How A Small Channel Turned Card Game Drama Into Millions Of Views

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A Yu-Gi-Oh creator goes from niche competitive uploads to documentary style videos that pull millions of views from people who have never played the game. We break down the practical choices behind the jump, from thumbnails and scripting to research workflows, monetization, and what comes next when the algorithm is finally smiling. 

• the long grind behind a “sudden” viral moment and what the first 24 hours really look like 
• shifting from competitive strategy content to broad mini documentaries built for casual viewers 
• thumbnail and title decisions, A B testing, and why packaging can make a great story stall 
• building a strong hook, setting stakes fast, and using rehooks to hold attention in long videos 
• scripting to reduce repetition, tighten structure, and stay faithful to the click promise 
• editing for watch time with motion graphics, visuals, and fewer over explanations 
• researching evergreen stories with old footage, forum archives, and the Wayback Machine 
• RPM, mid roll ads, sponsorship deals, and how niche audiences affect earnings 
• planning systems, hiring help, and choosing the next content bucket beyond Yu-Gi-Oh 

If you're new here, hit that subscribe button and go over to Squiddies and probably watch that video. 

Transcript

The Overnight Upload That Exploded

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Why 1 a.m.? What was that about? So I think that's when I finished editing it because it took me forever. So I was like, I'm just gonna upload it. I don't want to wait anymore. Yeah, by the first day it was already at 160k uh within 24 hours. Because I think in the first couple hours it was like my regular old videos where it got like you know a couple hundred thousand views. And then when I woke up, I think I was like, oh, this is actually doing kind of well. This is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Is there anything about that that like blows your mind as it's happening?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, basically, I didn't know what was happening, and I was kind of in bed, like losing a little bit of sleep because I would check my YouTube studio every now and then and be like, uh oh, a couple thousand more views, alright. And then check all the comments, but uh it is kind of surreal, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Remember how many subscribers you were at around that point before that video took off?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I think around 40 or 50,000. I don't know if you ever get this, but I'm like, I don't know if they're gonna do well or not anymore. I just throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks. I uploaded on Thursday and by Saturday I got a million.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

So that was kind of crazy. And you're like, I'm so back, I figured it out again. I'm a genius. Hey, welcome back to the Only Podcast that's here, and we won't ever cheat you. I promise you, we will never cheat you. I'm Travis, and today we have a great, very special guest, Squiddies, from an incredible channel that just started blowing up. And the reason that I have Squiddies on is because I literally was on my homepage and one of his viral videos came up, and I'm like, I need to talk to this kid because he's one of he's one of you. He's one of the creators that's just out there grinding and things starting to catch up with him. And I just want to say welcome, Squiddies.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, totally. Thanks for having me on the show, Travis. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

And you've, I mean, the thing is like you don't even have you haven't uploaded a thousand videos yet, which is cool. Uh, I think there's a lot of create content creators out there that are starting that are around that size, but you have 117 million views, and a lot of things have happened over the last couple of weeks. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your channel and the type of content that you uh create.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, so uh I run a channel called Squiddies and it's a Yu-Gi-Oh card game. So the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game. Um, just a lot of stories about that. You know, there's some crazy things that happen in this game. It's a tabletop game that has a lot of competitions. Uh, so I started that maybe I think I started the channel over 10 years ago originally when I used to play just in uh university with some friends. And I didn't really upload anything, you know, for the general public, it was more for friends. But more recently in the past two to three years, I started uploading a lot more stuff. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

I want to I want to kind of explain that like what because we're gonna talk about how a lot of the stuff has really gone well for you in the last couple of months. But I much like a lot of viewers of like this podcast, that they'll see someone, they'll go, Oh, they just blew up because things worked out for them. But you've been uploading, I mean, so technically you had a couple of uploads that are over 14 years old. That's a long time ago. But again, you do you even said that like you were just kind of doing it for friends and weren't super taking it super serious. Uh, but then you started back up uh a little bit over four years ago, kind of more seriously. And it's not like you haven't been grinding this entire time. You were literally like the type of creator I like to talk to because it wasn't that you had some famous friends or something weird like that. Like you did the grind. So talk to us about those early days of the grind, like four or five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah, so I I played a lot of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! You know, I travel, used to travel all over the states just with friends going to competitions. So I would create content just for competitive players and just talking about, you know, the strategies, the evolving metagames, stuff like that. And that was already like a little niche within a niche. So I did that for you know a couple of years. Uh, and then I started making some shorts. And in the shorts, I wanted to experiment and talk about Yu-Gi-Oh! from a high-level perspective, so like more general. A lot of people grew up with the TV show playing the card games, but not competitively. So I did that, and then the shorts I found really kind of started getting a lot of uh views because people just remember the stories and they're like, oh, this is kind of cool, you know, I kind of remember this game, or they just thought the story was cool. And then more recently in the past four to five months, I want to say, I started adapting those shorts into longer form mini documentary style, just talking about stories, about the players, about the strategies from like a very broad perspective where anyone that doesn't play Yu-Gi-Oh can understand it. And those ones have been doing really well. So I think it's something that uh the formula just works when you have people who like a story.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

You know, you've done so many things. I mean, you look at your channel, it's so interesting because you can see like the the chapters in your story, so to speak. Uh, before this more recent stuff, we think started blowing up, you had a lot of the um kind of like cartoonish type thumbnails and stuff, and it looked like it was it, you know, it was a different vibe to it, right? I mean, the the story and stuff is kind of similar-ish, but before you click, you're thinking something completely different than what you're doing now. Talk to us about like that time in your in your content creation uh kind of uh career.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, so I actually uh drew some of those thumbnoses myself. I just like dabble a little bit of like doodling,

