TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

The Big Brother Winner Who Became YouTube's Top Detective

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We sit down with Derek from Crime Weekly to unpack how a former detective and a powerhouse researcher build long-form true crime stories that viewers actually finish. We talk growth, trust, and monetization without losing sight of victims, accuracy, and the real mental weight of covering tragedy.
• how Crime Weekly structures multi-part deep dives and why long videos work in true crime 
• Derek’s path from law enforcement to TV to building a YouTube-first brand 
• choosing a co-host and why chemistry beats a perfect pitch 
• why evergreen back catalog videos can surge years later 
• what a mostly female audience expects and how Derek frames advice for safety and clarity 
• handling know-it-all comments, correcting mistakes, and protecting a healthy community 
• why memberships work, what ad-free really means, and the cost of running three uploads 
• avoiding burnout with bulk recording, time off, and firm boundaries 
• YouTube versus broadcast TV, red tape, lawyers, and creative control 
If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. Why not?


Membership Growth And Back Catalog Value

SPEAKER_01

We've gained 377 members. Um, we have 905. That's a 33% jump in the last month, which is significant. And so you can get a boost in that back catalog. And and that is uh something from a business perspective, that is something that there is an advantage with true crime, is every episode, every case, whether it was put out three years ago or three months ago, it still holds value because the case doesn't change. And I think over time I've gained the trust of the audience to know that I call balls and strikes. I think people respect that, the honesty, and to know that they may not always agree with me, but wherever I'm coming from, it's from a place of authenticity. It's about quality, it's about enjoyment, it's about be getting on there and being excited about what you're doing. And in many instances, you'll find that you you may not be a millionaire, but you'll find a source of revenue that'll allow you to do that for a long time. And that is, to me, the definition

Meet Crime Weekly And The Mission

SPEAKER_01

of success.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that didn't do it, but we're gonna find out who did. I'm Travis, and I'm here with a very special guest. I have Derek from Crime Weekly. That channel talks about crime. I'm obsessed with crime documentaries, so this is gonna be a lot of fun. Uh, with over five, what is it, 500 videos? You have 89 million views, which is kind of crazy. 350,000 subscribers, and you do it so interestingly. Welcome to the show, Derek. Thanks for having me, Travis. Appreciate it. Glad to be here. Super excited, super excited to dig into this because I have this um I don't know, this up, I don't want to want to call it this session because then it makes me sound weird. But whenever I find a documentary about like um any type of crime or murder or anything like that, I'm always into that sort of thing. And that's kind of what you cover. You cover a lot of these uh these things that there's there's a deep rabbit hole on YouTube of content just like yours. But tell us a little bit about your channel specifically.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Crime Weekly specifically covers not only crimes in the headlines, but the more obscure cases that you haven't heard about. The difference with us compared to a lot of channels is we, in my opinion, do the deepest of dives on those investigations. Uh, our series for each case will range anywhere from two episodes to maybe even six episodes. But the real difference is each episode is approximately an hour and a half to two hours long. And I host it with my co-host, Stephanie Harlow, who also has her own YouTube channel, which is even bigger than Crime Weekly, but she's an amazing storyteller and an incredible researcher. So you take those skill sets and you combine them with my background, which is a former police detective, licensed private investigator, and I think we're able to offer a unique perspective that not many other channels are able to do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that's what I think makes it really compelling. We're gonna talk a little

From Law Enforcement To Big Brother

SPEAKER_00

bit about um kind of where you are now, but before we do that, before you ever hit upload on your first video, what were you doing? I mean, it sounds like we might have just heard, but like what exactly were you doing right before that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I was hired as a police officer at 20 years old. I worked in law enforcement for 13 years. Um I in the in the middle of all of that, I went on a little show called Big Brother, and uh I was fortunate enough to win that show, and it kind of changed the trajectory of my life. Honestly, I had intended on going on that show just to play the game and hopefully win some money from my family, and I was able to do that, but it also opened up a lot of doors that weren't available before in the TV space. So I did a couple TV shows, and then COVID hit. And Investigation Discovery, who I was with at the time, said we'd like to start a podcast. Um, and that's and that's essentially where we went from there. I wanted to have a co-host who I felt like offered something different than what I brought and had a unique perspective on certain topics that were of interest to the people on out there listening to True Crime Podcast, and I stumbled on Stephanie Harlow. I did not know her previously, and uh I pretty much slid into her DMs. That's how it started.

SPEAKER_00

That's how it works sometimes. That's awesome. So, yeah, what was the what was the pitch? I mean, like it uh I'm interested in that. Like, how did you get her to sign on to this?

