Why Ryan Trahan is the Next MrBeast

It starts in 3, 2, 1! Oh my god! I would never recommend to drop out with 20,000 subscribers. And I got the Mr. Beast seal of approval. He was like, you do that video, it's gonna be your first one to hit 10 million. This is absolutely insane. You were on the trending tab multiple times. You were number one on trending. Diving on a penny for one week starts right... now. Let me in! What a world we live in. What a f***ing thing we do. It's so crazy. Today, we're talking to one of our favorite creators, Ryan Trahan. He's a YouTube creator with over 3.4 million subscribers, and he's coming off one of his biggest series ever. His penny series amassed millions of views and landed him number one on the trending page for the first time, which is something he's always wanted to do. We talked to Ryan about what inspired his most recent series and how he comes up with viral ideas that are putting him on track to become the next Mr. Beast. He's kind of like Mr. Beast on a budget. You know? Yeah, but like in a good way. In a good way. Like he's the Mr. Beast that... He's not budget Mr. Beast. Right, right. He's Mr. Beast on a budget. You watch what he does and you're like, oh, I could kind of do that too. Yeah. And that's what's exciting. When you watch Mr. Beast, you're like, well, I can't buy an island. Yeah. So how do I do that? Yeah, yeah. We also talked to Ryan about his journey as a creator and an entrepreneur. He got started really young and has a fascinating rise to where he is now. What's amazing about creators like Ryan is that they build these massive libraries of viral ideas. And when you do have a large library like that, there's a huge opportunity for creators to spread their content across different platforms in order to find new audiences and new revenue streams. There is a company that can do that for you and they are the sponsor of today's episode, Jelly Smack. They are also the designer of Samir's sweatshirt. That's true. It's a very soft sweatshirt. It's an incredible sweatshirt, but that's not what they do. They do not make apparel. Jelly Smack works with creators to get their content across multiple platforms, not only to grow their audiences, but also to grow their revenue. Jelly Smack generated $100,000 in incremental revenue for two-thirds of its creators last year. And that's why Jelly Smack is trusted by the biggest creators on the platform like MrBeast and PewDiePie. But they work with creators of all sizes like YouTubers Charles and Alyssa who gained over 7.4 million Facebook followers in just six months and made over six figures from Facebook. So if you're a creator who's spending a lot of your time making videos for YouTube, Jelly Smack will edit them for different platforms like Snapchat and Facebook and help you earn revenue from those platforms. And the amazing thing is that those new audiences on Snap and Facebook are just that, new audiences, and they can end up going over to YouTube and subscribing to you there. And that's what Jelly Smack has found in a lot of their case studies. I mean, we've said multiple times on this show that the strategy is to have one main piece of content that goes on YouTube and then cut it up into little bits for other social platforms. But we don't do that half as much as we say. We don't even do it 10% as much as we say. We give the advice, but we don't do it because we don't have the bandwidth to do it. We don't have the bandwidth. We don't have the time. And that's exactly why now we are working with Jelly Smack so that they can help us distribute our content across all these different platforms. Now, not only do they have a full staff of editors, but they showed us some of their technology that they use to edit. It is wild. It's incredible to see that they may post 20 different versions of one single video to find out which one works the best on that platform. They'll do different types of thumbnails, and they'll actually boost your content across those platforms to see what's working. As a creator, when you partner with Jelly Smack, they take on all the financial risks so you can just focus on creating. If you're a creator with a big library of content, you might be a perfect fit for Jelly Smack. So head over to jellysmack.com, click get in touch, and then tell them that Colin and Samir sent you. And connect with their team. They're all really awesome people. We've chatted with them a ton. They actually started out as creators themselves. They grew audiences, and that's how they became experts in the space. And we're going to be partnering with them on multiple projects this year, one of which is The Breakdown. We've seen a lot of comments. People are asking for us to bring back our Breakdown video essay-style series, and we will be doing that soon with Jelly Smack, which is really exciting. All right, so make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and now for our interview with Ryan Trahan. You're coming off of, I think, what is the biggest series you've ever done? Is that correct? This Penny series? Yeah, I can't believe it. I'm frankly just baffled. Every day I wake up, I'm like trying to pinch myself. Let's make sure this is like not a joke. But yeah, it's been amazing. And I know the series did well. I did it about two years ago, so I was super excited about it, but I really didn't have expectations. And this has just like completely blown everything out of the water that I could have imagined. Could you talk about what the series is and the impetus for it? I know you said you've done it before on your channel. Why bring it back now? The idea is, what would you do if you woke up in a random town with literally nothing but a penny? How would you survive for a week? There really is like sort of an interesting aspect of, not necessarily relatability, but almost like, whoa, like this is kind of like make or break for this guy. And I think that's really fun to