From Competitive Niche To Broad Stories

SPEAKER_01 4:30

and um, that was just one thing I wanted to try, and it was more for the competitive videos. So it was just like trying to grab like a competitive player's attention by drawing a picture of this card that you would only know if you played the game competitively. Um, but then I started doing some market research, like um just looking at other channels. So some of the other more like kind of documentary-esque channels that are bigger. Uh, I know like Sunny V2 was one of them, um, M Plemon. Uh, and they had like this style of thumbnail where it's like, you know, a subject, like the person that you're talking about, and then maybe some text to kind of support the title. And I thought that was really, really cool. So I tried that with the first documentary one I made uh a couple of months ago, and that really blew up. Um, I did test, I did a lot of A testing as well. I I tested some cartoon thumbnails. I even hired like an artist that was better than me, uh, but that one just didn't do as well as the thumbnail of the person. So I kind of just stuck with that. Uh, and it's been working so far.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So but I also feel like that is a kind of a do you consider it a departure of the type of content you were making before that? So this one we're talking about is about six months ago. And for those who are gonna look at the channel, it's called How One Man Sabotaged Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament for 1523, which was a it's a mouthful of a title. But you know, it's it's from an editing standpoint and everything else, the storytelling, it feels different to me when I watch it. Do you is that what you were going for?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yes. So I spent like a whole year kind of learning how to edit better because in the beginning, my mentality was, and I think a lot of newer YouTubers do this where they're just trying to crank out as much content as possible. It's like, oh, if I miss a day, you know, I'm not consistent, I'm not gonna get views, you know, I'm losing ad revenue or whatever. Um, and I used to be one of those where I just try and make a video as often as I could. Anything, anytime I thought about something, I want to make a video ASAP, and I would not edit them. It would just me turn on the camera, maybe minimal cutting, because I was like, oh, I don't want to spend forever editing. It just makes no sense. I could make more content in the time that I would spend editing. Uh, but then I thought, you know what, let me try this out. Because like a lot of other channels are doing this thing where they have like really good editing. They are using like, you know, after effects and doing all this crazy motion graphic stuff, and it really helps you sit there and watch a longer video because you're actually watching it as if it was like a TV show and you know that it's high quality. Uh, so I spent like a year kind of learning, going on YouTube, looking at tutorials, how to edit in premiere, how to do a little bit of after effects. And after about a year, I got to a baseline where I had a lot of presets and stuff. I could do it at a decent pace and it was really good. And I kind of incorporated that. And once I took that editing and also incorporated like the story and like telling it to people as if they didn't play Yu-Gi-Oh, I think that's what really really worked well. You can tell a story, but also you have good editing so someone can stay there and your attention's really good because they don't click away.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah, so I just recently interviewed uh Dan, the producer from Deep Pocket Monster, um, and he talks a lot about editing and storytelling and stuff. And to be honest, it's one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done. And if you haven't watched it, you got to go back and watch it. It's an incredible breakdown of how they did a particular episode. But so much of this is storytelling, and he talks about how a piece of cardboard can make someone cry because those videos that they do are intense and they're so interesting. Even people like I don't collect Pokemon, I watched the entire thing. I was, I was, I was absolutely intrigued. Which is to say, when I first saw your video about the downfall of the most notorious Yu-Gi-Oh Cheater, again, a game I don't play. Some of my friends play. I don't, I don't really care about it. I watched the vast majority of that video before I reached out because I'm like, this is just the storytelling is on a is on a level that I was super interested in, the story itself, even though I didn't know what the heck was going on. What did you learn over your time content creating that helped you in the storytelling side of this? Because again, you want people who don't know anything about this to watch the content.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

I think just from watching a lot of the other YouTubers and realizing like, well, it works, um, a lot of it is in like the intro. You know, I see a lot of people kind of talk about, you know, the thumbnail and the packaging, the title, but also the intro, the first 20, 30 seconds, you really got to nail down like what the video is about and kind of stay faithful to the title and the thumbnail. You don't want people to be like, oh, this is clickbait. It's not what I clicked on. Um, and if you can do that in like the first 20 seconds, I feel like once they start watching past that, they keep watching. Uh, I I watched like a lot of uh, like you're saying, Deep Pocket Monster is a great one. I watched like some of his videos. He's collecting like Gengar cards and all that. Uh Wolfie Glick is another one that does uh he does like Pokemon style content and he's really good with storytelling. And I think just watching like those guys and also uh thinking a little bit about how what makes the story the most interesting. So I took a lot of time actually scripting. That's one thing I never did before. I never used to script, I just like babble. But recently I started typing. I used Notion, uh, just write down or like Google Docs, write down what you want to say for the entirety of the script and go off of that. And I felt like that really works well because you can spend like a couple hours refining the intro and reading it back to yourself until you're like, oh, this is you know, this is really good.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Let's talk a little bit about um this this new chapter you're in, because it's it's what most content creators hope for. Again, this didn't just happen to you in your first couple months on YouTube. You first uploaded 14 years ago, you were really grinding for the last five years, and now this this change is kind of this thought of doing talking about this thing you love, but in a different way, has now really started to connect. And over the last six months, I'm just gonna take a look at these. You have a video with 2.1 million views, 2.2 million views, 3 million views, and one of 263,000 views, which would be the stinker. But in anyone else's uh anyone else's uh purview would be like, I want that 260,000 view video. Like it's crazy. You are you are putting out videos now, and again, for anyone who doesn't know, under 100,000 subscribers, you're just crushing. This is all long form, this is not short form stuff. This is legitimate taking content and blowing it up on YouTube.