SPEAKER_01

Well, for her, it's a it's a funny story because you know, she had her own YouTube channel, and what I was specifically looking for, because uh Investigation Discovery originally came to me and said, Hey, we want to pair you up with like a psychologist or uh, you know, a forensic psych scientist or a pathologist, someone in the field, an FBI agent, whatever. And I had just come off a show called Breaking Homicide with Dr. Chris Mohandy, who is a forensic psychologist and he's incredible. But I wanted to do something different. So I specifically went out there and started looking for true crime YouTubers who didn't already have an audio podcast. Because why would you want to team up with someone when you're already uber successful? It wouldn't make sense. So I specifically looked for people in that space. Unfortunately, and I'm not just saying this, out of all the people I looked up and watched, even the ones who had podcasts, to me, Stephanie had the most unique approach and in my opinion, um, the deepest level of research when it came to her cases. So I DM'd her, I told her who I was, I told her what I was trying to do, and and candidly, according to Stephanie, she had no clue who I was, which is not a surprise. I'm not like a super famous person, but fortunately for me, her oldest daughter was a huge Big Brother fan. And Stephanie said, Hey, I know this guy. Derek just hit me up, he's from Big Brother. And she said, Oh my god, you have to do the show with him. So Stephanie and I got on a phone call, and Stephanie is a very unique character, and essentially we we talked about the show, but what really sold her was she said, Hey, uh, what's your horoscope? What's your sign? And I said, I'm an Aquarius. I was born February 3rd. And she's like, Oh, I was born February 8th, the same year. Okay, let's do it. Let's give it a shot. And I wish there was like a deeper sales pitch that got it done, but really that's what it was. Stephanie is someone who goes off vibes. She said she liked my vibe. Really, not much to lose. So we gave it a shot, and that was six years ago.

SPEAKER_00

So then how was what were the pitches like to because the first couple videos are really important, right? And you're doing these long for video stuff. Talk to us about how you came up with the topic for the first couple, uh, even the first one, if you remember. Um, what was that process like? And how much did you lean on her expertise being on YouTube versus yours being elsewhere?

SPEAKER_01

Well, the backstory with YouTube is as I said it a couple minutes ago, originally Crime Weekly was just an audio podcast. Investigation Discovery did not want us doing YouTube for obvious reasons. They have a you know a television network, right? They didn't want to conflict with that. So for the first like I want to say three to six months, we were audio only and it was a grind. It's tough to grow on audio because you don't have as many opportunities to to cross-pollinate with other shows. Um, there's not as many marketing tools with podcasts, at least at the time, now there is. Um, but we weren't seeing a ton of growth, and the show was performing well, but not well enough where we felt like it was a good relationship with ID. So at that point, I went to them and said, Listen, you're not really doing well with this show. It's a lot more work for you than and then and you're not getting a lot of return. Why don't you why don't you let me take the show over? And you know, I'll I'll I'll buy back the IP, I'll take back the logo that I drew, the name that I came up with, all of that. And they we I have a great relationship with them, and I still do, and I've done other projects with them, and they basically said, No, you can just have it, we'll sign it all over. Wow. So as soon as they did that, I went to Stephanie and said, We're going on YouTube. That's that's that's where we need to be. We need to be on both. And so we started doing YouTube, and you know, there was a first case we did, Chris Watts, uh, which was a case that we wanted to cover on YouTube, and we still talk about doing it to this day. Um, but it was like a one-part episode that wasn't great. Um, we we feel we could do better with it. Um, but I'm sure you see it all the time with your guest, where you'll uh the YouTubers hate their first couple episodes or the first year of episodes because where you are now compared to where you were then is is such a different process. And so not only were we learning each other, but you know, just trying to find the the right background and and you know getting the proper headphones so that they're not, you know, there's something that there's no delay in it. All the getting the right equipment so that it really comes off as a highly produced show and not just two people randomly getting together to talk about crime. And there's an evolution. You go back and watch our first episodes to where we are now. Um, I'm in my home office, so this isn't my studio, but if you go watch the episodes, it's a major difference, and we we pride ourselves on putting out something that is the quality of a TV show, but on YouTube. And we have an amazing editor, we use a lot of b-roll, and and we have a lot of supporting sources to bring a different layer to our cases, so it's not just Stephanie and I sitting there talking about it, we're supporting it with visual representations to immerse you into the case.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's actually really important. And the crime niche uh skews long. Uh for both those who don't know, um, when you're in that niche, you can do hour and hour and a half and two hour long videos. It's not something you normally see that's normally it's like a live stream thing for most other niches, but it's absolutely normal uh for this particular niche. Um, when you first put those videos out, how I mean you look at them now like performance-wise, they have a lot of views right now, which is great. But like when you first put them out, what happened? Because a lot of people that are listening to podcasts, you know, they're still putting out videos and it takes them a while to even get 100 views. What was that like at first?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so full transparency, because I'm not a I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for anybody. I had a huge leg up, we had a huge leg up because as I mentioned, Stephanie already had an existing YouTube channel that she had grown organically on her own, and she really went through the grind that a lot of people have to go through. And so we were kind of able to piggyback off of that by promoting Crime Weekly on her existing channel. But even with that being said, people are very um specific

