How A New Creator Hit 70K Subs In 90 Days By Designing Videos People Rewatch

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We talk with Nathan from Slime E101 about going from YouTube scriptwriter to creator and growing to roughly 70,000 subscribers in about three months with daily uploads. We dig into the viral ideas and platform features he used to drive rewatching, revive older videos, and stay consistent without getting trapped by perfectionism. 
• writing scripts professionally and how that skill carries into a new channel 
• leaving a high-workload creator job for better balance and a new path in digital media 
• Project 100 as a consistency system plus a charity penalty for late uploads 
• why YouTube can push a “non-niched” channel when individual videos are strong 
• the MrBeast least-viewed concept that sends viewers to older uploads 
• using YouTube dubbing and a Klingon audio track to add a second “half” after upload 
• the technical reality of matching audio track lengths and what retention reveals 
• what happens after a million-view spike: outreach, scams, monetisation and next steps 
• choosing a sustainable schedule while keeping creative freedom and experimentation 
If you want to, if you're feeling really cool, you can hit that like button... and later on, if you really love the content, hit that subscribe button... If you're listening to the audio podcast, I think this is worthy of a five star review. 

Transcript

Cold Open On Breaking YouTube

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is another kind of like algorithmic hack. This is wild. It's blowing my brain right now. We see people say this a lot. I broke the algorithm. I believe you actually kind of broke the algorithm with this one video we're gonna talk about right now. Hey, welcome back to the only podcast is here to break the algorithm with you. That's right. My name is Travis. I'm here every single week helping you grow your YouTube channels. And today I have a very special guest. It's Slime. What's going on, Slime?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hey, I'm Nathan. I run the Slime E101 YouTube channel, and I've been uploading on it for about three months now, and I've got a little over 70,000 subscribers.

From Aerospace To Scriptwriting YouTube

SPEAKER_00 0:31

That's incredible. And I know a lot of people are gonna be like, wait a minute, uh, three months? 70,000 subscribers? How did he do that? Don't worry, we're gonna get into it. But if you're new here, that's what we do is we help you grow your YouTube channels either by answering your questions or sometimes talking to other creators. And if you want to, if you're feeling really cool, you can hit that like button. And later on, if you really love the content, hit that subscribe button. If you're listening to the audio podcast, there will be links in the show notes and of course in the description here on YouTube. All right, let's get into this. Anything this is crazy. Uh, the reason you're on this podcast isn't because like you've been on YouTube for years and years and years and crushing and all the other things, which a lot of times that's the creators we have. We have uh just in the last couple weeks, creators with millions of subscribers. But you did something really cool recently, but before we get into that, let's talk about your YouTube journey. Who are you and uh why did you first get into YouTube?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Uh well, I'm Nathan. I've been doing YouTube for a little longer than three months, but this is the first time where I've really tried focusing on like making YouTube videos. Before this, I actually did work for another YouTube channel. Uh they've got around 600,000 subscribers now. Uh, but when I worked for them, I was their lead script writer. Uh, the channel's called What About It. You can look them up if you're curious. The I I wrote for them for uh almost a year, and I left actually almost a year ago now as well. So the if you're curious to see my work, you can see that. A lot of the more popular videos, if you sort by popular, those ones were written by me. But the channel mainly focused on news-related stuff around rocketry. So what I'm doing now is I'd say relatively different, but also still you can definitely see the overlap as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

How did you get a scriptwriter job for a YouTube channel? I mean, there might be some people listening to this that might be interested in getting into helping a larger YouTube channel and having a job there. What what were you doing before that and how did you get into it?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, so I'm it's I was studying aerospace engineering before I got the writing job. So that definitely helped was that I had a background a bit in the field that I was basically applying to write about and talk about was because the channel focused on rocketry, so aerospace engineering is basically what you need to know to build rockets. And I just had watched the channel for years, and then one day they were look, they just had a call out looking for writers. And I mean, I really didn't think I was going to get it. My writing skills at the time were I mean, I don't think I got above like a C in any of my uh language arts classes like ever. So I was not expecting to get the job, but I applied and to my surprise, I got the job.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

That's crazy. So, what was it like for that uh around a year? Like what were they having you do? What was your day like? Um, you know, did you were you able to sustain yourself just on that pay, or did you have to get a side job? Like, how did that how did that all work for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