Packaging That Wins The Click

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Let's first start by talking about the intro. You did briefly touch on it. I want you to break down when you are now creating a video, those first 10 seconds. We always talk about obsessed with the first 10 seconds, but a lot of people don't know what that means. Break down 10 seconds of your like maybe your next video or one of the videos you just did.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, so uh one thing that I learned really well, I guess, from making the shorts is the hook. So, like in the shorts, the first sentence is like the most important thing, whether the person sticks around or not. So I kind of adapted that for the long form where uh generally in the first sentence or two, I introduce the person, the topic. Like if it's about this, you know, it's about this notorious cheater, then it's about, you know, this is this is him. Uh, and then after that, I kind of say, like, uh kind of establish like the setting, like what the tension is. One thing that I think with these videos that tends to do well is like there's some stakes. So there's like some kind of tense force that's uh whether a barrier or like something crazy. Like in the recent one I did that was about a Yu-Gi-Oh player who was like an underdog. He won a tournament out of nowhere, he didn't really play as a casual. Uh, I think the one thing that really sold it was the fact that the internet was really mad. So in the intro, I was kind of establishing that uh the internet was kind of mad that this random player out of nowhere won with a really cheap deck, he didn't really spend money uh into his deck, into his cards. Uh, and the other thing was like a lot of these uh players that he played against that were like the pros, quote unquote, were really angry. They were kind of like some of them didn't want to shake his hand because they were like, oh, this kid came out of nowhere, he just beat us, you know. So uh establishing that uh the introduction, like this is Marquise Henderson, the person that uh is in the video, what he just did, he won this event, and then what like the barrier is like why is this a good story? There's some stakes. What are the stakes?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, that's definitely uh uh something that I think as content creators you need to understand is really important to get people to lock in. But the thing that you're doing that makes it a little bit more, I would say, difficult is your video is like 20, 25 minutes long, 30 minutes long, uh, you know, you have when it's an hour. Um the rehook, that's the real sauce. Like if you spend enough time, you can figure out how to get someone to stick around for a minute, two minutes. And if you have a five or 10 minute video, you're probably gonna do okay. But you're having listen, if I'm seven minutes into your video and you're not really re-hooking me, I might get bored and click off. Like, how do you re-engage the viewer? What kind of techniques are you using?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

I think like going back again to the stakes, like having like mini checkpoints where there's like, oh, you know, there's something barrier, there's a barrier. How does he cross this barrier? Then uh after a while, there's another barrier, how does he cross this? You know, there's something, there's consistent kind of like bumps in that timeline, so it's not linear. Uh, it kind of makes it for if you watch like a Netflix show or a reality TV, you know, there's always some kind of drama at some point, and it kind of keeps you hooked because you want to see what happens next. So that's one thing I tried to adapt. Uh, were there things that kind of came up? You know, like maybe he had an opponent during the tournament that gave him an especially hard time. What happened during this uh particular hard match? Um, the other thing is like I think with the editing, like having um stuff kind of move a little bit, having some motion graphics to support what you're talking about, you don't really have to talk about everything in the script, I realize. Like sometimes you can just show it on screen with the visuals as well. You know, you're not spending five sentences to talk about one thing, you're spending like one or two, but then you're documenting that with visuals to kind of support that. And I think like having visuals that kind of move around a little like in my stuff, it's a little over-edited sometimes, like five, 10 seconds stuff is moving, which you don't really have to do, I realized. But uh, I think you know, having stuff change on the screen and the story progress uh is what's important. So you're not just like rambling on one thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

For me, uh, when I when I was doing a lot of consecration early on, I didn't like scripting and it was something that I didn't ever do. But then I think over time, I feel like at times it can actually help you. This was something that you said you kind of transitioned into. What was like the hardest part about either writing the script or writing or reading from the script? Like what was that whole process like for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah, so I just really thought it was a waste of time in the beginning. I agree with what you were just said. It's like sitting down and writing a script. Oh man, I'd rather just turn on the camera and talk. And just talk, yeah. You get there, right? But um, afterwards, I realized that a lot of times I tend like me especially, I tend to repeat words, and sometimes I'm just like super repetitive. It's like a broken record, or I use the same words over and over. And it's just kind of like I watch it back and I'm like, this is kind of annoying. So after I scripted it out and being able to read that, I think was uh super helpful. The one thing right now, I don't even have a teleprompter, so I have to kind of like dart my eyes back and forth and try to memorize it. I think have you have any thoughts on that? Maybe getting like a teleprompter would help.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

I literally am using one right now. That's why I'm how I'm looking at you in your eyes. Uh, I'm using the teleprompter as that, and it's it's from Elgato. Great teleprompter. I couldn't uh recommend it enough. It's absolutely a little expensive, but it's fantastic. Yeah, it's something that I eventually was like, you know what? If I'm gonna even read any scripts at all, which I don't read a lot of scripts, but I do sometimes, or when I do these interviews and I want to look you in the eye, I can put you up in the teleprompter. It's such a it's such a game changer, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, I I got that on my list. I definitely got to check that out because I have to memorize lines right now, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's the worst.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Are you are you good at memorizing things? Because I like if I try to memorize a line, I I get three words in and I forget it.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

No, I'm terrible, and I have to do it like 10 times. The only reason why it like is somewhat redeeming is because I use this program called Gling, Gling.ai. It's like an AI software that cuts the bad takes for you. Oh, cool. So you can edit it. It's like D script, uh, I think it's a similar one where you can look at the it transverts your script into words, so you can quickly edit it and cut it. Otherwise, it would be really hard to edit.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

What's what's the hardest part of editing your your own stuff? Or is there anything that's particularly hard, or is it just getting on the B-roll?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, a lot of the B-roll, because you kind of got to be careful, you know, like sometimes you don't want to, if the person doesn't want to be in your video, you gotta be very sensitive about that, like blur out their face, but also like finding a lot of stuff because a lot of the stories I'm telling are from like over 10 years ago. So going down the YouTube rabbit hole, a lot of the form sites that I got, like some of the form posts, are down. So I have to go uh Wayback Machine is a really good one. It's like a time machine on uh this this website that hosts a lot of snapshots of websites from like 10 years ago that's a little hack. Um, so if you want to support your story, you can use that to find some snapshots of older websites.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