Turning An Audio Show Into YouTube

SPEAKER_01

about what they subscribe to, their time is valuable, and just because your favorite YouTuber uh is is starting a second channel, it doesn't mean it's gonna be successful. You probably see it more than me, where YouTubers start a second channel and it flops because it's not it's not their main channel, it's not what they normally do. So there was no guarantees. We had we had an opportunity to get people to go over and at least give it a try, and we had to put out a good product, we had to make sure that we were ethical in the way we were telling these stories, we had to make sure that we were victim focused, and I think really I had to sell myself that most of the people coming over were Stephanie's fans, so they knew they loved Stephanie, but they were weary and skeptical about me, as they should be. And you know, was I gonna be able to add value to these cases the way Stephanie was already doing them? And fortunately it appears it worked. Uh, and and even more importantly, and this wasn't something you can you can fake. Stephanie and I just have a great chemistry, we're not afraid to debate each other. Uh, we're we're very good friends. Um, we have a lot of similar traits, but we also are very different. And so when it comes to these cases and offering different perspectives, we're able to cover a lot of what people are thinking when watching the videos. So uh it's not necessarily better than Stephanie's channel, it's just a different light that people are able to come and see her and then see me. And from there, as you know, when you start to get some views and you have a high retention rate, that's when YouTube will start to advertise or promote your videos and you can grow organically. But I'll tell everybody even watching, yeah, we have a lot of views, but it's it's a it's a struggle every week. You know, it's a slow burn, and we have some really good months and we have some bad months, and it's a constant evolution and a constant learning process of because YouTube's constantly changing. And so even when you think you figure out the secret sauce, that's when they alter it, and now you have to do something different. So being in the analytics, being on the social uh being on the YouTube studio constantly, uh using the A and B, uh the A B testing that they're offering for not only thumbnails but also titles now is extremely important. And you can never just assume that because you're an existing channel and you have a lot of views, that you're going to do well because just as quick as you do good, the next month you can do equally as bad. And so it's just a constant learning process, even six years later.

SPEAKER_00

The typical advice is to find something that works and double down on it. I don't know how you do that in crime. I mean, do you just find another similar crime? I mean, or you have to have the guy, can you make another can you do another crime so that I can have more YouTube views? Like, what do you do?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, it's um, and not it. I still have am trying to figure it out because there are certain series that we do where I feel they're like some of the best cases we've ever done. We'll even have people on there who were involved in the case, public figures who were uh either investigators or victims in the case, and we have them on there to give their unique perspective. And, you know, some of them do really well, some of them don't. And then other cases that I feel like are oversaturated and have been covered by everybody will do extremely well, even though everything has already been put out there. So, you know, I haven't completely figured it out. I I will tell you that right now there is a trend where Netflix and all these other streaming services are really pushing true crime. So it is advantageous to cover cases that are being talked about uh on social media. You know, the crash was a recent one where we did a short form episode of it. We do this thing called Crime Weekly News as well, where it's not a deep dive, it's more just topical one episode, maybe 30 to a minutes to an hour. And those episodes historically do extremely well because people are searching for it. Um, but I would advise everybody out there, especially if you're getting into the true crime space, uh, don't rely on that. Don't be that channel that's only doing things that are being covered by Netflix and Paramount and HBO Max and all these other platforms, right? Don't do that because if you do, the true crime audience is astute to that and they will see what you're doing and they'll see what you're how you're trying to capitalize on trauma and basically tragedy. Um, you got to be true to yourself. You you know, you used the word obsession earlier. I wouldn't say obsessed, but you really have to have a passion for this as a creator because it's really it's a struggle, man. Mentally, it can really weigh on you. And these are real people who've been real affected by real tragedy and they're looking for help. And it's not all about the views. And if you come into it with that understanding that you can make a real difference, I hate to use like a field of dreams quote, but people will come because most of the true crime audience really do want to help, and they're gonna gravitate toward the channels that are trying to do that, not just the ones who are covering crimes that are popping online right now, which by the way, we do, but I think it's important to do both.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. What uh so I you know, I think stereotypically people will say that um true crime podcasts and shows and stuff are mostly watched by female is that has that been the case for that's very interesting to me. I like I don't understand why because I find it just as interesting. What is your demographic? Does it like because most YouTube channels are like, oh, I'm like 90% guys and like you know, yeah, 10% female. What is yours? We're high 80s, low 90s women.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, absolutely, yep. And I would say age range, the gamut for the age range is all the way from 18 to 65. Um, I would say 30 to 55 would be the the hot point there. But yeah, it is predominantly a women-driven uh genre. We do a thing called crime con uh out and it's all over the country every year, and they have seven to eight thousand people show up, and the majority of the people that show up are women, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. So as a guy trying to talk to an audience of women, um, is there has there been a disconnect? Have you, or at least in the beginning, I'm sure now you kind of know how to do it, but like we have to speak in a certain way, and I'm not saying that to say like anything strange, but like guys just talk a certain way that sometimes doesn't

Views, Trends, And Ethical Case Choice

SPEAKER_00

make sense to the opposite sex. Did you have to learn something about how to communicate better?