I they they paid, they paid really well, actually. The uh the overall workload was quite a bit, considering like uh it was two 20-minute videos a week. And for a while there, I was their only script writer. So there was I had to basically do all the research and then write the videos as well as find the b-roll. So it was quite a bit of work. But I yeah, I was able to like they paid really well, so I was able to sustain myself off that, no problem. And like I've actually I was actually able to make enough to where I didn't really have to work for about the last year while I was focusing on school.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Oh, that's awesome. So, what made you want to leave that? It sounds like a pretty good gig, um, if they're still going right now. What what was the impetus for leaving?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Uh honestly, just work-life balance stuff. It was a lot of work. Like I said, I was the only writer there for a bit, and by the end, it was I was working quite a few more hours than I had in my day a lot of the time. And I also at the time I just didn't really have a very good schedule worked out for myself, and I just I ended up pulling quite a few more all-nighters than was healthy, most likely. And they yeah, that's that's basically why I ended up leaving. Was it was a lot more work than I could do at the time, and I wanted to end up focusing on school, and so I left and ended up going back to college to study uh digital media instead now, instead of aerospace engineering. So I could actually get a more formal education in this space.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Well, so okay, you stopped for a while, you went back to school. How long was it between you stopping writing for that uh that channel and then you starting your new channel? What was the length of time there?

Project 100 And Beating Perfectionism

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Uh almost exactly a year after I left. Because I left back in February. February 1st of 2025 was my last day there, and then I started like properly uploading on this channel January 2nd of 2026. So it almost almost exactly a year, but and I had intended to start uploading sooner, but uh perfectionism got to me for sure. I was just too focused on trying to make every video perfect, and I ended up just not really uploading any videos because of it because I kept just going back, editing little things, rewriting the script. I mean, I have one script that I think I've rewritten maybe like 20 times, and I've been saying, oh, it's gonna come out in uh a month for like the past year now. So yeah, it's that's definitely that that was definitely harder, like a big like obstacle to get over when starting to properly upload on this channel.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

What's interesting about your channel, and I I say this in the most respectful way possible. I've seen a lot of channels like this. If you look from the outside looking in, it looks very it's just all over the place. Thumbnails are kind of all over the place, subjects are all over the place, yet pretty much all these have thousands of views, some tenses of thousands of views, and we'll talk about the viral stuff later, but like it's it goes, it flies in the face of successful YouTube channels. Um, why do you think this is even working a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I mean, I think it all comes down to like I think there's a bit of a misconception around YouTube, and that is basically that YouTube doesn't really care what you've uploaded before. Your audience, like your established audience already, they can care. So they might have some expectations around what you're gonna upload. YouTube doesn't, though. YouTube, as far as I can tell, does not care what you've uploaded in the past. And if you end up making a good video that has nothing to do with what you've uploaded before, it can do it can do numbers, it can do as good as you want it to, as long as you make a good video that does appeal to people, eventually YouTube will find its audience.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

That's that's yeah, that's that's very true. Um, we see a lot of people um say that you want to niche down, and we say that for a specific reason. Um because varied content will tend to get varied views, like if you know if you do one, like you did a vacuum review and you didn't even like name it anything specific, and then you'll do like um, you know, I went viral again or subscriber special and stuff. So you'll get a different view. Uh that's fine. But to your point, it's really interesting. It doesn't necessarily lock you into anything. You have to be very specific about this, though, because I feel like um anyone is just goes, Oh, I can just make anything, and then I'll get a lot of views like uh Slime does. Uh maybe not. You also have to remember what Slime's job was before this. He worked at a YouTube channel that was successful writing their scripts so he knows how to have a script for his content be good and be engaging and have people watch. So that's a huge deal. Obviously, thumbnails and stuff need to be to a degree people are gonna click them too. But once people are in, if you don't have a good idea and a good, you know, a good talk or whatever, it's not going to, it's not gonna connect. When you first started uploading, what were your like expectations going into this? Like you had zero subscribers, you're just uploading, you're like, did you think things were gonna go off right off the bat, or did you what did what were your expectations?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