That so the thing is you're and this is what I find really kind of compelling about your channel. You are covering older things and you're still getting tons of views. Is there is it because all the interesting things already happen, or are there things happening now and you would kind of get to the point where you're like, I want to do stuff that happened in the last year, not not a decade ago, or does it even matter? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I I guess like because for me, I've been playing, you know, competitively for over 10 years, but I haven't been playing as much recently. So maybe there are a lot of crazy things that still happen, but I feel like there are a lot of just wild stories that for some reason happened, you know, across the past decade or so. And a lot of times uh it was like someone just circumvented like one of the rules because back then they didn't have all these rules, they had to upload, update the policy over the years. So nowadays it's kind of harder to do something that you could do previously, like cheat in the game or something wild like that. So um, but also like going back to that, I think the prospect of making like a evergreen video, so making your video always watchable, like these older stories, someone can watch it from five, ten years from now. They don't, it's the same thing because the story is like 10 years old as is, right? So uh that's one thing that I kind of thought about in the back of my head, and it seems to be working.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Do you know? Uh, do you remember, or if you can pull up, it'd be great. I should have asked you this beforehand. Uh, so again again, the the one video really started popping off was about six months ago. Do you remember how many subscribers you were at around that point before that video took off?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I think around 40 or 50,000, and a lot of my subscribers are from my shorts as well. Oh, just like overbearingly, probably like 40,000 subscribers at least are from the shorts. Because yeah, those seem to people just click on subscribe on the shorts.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

So then what that can we talk a little bit about the analytics of that video? And I do want to talk about the most recent one after that, but can you tell us about how long it took before it started taking off? Like if you look at the first uh 24 hours or for seven days, like what was it doing at first when you first uploaded it?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, let me pull this up. So I I remember that it took a couple of days. So um yeah, I'm looking at it now. I uploaded it, I guess, on Friday, December 5th, or Thursday, December 4th at 1 a.m. Uh and then it uh I guess by yeah, by the first day, it was already at 160k uh within 24 hours. So whoa, yeah, on Friday, December 5th at 130 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It shows that you're collabing that video. Was that the case then or no?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Uh yeah, so the gentleman who the subject is about, he actually interviewed him. His name is Alan Pennington. He's the guy who actually created this strategy that stalled this tournament. So that's what the video is about. It's about him. And he actually still plays uh Yu-Gi-Oh here and there. So he actually had a channel, and I interviewed him, and we were like, oh, okay, we can just make this a collaboration since I interviewed you. And I actually stayed in the same hotel during the tournament with him. So that's actually how I know the story because this was like in 2012, and we just remember it being this crazy thing where he had this strategy that stalled this tournament for you know, like hours upon end because it was like a stall strategy, everyone got mad. Uh, and it ended up being this good story, I guess,

Hooks Rehooks And Scripted Structure

SPEAKER_01 18:40

for YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, I mean it that's crazy that it went into the first 24. So if you up what first of all, why 1 a.m.? What was that about?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Um, so I think that's when I finished editing it. So I was like, I'm just gonna upload it. I don't want to wait anymore, which is probably not the best idea. You should probably, I think, wait at least you know, 24 hours or something just in case. Maybe you have some copyright thing triggered or whatever, and also you can sure come back to it and be like, oh, maybe I don't want to upload that.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Do you know? Do you remember if you went to sleep after that and woke up to all these views, or did you kind of stick around to see what would happen?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Or I yeah, I definitely went to sleep because I think in the first couple hours it was like my regular old videos where it got like you know a couple hundred thousand views. And then when I woke up, I think I was like, Oh, this is actually doing kind of well. This is crazy. And then within like the first week, I think it already got like you know, a couple hundred thousand, like six hundred K. And then I was like, wow, this is really crazy. I guess people are just stumbling upon this story. I I didn't think it would be I thought it was just a one-off case, you know, like this story was interesting. I didn't think people really care about Yu-Gi-Oh! because a lot of the comments I was getting, people were like, I don't play Yu-Gi-Oh! I I don't know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh!, but this is an interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

So So, were you when you made the second video, which is the video I found you on the downfall of the most notorious Yu-Gi-Oh cheater, uh, which now has 2.2 million views? Uh going into that, you obviously had some things you learned from the first one, like, okay, this this format seems to work, but I don't know what to expect. What were your realistic expectations for this one? What did you take from the first one that you learned and maybe changed for this one to make it even better?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I thought it was gonna do horrible because it was an hour long. I just couldn't cut anything out more. I was like, all right, I'm just gonna upload it, whatever. Um, I learned, I think, to not over-explain a lot of the Yu-Gi-Oh strategies because again, the majority of the audience doesn't play Yu-Gi-Oh!, you just got to do the bare minimum where they understand the general broad perspective of how the card or the deck, the strategy works. But I think in the first video, I kind of overexplained in some certain moments where I'm really going to the nitty-gritty about how these cards work and the rulings, and people are like, I don't really know, but cool, you know, I'm gonna skip this part. So I kind of tried to tone it down a little bit there. Um I wanted to do, I did like an interview in the first one, obviously, with Alan, but I wanted to do one with um the guy who cheated, his name is Peter Chang. Obviously, he didn't want to get interviewed, but his opponent, his name is Fraser. We tried to set something up, we didn't get it set up in time, unfortunately. Uh, so instead, I took footage from one of Peter's matches against Fraser in the tournament where he actually did like he cheated like five times, and it was just a crazy thing. So I used that instead of the interview where I'm just like interjecting moments to kind of support the story. And that's something that I did also in the recent video as well with Marquise Henderson, and I interviewed him again. So I think that really helps kind of getting their perspective or seeing like them in real time to really get a sense of how this person was that supports like the explanation you're kind of talking about. Uh so yeah, those were kind of two things I think stuck out.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

And how did this one perform in the first 24 hours or so or the first uh this one?

