand videos when I graduated high school. I was making around$30,000 to$40,000 a month on YouTube. So I figured, okay, I don't need to go to college, right? Like uh I don't need to get a job because YouTube is paying pretty well. So I kept making more YouTube videos, saved up a little money. Uh, I bought a house. Um, I invested a lot more into my YouTube content, and then I bought another house, a bigger house, and then I launched more channels. So I launched a real life channel, which today is my biggest channel with 20 million subscribers. Um, we ended up buying another property that was even bigger. We bought an office space, we started hiring employees, and it just kept going from there. Today, where we stand, we have 40 million subscribers across all the channels. We've averaged 100 million monthly views for the past six years. Um, and we have about 40 employees that work with us today. And all we do is we make YouTube videos, uh, we have products at Walmart, um, we have merchandise, we've done live tour shows and sold out huge arenas. Um, we've, you know, I have my very own adventure park uh in Dallas. There, you know, and and the list goes on. So it's almost like we've built a mini little Disney World. And right before we got on this call, I was talking about how we just acquired a new property. And one of the things we're building here is a is a town. Um, I got a lot of inspiration from Tyler Perry Studios because he you know has an incredible studio campus. If you guys have never seen it, go look up some photos. It's it's incredible. Um, I would love to visit one day, but Tyler Perry, if you're watching, I like RC Planes, by the way. So do I. Anyways, in the back, I'm actually looking at it right out this window. We're building a small little town that's going to consist of about seven or eight houses, a convenience store, a neighborhood park, and this is all for YouTube content, right? Um, I think the only other person to do this on YouTube is Deharman, uh, because I know he has the indoor studio. Um, maybe Mr. Beast. I'm sure he's built a town a couple times, but probably.

The Loss That Sharpened Focus

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, so that's short little summary of where I am. I mean, that's from like being in school to like owning a town, which doesn't make any sense. Like that is that is a level of success that I think, well, 99.9% of people will never attain, obviously. But uh and don't worry, for the people that are newer, they're like, that's cool, but that doesn't apply to me. We're gonna get to the things that apply to you in a minute. But I do want to talk a little bit about this because it's so interesting. You said you were inspired by Tyler Perry, who's a great filmmaker. Uh, I've been watching uh Tyler Perry thing since he was doing plays, and most people don't even remember like the original Medea plays, but I mean for years I've been watching him, and he has he has made his brand something really special. But a town is a large investment. So you've already so you've had a lot of successes, but we do know of one kind of not so great success, which was the car dealership thing, which we had talked about on the last episode. Talk to us a little bit about that. Uh, not to bring up like anything that's a sore subject, but I mean that not everything's a success. I think it's really important for people to know that like not every single thing you do wins. Uh, because some people just see the wins. We need to understand how we learn from the losses.

Building Sets And Tracking ROI

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So um, I mean, throughout my career, obviously we've we've made a ton of money, and I thought the best way to take this money was to start other businesses outside of YouTube, right? Um, so I started investing in real estate. We have an office portfolio, we have all types of you know investments that I've done. Uh, some of them have done very well, but most of them are just distractions, complete distractions. Um, I mean, basically the the lesson that I learned is that invest in what you know, right? So your portfolio should be, and again, I'm not a financial advisor. We're all just figuring this out, but the assets that you own should be a reflection of your knowledge, right? And this is something Dave Ramsey talks about. He talks about how you know you should understand your investments. You should understand, like, if you don't understand stocks, you don't have to invest in stocks, right? Right. Right. So it's kind of one of those things where I'm just I'm investing in the things I know. I know content creation, I know media, I know characters, I know IP, I know um, you know, toys, right? Like those are the those are the things that that make sense to me. Those are the things I've been doing for um the last 14 years, and that's what I'll continue to invest in. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So what uh you're envisioning, I mean you said like a convenience store and stuff. So these things are going to be functioning, or are they just gonna be places you shoot?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

They're they're pretty much all set locations. Um most of them will be temporary sets. The I mean, the town is, I mean, it's like a little Hollywood studio, like it's constantly going to be evolving, changing. Houses might get destroyed, um, you know, all types of stuff. Like one of the things I think were really cool. Um, like every house is going to be very unique. So one of the houses that we're building right now is a fish tank house. Um, so it's actually a house that's also a fish tank. So you can swim in it. Um I need to visit that, please.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I need to come to see that.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