I was hopeful, but I really didn't think I was I I thought maybe max I'd get like a thousand subscribers off this. So, for a bit of background as well, for people that don't really know much about what I've been doing, is for the past 90 days now as of recording, I've been doing daily uploads. And the whole project that I've dubbed it, it's I've I'm calling it project 100, where it's a hundred days, a hundred uploads, and for every missed upload or late upload, because I actually haven't missed an upload, but I have had some late ones. I'll donate uh$100 to charity. So it's kind of like a way to keep me consistently uploading, and like I didn't expect for it to get as big as it has gotten, and like I had a feeling that some videos were gonna do well, but I definitely think it has blown my expectations out of the water. And I mean, if you're curious, you can watch the very first video in Project 100, and like it's recorded on my laptop microphone, like there's so much noise in the background, and I'm basically just saying, Yeah, feel free. Like, I don't know why you would watch all the videos that are in this and like basically prepare for a train wreck. Like, I I did not expect it to have grown this quickly.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, I mean I've seen a lot of channels that again from the outside, I think it's really important to separate what you can see from the outside versus watching the content because those are, I think, are two different things here. From the outside, looking in, I've seen a lot of channels like this, and typically they're like two to three hundred views, maybe a couple hundred subscribers, but there's something going on here. Now, let me ask about the views before the viral videos, and we'll talk about those in a minute. What were the views on these videos like beforehand? Because if you know anything about viral videos, it will then give you more people to watch your older content because YouTube will start serving up your older content. So a lot of those videos will get views well after the fact. But if we look at like these first 10 or so videos, what did they look like, you know, 20, 30 days out? Did they have views or were they like, were they sitting at like five views? Like what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Well, for some of them, they did end up doing moderately successful at the time. I ended I have a video that's basically talking about why Coca-Cola has like uh two different diets, like Diet Coke and Coke Zero. And that one ended up doing about a thousand views within like a little over a week. So at the time that was basically my first successful video, I'd say. And that one was also the first one where so I also started this challenge while I was on vacation, technically, because I was just I I I didn't expect it to go anywhere, and I also just really wanted to get started because I was tired of pushing stuff off. So like that was the first one where I was back at my house, had some proper-ish equipment, and could plan everything out, script it, record it, and edit it and upload it. Because I mean, I only had my I just had a really crappy laptop with me. So like I I actually have I was able to properly edit a video once I got back, and that one got a yeah, about a thousand views at the start. But the rest of them, I mean, those early uploads were just all over the place. They're basically a way for me to push myself to actually upload, and I did not care what I uploaded, especially for those first like 10 videos. I was just trying to upload anything because I was tired of having not uploaded anything.

Going Viral By Pointing At MrBeast

SPEAKER_00 12:14

It's kind of amazing though, because like some of these are short, there's like a 21-second video and stuff. There's just suddenly these nothing's going on. I'm just gonna say it like that. And I don't mean that insulting, I mean it because it's fascinating. So the walk video is just you walking, the title of its walk, and the the thumbnail is just you a side thing walking. And it has almost 6,000 views right now. In the future, Lord knows how many views that thing's gonna get. It's actually kind of crazy. But there's people who've done, quote, more exciting things with less views. Um, was this one of those videos that benefited from like your viral stuff being uh sent views to it? Or did it always start to slowly go up or what?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

I mean, ironically, two of my most viral videos, I'd say, are ones that basically make people want to go back and watch your older content. Like, that's the weirdest part. Because my first properly viral video was uh a video about Mr. Beast's least viewed video. And if you're curious about it, like basically one in five of his videos could technically be considered his least viewed because essentially like the least viewed video, people are curious what his least viewed video is. So they go watch the least viewed video, making it no longer the least viewed video, and it just kind of snowballs. And I that video ended up getting it's at 300,000 views right now, I think before like my other viral video is uh a little over 200,000, and it even has a comment from Mr. Beast on it.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Oh, yeah. He tends to see a lot of people's videos, it's crazy when people talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah, yeah. That one was also funny because he commented on it like the like the morning after the Super Bowl. So I was just like, he's probably on a private jet right now, flying back from the Super Bowl watching this.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

That's crazy. Well, you freaked out when you saw that uh got it from Mr.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Oh yeah, yeah. That was, I mean, in all honesty, I kind of exp I was hoping he'd see it eventually, but I wasn't expecting it within like the first, it was like day four uh after it was uploaded, but that one definitely was my first viral video. But it also made people want to go back and watch my least view videos. So, like for a little bit there, I was having like thousands of people like sorting by most popular, scrolling to the bottom and watching my least viewed video. And at the time, it basically brought my entire channel, like all of the views on my channel went from I mean, like you said, some of them had like 30 views, and then they all ended up getting to like almost a thousand within like a week.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