SPEAKER_01 21:31

So I uploaded it uh I uploaded it at 9 56 p.m. on Sunday, January 25th. And uh yeah, within the first 24 hours is 94k and then 250k on Tuesday. So I guess yeah, this one also kind of picked up pretty fast.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Is there anything about that that like blows your mind as it's happening? Like, are you are are you what's your mindset here? If it was me, I'd be like, what is happening? I think I just figured out.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Basically, I didn't know what was happening, and I was kind of in bed, like looking Losing a little bit of sleep because I would check my YouTube studio every now and then and be like, oh, a couple thousand more views. All right. And then check all the comments. I still read a lot of like almost all the comments today, just refreshing, just to see like what people are saying. Because kind of interesting getting people's perspectives. And also sometimes people have feedback for you to make your video better. And that's you know something you should really take to heart. So I try to uh read as much as I can, but uh it is kind of surreal, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

So after that one goes up, you're you're about to you start working on the story of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s biggest thieving scandal. Now, uh, spoiler alerts we talked about before. This one, quote, underperformed. And I want to be clear about this underperform compared to millions of views, way overperforms for a channel of your size. 260,000 views is a lot for a channel your size, again, under 100,000 subscribers. Talk about how you set this one up and then what happened when you press published and how obviously it didn't go the same way. And talk to us about like how the performance was and everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah, so this one I thought was gonna do really well because this story was kind of crazy. It's about a Yu-Gi-Oh player named Jay Kim. He basically got his deck stolen mid-tournament. So he borrowed a deck from a friend, but that was a different deck, so they disqualified him because you're not allowed to do that. You have to use the cards he signed up with. And then he quit Yu-Gi-Oh! because he got banned for a couple of years for doing that, and he became a poker pro and made like millions of dollars. So I was like, this story is crazy. Um, but the thing that I did really poorly on this video was the packaging, and that's when I realized like the thumbnail and the title really, really matters. So the original title I think was like How a Stolen Yu-Gi-Oh deck made a man a millionaire, which in my head I was like, oh, this is like I'm trying to like show the whole story in the title. But anyone that doesn't understand the story is not gonna really get that. So it didn't do that well. I think I uploaded it uh 7 a.m. apparently, okay. Uh and then uh in the first 24 hours it only got 10k and it was pretty underperforming relative to the other two. Um, but then I think a couple of days later, I changed the title to the story of the biggest uh Yu-Gi-Oh's biggest thieving scandal, and then it kind of got a lot more views because it was kind of stagnating at I think 20 or 30k, but after I changed the title, it started picking up a lot more. But I think I I realized I you lose a lot of the momentum initially by having like a title that wasn't explaining everything or wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

How long before it stopped kind of just started getting drips and drabs of views? Was it like a week or just a couple days?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Um, I think it was so I uploaded it on Monday, and then it was the next Monday. Around that time, it was already 100k. So I guess at some point I must have changed the title maybe a couple days in. And then um it picked up more after I uploaded my recent video about Marquise Henderson.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, we should talk about that. So this is one of the things people don't know about YouTube as a content creator, at least they don't think about it a lot of times, is when you create another video um and it gets any kind of views, your older uh catalog gets um, you know, uh promoted to the viewers who just watched that last video. So after that video, I I'm I'm assuming you're thinking, okay, what did I do wrong? Uh everything's terrible. Or I maybe you don't think that. Uh tell me what your mindset was about that going into this most recent video.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Uh yeah, it was exact exactly that. I was like, oh, it's over for me. I'm canceled. I'm canceled. But uh this video I also didn't know if it was gonna do well. It's like a recurring trend. I don't know if you ever get this, but I'm like, I don't know if they're gonna do well or not anymore. I just yeah, just throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Uh, but this one actually, so the thing about my long form is that a lot of them are based off of shorts that I did that did decently well. You know, some of them got a couple of million views, and I just like translated that into a long form. And the Marquise one also did really well as a short, as a casual Yu-Gi-Oh player that uh won this huge tournament, thousands of players out of nowhere. That one got a couple of million views on shorts, and a lot of people were like, Oh, this is amazing. So I reached out to him, he was down to make a video. I still didn't know if the long form would perform at all, but that one was actually the best performing, so it got like a million views within like the first I think three days. So yeah, by like Saturday, I uploaded on Thursday, and by Saturday I got a million. So that was kind of crazy. Uh yeah, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

And you're like, I'm so back, I figured it out again. I'm a genius. Yeah, I think you've done something that's really interesting. You've you've figured out a way to take shorts and make it work for long form. Most people are trying to figure this out, and a lot of times we tell people just don't bother trying to do it because it doesn't exactly work that way. But it seems like you're looking at it differently. You're looking at a short where it did really well, and then what how are you dissecting what parts of it make it interesting into a long form? Because in short form, you have to get to the point right away and everything. How do you make sure there's enough information and and an interest in a longer form video? How are you choosing that?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah, that's a good point. I guess so. Like in the short, I just talk about how he won uh this tournament in a minute, but then I uh a lot of these videos I do a lot of research. So again, kind of going back to like the way back machine, I'm going on form posts, I'm looking up like older coverage from years ago. And uh I thought like I could maybe angle the story in a way that makes it interesting. So, again, with the internet kind of mad, upset that he won, uh, some of the pro players he played against. So expanding on that, and then I was like, maybe I'll just tell this story from start to finish about how he started playing Yu-Gi-Oh! and then the climax, which is like the tournament where everything kind of transpired, and then the aftermath of that. Um, so I just like diving in and writing, the more you research, I find the more images you find, and off of that, you just build and you get more content. Um yeah, and there were a lot of other Yu-Gi-Ohers that did similar stuff. So I know like Mega Capital G and also uh Fi Yu-Gi-Oh! He did was kind of the first pioneer of that, making like documentary-style Yu-Gi-Oh! videos that did decently well. So I definitely got a lot of inspiration from that uh in terms of like the storytelling and telling the timeline from start to finish.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

So, now how long is it taking you to do these videos? Because so this last video was two weeks ago. How deep are you into your next video and how much longer do you have to do?