That's amazing. Yeah. So cool stuff like that. It's not like your normal neighborhood, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah. That's interesting. So what I I mean, it's one thing to see someone uh like Tyler Perry doing these things. It's another to go, I'm actually going to attempt to do this for myself and in a way that makes sense for my content. There's a big scary part of like the amount of money that you're gonna have to invest in this and try to figure out how to get a return on investment. How do you measure that? Um, and uh what kind of thing, did you have someone that like was your financial advisor that was like going back and forth with you on this, or do you just go, we're doing it?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Um no, not really. Um I just say we're doing it. Um the town's gonna be probably like I mean, it's really hard to estimate the cost, but like, for example, just for the the street, like the the ground, the grass, the the asphalt that we had to lay uh was about$320,000. Um that's just you know, but that's the infrastructure of the town, very important. But I mean, I don't think I'll necessarily get a return directly on the ground, right? Right, but I'll get a return on the houses that we build because we might build one house, one structure, one set. And we could use that, you know. Let's say like one of the houses we're building right now is like they I think it's like 130,000. Um, and again, this is a set. It's not really like it's a house, but it's also a set, you know. Right, right. Um, and we'll probably get 10 videos out of this house. Our videos typically make anywhere from$20,000 to$30,000. So I mean, if you do the math, like that's you know, yeah, we'll we'll be able to return most of uh most of the money.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Is is there a is there a way uh or is there a thought to making a uh kind of doing what some other creators have done, which is like uh these creator houses where you have a bunch of creators in them and then you foster up-and-coming creators in those houses that way you get an additional turnaround investment, or is this just for your stuff?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, that was definitely a thought, but I've personally never been interested in hosting like a creator house, like you know, the phase house or all of these other, you know, Team 10 house. We've just never really seen any success with them. Um so I'm kind of just building all this stuff for us.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Okay. Uh let's talk a little bit about um your kind of, I think this tell me if I'm saying this wrong, your passion project, Blueprint. Can we talk a little bit about that? Like what is the what is it? Why are you doing it, and what is its purpose?

AI Will Change Content Creation

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, so Blueprint is um basically, I mean, Blueprint is something I've been working on for probably four or five years, but it's a company we recently launched to help creators grow. Um, so we directly work with creators and my team, um, like I said, we have 40 employees today, and I have handpicked some very talented individuals that have helped me grow our YouTube channels to actually come into the blueprint universe and help creators grow depending on their needs. So it's like if you need thumbnail support, we have thumbnail artists that can help draw up stuff for you. If you need editing support, you can talk to one of our top-level editors that can, you know, edit our videos. Um, if you need hiring support, our our main recruiter that does all the hiring, um, you can talk to him like how do you hire your first thumbnail designer, right? So we're basically building this. The the way I like to describe it is like you can get access to a high-level advanced YouTube team without paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for the payroll and the salaries. Um that's kind of what we're building. It's like a support system for creators. Um, and we also do like channel audits. So we'll dive deep into a creator's channel and look at everything from the past to the present to the future in terms of uh where the channel stands, where they stand as a brand, and what we think they should do for the future to increase their odds of success, views, money, whatever that looks like, whatever their goals are. Um so that's kind of the main focus of the company. It's very exciting. I think the whole reason I started this is because something like this doesn't really exist for content creators. Uh, content creators, there's it's a big universe, but it's a lonely universe. Um, there's not a lot of people out there helping content creators. And the people that are helping content creators are people that are not content creators, right? So it's like we are creator first, like truly, we are real content creators. We average a hundred million monthly views. We're not just saying this for fun, like we have huge YouTube channels, and now we're helping other creators do the same thing. So we've had some awesome success so far. We had one of our creators just hit his first$10,000 a month, which is awesome, um, and a bunch of other stuff. We're a big thing that we're helping people with is we're helping them transition to short form uh from short form to long form content. Yeah, because a lot of short form creators they don't make enough money um or they don't know how to get brand deals and they want to start long form content because they know that's where the money is. Yeah. So that's a big thing we've been focusing on. Um but yeah, and then the other part of Blueprint is we we make courses, uh, but I don't sell the courses, they're all 100% free. We just put them on our website. Um the last course that we made took me about a year to make the course and film it and edit it. Um, it has probably, you know, nearly close to 2,000 graphics to help people learn things. And it's 100% free. It teaches you everything about editing, video ideation, thumbnail design. Um, I mean, the whole nine yards. And we just give it away for free because I don't want to be known as a course seller, to be honest with you. Um, I want to be known as someone that can take someone's channel from nothing to millions in revenue. Um, and I think that's just, you know, that's more exciting to me and more impactful as well. So yeah, I mean, I see a big future in it. Obviously, like content creation is not going anywhere. YouTube is the biggest, most profitable platform in the world. They pay out almost$30 billion a year to creators. They're now more viewed than Disney, Netflix, all the streaming platforms. Um viewership on TV is insane. YouTube, if you don't know, YouTube is dominating the households. Um, it's not just an app that you see on your desktop or your phone. Um, it is more watched in US households than Netflix is. So it's it's pretty incredible. Um, because you know, I've been on the platform for 14 years, and it's really awesome to see it transition over time to be such a powerhouse of a of a media streaming platform. Um, so it's very, very exciting. And I think this is just the beginning as well. There's so much more to come out of this.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