watch, especially since, you know, it's not really like reality. I think that there's this emphasis of, I almost have nothing really to lose. So I can go up and be stupid, go talk to people, and there's no real implication of, you know, like my real life. So it's very strange. But regarding the idea itself and sort of like how we got here, when I was in high school, I was getting ready to go to college and I sort of had the option. I was like, am I going to get a summer job or should I try to like make some money in some creative way? And at the time, I was super into like Gary Vaynerchuk. I was super into like watching Shark Tank and all that fun stuff. And so I got super fired up just about like, I need to like be an entrepreneur or something. I need to like do something this summer beyond just like going to work at the water park again. So what kind of stemmed from that is like, I'm going to start a YouTube channel and I'm going to try to document something. So what would happen if this summer I started from scratch and tried to turn that into a significant amount of money, like almost equal to the amount I'd be making at a job? It's not like a new idea. You know, I think like Drake said zero to a hundred. I don't think that was really his initial idea either. And also like the idea of like trading a paperclip to a house. I think it happened already. Ever since then, it's been really, really fun. It's kind of been a big aspect of my channel. I was so impressed by every single episode was just crushing and like you were on the trending tab multiple times. You were number one on trending with this series at one point. You were also raising money throughout the series. So what were some of the highlights of producing this series for you? The response for the community. I think that's been the most exciting aspect. I think this was the first series that I kind of accepted. I was like, I'm going to go out there and just be myself. I'm not going to worry about getting crazy shots, like I've seen other creators do. I'm not going to worry about over planning like I've seen other creators do. And I decided like, let's just make, let's try to make like a Ryan Trahan, like whatever is most unique to me video series. And so obviously like with the viewership comes validity and while views aren't everything, I think that it's really just reassured that me being myself can provide the progress for the goals that I want. And so that's been a huge highlight beyond just like the crazy, like the number one trending has been a dream of mine forever and just like all of the numerical awesomeness. It's really just been that validity in the community that seems to be rallying behind it. And so it's been really great. One of my favorite parts was how stripped down it is and the fact that you would film yourself riding away on your bike and then you would always include the moments when you had to come back and get the camera and there would be text on the screen that's like, I hate coming back to get the camera. It's just like so relatable and that even though the idea is so grand, it's inspiring to me that it's capable of being captured and covered with, you know, an easy minimal production setup. Yeah, that's super cool. I think also just like during this time where we've lacked a lot of connection, like watching you sell the sodas, I think that was episode two or three and having that group of kids invite you to the quinceanera was like one of the most authentic moments to watch. And I think as you mentioned, like the world of YouTube is starting to get very, very much, there's a lot of emphasis on the ideas and a lot of times there's a lot of production that goes into it because it's high risk, like you have to make it happen. You have to get 10 million views on this video, but the way you did it was so chill and relaxed and authentic and there was these like real moments that I felt like the idea was really good. There's a lot of emphasis on the idea. The titles and thumbnails were excellent. The transformation from the beginning of the series to the end of the series was super interesting and there was tension in every single episode, but the actual production of it was just like we're hanging out with Ryan and I think that's what made it, you know, really special in my eyes. It's just like fun and kind. I feel like kind was a word that kept coming up as I was watching it. A lot of times with idea-based series, there can be like a hint of negativity or a hint of stakes that are like a little bit too real, like somewhat frightening. And I think with yours, it was just so nice that you're like, you're just telling jokes and seeing if someone will pay you a dollar for a good joke. That's something that I really wanted to make sure of because I think it's very easy to interact with people at their own, at their expense, you know. I always want to be the person in the uncomfortable situation, which is why I'm so glad with all of like the ways that I try to make money. It really didn't sort of make anyone else look bad. It didn't make, like, whenever we were filming, I made sure to tell Logan, my videographer, like, hey, don't, we don't need to have like headphones on. You don't need to like get, don't worry too much about the quality. Don't worry about the shot. I want you to like literally hold the camera like this and look at the people that we're talking to and smile and like just have a good time because I think that it's very intimidating for other people to like see this set up and it almost looks like a prank if you approach someone and like there's just this aura of like, this is, you're going to do some, your reaction is what we're looking for. And so we really tried to make sure that this was like a kind-hearted effort. And I think that literally you can, you can watch how many people laughed and like had a good time. And I really made so many great friends through this