That's super interesting. So you you trend jacked, um, you know, a Mr. Beast thing, which you know, some people can do, like you talk about Mr. Beast, and sometimes it'll go somewhere, sometimes it won't. But the subject matter of the video, and this is like if you're listening to this podcast, this is actually some really saucy stuff here. You gotta you gotta write this down. This is cool. The subject matter of the video actually made the viewers not only want to watch the video that you're talking about, but your own stuff and kind of made this this um uh it like broke the fourth wall in a weird way, kind of made it like a meme. It was it was the very interesting, and I think that like some of the other things you talk about, which we'll talk about here in a minute, the nine-minute long video, um, are things that make viewers want to watch either that same video or other videos uh after the fact. Was that a strategic thing you actually thought about, or did you just fall across it?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Not for that video. That one, I kind of just fell across it. Like, I kind of expected some people to do it, but I didn't expect it to be that many. And like the number of views that like some of those videos were getting, like, honestly, I was it was a bit embarrassing at the time because like it's people going to watch my least viewed videos and having like this project where I'm just uploading literally whatever I can to get something out. It's like some of those I'm like, really? Did you have to go watch that one? You couldn't have just watched like you know, this other video that was really good, and maybe it's just like middle of the road, like view-wise. But it was, and eventually those lower viewed videos did end up catching up with it. And I think now, even like some of my less viewed videos are ones that I'm proud enough of. So if anybody ends up doing that, then it's fine.

The Klingon Audio Track Hack

SPEAKER_00 16:23

But no, I did I didn't I did not plan on that for that video, at least. What's interesting is that the more people watch the less viewed video, the more it pops up, and then it makes a different video, the less viewed video, and then that pops up. Then it so it's never the same video. So it actually elevates your entire channel. The more people that do that, the more they're elevating your channel. This is another kind of like algorithmic hack. This is wild, it's blowing my brain right now. Um, in a lot of ways, you went ahead and you we see people say this I broke the algorithm. I believe you actually kind of broke the algorithm with this one video we're gonna talk about right now. This video is nine minutes long. We're gonna talk about why or how you broke, how did you break the algorithm, what does it look like, and what does it look like moving forward? So let's talk about this. Video is nine minutes long. Talk about us, uh, talk to us about how you came up with the idea, how you found this little thing that you found, and then the implementation of it and what it's looked like since.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, so the uh concept behind the idea was an it was something that I'd had in my brain for a while, honestly, but I wasn't really sure how to do it properly because I knew the so for those who aren't aware, I basically found a way to increase the length of a video, like past upload and also like past the timestamp by essentially just adding in another audio track. Uh, and YouTube allows you to dub your videos in different languages, and so I basically just added another audio track in another language, but just actually had it English and had people go over and click on it. But the problem is I knew about that and I knew that it had the ability to do things like that, but I didn't want to rock the boat by like uploading a video with like Spanish as a dub, because like then people who actually speak Spanish might be upset when they go to click on a video thinking that it's gonna be dubbed in Spanish, only to hear English still in the Spanish audio track. And like I was worried that I mean, for starters, that's just rude. Uh, and also like I was worried that YouTube might get upset at that and like just block the channel or something, or just like drop the banhammer on it for like deceptive practices. And I was like, how can I do this without like how can I use this feature without annoying YouTube essentially? And then I remembered like occasionally these programs will like these translate things will have different languages that aren't real, they'll have fictional languages. So Klingon is probably the most prominent one you'll see for anybody who's unaware. That's uh like the fictional language from Star Trek that the Klingons speak. And sure enough, like I thought of that, I checked, and YouTube had an option to dub your video in Klingon. And when I saw that, I was like, there it is, we got it. And I ended up being able to basically upload another audio track with Klingon and essentially double the length of the video by having people switch audio tracks essentially halfway through the video.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