So well, with that being said, which I agree with all of that, um, the other thing we can ignore is AI and how big it's becoming, not only just in content creation, really in everyday life. Um, what are your thoughts on AI in general as far as um in relation to content creation, your business, your thoughts on it? I like I just want you to just brain spill everything about what you've seen, what you think about it, because everyone has different thoughts on it, of course.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Um so, first off, I'll say I'm not in the AI universe, so I don't know what's going on, to be honest. I make YouTube videos. Yeah, yeah. I do know that it is a little scary what it's capable of, because there could be a day where Pixar or Disney, they don't animate their films anymore. It's all AI, and you can't tell the difference because it's so good. Now, when it comes to real life videos, movies, I think we're pretty far away from that, but I think we're also not far away. Um, so it's kind of one of those things where yes, AI could certainly replace a lot of content online, but also you still gotta remember that the basic fundamentals of making a good intro, making a good story, building good characters is the most important thing. Like, like, great, you can make an AI movie, but if you don't make a good story, if you don't have good retention, if you don't have good characters, like none of it matters. No one's gonna watch it, right? It's the same with movies. Like, let's say, let's say it's it is very difficult to make a movie, obviously, but let's say it's easy. If it's easy, then that means everyone could make a movie, right? So, what are the best movies gonna have? The best movies are gonna have the best plots, the best stories, the best character developments, whatever it is, right? So that's where the focus is gonna go. I mean, the focus is already on that, to be honest. It's been on that for decades. Movies, TV shows, like people want to watch good stuff. Um I think in the future, people aren't gonna care if it's human generated or AI generated. I think they're just gonna want to watch something good and entertaining. Um, so I think there's gonna be a big shift in the media, but I think the people that have the true storytelling, uh, character development skill sets are going to shine no matter what. They're gonna shine whether you give them a camera or they're gonna shine whether you give them a super advanced AI computer that can generate a crazy film. So I think that is the skill set that you need to focus on. Um, and as a content creator, you kind of have to because you have to get people to like your personality, your brand, your intros, your retention, your style, um, whatever it is. So I mean, it's it's definitely scary what the future could could hold, but I think um I think AI is gonna get good. And I think AI is gonna get good at telling stories too. But I think that human touch is is is going to be so incredibly valuable in the future and will, you know, probably be hard to to replace.

Using AI For Faster Preproduction

SPEAKER_01 19:10

What about like for day-to-day things? Um, research for products, uh research for video ideas, um, script writing, um, you know, even some of the day-to-day stuff that you might have an assistant do, that stuff is fairly capable. Actually, I shouldn't even say fairly, it's actually very capable right now. Does your team use it for anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah, every day. Yeah. So we use AI um for video ideas. We use AI for scripting. Um, we use AI like if we're trying to build something in this town, we're using AI to mock up photos to see what it would look like. Um, we're using AI for thumbnails to mock up examples of what a thumbnail could look like. We're using AI to design the intro of a video to see what it feels like. Um so it's really just for storyboarding and scripting. That's our that's our main focus with with AI, because, you know, I mean, it's it's as we know, it's very powerful to insert a prompt and get back a picture in a couple seconds and then iterate on that picture and build on it. So those things are very powerful. We're doing that pretty much every single day.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Would you say that that has saved you any time or made things more productive, or is it about the same for you? Oh, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, because in the past we would just draw everything. Yeah. So, like with thumbnails, for example, like years ago, we we have we literally had a a cartoon artist that would just like draw, like hand draw every single thumbnail, and then AI came around. It's like, okay, well, well, I still have the artist draw the thumbnails, but he just does it with AI. And then he like he'll still hand draw some stuff, but he's kind of using a combination of both, which I think is really cool.