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yeah, I only just started barely scripting. It takes me a while because I'm also it takes me like 50 to 100 hours, probably from start to finish, because the editing takes a long time. Also, I'm like a really, really avid procrastinator. So if you have any tips for me on how I can stop procrastinating and actually sit down and do work, I mean, I can probably help you a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

I'm a super procrastinator, so I'm an expert in this uh particular thing. But I'm I'm curious. I I would assume that this did. I mean, financially, I'm sure these last couple of years did pretty well. And your

Researching Old Stories And B Roll

SPEAKER_00 28:10

AdSense probably looks like something fun now. Like, like, oh, wait a minute, there could be something to this. Um, talk to us a little bit about that and how much it it whether it motivates you, doesn't motivate you, is it not as interesting as I think it would be? Like, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, totally. It's uh definitely pretty motivating. Like, I didn't know that the uh the AdSense is pretty good. I think my RPM is kind of on the lower side, it's around like I'm in Canada, so it's like six bucks Canadian. Okay, six bucks Canadian. The longer one is a little longer, so the Peter Chang one was a double, so that was like 11 or 12 bucks. Yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

But obviously, I know if you're in like finance and stuff, you get like crazy RPM.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Oh my god, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

But uh no, it's definitely nice to see that. Um, especially if you have a one video get a couple of million views, I think it's good you're kind of like set for the next couple of months. Yeah, um, for me, I I'm doing this full time right now, so um, it definitely helps a bit have that padding. Um, but at the same time, when you have a video that kind of doesn't do well, you're like, oh crap, I kind of have to, you know, hustle. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so that's uh something. But one thing I noticed is like a lot more sponsorship opportunities are kind of coming in now that I have a couple more videos that are doing a lot better. So that's kind of cool. Um, but also like sussing out which ones are scams is kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I was gonna ask you, what is your what are you currently doing for that? So I've I've interviewed uh a couple people about this, and Justin Moore is an incredible guy uh who talks about this. And if you're listening to the audio podcast, you gotta go watch that one. He talks about sponsorships, even if you're a small YouTuber, how to get the most money and the most bang for your buck. He's a genius, he's literally a genius when it comes to stuff. I actually go to him and ask him uh advice in this thing. He is a genius. But what are you currently doing and like how are you figuring out what to charge and all those other things?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So I'm working with uh this agency called Black Bulb, and they're amazing, super great. Um, Erica's the agent that I'm working with, and she's kind of helping me manage the inbox and also reach out to other brands. Um, and recently, I think we've done a couple of like we're talking about some CPM deals, which is like how much they pay on like a thousand of your views up to like two weeks or like a month up to a certain cap. So uh usually those have been between 12 to 16 dollars, I think, to a cap of like per thousand views.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah, so that's pretty so that means you could. I mean, you you said you're already kind of like full time, but like you could legitimately just based off what you've done in these last couple of videos be full time for a while, as long as you keep popping stuff out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, as long as they keep doing well. Um, I'm still kind of in that phase where I'm still unsure, you know, if the next video will do well or not. But uh yeah, I think the sponsorships definitely help in that sense. Um, there's this great Discord called the YouTube Partners Discord. It's not the official one, but this uh one that was started by uh people that are in charge of the the subreddit, and that one's been great, kind of talking about to other creators about like what to expect in terms of like negotiating and stuff like that. And honestly, I'm like really bad at that. So I'm glad like Black Bulb, the agency, is kind of helping me on my behalf, uh, know what to charge to an extent. I know some people are getting like $25 to $30 RPMs for like their channels.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So it really depends. The RPMs, so for people who don't know, RPMs are revenue per milli, and that's how much per thousand you get. And that's usually how AdSense uh you get paid through uh Google and YouTube. The thing that's important to understand is that every niche uh has a different RPM, and that's the best way to explain it, and the way I I think it's super obvious when I explain it this way is uh the niche that you are creating content for um connects with a certain type of viewer. So for example, uh Yu-Gi-Oh! might have an age group. Do you know what your age groups are, your major age groups are?

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Predominantly 25 to 34. Because like everyone that grew up.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