But if you look at the runtime, it's at the end of the video. First of all, how did you find it was Klingon? Like, what in your mind was like, oh, see if they do Klingon? Like that doesn't that's not a random thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Oh, yeah. I mean, for me, I I'm a massive trekie. Like, I've watched basically all the Star Trek. Uh Star Trek Deep Space Nine is my favorite TV show just in general. I mean, I binge watched a few episodes yesterday, so like uh I kind of knew that and also like Silicon Valley people, a lot of them are trekkies as well. So like I've known that Klingon has been like a very prominent fictional language, but I was honestly surprised that it was the only fictional language because a lot of times they'll also have like Elvish from like Lord of the Rings, or maybe like Navi from Avatar. Like a lot of the other like translate things will have languages like that. So I was surprised when it was only Klingon.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So that's kind of like how I ended up looking into that one. So conceptually, you were you're making this video. Like, I want to make this video where I put basically two English tracks together, but I don't want to completely uh misrepresent like I like that you thought that because that makes a lot of sense, like selecting French and doing English would I agree with you. I think that was smart. Um and you found cleaning, like, oh, here it is. But what made you even think about this idea in the first place? Uh, did you did you theorize that like if someone can watch it twice that it would get like uh boosted in the algorithm? Like, what were your thoughts when you were coming up with this idea?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Honestly, it wasn't really from an algorithmic perspective. It was definitely more from the creative side that I came at it from of like I knew you could add dubs and audio tracks after the fact. So it was more a way for you to add something else to a video after being after it's uploaded, essentially. So, for example, if you look through a lot of the videos on my channel, even the older ones, they'll have Klingon audio tracks on them now because I was able to go back and dub over the video in Klingon, and I'll basically add like a director's cut or a commentary or like some little jokes. Like for the video I uh uploaded for April Fools, it was literally me just breathing into the microphone for like the duration of the Klingon audio track. Like you could just do little stuff like that. And that was kind of the idea behind it was me trying to figure out how I could possibly add more to a video after it was uploaded. Can change the title and thumbnail, you can change the description, and you can technically make a video shorter by like cutting parts out of it. And I've used that feature as well for other videos, but like there was never really a way to add more to a video for the most part, at least audio-wise, there wasn't until then.

Editing Workflow And What Analytics Show

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, so it's interesting because other platforms allow you to switch videos out or uh podcast audio like on podcast platforms. If because the thing is like the the editing thing that you can do in YouTube Studio is typically for taking out mistakes or something like that. And that's all the more YouTube wants you to do. But there are other platforms that will let you completely swap the file out. Let's say that there was an edit that was completely wrong and you want to add something new, they'll let you just take the video down and put up uh the same video in its place. Uh, YouTube doesn't want you to do that. I'm sure there's probably reasons for that, but regardless, like they don't allow you to do that. So you came up with an idea and a way to add stuff after the fact, which is really very ingenious. And what's even more interesting about it is that you did this with older videos. So, in that video that did well, you mentioned you were going to do it to other videos, which means again, you're you're doing whether you meant it or not, you're out there algorithmically playing the game. You get people to watch your older content, which is how you grow, because people need to watch multiple videos of yours in order for it to really kind of get into the algorithm, so to speak, and have your content be suggested to other people. So let's talk about that video specifically. Um, you came up with this video where you just wanted to basically talk about how the video was six minutes long or nine minutes long. Um tell us, like, first of all, how did you script that? And then what was the thought of like what the second track was going to be? Because that has to be as good too. Like you can't just be like, I did it, yay, uh watch this for six minutes. Like you kind of did some really interesting things in the edit.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I mean, in all honesty, it wasn't like it wasn't my first choice or my first idea. Like, really adding in, if you watch the video, there's like throughout the runtime, there's basically a little me in one of the corners that is corresponding to the second audio track. And that was actually a late-minute addition. Uh, I was planning on just having it be audio only for the second track, and I'm like, if people are actually going to want to switch over, they're gonna need some like visual stuff for this track. And because it's like for the other tracks, it's fine because like it's more adding extra stuff onto it, whereas this one, it is essentially the second half of the video. So, like, for that, you definitely need more of the visual aspect rather than just the audio. So that edit was definitely a last-minute thing, and I think like I've definitely been learning how to edit better, but like the writing of that video was honestly not too difficult. The the idea behind it, like, it's almost like it writes itself, I'd feel, I feel like, uh, and having it split up, like it kind of gave it like chapters as well. So like it was kind of easier to write because I'm like, all right, this is gonna be the first half, this is gonna be the second half, and I want to basically figure out what to leave that's like really important in the second half, and like so. Basically, the reasoning behind why I'm doing all of it, that's all left to the second audio track to try and get people to actually switch. Because, like, I mean, getting people to interact with your video, that can be a death sentence sometimes. Like, a lot of people just don't really want to interact. And even for that video, only about like from what I could tell, only about a third of people actually ended up switching audio tracks. So, like the retention rate for it, it tells you like a way to tell is you can basically see like how many people re-watch the video because it starts at 100% for the retention rate, and then basically anything above that is people re-watching the video. So it's ahead of like 133% basically. So only a third of people really watched that second audio tracker listened to it.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Interesting. Um, so okay, let's talk about first of all the edit. I I was also kind of confused. How did you so the edit of this must have been interesting because you have the the secondary visual there? So you exported it with the initial primary audio, and then what did you do? Do an audio only export and then use that to upload the so you had two tracks going essentially. Is that how you did it?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what you have to do. It's you have to make sure that the tracks are the exact same length, or it's not gonna work. Like I've it has been a problem at times because uh I'll have it like you have to like zoom in to make sure it's like with like milliseconds, uh, or else YouTube just will break and not let you upload it. Like you need to make sure it's the exact same length. Yeah, for that one it was very easy because it was uh I basically just recorded both audio tracks uh on like right here in front of the camera. Because typically for the audio track, I'll go over to my computer and record it separately, just over there, because I don't need to worry about the visuals. But for that one, I just recorded it. I basically just continued the recording, and like in the script, I basically just tried to eyeball it for like how close the two audio tracks were gonna be. And like trying to line that one up was a bit of a pain. And like you can see for the second audio track, it's just slightly shorter, and it cuts basically right before the outro. And like I had to actually I technically had to speed up that audio track just a little bit to get it to fit there properly. So if you watch the video, like you might be able to see I'm moving just like ever so slightly faster on that second audio track. Like it's fortunately, like a lot of the uh editing, like the editing software I use is pretty good at speeding stuff up without it being noticeable. In fact, I've had to do that trick on multiple audio tracks of just speeding it up or slowing it down to make it fit properly. But yeah, that one was getting it right is a definitely art form in and of itself a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