Jobs Shift When Tools Improve

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah. So what about like the replacement of jobs? I that always worries me with uh AI is that it's going to replace, like you just said, I'm I think it's cool that you like kept the artist around. You didn't necessarily have to do that. Uh, what is your mindset when it comes to that sort of thing? I mean, obviously, there's there's the dollars that you need to you're that are going out versus what's coming in. So you as a business owner, which you are, uh, you need to keep that in mind. Um for instance, this particular cartoonist, you literally could have replaced them, but you didn't. Why?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, I mean, I I think it's the the I think it still comes down to the skill set, right? Like, um, yes, AI is going to replace a lot of positions, certainly, but there still needs to be some sort of um human interaction to the process because we are building things. Like, like, I mean, one of the things, for example, is like building this town, right? Like, this is construction with wood, steel, lumber. Um, AI can't do that. Like, AI is not going to build a house right now. So it's like uh, you know, there's a lot of Different things that that AI can't do. I think the best thing you can do right now, if you're scared of this, is you can get really good at using AI instead of AI using you. That's that's the most important thing. Um so, like, you know, kind of like with the thumbnail designer. Like, if you're a thumbnail designer, I don't think you should make thumbnails with AI because they don't look good at all. I don't think the technology is there yet. But I think you should mock up 20 versions of a thumbnail with AI, talk to the creator that you're working with, um, have him pick three of the best options and then go make them. Um, so you can, you know, you're kind of using AI as like a superpower, a super tool, maximizing your efficiency. Um, you're able to do things so much quicker because if I can render 20 different angles of a thumbnail in, you know, maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever, um, that is incredibly efficient. Whereas in the past, if I had to hand draw 20 versions of that thumbnail, that might take most of the day. So um, you know, I just see it, I don't, I don't really see it like, of course, certain positions will get replaced. That's just inevitable. I mean, that happens over time with with everything. Like, look at machinery. Look at like, you know, look at, you know, the assembly line for uh production for vehicles for Ford. You know, you used to have people hand painting vehicles, now we have robots painting vehicles, right? So like positions are gonna get eliminated, eliminated. It's just gonna happen. That's just the advancement of technology and the entire world. But I think the best thing you can do is just really, really learn how to use it to, you know, double, if not triple, your own productivity.

New Creator Advice Pick One Lane

SPEAKER_01 23:54

I love that. Let's talk about the small creator problem. And more so that, you know, we've been talking a lot about creators who are established who might be able to come to uh Blueprint and kind of you know take their stuff to the next level. But let's talk about like a person who's starting out this year, because there's gonna be a lot of creators that are starting their journey this year that maybe hopefully in a couple years will be on this podcast because they're so fantastic and they've blown up. Um what would you say to people that are starting out this year? Obviously, it's it's more, I don't know if I want to say easy to create, but maybe it is, to create content now than ever before. Phones look great, the quality of a phone video looks amazing. You can now get scripting done, you can do all this research. What are the things that a new creator in 2026 should know and the things that they should be concentrating on?