That's pretty good, actually. But if you're doing like uh video games and stuff, that could be anywhere from like kids all the way up to adults, but it just depends. But for the most part, it's usually kids and stuff. And those usually have lower CPMs because the people that are watching the videos aren't necessarily looking to buy anything, they're just looking to be entertained. A lot of them don't even have jobs. So the when you're when uh you know you were talking earlier about finance, those people who are watching those videos have money, like they have disposable income. So the advertisers uh are charged more to run an ad, which means we get paid more for that. So what you're talking about in Yu-Gi-Oh, which I I I was I'm I was only ever guessing what the CPM could be for something like this. The other thing that adds uh that adds value to you is that when you're doing longer videos, you can put in more ads. So your RPM goes up because of that. Uh, for anyone who doesn't know, if your video is less than eight minutes, you can only have one ad break in the in the middle. If you have more than eight, you can put in more ad breaks. Uh I've talked to creators who have been uh slightly abusive in how often they put in ads. I find it to be predatory at times. I let YouTube do its own thing and I don't place them. Um, but like that's another thing you think about. Like, if you have an hour-long video, you could put like 10 ads in there. I mean, every five minutes isn't abusive to me. I think that seems sense, that makes sense because YouTube's gonna make their money. It's time for you to make yours. So, how do you look at that? Do you place them or do you let YouTube place them, or what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Well, I guess you should just say it, but uh I actually just put them every single minute.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Wow, I've heard people say that. I've heard people say that, yeah. To be clear, and to be clear, I I want to be fair, people don't get an ad every single minute. What it does is it gives them an opportunity potentially to see them. So he says that, but it doesn't mean that every person's getting a minute. Uh that's not what that means. I I need to be clear about that, but go ahead, keep going. Yeah, I'm talking about less than that, believe it or not. I I was talking about less than that, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah, but uh apparently that's what a lot of people are doing based on what I learned in the partner YouTube Discord. So I was like, all right, let me let me try this. And it seems to work well. Actually, I think in the recent one, I just let YouTube do it, like um, or not the recent one, but the uh the one that kind of flopped because I had like a ad integration in that, like a sponsorship integration. So I didn't want to like go on top of that where they get an ad and then like your ad.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

So I let YouTube do that one. But um I know like a lot of people are saying if you put them every minute or two minutes, and like you were saying, you don't get that every minute, you don't get an ad, but YouTube will give the chance to kind of do that,

Ads RPM Sponsorships And Monetization

SPEAKER_01 33:50

and then in that sometimes you get a little more ads out of that, and you get a little more RPM, so to speak. I don't know if it's true or not, but I've just been doing that.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

So well, the other thing is like you're doing long again, you're doing long form content, and um so the expectation is there. Now I have uh YouTube premium, so I never see ads anyway, so it's irrelevant to me. I feel like that's one of the best things to spend money on, to be honest. Like if you watch a lot of YouTube, you should probably be using premium. Um, but yeah, I think it's it is something that you if you're trying to make this full time, it's something you need to consider and really really think about. What it as an artist, because you are an artist doing this, I think anyone who's on YouTube doing this as an artist, how do you feel during the whole process of that? Uh, you mean like monetizing in any way?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Oh, uh yeah, I know there are a lot of other ways to monetize. Like I had a Patreon, but I didn't really push it, so no one really signs up. Uh, before when I was doing competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! I used to sell like courses, so like I would build out like this course spreadsheet and stuff, and that was decently well. I'd sell them for like 20 bucks each, and you would actually get a couple of hundred people sometimes that buy them, so you can make a you know a couple thousand bucks, but you have to spend a lot of time kind of working on that. And uh nowadays I'd rather just do that kind of editing the video. Uh, but that's something I mean, if you have tips for me, I don't really haven't really looked at other monetization sources besides the AdSense and sponsorships. So I'm pretty green to that.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

What do you what is I I I love these conversations because you're you're very honest about what you know and what you don't know. Um what is the goal for the next year then? So I would assume that with this happening, it's like this is the moment that most YouTubers wait for and hope for and pray for and actually never get, but you're in the middle of it. What are the things that you're thinking about right now that you're trying to set for the next year?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah, I would love to get like a system in place because right now, again, I'm like not very, I'm just like making a video by video, which is not like the ideal. You kind of want to probably have some headroom, you know, a couple of videos in the in the bank. Um, I would love to maybe try and work with like an editor or two, which is kind of a challenge because Yu-Gi-Oh! is like you gotta find someone that understands basic Yu-Gi-Oh! that's also decently okay at editing. So maybe it would have to be like an onboarding process because personally I'm not like a big fan of editing. It feels like very, you know, a lot of work. It's very time consuming.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah. Uh, I would love to maybe start another channel, talk about other things because I feel like in you YouTube is kind of universal where you kind of learn how to make a decent video, you can maybe apply that to another topic. Uh, so I'd love to try and do that. Um, for the channel, I think maybe talking about other games as well. It doesn't have to be purely Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially when the audience isn't even Yu-Gi-Oh players. Now, now I'm not even making Yu-Gi-Oh! videos anymore or for videos for Yu-Gi-Oh! players anymore. Uh, so maybe talk about other card games like magic, Pokemon, other stories. There's so many cool stories for tabletop, you know, stuff that's kind of in the same realm. So that's something I want to consider as well. I think.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

I think that's smart. It makes a lot of sense. And uh obviously you can see that the Pokemon community is huge too. So that would be an easy. There's like a Venn diagram of like Yu-Gi-Oh! Pokemon players and stuff. I feel like you could get just enough people interested. And again, a lot of people who watch Deep Pocket Monster don't play or collect Pokemon Pokemon at all, like at all. So it's totally possible. If you have the right storytelling and the right editing and the right uh skill set, you can do it. So let's let's talk about the Squiddies from a year ago, even, and the Squiddies now. What are the things that the Squiddies a year ago was not doing that you are doing now that makes your content better?