series, just like literally strangers. So it was, it was a really fun time. I'm glad to hear that. Epic moment for me is when you finally get a hotel room and then it's a win for you. We're all excited. And then you give the audience another day in the same episode. Oh yeah. And in this episode, you're going to get two days. It's in a day four. I actually have a surprise for you. Day five is in this video too. Dude, I love that. I love that you say that. That was definitely the goal with it. I knew that that was going to be a huge breakthrough in the series. If we're able to like, what if we actually get like a freaking hotel and it was really such a such a an amazing day because it doesn't really I don't illustrate it in the series, but it was a very challenging week for me. Just like it was very tough and I don't want to ever try to paint myself as a hero, especially when this is like a game for me, like a series and a lot of people don't know where their next meals coming from or their shelters actually coming from. And so it's super important to me to like continue being optimistic throughout. But man, that motel was so there. I was like genuinely. So I don't know how the last time I've been that happy. It was it was awesome. How much did you raise through those those videos so far? We've raised $30,000, which is about 120,000 meals and I'm going to be doing a Minecraft charity stream in two days. And I think that we're going to raise a lot of money on that. Like maybe more school like the goal is a hundred thousand total. So it's 70,000 additional and if we hit that I'm going to get a tattoo of a penny. It'll be my first tattoo. Oh nice. Yeah, so cool. It's gonna be fun. So I wanted to to take a bunch of steps back because when I think about you as an entrepreneur and as a creator, I mentioned in the beginning of the episode, but you you've lived a lot of different lives and you also from my understanding you have this like compulsion to create things and I think that's always what makes a really successful YouTube creator. It's not always the person who grew up, you know obsessed with video editing or filmmaking. It's actually just someone who had an entrepreneurial spirit who is building things. So I want to zoom back to you as a young kid. What was like the first thing you built or like your first I guess venture into being a creator as I'll say like creating something that other people could use online. Oh man, we're reflecting. I would say if I could really like identify sort of my past and my childhood growing up the pattern that I noticed the most is that I would kind of pick something and make it my identity and try to become more of a perfectionist at it and try to strive for excellence in that but I grew up and I was like my brother played trumpet in high school. So when I got to like sixth grade, I was like I'm gonna play trumpet and I picked it up and like I would literally go home and practice every night and I was first chair and it was like super cool and I got really good. And then freshman year of high school came around and I feel like I couldn't see a future with playing trumpet. I could I couldn't see like, all right, is this going to be my thing actually or what did I just sort of hang on to this in the meantime and I realized it really wasn't going to be my thing and so in high school, I picked up running and I was not good. Like I think that's very important to realize like I didn't necessarily have a clear route when it comes to being a successful trumpeteer or a runner, but I picked it up because I saw potential in it. I was very passionate excited about it. And so I started running freshman year of high school. I had like an 8-minute mile and then I kind of made it a goal of mine to win state like the state of Texas and track and cross country and we ended up getting super close like senior year. I ran a 415 mile and I got second place in cross country and track in the state of Texas and it was like this super exciting feat because I poured so much into it and then I went to college Texas A&M and I was running cross country and track and then three months in I had another question and I was like is this going to be my thing and at the time I was doing YouTube. I had started a YouTube channel that summer which is when I did the penny challenge and it's also whenever I started making kind of running content and I had about 20,000 subscribers at the time making like a couple hundred bucks from AdSense and that's when I dropped out. I was like YouTube's my thing and so that's kind of where I'm at right now. I feel like YouTube is a huge aspect of my identity and so I just want to strive for excellence and the difference between trumpeteering and running when it comes to YouTube is that YouTube is a creative endeavor. It's not so much an objective endeavor where it's like, all right, I can run five miles a day and I'll progressively get better. I'll get faster and I'll improve YouTube's a very subjective and creative world and I realized that striving doesn't necessarily sort of produce the same sorts of fruits that, you know, just striving in other fields can. So that's kind of what I've been fighting with the past few years. I think it's very evident on my channel that I have pivoted so many different directions and I'm kind of coming to terms with like what I want my future to look like with YouTube. This is the first thing that I've really wanted to do long-term. I'm kind of like, yes, this is what I want to do. From what I had learned about you, like you tried to pick up coding when you were in ninth grade and then you had some ventures in Amazon FBA and then the water bottle company. So kind of wanted to do to take us through that entrepreneurial journey from when you were younger. Wow, you guys you guys are very well-versed. I literally kind of had recessed memories about all those things when I was I lived in a very small town like no