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, certainly. Um, no, that's a really good question. I think one of the biggest things is you got to figure out your format and your platform. That's the first thing. Because the problem is, is when I talk to a lot of these creators in Blueprint, they are sometimes so stretched thin because they're making, like, for example, they're making a long form video, and then they're like, oh, I gotta clip this long form video into shorts. And then, oh, I actually take these shorts and I put them on Facebook and TikTok. And oh, I actually have to make like Facebook stories uh so I can promote my Facebook shorts. And oh, I actually go live on Kick on the weekends to help support that. And oh, by the way, I have a Snapchat deal where I'm like posting like a hundred Snapchats a day, and like it just keeps going. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like when I started my YouTube channel, I made YouTube videos, I made long form videos, and I made them about video games, specifically Minecraft. That's it. I didn't do anything else. I didn't do shorts because it didn't exist, I didn't do live streaming because I didn't have time. And so I think if you can just narrow your focus on one platform and one style of content, that that's like the that's step number one. Um, I mean, obviously, I recommend YouTube because it's the biggest platform, it's the most watched platform, it's the most creative platform, and it's the highest paying platform. So you can look at all these other platforms. You could be like, oh, look, but but X.com is paying out all this money, or oh look, like Facebook, they just got a new ad creator program. Great. No one pays as much as YouTube, period. It has never like no one has even come close to YouTube's revenue system because remember, YouTube is owned by Google. Google's one of the biggest ad agencies, ad companies, whatever you want to call it, in the entire world. So I think YouTube is the best place to start. So that's step one. Pick your platform. Now, I do think, let me back up real quick. If you have a very specific audience, then another platform might suit you better. Like, let's say you are making baking videos on how to bake bread. Okay. And you are, you know, a mom, you're 32 years old, you live in the countryside, that sounds like it might belong on TikTok, right? There's a lot of girls on TikTok, there's a lot of cooking videos on TikTok. So I just want to throw that out there because yes, YouTube is the best platform, it's the most watched, it is the most revenue, but that doesn't mean that your audience is there, right? So, and how do you figure this out? You do some research. You do a lot of research. You go on YouTube, and if you're baking bread, how many people on YouTube are baking bread? Go on TikTok, how many people are baking bread? Go on Facebook, how many people are baking bread? How many views are they getting? How many videos have they posted? Right? Like just really dive in and do your research, and you know, you'll figure out the answers there. When I picked YouTube, um everyone was making gaming videos on YouTube. Um, all the other platforms, like they had content, but it wasn't gaming, right? So that's why I picked YouTube. So the next thing you need to do is you need to figure out what type of content you want to make. So you have long form, short form, you have live streams, right? This is something for you to figure out. I think every single direction is a great direction. It more so depends on what you enjoy making the most. Um, like me personally, I have always made long form videos, but I've always loved making long form videos. I've never enjoyed making shorts. I've never enjoyed live streaming. I'm sure I can make a lot of money if I started live streaming. I have no doubt in my mind. Like, but I just I don't enjoy it as much, right? So you gotta, you know, I would say pick the piece of content that you enjoy. And then from there, you're gonna go down the rabbit hole of, you know, figuring out your niche, figuring out how to make content and all these different things. And, you know, you're gonna fail a lot, you're gonna learn from your mistakes, you're gonna do all this stuff. I think from there, the best thing you can do, if I'm, and I'm I'm not trying to just like plug my stuff, but just go watch our courses. They're completely free. They'll teach you everything about how to generate video ideas, titles, thumbnails, editing, filming. We also split them up into three difficulty levels from easy, uh, medium to pro level. So you can like if you've never made a video in your life, you can start at the easy level and then you know work your way up. So, you know, that's an 11 11-hour program that we made to teach creators. And again, 100% free. So you don't have to pay a penny. You don't even have to insert your email. Like, I don't like it. It's crazy. What website is that on? That's that's on uh Blueprint University, Blueprint University without the E. Um, we took out the E because it's not for everyone. That was my love. That's awesome. That was my marketing move because being a creator truly is not for everyone, and you're gonna figure that out once you start creating content. Um you know, if you're in it for the money, if you're in it for the fame, it's not gonna happen. Like you're gonna get burnt out very quickly, and you're gonna learn that wow, this is this is a like this is a full-time job. Like, content creator is a full-time job, it's not a side hustle. I mean, sure, it can start as a side hustle. Yeah, and you know, you can trans. We have tons of creators that join Blueprint that they they're working jobs during the day. And we actually had one that just quit his his full-time job and now he's like a full-time creator, which is really cool. So he's starting to make enough money. But um yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a lot of work. It's definitely a lot of work. I I would say my next piece of advice, um, I mean, you're gonna learn this through Blueprint University and the programs, but is really just being different, leaning into your style, uh, being the most unique version of you. Because uh, you know, being a YouTuber is about being yourself. And it's really hard for people to copy yourself, your style, um, and the person that you are. So, and at the end of the day, that's why people are going to watch your videos. They're gonna watch your videos for you, and no one can compete with you on being you. So that is your strength. You want to lean into that personality, and over time, you'll build up that personality to be better and better and better, but it's just gonna take time, simple as that. Like, you have to get comfortable on camera, you have to get comfortable making jokes, whatever, you know, whatever you do. So that takes time. And you can look at the evolution of any creator. You can go look at Mr. Beast, you can look at his first couple videos, he barely says any words, and then you look at one of some of his most recent videos, and it's like, like, what happened to this kid? It's not magic, it's not rocket science, it's simple repetition, right? Posting a video, learning from the video, posting another video, learning from the video, and doing it hundreds of times until you get better and better and better. It's no different than getting really good at basketball. How do you get good at basketball? You shoot a lot of shots, you dribble, you pass the ball a lot, and over the years you get really, really good. Um so that's that's my advice for that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