SPEAKER_01

Or do you think that's yeah, I mean, I still get accused of mansplaining for sure. Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_00

That's what I was trying to say without saying it. You're exactly right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I get accused of mansplaining for sure, and I'm I'm probably guilty of it at some points, but I not from the perspective of being a man, but more of like a detective, you know, talking. And and I have, you know, first and foremost, I'm surrounded by amazing women. I have two daughters, uh, I have Stephanie, my entire team is made up of women. And and, you know, they are uh they offer a unique perspective and they're able to keep me in check a lot of the times. I think my perspective and how I speak to our our audience is a lot of the women that are watching these shows care about these cases and are also looking for ways to better protect themselves and the people they care about. So when I go on to these episodes, I try to approach it from the perspective that the person listening is more than likely a woman who's trying to find ways to learn from these cases and educate herself so she can avoid being found in a similar situation. And that's how I talk to them. And and I think being yourself is important. You know, when you're doing a two-hour episode, you can't fake it every single week. It's gonna come out who you truly are. So at the end of the day, you have to be yourself. And I've been fortunate enough that at least so far, my approach and my uh my way I communicate, uh uh they've been receptive to it. And I don't think it's necessarily um a disconnect from who I truly am. It's just maybe putting it in a way that makes sense to who the audience is and what they're trying to obtain from what I'm saying. So everything that I talk about, I frame it in a way that would be beneficial to them if they find themselves, whether it's as a witness or as a victim, um, where they can they can use what I've said to them in a way to better assist them.

SPEAKER_00

So before you had the YouTube channel, again, like you understood crime and everything because you know you're an officer and all these other things, but the YouTube audience is interesting in every niche. They're different, they're very interesting. I don't know a lot about the crime audience. I mean, what you just explained is one aspect of it, but I mean like when they're watching something, what are they commenting on? What do they connect with? What do they not, what do they reject outwardly, like that we might not know as a content creator? You see all the comments. So I'm really curious what are the things you've learned about the audience of true crime on YouTube that's different than maybe other what other people have experienced?

SPEAKER_01

Well, one thing about true crime that can be difficult is a lot of the cases you're covering, there's uh information available to everybody out there and they can go research it on their own. And you do have a lot of people who will do there are some that go deep and know more than us about the case and are able to educate us. But most of the time someone's watched one documentary and suddenly they're an expert. And they're gonna debate you on the policies and procedures of investigations after watching an hour documentary. Um, and that's that's just a part of the game. You know, it's it's it's something you sometimes entertain, but most of the time I just ignore it. Um, I will also say that the true crime audience is big on making sure that you highlight the victim not just as a character in the story, but as a person before this the event occurred, making sure that you understand this person had goals and dreams and aspirations before tragedy struck, and they want to know about them. And not only because it's important to tell their story, but also it allows them to relate more to this person because in most cases they're gonna find similarities with this individual and and they're gonna see that it can happen to anyone, and so it makes it them more personally invested, especially if there's a call to action at the end where we're trying to raise funds to solve the case or get more attention on it. Um, another thing that people are big on is and they should be is getting the facts right, right? You can have an opinion on a case, but when it comes to the basic facts, you got to get it right. And and listen, six years, we've definitely had times when we got it wrong, and it's important to own that. And the next episode, you follow up, you address those concerns, you face them head on, you don't make excuses for it, and you move on. And the audience will be receptive to that and and and most of the time forgive you because we're all human beings and you're gonna make mistakes. But they want to make sure that the people are covering these cases are doing their due diligence and making sure that they're getting all the facts because a lot of people are coming and watching these shows, and they want to make sure that if you're disseminating information, it's accurate.

SPEAKER_00

I I saw something I was looking at your channel that's interesting because it's more recent. It's more recent what you've done from a monetization strategy point. You have some members-only videos. So I see that you'll put out a video and then you'll put like the um the main video out. First of all, talk

Serving A Mostly Female Audience

SPEAKER_00

to us about that strategy, what you thought of it, and has it been successful as far as whatever you were trying to uh get out of it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, obviously from a financial perspective, you make you can make more with the Google with the Google monetization and the membership. But the main reason we did it, to be candid, because we have a deal with with Red Seat Ventures, we have built baked in ads on all of our episodes. The main reason was we just had a lot of people who are like, I don't like ads. I don't want to hear the host red ads, I don't want to see the Google monetization. I just want to come and watch the episodes. And and our response is sure, but we also have to make a living. This is a lot of work. We have a team of people, and so whether you watch the ads, Or you subscribe to a membership, we have to be able to support what we're doing here. There's no way we could do what we do twice a week, every single week, 50 weeks a year, um for free. We just couldn't do it. We wouldn't be able to support our families. That's just the reality of it. Um, and we wouldn't be able to have the team that we have working on these cases to produce the quality of work that we do. And so with the membership, it's really an opportunity for people who don't mind paying a monthly subscription to not only get the episodes a little early, but to also get them ad-free. And when we say ad-free, it's totally ad-free because you can have what's it called? YouTube red, what's it what's it called? Yeah, not premium, where you don't get the Google monetization, but we still have the host red ads in those episodes. And that's a big complaint that we'll get where you'll have someone who has premium saying, I pay for premium, but I'm still getting the host red ads. And so our answer to that is hey, we will go the extra step, we will edit these episodes, we remove the baked-in ads, we will upload it again. And as you know, that's not as simple as just plug and play. There's work behind it. So you're uploading the same episode. Uh, we're uploading it three times because we're uploading it for our YouTube members, we're uploading it for our Patreon members, and we're uploading it for the regular general audience. And so that's three different versions we're uploading. Uh, but in exchange, you get the experience that you're looking for. Uh and it really works for everybody. So we have seen uh a lot of growth with that. Um, we see that a lot of people do like that product, they like the ability to have um personalized stickers and and be kind of highlighted in the chat. And they're also being recognized as a supporter of Crime Weekly by having their membership displayed at the top. So not everyone can afford it, especially in this economy. We don't really promote it too much. It's a service that's available. We make you aware of it. But by all means, we're I can tell you right now, no matter how long we're doing this, you will always be able to watch every single unsolved case for absolutely free. We do do a bonus episode every month on our Patreon, which is usually a solved case, an arcing story. That is behind the Patreon subscription, but that's only because it's a solved case and we're not looking to get more attention on it. Any unsolved case where we're trying to raise awareness, you will always be able to watch that for free.