one in that town really talked about even YouTube or the internet. It was very much. Let's talk about cows and maybe rice like carving like literally I went to Rice High School literally named after the grain. That's just the setting I grew up in but I was always glued to my computer and I was always like I saw that as a source of freedom. Like this is going to be my path to my future. If I just sit down on the computer watch YouTube learn I would come in after school and I would just watch and I would just consume and when I was about 14, I really started getting ambitious and passionate and yeah, I started learning about coding and when I say that kind of lightly because I didn't get that far. I like kind of knew how to do a few things, but ultimately I realized like this would be a long-term thing. So I try to start this business when I was 14 called stream chat and at the time I don't even I'm sure twitch was a thing but I did it was not like a big thing. And so I sort of envisioned this this this website or app that would allow you to watch live shows and communicate with different rooms and communicate with whether it's like your friend group or maybe it's like a bunch of random people. You can kind of like talk to each other as you watch the show and I really tried to pursue that for about four to six months like while going to school and stuff and ultimately I realized yeah, this is probably going to cost more money than I will ever have and it's probably not going to be accomplished by just me. And so that's when I kind of started peeling the layers back and like realizing what can I do at 14 15 years old and ultimately that kind of led to me a few years later starting my first business, which was super exciting and I started a water bottle company similar to that of like Yetis or hydro flask sort of and it was called Neptune Neptune project and I started with my friend in high school and we were just like super stoked because we we had always been talking about like, oh one day we're going to start a business. This name is Caden. He's such a great guy and that's what we did senior year. I started this water bottle company and we're like selling these water bottles at school 20 bucks a pop and we're like I felt like we were selling drugs. I'm going to be completely honest because we would go to our lockers like between classes and everyone come up to us with money and we just be like looking around at teacher like are the teachers watching and we would sell them like these water bottles and then all of a sudden the whole schools got him and it's so crazy and it was just like a wildfire of Commerce and ultimately we did have like 800 bottles out of the thousand remaining. My school is very small and that's when we started knocking door-to-door and we ended up selling maybe a hundred bottles that summer but the craziest thing the coolest thing of all is that's why I started my YouTube channel. I wanted to reach more people to sell these bottles because we had an absurd amount left over and so I started posting running videos and like I'll get your Neptune bottles. They'll help you with hydration and they really were great bottles. And so I really am grateful for that period of my life because it brought me to what ultimately became my passion focus, which is YouTube like I've started a few businesses in my time on YouTube, but I've ultimately come back to the fact that I can't pour into those the amount that I want like I really like I am so passionate about the things that I love and when it comes to those companies like I need to be able to give a hundred percent of my time to those. I'm just not the type of person that like wants to outsource a management company to build it for me. I just feel like I want to be in-house and like I don't know every day. I just want to show up and focus on that and I realize I can't I can't have my heart in that and YouTube at the same time and YouTube's just so much more like obviously the route that I need to take. So that's kind of where I'm at right now in terms of my entrepreneurship and just like passion for that stuff. It's still very real but YouTube in itself is a endeavor that like is financially good. So I've just been focusing on that with time. So I do want to I want to dig into that time because you have a very fascinating story like you're selling these water bottles, but you also get recruited and go d1 you become a division one athlete in running correct? Is it in track and field cross-country? What exactly was it in? Yeah, I was tracking cross-country like long-distance stuff basically. So that's obviously something that's very interesting to us. We used to work in sports and there was a few different instances of college athletes having YouTube channels and being at odds with the NCAA. So I'm curious like it's something that you documented pretty well on your channel. What was that experience like of going to college and then you know being a YouTube creator and also having this water bottle company? Well going d1 sounds so cool, but when you're not like a football player, it's like it's not as as cool as it sounds but honestly it was such a crazy time for me because like I was finally starting to make some money on YouTube. Like I was I was financially independent at this point. So I had enough I was making enough on YouTube and Neptune to pay my rent and I went to College Station like College Station, Texas is where Texas A&M is and rent was super cheap and I had enough to pay for groceries and rent. I was super excited like wow, I'm really going to make it some money on this thing and then I sort of get a I get a call from the NCAA advisor at Texas A&M and they find out about the bottles and they find out about the YouTube channel the fact that I'm making money or maybe they just couldn't ignore it any longer and they reach out and kind of give me this ultimatum where essentially they tell me you can't