You I like that you talk about focusing on what plat on one platform. At some point, though, it makes sense to have to diversify. I think I truly believe in diversification. I I also agree with you that diversification at the beginning is a mistake. At what point do you tip into going to more platforms and doing other things? What is kind of the signals that you would see from your content that's like, okay, it's time to go elsewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Um, to be honest, like I've built my channel up to 40 million subscribers. We make, you know, our channels make eight figures in revenue every single year. And I still have not gone to another platform, to be honest with you. Um, I do have a TikTok page, I do have an Instagram page. We barely use them. So I don't I don't know if there ever is a right time, to be honest. Like if you find a lot of success on one platform, I don't think there's any problem with just sticking with that platform and just growing the like just growing and harvesting and growing and growing um that audience, you know. I think I think it depends if your audience is in two places. I think it depends on the the future that you want out of your audience. Um, you know, like let's say, you know, let's go back to the baking bread example. Like if you're baking bread and your audience is on TikTok, but in the future you want to be a chef like Gordon Ramsey, well, you might want to actually go over to YouTube because there's some really big chef and cooking channels on YouTube, and that's an awesome place to make some videos. So I think it depends on how you want to transition. I I don't think I don't think you should just diversify your content just because everyone else is doing it or just because you want to get more views. Um, I don't think that's a good enough reason. I think you have to you have to see like a vision or a future in it. Um, because again, I've I've been doing this for 14 years. I'm still a hundred percent focused on YouTube. Like everything else I think is a distraction. That's it for me. For me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every creator is different, but that's just, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

What do you think um would be some of the biggest misconceptions about where you are in your journey? Like obviously you're successful and that sort of thing, but that can bring a lot of misconceptions. What do you think are some of the ones that are are completely off base with what your reality is?

SPEAKER_00 34:42

That's a good question. I've never really thought of that. That's why I asked. I mean, I think a lot of people, like a lot of kids, look up to YouTubers. A lot of people look up to YouTubers and they think it's like some easy task, or they think they're just like making videos for fun. And in reality, it is, but on the back end, we're running mini production studios that is basically like a run-and-gun team of Hollywood people that are just like making little mini movies every single week. Um, so it's a lot of work. I think the other very difficult thing, or I guess misconception, is like being a content creator is certainly fun, but once you start running that little team, you become a content creator and a CEO at the same time. And it's a very difficult life to balance those two things because you're running a business, you're managing people, but you're also the star of the show. You know, um, like if you look at Hollywood actors, for example, a lot of Hollywood actors, they just are actors. That's it. Like they don't manage the camera team and the script writers and you know, all of these different things. But as a content creator, you have to do all of those things. Um, so it is very difficult. And on top of that, you have to keep coming up with um, because like you can you can gain a million subscribers, right? And that's great, but now you have to keep those million people entertained, which is like, so I think there's a a really big thing of like content creators getting comfortable. Um, they hit a certain goal and they're like, Yes, I made it, I did it. And it's like, no, because now you have something to lose. Now it gets dangerous, right? So um there's a lot of stuff like that. Uh, I've seen so many of my friends, close people uh around me grow their channels to millions of followers, get very comfortable with their life, and then two years later, they're basically a nobody. Their channel has completely fallen off. All of the work they put in for the last six years has gone down the drain because they got comfortable. Um, you know, so I I always like the saying of being proud but never satisfied, right? Like I'm very proud of everything that we've done, but I'm never satisfied because we have to keep pushing the boundaries uh to grow this thing. Um, otherwise, everything's gonna stop and fall. So, um, and that goes not just with being a content creator, but being a business owner, like really doing anything in life where you own it. Um, that's just, you know, like whether you run a coffee shop or you you run a software company, whatever it is, like that's kind of the narrative you have to push to to make it to the next level because I'm just in a position where I'm, you know, I'm not doing things just to slowly grow. I want to build something big, exciting. I want to build something that that people are going to remember. I want to build something iconic. Um, I don't want to build just another YouTube channel that gets up to 10 million subscribers and then years later no one remembers who this kid is. And, you know, but that's just me personally.