So let's talk about the upload. So you uploaded this thing. What were your expectations going into it? How many subscribers did you have at that time? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

At that time, uh I actually had about 7,000 because that was technically my third, like actually no, it was probably like my fourth video that I'd say did decently well because before that I had two other, or I had the Mr. Beast video, then I had a like gaming video essentially that ended up doing pretty good. I think it's at like 200,000 views right now. But then like two days before uh this before that video, I had a video that ended up doing really well all on its own. And that one got me to about 7,000 subscribers in like a day. Um yeah, because that one that one honestly surprised me because the essentially the concept behind that video was using the edit feature to cut the video like every day. So basically, I just cut like a minute out of the video each day until it was a minute long. And that was the whole concept behind the video. But the idea was for the first two days, I was just gonna have a really bad title and thumbnail that was like unclible and uninteresting, and that it was gonna do poorly for the first two days, and then I was gonna edit it and change the title and thumbnail. So, like those first two days were supposed to just be for the subscribers that I already had, but that video ended up blowing up on its own, and uh a bunch of people subscribed and got me to around like 7,000 subscribers, and like they had so many comments as well. Like that one, I I'm still surprised with how well that one did, but when that one did well, it kind of like boosted my expectations for the exploit video because I'm like, all right, people want to like interact with stuff, they want to see people mess with YouTube essentially. And so like I kind of knew that it was gonna get like around a million views. Like, I actually messaged one of my friends before the upload of like, yeah, if this doesn't get a million views, like I'll be surprised. And yeah, I got a million views within like a day and an hour. Wow, that's crazy. What what was the video you were talking about you kept uh editing down? Uh that one, if you look on my channel, it's like two or three days before it just says blank. Or like the title, the title is just a bunch of up arrows, and the thumbnail is just a black screen with like if you have the right brightness on your phone or screen, you can see it. But if not, you can't, but it just says blank, but it's like very very light.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

And like what's the what's in the video? What's what are you saying basically in that video?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Uh it's basically me just it's kind of similar to the uh Klingon video of like me just talking about this feature and wanting to use it as something like interesting. And I also talk about like uh things such as like nothing lasts forever and stuff like that, because like you know, the video is getting cut down, and uh yeah, that's that was basically it. Like, I didn't I that one I was hoping would do well, but I really like my expectations with that for that one were not that high. And whenever it got like a hundred thousand views in a day, I was very surprised because that one actually ended up doing like view-wise and like the pace, uh, it was actually outperforming the Mr. Beast video, even. And it just has a black thumbnail with like random stuff as the title.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

So, as you edited out minutes, what was happening to the average view duration in the in the analytics?