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Uh, making high quality content. So taking the time to edit and script. Those are like the two biggest things because I never used to do that. A year ago, I was just making competitive YouTube videos, one every other day. I'd be like, hey guys, what's up? Today we're gonna talk about this strategy, and it's just like the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh players. So I think uh number one is like making a baseline for the editing, making it decently watchable, uh, scripting it out so you have a structure, you have a story. Uh, the storytelling is the biggest thing. Having a story that has a lot of ups and downs and stakes. Uh, I I feel like the storytelling is like the really big thing for YouTube. If you can tell a good story, you can have almost anything blow up. I mean, if Yu-Gi-Oh can get millions of views and you know, knitting, you know, basketball, whatever it is, I'm sure it could get a lot of views, right? No matter how obscure it is, if you tell a good story. So uh yeah, I also take a lot of time to kind of do the sound effects now and like some of the music as well. Um, just like you know, taking time to make it make the story flow.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

The funny thing about Deep Pocket Monster is uh Pat Flynn, uh a lot of people who were in the content creation game in 2018, 2019 knew him as a podcaster. He wasn't doing anything with uh with uh you know Pokemon at all. Like he was known as a podcast guy. Then he as something that he just loved, he did another channel, which is kind of what you're talking about, and then that became who he is. It's so funny because so many of us in the content creation, uh especially the growth space, don't know anything about that side of him. Like we just know the other guy that we've known for years and years and years. So you could totally that could, if you understand what got you here, you can apply it to something else that maybe you're passionate about. But then you know, that's when you need to have, especially at this particular uh the as deep as you're going to each video, that's when you need like an editor. That's when you need someone to keep you on track. That's when you can't procrastinate, that's when it becomes a full-time job. That's when all of those things come to be. Where is the line where for you you have to go? Okay, it's too much like a job. Like, I don't, I assume you love it, but like too much of a job you don't want to have to do versus I'm having fun and I'm still making enough money to make it worth my time. There's this line somewhere where you'll go too far. Have you set boundaries for yourself or anything?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Uh no, that's a good question. I guess I haven't really, because also I'm like very laxed on myself right now, where I'm only uploading like the video every month,

Systems Future Topics And The Off Ramp

SPEAKER_01 39:20

if you can, maybe like five or six weeks sometimes, which I don't think is good. I think I should definitely treat it more like a job. You should have been like I uh I used to work in tech, I was in product, so uh that you know, having to wake up for the meetings and stuff, you had like the structure set, and that was like a lot better in the sense that you were actually motivated to be there because you had to be there. But now it's like if you're doing YouTube, you just wake up sometimes really late and you're like, oh crap, what should I do today? Maybe play a little bit of video games first and then do an hour ahead. So that's something I'm still kind of trying to figure out, but uh yeah, I think having a system. I know the bigger YouTubers they say they have a structure and a system in place, they have everything mapped out, what they're doing, a schedule. Um I need to figure that out. So if you have tips for me, I'm all ears.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

I I love that like you you are kind of doing a little bit of research about how other people are doing it because you want to be there at that at some point, and your videos are getting views to the point where you know YouTube's the what I reckon. Everyone wants this YouTube algorithm is smiling upon your channel right now, and it's this is the time to double down. But one of the things I always talk about, and I don't know that it's gonna really affect you, but I've I've used to coach YouTubers for uh several years, and whenever a YouTuber would go viral or something would pop off, the very first thing I had them work on was what's the out strategy from that thing. Because they would make a video about something, and usually a game or or at the time when cryptocurrency was a big thing, I was like, okay, that's great, let's keep doing that. But what's the off-ramp? Because eventually that's gonna slow down, like that's gonna slow down and stop it. Always does. YouTube, if nothing else, will always slow down or stop that. So you have to know what the next thing is to keep things going. If you had to, and I think you kind of already said it already, but let's just have that thought exercise right now as kind of the ending here. What would be not necessarily your off-ramp from from Yu-Gi-Oh, but like your next content uh bucket that you would do?

SPEAKER_01 41:04

I was thinking just talking about stuff, like uh maybe like something that has stakes, maybe internet drama. I know there are a couple of channels like uh Mujin, he's a really big one, talks about like VTubers and stories like that in that space and gets like millions of views as well. Uh, I think being able to kind of grab the story or grab this something that's out there and make it into a story that you can tell to people who are very casual viewers and don't understand anything about it, uh, is something that's uh can do really well because people like juicy stories. There's this subreddit called uh subreddit drama, or like uh I think there's like a hobby drama or something where it's just drama from very niche different like games or hobbies or whatever it is. Uh there is like this one I saw about like uh some drama and like uh like a Warhammer tournament or something, or like this drama in the I don't know if you saw that like the fishing scandal or that there's like the there's the weights and fish. Yes, I have heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

I have heard of that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

So like there's always these these little things that are really interesting, but if you can tell them like in a broad way, it makes it like really watchable. So I was kind of like maybe something like that where I just talk about like cool stories.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

It's funny you say that because um I just interviewed, and I by the time this podcast goes live, it'll be live. Uh a guy called Wani uh does that for like Chinese drama and stuff. Really interesting stuff on his channel's blowing up too. So yeah, I mean a hundred percent. There's definitely uh, if you if you understand how to tell a story, you can do just about any kind of content that you want to. This has been really cool, Squiddies. I I I greatly appreciate your time. If you're new here and you like this interview, there is information in the show notes if you're listening to the audio only podcast. And if you're watching on YouTube, obviously there'll be a link over to Squiddies. Uh, and probably by the time this goes live, or at least hopefully, he'll have another video out. I mean, I hope so. By this point, it's gonna be a couple of weeks away. So hopefully you'll have another video. I'll make sure you go into that comment section and tell them that you saw it. Um, Squiddies, what would be what's the what would that video be about if uh because you said you're just now scripting it. What is it about?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Um, it's about this other scando in Yu-Gi-Oh!, this pro player that basically pulled this move that could be incorporated, that could be taken as either the scummiest move or the biggest genius brain move. One or the other. But basically, he does this thing uh where he tricks the opponent into taking out this card from their deck, but it wasn't against the rules, it was completely within the policy. So he gets an advantage. It's really hard to kind of explain, but uh it's a really, really cool story about this Yu Gi Oh! player that did something extraordinary by uh bending the rules, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Can't wait to see what that thumbnail and title looks like. And again, if you're new here, hit that subscribe button and go over to Squiddies and probably watch that video. I practically guarantee by the time this gets out, that'll be out. And if you're new here, I got another video for you, another great interview right here. See y'all in that one.