Avoiding Comfort And Staying Proud

SPEAKER_01 38:11

So what without being super specific, you said something there that I'm really interested in. You said people got some larger careers got comfortable and then it they kind of like fell off or whatever. What does that look like? What does that comfort look like that they're not either continuing to grow or or things just kind of slow down? For some people, that's fine. Like for you know, for some people, they're like, I just want to get enough money to retire and then I don't care. But for some people, they actually just want to continue on like you, but just don't. What does that comfort look like? And and how do you keep yourself from feeling too comfortable? Or what are the safeguards maybe you would put in place?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, um, really good question. I think um, I mean, I think there's a lot of ways to get comfortable, but um, I think the it starts with your mindset, right? It starts with your mindset of like, you know, you feel like I made it, I'm successful, I win. And then from from there, it's just downhill, right? Um, so it's like, and you could feel successful. I'm not saying you should not feel successful, but if you feel like like you should never feel like you're on top of the world because I you're just you're just not. There's so much like I have been making YouTube videos for 14 years. I still learn new things every single day when I make content. And a lot of people look up to me and they say, You're a master, you're a YouTube genius, you're like, you're a YouTube god, whatever. I'm like, guys, I'm still learning new stuff every single day. Like last week, like I was dumber last week than I am this week. So I think it's the what it comes down to is the ability to learn, right? The ability to think to yourself, okay, I did really good. I got a million subscribers, but I have so much to learn. I have so much ahead of me that I don't know. I have so many problems that are down the path that I don't know how to solve, right? Yeah. I think a lot of YouTubers, they just get comfortable and they're like, yeah, I know how to do that. Yeah, I know how to do that. Yeah, my editor will take care of that. Yeah, um, my thumbnails are good. My thumbnails have always been good. I think they're great. I don't look at it that way. I think of like everything needs to be improving constantly. Um, and I think if you just get stagnant in, you know, the growth or you get stagnant in the videos, um, you know, they just start falling. Another thing is like I the one period in my life that I started to feel a little bit comfortable was the same period that I stopped being proud of the videos that I was posting. Um so, and obviously I snapped out of it as quickly as I could, but I was posting videos and I was comfortable and my team was really good and they were doing pretty much everything for me. All I had to do is just show up and film the video, which is awesome. But then it's like I started to stop being proud of the videos I was producing. I would put out a video and I would, I would just be like, I'm not proud of this. Like, I'm not proud of the thumbnail, I'm not proud of the intro. Like, it's not my best work. Um, so I think if you ever feel that way, then that could be a sign that you're kind of you know getting comfortable. Um, I think there's a lot of signs of getting comfortable, but I think you'll know. Like, I think if you got a good head on your shoulders, you're smart, you know you don't know everything because none of us know everything. We're still learning things. Like even older people that are 60, 70 years old, we're always learning, right? Um so yeah, it's one of those things where um it's it's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the pill that needs to be swallowed. Otherwise, something is going to infect you and you're gonna get a disease.