After The Blow Up What Comes Next

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Honestly, I think YouTube has fixed it a fair bit uh because there was another YouTuber. If you're curious about like YouTube exploits and stuff, you might know him, uh, the Spiffing Brit. He does uh kind of exploit videos similar to me. And honestly, for the Klingon video, I was like every day I was worried that I was like watching his channel in specific to see if he was going to come up with this and like upload something before me. But he had done something similar where he edited out like half of the video to see how it affected it, and like I think it did end up affecting his, but for mine at least it didn't really I think they've changed their system a bit to where it doesn't really affect it, and it almost counts as like it almost counts as a new upload. And like it's weird because you can see like in like playlists and stuff, for example, I've noticed uh anytime I have edited a video, it basically adds a number to the playlist, which means on the back end I think YouTube just treats it as a completely different video and it just deletes the old one and kind of transfers the analytics over, but not really. So it's it's interesting. That one, the analytics for that one, like I don't think that one was necessarily a hack. It was more of just an interesting concept. And honestly, I feel like that's what happened with the Klingon video as well. Like the analytics looked good, but I honestly think it was just because it was an interesting concept that people liked as well. Like, that's why it did so well.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

So it did super well. Obviously, I'm how many subscribers did you get from that video? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Uh, well, the one that was cut down, that one was about 7,000, and or that one was about 6,000. And then the uh yeah, the Klingon video, that was about from the video, like on the analytics page, it says like I got 40,000 subscribers from it. But honestly, I'd say the majority of my scrub the subscribers on my channel did come from that video.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

So from people either watching it there and subscribing or watching maybe other content and going, that first video got me, and then I subscribe on another video. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so now you've got this channel that you don't even have 100 videos yet, and you're at 76,000 subscribers, which is really amazing in a lot of ways. I mean, you are close to doing the 100 videos in in 100 days. We'll talk about that here in a minute. But you, you know, this video comes out. What was it like for those couple of days where things were starting to blow up and you're were you getting uh reached out to by other YouTubers? Obviously, VidIQ did, but uh anyone else that like reached out and kind of was like, Well, this is cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Honestly, I didn't get as many people reaching out as I thought would, if I'm being honest. There was uh there were quite a few YouTubers that had reached out to me before that. Uh I around the Mr. Beast video, I actually had someone reach out um that I was able to interview, even and they have like I think they had like five million subscribers, but like directly reaching out, and there were a lot of people that commented on the video, but there wasn't actually that many people reaching directly out to me outside of like the occasional, like honestly, there were a couple scams that started reaching out to me at that point because I'd also just monetized my channel. So there were people saying, like, oh, uh partner with us and stuff, or hey, do you want to do this sponsorship for this uh meme coin? And but I I didn't actually have too many people reach out to me, but I I am also fortunate enough to where because I've worked for other YouTubers in the past, and just out of pure coincidence, I've I do have a lot of friends already that are relatively like large YouTubers, and I was able to reach out to them and they like they reached out and they were like, dude, I saw your video. I'm not even subscribed to you. How?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, that's when you know it's being uh given to a whole bunch of creators, uh a whole bunch of viewers, I should say, um, to test it against those new audiences. That's amazing stuff. That's super, super cool, super interesting. So now you're in this uh weird situation where you know you have to try to finish the hundred um a hundred uh view videos in a hundred days, which is cool. I mean, you're almost there. I there's almost no way you don't make it at this point. I think if you're like 30 into it, you're like, I still got 70 to do. Oh my god, I don't know if I can do this. But like you're about 10 away, no big deal, right? Yeah. Um, I guess the question now is then what?

SPEAKER_01 36:04

That is the question, isn't it? I mean, my original plan was I like this channel was actually my second channel uh up until like the Mr. Beast video, honestly. Um that was whenever I was like, all right, nope, this I can't switch over to my other, I can't switch back to what was my main anymore because this one now has more subscribers than it. Um but my original plan was to do the hundred days, learn how to edit, learn how to make videos, and then go back to my old channel and do videos that I had been wanting to make for like basically over the past year, the ones that I'd been that I kind of alluded to that I had been working on. But now I'm just gonna stick with this one. And I think I've also realized like I kind of need a schedule of some kind to basically get me to upload and to just get me to say, all right, I'm done with this. It's good enough. I've got to put something out at this point, because nothing is ever going to be perfect. And I think that was like one of the biggest takeaways of this challenge so far has been like figuring out that I need a schedule, but also daily uploads is not the schedule that I need. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