SPEAKER_00

So, from a monetization perspective, um, are these extra monetization um options working to keep things floating? Is it just kind of a night cherry on top? Is it mainly like sponsorship steals that are bringing the most money? Like, what's like the cut the percentage of what brings that, what comes in?

SPEAKER_01

Our YouTube membership, as you acknowledge, is is is relatively new. Um we have we I I want to say, man, I I this is a bad I should know the answer to this question, but I want to say we probably have I don't know if there's a way to tell. I can look it up. I want to say like five to eight five to eight hundred members. What's what do you go in to look at that? I'll look it up real quick.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, if you go to the studio, it's under like monetization, and then you can see like the uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And this is how you can tell that this isn't a driving force for us. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The fact is you're like, I we have 782, like no, it's like that's good.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, it's not, it's a metric that I'm concerned about, obviously, and it's something that's important to understand. But the biggest metrics that I'm concerned with has always been uh retention and what videos they're watching, why they're watching them, the thumbnails, the titles, what are the reasons that people are coming back? Because I'll just implement that for all these different cases because I want to get as much attention as possible on these stories. It kills me when we cover a case that needs attention and it doesn't do as well as as other cases that we do. It just drives me nuts, and that's really what

Victim Focus, Accuracy, And Owning Mistakes

SPEAKER_01

I'm focused on. But for your audience who may have an already have a YouTube channel and is focused on that, I'm in YouTube Studio right now, so I go into YouTube Studio. I'm assuming I go over to monetization here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's a little earn thing on the left-hand side.

SPEAKER_01

Earn, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Uh and then you'll see memberships at the top. It's the third, it's the fourth one over.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, we got it right here. So currently, we I won't say our revenue, but you guys out there who know your stuff, I can tell you that we have uh we're up 31% over the last month. We only currently have 377 members. That's it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but that's good. The fact that it's growing kind of fast. So the thing is, it's kind of hard to get people who are so used to doing something for free. And by the way, I I really want to make a point of this being an important part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, I apologize. Let me let me cut you off real quick. Okay, I apologize. We've gained 377 members. Um, we have 905. I apologize.

SPEAKER_00

Whoa, hey, let's go. No, that's fantastic. And that and the gain 300 and something in in what is the last 28 days or something?

SPEAKER_01

That's gonna be a 28-day period unless you can customize huge.

SPEAKER_00

That's a 33% jump in the last month, which 31% in the last 31 days. That's incredible. And to think about that for a second, okay. So let's step back. And as content creators, I get a lot of questions about well, what should I put on my membership? Like, what who why would anyone pay for this? You're right now learning why memberships can be really powerful. 30, 300 memberships in 30 days is not an insignificant amount of money. It's about the value that you're giving. So

Ad-Free Memberships And Monetization Reality

SPEAKER_00

talk a little bit about why um why someone would want to, I mean, you kind of did explain like why someone would want to sign up for it, but was it something that you heard a lot in comments that made you do this? Because now it's becoming a decent amount of money. Like, this is not an insignificant amount of money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so for us, without getting into the, you know, the exact dollars and cents, I can tell you, because I'm looking at this really for the first time in a long time. Um, one other metric I'll point out that I'm I'm going to address after this and look into is we're also up 19% as far as cancellations. So we have 178 cancellations in the last 31 days. That's something when we get off this this uh this interview, I'm gonna look into because that's the numbers I focus on. But I can tell you, looking at the revenue and knowing what we spend per month for these this additional service, whether it's the editing, whether it's the uploading, whether it's the thumbnail creation, whether it's answering the comments, whether it's being in the um the membership section talking to people, all these things, we're just about we're we're a little above breaking even. But as anybody knows, the cost to produce this membership quality content is won't change much. Now we have a we have a strategy in place, we have a process in place, we have the people in place. So if we continue to grow it, eventually it will become profitable. And I think that is something that people who are getting into YouTube or just in business in general, that is something that's a tough pill to swallow. But when you start this venture, and I had to say it, I had to ask these questions when I was starting memberships, you have to say, how much am I willing to lose at first? Because you're always gonna lose. The first couple months of doing this, we were definitely in the negative uh when it came to memberships, and now we're starting to see that we're in the green. Um, so that is something that can be a tough pill for people to swallow. But if you go into it with the understanding that I'm gonna see red for the next few months, maybe even the next six months to a year, you are almost able to handle it better, in my opinion, the stress that comes with that because you're expecting it, right? You're not looking for that home run hit in week one or month one. So um that's where we are now. And I know I just went on a tangent, and I apologize because I don't remember the direction you were going with this.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, that's it's all about tangents. I think what you just said is also could be applied to views, and perhaps for a lot of our content creators is even more important for views because 80% of your views usually come from 20% of your videos. So if you're of the mindset, like I'm always gonna do 1% better in each video, but I also have to understand that for every one out of 10, that basically means, you know, the best out of your last 10 videos, um, you're gonna have ones that aren't one out of 10. You're gonna have the 10 out of 10, which normally sounds good, but it's not. It means you've got the least amount of views of your last 10 videos. You're gonna have those.