Starting Over With A New Channel

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Totally agree with that. Okay, final thing, and we always do this kind of uh exercise, it's a mental exercise, and stream of consciousness here. Uh, I want you as you're going through this to say everything out loud, every part. You are now having to start a new YouTube channel with none of the resources that you have and none of the um none of the current niches that you're in. What would be your strategy? What would be your first three videos? What is your channel about? Just give me the whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Um, so if this was me personally, this is what I would do. You personally. I'm not saying I would recommend this for everyone because everyone has different things that they enjoy. But what I would do is I would start a gaming channel. And I know that's what I did when I started YouTube. It's okay. But I, you know, the reason I would start a gaming channel is because all you need is a microphone, you maybe a face cam and a good computer. And you can pump out thousands of videos basically for free. So I think a gaming channel or maybe a reaction channel is an incredible way to start making YouTube videos. Because the problem is, is when you start doing real life content or challenges or all types of other stuff, it can get expensive and draining, and you got to buy props from the store and you got to set something up and you gotta, you know, do all these things. Whereas with gaming videos, you can just film yourself playing games, creating things, doing things in Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty, whatever the game is. Um, and you can literally pump out thousands of videos for free. All you gotta do is buy the game, right? And the computer and stuff like that. But that's what I would focus on. I'd put all my focus into that. I would be a full time gaming content creator. I would probably do a mixture of uh long form content and live streams. Because I know over the past couple years, live streaming for gaming has gotten huge again. There's like Roblox creators pulling like 300,000 concurrent viewers. Like it's ridiculous. So I would do long form and I would do live streams. Um, I wouldn't really do shorts. I've just never been a fan of shorts. Um, it's a different style of audience. It doesn't really translate well to long form. Uh, you can make all the money through long form and live streaming. So I would I would focus on those, the two L's, as I like to call it, long form and live streaming. Yeah, yeah. And I would also put all my focus into one game, but I would pick a big, exciting game on the platform, right? Um, obviously, there's tons of games you can play, but I would pick something that a lot of other creators are playing. There's a lot of creativity in the game, there's um a lot of opportunity in the game, right? So, like if you look at games like um, you know, let's say World of Warcraft, for example. World of Warcraft is a massive game, but it's not big on YouTube. Like no one really watches it on YouTube, right? So you want to pick a game that tons of YouTubers are making videos about. Um, and then I would put all my focus into that game. I think one of the biggest mistakes I made when growing my my first channel is that I started playing a bunch of different games, and it kind of made me lose focus because like I would play Minecraft and then I would play like a BMX game, and then I would play Call of Duty, and then I would play like a racing game, and the channel is just all over the place. They're like last week you were building a Minecraft house, now you're racing a dirt bike. Like, what is this dude doing? So putting all your what you want to do is you want to put all your focus into one game or one niche, right? So it could be like it doesn't have to be one game, but maybe one category. So like maybe scary games, right? Like maybe you make a channel like Markiplier. All your videos are about scary games. That's putting all your focus into one thing. And what you want to do is over time, you're gonna grow this audience and you're gonna grow um, you know, all these videos. And then once you have the audience, you can start diversifying and playing other games, other types of games, um, because now you have an audience to watch them. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's the best way to do it. I think I would also be focusing on a lot of videos that people search for. So, like if the game has a new update, um, and and again, this is not just for gaming content, but this could be for other YouTubers, like tech content. Um, I would be covering the newest software, the newest game update, the newest features, the Easter eggs, right? Like all the things that people are searching for. Um, and then and then the next thing I would focus on is trying to be as different as possible. How can I make videos uh in this game, in this universe that have never been seen before? Um, what are some ideas that no one has ever attempted? Um, and a lot of, and obviously this is all in blueprint. We have, you know, if you go to the ideas pro section, we have 10 different ways that you can brainstorm viral ideas. It's it's how I brainstorm all of my ideas for all of my channels, and I've been doing it for the past six years. But I would use those uh those blueprints to um basically figure out how to brainstorm really unique ideas that have never been done because the reality is, is uh every single video idea has been created, but there is millions of unique combinations of ideas that you can take and combine and make them sound original, different, and refreshing uh to the audience. So um, and then from there, I would just learn as I go. So I would post a video and fix it and post a video and learn and post a video and learn. And I would do that 574 times until I hit my first video that gets a million views.

Final Takeaways And Closing

SPEAKER_01 48:03

I love that, man. Listen, everyone who's watching now, you got a brain dump from one of the more successful guys on all of YouTube that quite frankly, he would not have been able to spend 45 minutes with you if you passed them on the street. You just got an incredible brain dump of information that's gonna help you grow your channels. If you want more information, if you're listening to the audio podcast, it's in the show notes. You're watching on YouTube, of course, everything's in the description. Thank you so much to Nathan for coming through, helping us with Blueprint and telling us all the things that he's told us. I can't wait to see this town just come to life. It sounds so exciting, man. I'm super hyped about that.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Yeah, thank you so much. Um again, I think my final notes here are YouTube is a lot of work. It's uh being a content creator is a lot of work. But at the same time, if you love it and you love making videos, it's the most rewarding, exciting job in the entire universe if you love making content. Simple as that. So um if you can make it work, you'll be happy as ever. Um, every day I wake up, I'm super excited to think of video ideas, look at thumbnails, create another video. Um, and again, I've been doing this 14 years, and it's still so exciting to me. Um so yeah, your passion for it will grow and get stronger over time.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

I love that. I love people who love YouTube, and we have more of that. Matter of fact, I got a video right here you can watch, and we'll see y'all in the next one.