use your name image and likeness and be on the Texas A&M team and continue making money on your YouTube channel and bottle thing. So they gave me so many options. They were like, all right. Well, maybe you just never post about Texas A&M on your social media ever and you can't talk about running and you also can't talk about the fact that you your life is the way that it is and then it would be fine and ultimately that's like insane because the whole thing that my channel is valuable for is the running content and the fact that I am like a college-age guy that went D1 and like was able to to start a business as well. And so they essentially asked me to bring my personality and identity online down to a college kid that doesn't do anything like literally just a college like a normal college kid, which honestly that that's a cool channel. I think but I didn't have time to create this alter identity. Like in reality, I was waking up at 5 a.m. to go to practice then I would come home for a Work on Neptune for a little bit and then I would go to class and then I would go to practice again. Like that's that was my life. And so I realized like it would really was between am I going to am I going to continue running or am I going to do YouTube and ultimately what I decided is not only am I not going to run anymore. I also I'm going to drop out of college to pursue YouTube. How many subscribers did you have at that point when I dropped out of college? I had 20,000 subscribers and this sounds so cocky, but I posted a video that says I have to drop out of college and in the video. I literally looked like a tiny little kid and I say yes, I may be dropping out but you can't judge me until the summer of 2021 when my peers are graduating college to the people saying I'm making a mistake they're not but you can't judge me until the summer of 2021 when my peers are graduating college and I'm feeling a very strong feeling that good things are going to be happening a lot sooner than that. And this is summer 2021 right now. One of my friends just sent me that video again. He's like go look at this timestamp. That was just like wow things really found a way to work out. I would never recommend my even myself in retrospect to drop out with 20,000 subscribers, but I had I had so much self-belief. It was kind of wild. Yeah, I would never recommend anyone. Yeah to recommend that to go full-time at 20,000 subscribers. It sounds awful that early period of taking that jump. What did it look like? What type of content were you making? Were you under a lot of stress when I dropped out? I think that I thought I could handle college because I was high school valedictorian. Like I loved high school. I loved learning and I thought college was going to be easier, but I just have a huge respect for everyone with a college degree now because those classes were like so difficult. The schedule was so rigorous and I was just like completely baffled at how difficult these things were and I was very poor at managing that stress and just the amount that I was doing and on top of running in YouTube. I was like, wow, this is like, I don't know how long I could do this and I always I always thought I was a guy who could like persevere and like work hard and whatever and I just I couldn't so three months in I was officially burned out and I mean probably the most stress I've ever been in my life and I decided, you know what I'm making enough to pay rent. I'm making enough to buy groceries. Let's see what happens. Like I know if I can up my posting schedule, I can make X amount more because of my awesome community. The running community is so loyal by the way. If you guys ever want to start running make a channel. They will love you and they will literally love you so much. And so yeah, I did it and I didn't know what the path was to longevity, but I really did see this being my route whether it was, you know, I kind of saw it as a four-year like let's take a chance for four years. Just like I said in the video and that's what we did. I realized that I kind of kept growing. I kind of kept growing for that 20,000 mark and I then I made a video copying Emma Chamberlain's Instagram photos and she like reposted it and I gained like 10,000 subscribers and I was like running up and down my apartment. I was like, yeah, let's go so crazy. And then I kind of kept easing more into that like mainstream social media culture type of content and then eventually I got into the commentary world being inspired by people like Cody Ko and kind of just like I started doing that stuff and that really just took off and then I remember the the moment I hit a hundred thousand subscribers. I was like driving through College Station. I was playing like some Post Malone song and I was like, wow, this is crazy. Like literally this it just happened and I mean I'm just so so grateful for the journey that has occurred and I'm just so excited for the future and being able to meet people like you guys and talk to you about it. So fun looking at your channel that first video that really took off was the video about Lauren Gray. Yeah, that's right. If you look at the content around it, like nothing was even close in viewership like that did over 9 million views. Yeah, that was very crazy. Yeah. What was that experience like and how did you you know think about that style of content man? I got to tell you guys I I'm very not easily inspired by people. But when I am inspired by people, I just I obsess over it. I'm like, I just get so motivated by some people's sort of like thing, you know, and so in college my friend showed me Cody Co and we were so obsessed. We'd like watch them every night and we were just like die laughing and really these guys have funniest news ever. And so I was trying to figure out a way like wow, it'd be so cool if I can do this because as much as I love the running community. It is just inherently capped like the the biggest