SPEAKER_01

And just these- I hate when we don't get the fireworks, and anybody who's on YouTube knows what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you love those, right?

SPEAKER_01

Like it's a fireworks.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, they're the best.

SPEAKER_01

But when you don't basically, guys, for anybody who doesn't know, when your video is one out of ten and you click on it, YouTube has a little animation that puts like these little fireworks off to let you know.

SPEAKER_00

It's the best thing, it's the best that makes you feel like, oh my god, I've conquered YouTube. I know everything. Yes, yes. How many of your videos would you say are slow burners? In other words, maybe they came out and they didn't do so good, but you look back and be like, holy crap, this thing has a ton of views.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that's that is the great thing about true crime, is a lot of YouTube videos out there are topical. Like one of my favorite YouTubers when he was big was like Casey Neistat. And I was able to go back and look at his videos, and you could still watch them, but when they weren't topical and they weren't current, it it's a little bit harder because you can tell he's talking about things that happened two or three years ago. With true crime, it's a little different. Our back catalog can sometimes do better than our current videos because if a true crime case that we covered three years ago has a new update, or there's a trial, or there's new evidence found, or an arrest, people are now searching for that case three years after we covered it, and it can really blow up. So we see it all the time where cases that did okay when they originally came out, you go back and look at them and they got a million views on them because in that period there was an arrest or a change in the case, or someone who was um let out on a technicality, whatever it might be. Um, and so you can get a boost in that back catalog. And and that is uh something from a I hate to use this word, but like business perspective, that is something that there is an advantage with true crime, is every episode, every case whether it was put out three years ago or three months ago, it still holds value because the case doesn't change.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's evergreen. What is the secret to holding people's attention? Because again, you're doing hour-long, hour and a half long videos, and sometimes two or three hours. Yes, I mean it could be as long as it needs to be. How do you keep people's attention? What's the secret behind that?

SPEAKER_01

Well, first and foremost, you got to have a great storyteller. And I think Stephanie Harlow is one of the best storytellers in the game. I just think that she has an amazing cadence. It's very easy for me to sit there and listen to her. And for people who don't know, Stephanie researches these cases, a lot of them I don't know about, and then I listen and watch along with the audience and give my detective perspective on it throughout the episode. So it's something where if she was horrible and she was tough to listen to, um, it it probably wouldn't work. So that's number one. You gotta have somebody who can research these cases like nobody else, and then tell that story in a way that's impactful, but also something easy to easy on the ears, easy on the eyes. Um, and then as far as I'm concerned, I think people, uh, especially now, there's a lot of distrust with law enforcement. So to have someone who's former law enforcement, and obviously you and I just met, but I am I am a straight shooter and I will defend law enforcement when needed, but I'll also call them out. I've done it um both on the YouTube channel but and also publicly when I was doing Breaking Homicide, where I would travel to these places and call up police officers to their faces. And I think over time I've gained the trust of the audience to know that I call balls and strikes, and if something's not right, um, there isn't some thin blue line protection there where I'm just gonna automatically side with police officers. And I think people respect that, the honesty, and to know that they may not always agree with me, but wherever I'm coming from, it's from a place of authenticity. And uh, I'm just trying to build trust within that community that rightfully so can be skeptical of law enforcement. So I think that combination, uh, we offer something that there's a lot of true crime out there, um, but there's not a lot of people who have the combination of what we are, what we're doing. There's duos out there, um, there's even less police officers that are on YouTube that are doing it. And I and I, you know, maybe I'm patting myself on the back here, but because I've done so much TV, I understand that being very good at your job doesn't necessarily correlate or or or carry over to television or or YouTube. Um, you have to be able to present the facts and present the case in a way that people are going to want to listen to it. And I think that I've developed that cadence over the years, whether it was through Big Brother or Traders or Breaking Hamas. I've done a ton of TV shows at this point, it feels like, but I've developed a level of showmanship, if you will, where I'm able to relay the information that I want you to understand, but in a way that it comes off, it's more, it's more digestible, we'll put it that way. And um, that is something that is learned over time.

SPEAKER_00

What was the biggest thing that you've learned over the last five or six years about YouTube that was a misconception going into it?