No, that's intense. That's intense.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah, but I also don't want to lose the like freedom of being able to upload whatever I want because I have a tight schedule. Like that, there's just something about like being able to upload anything and being able to be more experimental that I just don't want to lose or get rid of. Because, like, I mean, you could be like the biggest YouTuber on the planet and upload, like have every video just be a viral hit, but like, are you really happy with what you're making at that point? I mean, I'm sure some people are, but for me, there's a lot of videos where I'm like, this isn't gonna get any views, but I want to make it, and I don't think I ever really want to lose that. And like, like I said, I don't really think uh, like, at least in my case, niching down I don't think is going like I don't think would be a good idea. And so I think what I'm gonna end up doing is basically have two videos a week, one be a big video that I focus on, and then the other one be just whatever I want.

Branding Decisions Lessons And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 38:25

We talked before we went live about the name of the channel, which is Slime E101, and kind of the branding portion of this. I I'm gonna just urge you to figure this out sooner rather than later because there's gonna become a point. It's funny, I literally just talked to a content creator, um, Jack sucks at life, and we talked about that. Yeah, we just talked about that, and he said, you know, I kind of wish that I didn't have that name now, but it's too late. It's too late for me. Like it's it's the rap, you know. He's already you're kind of in this this pivotal point where you either need to go all in on Slime E101 or quickly change to whatever. Uh talk us through your thoughts and kind of how you've been thinking about this lately, because you said right before we went live, like, I've been thinking about this and I don't really know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Yeah. I think I do think I'm gonna end up sticking with Slime uh and Slime E101. Like, I've had that username in some form or another for years now, and like I it's a it's a fine username. Like the only problem is that there are already a lot of YouTubers that have Slime a as a username, but I mean I think I can still stand out among them at least. And like my sister also made me this like years ago now, like for reference of how long I've had the username. Like, she made this for me for Christmas. It's a little crocheted slime for those who are listening. And like I I I do love slimes, like they're they're adorable, and I do think I'm gonna end up sticking with it. And I I've also started to like mix some stuff in with my channel as well that like goes with the username. So I I'm not upset with the username. Like, I think I can look back at it in like 10, 20 years and be like, yeah, I'm okay with going by slime. And I'm sure a lot of people will just call me like slime instead of slime E101.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

But yeah, I think that's fine. So let me ask you one kind of one final thing here. Looking at what you've accomplished in such a short amount of time, you've had viral videos, you've had videos that didn't do so well at one point, you've written scripts, you've gone past your monetization goal, you've done all these things in like three months, which is crazy. I mean, most people experience this over months or years sometimes. You've experienced a lot in a short amount of time. What are some what are give me a couple of takeaways that you have you've learned in this short amount of time that maybe you didn't know when you first started?

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Honestly, I have learned a lot. Uh for starters, daily uploads are a lot harder than I thought they would be. Uh, being able to keep up with that and having the stress of like, honestly, I think it's gotten harder since I've gotten more subscribers to actually like make the stuff that I want to make. Not because like my subscribers are like preventing me from doing it or something, but more just like out of a mental barrier of like, I feel like I can't just upload anything anymore. I've got like 70,000 subscribers at the moment, and I'm like, I feel like I don't want to let them down. And like getting over that has definitely been something that I've needed to learn, and kind of just finding what my artistic voice is. I mean, that was also one of the goals of this challenge. Was after leaving What About It, like I didn't really know what my style was. Like, I wrote for them, like I wrote around the equivalent of a book in my time with them. So like it was very weird going from that to like trying to write my own stuff, and I just didn't really know what my style was, and that was kind of the whole goal of learning, like for the challenge, and I definitely feel like I've learned that.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Amazing. I love it. Well, if you're interested in checking out Slime, we'll have a link in the description in the show notes. We thank you so much for joining us. And um, again, someone who came in and really broke the algorithm in some weird way, uh, to then make it actually help his channel, not just the one video, but his entire channel. You've seen and heard about all of that in this podcast, and I hope you've enjoyed it. If you did, hit that subscribe button. And if you're listening to the audio podcast, I think this is worthy of a five star review. I think it was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Lime, for joining us. And we'll see y'all in the next one.