SPEAKER_01

You know, I thought with uh Stephanie's YouTube channel, she just hit a million subscribers. Congrats to her on that. She just did that did it. I thought for sure, well, if she has 600,000 subscribers, they're automatically all going to subscribe to our channel. We're gonna be huge within a couple months. And that was not the case. And you and I I don't know the exact number she was at. I want to say she was at six or seven hundred thousand when we started. We're we're at 350,000 now, plus that a little bit, but that's six years later. So even with her original audience that she acquired over a long period of time, um, her channel grew a lot faster than Crime Weekly did. I would consider Crime Weekly a relatively slow burn um compared to some of the YouTube channels out there that go from zero subscribers or a relatively no number to millions of subscribers in a year or two. We're not that. We have to constantly come back week after week with our consistency uh and and and come with our regular schedule so that people can rely on us and continue to put out quality content because as quick as we've got to where we are now, which again hasn't been that quick, we can lose it even faster. And understanding

Evergreen Cases And Holding Attention

SPEAKER_01

that um now has helped us to grow, knowing that you take a couple weeks off and you will see it in the algorithm, you will see it in the data where people will go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, speaking of that, I mean you do upload pretty often. I mean, we say like twice a week. Uh twice a week. But but you have a family, uh, you have a life. Yeah. Like, how do you how do you figure out the times when you're like, I need to take a little time off? Yeah, and it's easy to get burned out in this thing. A lot of people who are just starting out on YouTube will find out. Uh, they've certainly heard, oh, YouTube's burnt out, but I'm never gonna burn out. Well, listen, it's a lot harder than you might think, and it can happen to you very easily. Uh, talk to us about what you do to protect yourself from that in any way that you any if you have any guardrails or anything, and uh if you've been through it, talk to us about like how that went.

SPEAKER_01

I think for me personally, when it comes to getting burnt out, you have to love this. You really do. I mean, there's a lot of networks and big television streaming services that are coming out with their true own true crime podcasts now. And candidly, my opinion is that they won't last. Because when you're doing it purely for a revenue purpose, it's and the and the the hosts aren't really in love with what they're doing, it the true crime audience is gonna eat you alive. Or they just won't listen or watch. It's just it's just the way it is. There's too many people out there now who actually care about these cases and are not just doing it because they're being hired by a network to host a podcast once a week. That's number one. Uh, so we love it. We love what we do, and we actually do enjoy what we do. I like looking at these investigations as a puzzle and trying to dissect them and then reverse engineer them. That I that's what I enjoy doing. That's just who I am. That's why I'm crazy, you know. That's why I have a high big case of OCD. Um, as far as burnout, it happens to all of us. You know, you have to make time for your family, you have to prioritize your life, and family's always first for me. Um, you got to go on vacations, you got to step away from it. And when that happens, either we'll we'll have a dark day or we'll bulk record. And so, like I just went on vacation last week. I went on a seven-day cruise, but we recorded the episode early, and so for the audience, they didn't miss a beat. And that is also extremely difficult to record eight to ten hours of episodes in one day, but it allows you to take a week or two off and do what you need to do. Um, but overall, I mean, for me, it's just understanding that when you put up these episodes, there are going to be people who don't like you and don't like your content, and you have to look at the comments. You can't not look at the comments because there's a lot of feedback in there that can help you grow as a channel. And what you need to do is have a the ability, the skin, if you will, the thick skin, if you will, to go through there and vet through the people who are giving you constructive criticism, who want to see you improve, and the people who are just trying to get you to engage with them and piss you off because there's going to be an equal amount of both. I, in the beginning, uh, you know, someone who is a fighter wants to, you know, push back when people are are are rude or disrespectful. You have to understand that hurt people hurt people, and what they truly want is for you to engage with them. So you need to draw to grow and not respond to that and really focus on responding to the people who are being positive, even if they're being critical of what you're doing. And what I found is it kind of molds your audience and your comment section. If you're someone who's constantly responding to just trolls, you're gonna create more trolls and you're gonna create a toxic environment in your comment section. But if they see and you program and condition them that we are gonna respond to positivity, we're gonna respond to you know information about the case, we're gonna respond to constructive criticism. When we make a mistake, we're gonna respond to that and own it. It'll it causes the people who are just in there to try to get some type of clout or whatever it might be to go to other channels that'll engage in that. And so you create a culture within your comment section that's advantageous to what you're trying to do. I also have another channel called Detective Perspective that I grew. It's it's Derek Lavassar's YouTube channel, but the main show that goes out there is Detective Perspective. And I'm really proud of that show. I think we're at 140,000 subscribers. That is something that I started at zero. And um, that comment section is top-notch because it's not as big, it's a really slow burn, and the people in there are so motivated by solving these cases because it's only unsolved cases, and they don't take any crap in there. If you're there to start stuff, I don't even have to respond. They eat you up because that's not the place, that's not the environment for it. I've set the tone, and now everyone has kind of created and and and uh created an environment where that's the only type of comments we're allowing. And if there's something really bad, you just block them, you just remove them. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Uh finally, I want to talk a little bit about uh broadcast experience. Like you said, you've been on uh several TV shows. I recently talked to Mari Povich, and one of the things he said was he believes broadcast television is pretty much dead or pretty much over. Talk to us about the differences between YouTube and broadcast television and which you like better and why.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think first and foremost, uh we are the creators, right? We originally started with Investigation Discovery, and I love Discovery ID. I'm not working with them currently, but they have given me a lot of opportunities, and if they did me wrong, I would tell you. Anyone who knows me knows that. When we started Crime Weekly, we were operating as a TV show, but without a video version. And what I found was the red tape and the legality associated with it because it's a network, it actually hinders the quality of the show. I'll give you one example, and this was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back when Y went to them and said this isn't working. We were covering John Bonet Ramsey, and most people in your audience who's true crime fans are gonna know that case, it's a very prominent case, and we wanted to include the 911 call from her mother, Patsy. And basically we we brought went to the lawyers about

Burnout, Comments, And Creator Boundaries

SPEAKER_01

it, and I'm trying to make sure I got it right, but they they basically said we can't play that tape because she's no longer alive. And and I said, Yeah, so we can't go get her consent. It's public domain, it's on every television show, it's on every YouTube channel, it's only your lawyers overseas who say saying no. We need that 911 tape to immerse our audience and let them hear firsthand the vote, the inflections in her voice, because some people think she was involved. They need to hear that from her, not us. And when they said nope, can't do it, it just really took away from the episode. It was such a small thing, but there's a compounding impact there. So I think with television shows, one, they have an agenda, right? A lot of them have an agenda, and then also they're restricted by the lawyers behind it, and so there are certain things they can show and certain things they can't. And with YouTube, it's more unfiltered. You're getting to go, and also it's available, right? We're we're out there every week. It's it's edited so that you're getting a highly produced show, but it's more of us just shooting from the hip. It's real people like you and I just talking about these cases from the perspective of a civilian, um, not a network that's got sponsorships and has to be concerned with lawsuits. I mean, we do as well, but they're just I I feel like with the lawyers and the television shows, sometimes they say no just to justify their their existence. Um, so I do think the availability of YouTube and the fact that there's so much uh so much, what's the word I'm looking for? There's such a menu out there, if you will. That's not the word I'm looking for, but there's so many options to choose from where you can go on YouTube, Google it, search it, and you end up finding exactly what you need within seconds. Where with the TV shows, you know, they per they promote it for seven weeks and then it comes out, and then based on the angle, the perspective they're going from, to pay based on who they were able to get for the show, it it can be an altered view of what actually happened and also the instant feedback, right? Like we're beholden to our commenters, they're gonna be chewing us up in the comment section the day it's released. So there's accountability there as well. There's a million things I can think of, and there's

YouTube Freedom Versus TV Red Tape

SPEAKER_01

probably things I'm missing, but yeah, television shows, I'm I'm still doing them. I'm in development with one right now. I still think there's a there's value in them, but it's just a different type of experience now. It really is. And they have to evolve. And I will tell you, they are because they have no choice.

SPEAKER_00

They have no choice because YouTube has changed the game. Yes. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. Why not? Yeah. That's a great segue for you. I mean, you're at the end. You you definitely love this. Uh, if you're listening to audio only podcast, there'll be links in the show notes to uh to take you over to the YouTube channel, which will take you to Crime Weekly. Of course, if you're watching on YouTube, there'll be links in the description. Derek, thank you so much for joining us this week and talking to us about Crime Weekly. I'm actually really excited about it because it's one of those things that I watch in my off time anyway. So uh excited to dig more deeply into Crime Weekly. Look at that, I'm rhyming. I'm all over it.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. And and for and for everybody watching, man, just keep grinding, man. Just keep grinding. If you love what you do, first and foremost, for the people who are just starting, find a topic that you're actually passionate about. I don't care if it's building clocks. If you're passionate about it, the way you present it, it's gonna, it's gonna radiate through the screen. Don't do something just because it's popular. Don't say I'm gonna start a true crime channel just because there's opportunity. It's not gonna work. Not long term, short term, you can fake it, but trust me, six years in, it's not gonna work. Find something that you're passionate about. And even if it's not something that's super relevant today, it may be tomorrow, and you could be the you could be the flagship channel for that. So find something that you love, and then it doesn't feel like work.

SPEAKER_00

It just sometimes is audiences can tell when you're not being genuine. My suspicion is that crime weekly audiences probably know 10 times better than the average audience that you're not being genuine.

SPEAKER_01

They're part-time detectives, man. They will eat you alive. We have, you know, they'll eat you alive. It's it's it's a they don't care about your feelings, and they care about these cases and they care about the victims, and we share that sentiment. So that's why we get along. But whatever field you're in, whatever niche you enjoy, focus on it. Start small, build a culture, build a community,

Closing Advice And Subscribe

SPEAKER_01

and it it'll it'll find your people, man. It really will. It'll find your people. And success isn't all about numbers, it's about quality, it's about enjoyment, it's about be getting on there and being excited about about what you're doing. And in many instances, not all, you'll find that you you may not be a millionaire, but you'll find a source of revenue that'll allow you to do that for a long time. And that is, to me, the definition of success.

SPEAKER_00

If you want to see how YouTube continues to change lives, I have a video for you right here. We'll see you in the next one.