running YouTuber at the time. He was getting like 10,000 views of video and he had like a hundred thousand subscribers, which is awesome. Like he was a literal Marathoner professionally and so super cool. He was able to document that but I figured if I really wanted to try to make YouTube my thing and sort of strive for that excellence. I've really had to figure out a bigger niche. And so I tried commentary within the running sphere, which was very funny like two videos before the Lauren Gray video is this video called the Jacob Ingebrigtsen is out of control and it's like a Norwegian miler who runs the mile and he's like a great athlete, but then I just like try to clown on his Instagram and like social media. And so yeah people liked it and then two videos later. I tried this Lauren Gray video, which is completely broad and like not serving my community and it just like blew up and that that moment. I mean the next two or three weeks were crazy because I had gained like 300,000 subscribers and then I went to VidCon and there were people like like the guys from Smosh were like, hey, I saw your videos like what I've been watching you forever. Like this is crazy and it really just kind of propelled me into everything I could ever dream of. So subscriber wise where did commentary take your channel? That is that is crazy. It went from about I would say 30,000 subscribers to got to be 1.5 million or so. It was crazy hot and that was very crazy. I know I feel so that was in a span of how many months like how long okay. So this is cool. I need to put this in a book when I'm older, but basically the day I dropped out with 20,000 subscribers one year and a few days later is when I hit a million. And so that that growth rate was so crazy, you know, I literally had dropped out and then I remember I moved to Florida because I thought I got to get out of this town. I don't I'm not in I'm not texting anymore. I'm a YouTuber and so I moved to Florida for a bit and I hit a million subscribers there probably. Yeah, like 12 months later and kept running with commentary. And yeah, it was just the craziest craziest time of my life super super wild. So I think one of the first videos that I watched from you that was like extremely creative was when you hid yourself in celebrity or maybe it was the vice versa one. It was one of those. Yeah, but I'm just curious like you seem to have this knack for coming up with ideas that are going to relate to people at scale. How do you come up with ideas? Like what's your formula for what makes a good idea? What what and what doesn't make a good idea? Yeah, I want to be super transparent and say that like there's been times of my journey on YouTube where I thought I was like the smartest guy ever and like extremely wise, but I think that's ultimately showing me that I don't know as much as I thought I do because if I knew as much as I thought I did like last year than every video would have 10 million views and like that pursuit would be completely validated. But whenever I think of you know videos that will do well, I love to brainstorm. I love to sit down and just think because I think it's super important to be in tune with your own mind and really explore your creativity because you guys have some ideas that I just won't have, you know, you guys have perspectives that I just won't have on certain subjects. And so I think that's your unique value proposition, which is why you guys are so successful at what you do. And for me, I feel like I just want to explore whatever's up here as much as possible. And while I do sort of have the parameters of like, okay, I want this to be broadly appealing so that, you know, like a broad community can kind of come on board. I also want to do something that my unique personality can thrive in and there's been several times where I've not been loyal to that. Like I've tried to be Cody code 2.0 Mr. Beast 2.0. Like I had a vlog era where I tried to do like Logan Paul 2.0, but I realized you're only going to be a small fraction of what they are. You're never going to be a hundred percent of yourself. And so I've kind of come to terms with that and when it comes to ideas, I got a lot of like I want to say data that kind of makes it sound cooler than it is. But whenever this penny challenge thing went viral the recent one I was looking at all the videos that were getting a bunch of views like people watching the penny thing and then going to other rabbit holes on my channel and there's like six rabbit holes that they could have gone down. But there was like a certain type of video that everyone enjoyed and everyone went to go binge if you will. It was like the overnight in the world's cheapest hotel overnight in the world's smallest Airbnb and like these videos where I go do a thing but I kind of am just like vlogging and like being myself and hanging out with the viewer. And so I really found a lot of like Liberation and that I'm like, oh I need to put myself in some cool fun situations and not overdo it. Like let's just go do something very simple and hang out with the viewer. And so that's kind of where I'm at. Like I got so much information from this awesome series like doing so well and now I know like moving forward like, okay, I've got a little got a community here. I need to I need to go surf them now. That's a really liberating experience. I know for us as we were trying different formats and as we were trying to grow we would cut out all of our personality moments. There was a specific time when we would try and like minimize as much as possible the laughter between each other like going out on a limb to you know, tell a joke which I would do often and I feel like it didn't land but like there's something about like keeping those moments in that being authentic and vulnerable that people can like connect to that we were so nervous about because we were like we just need to be providing like the video essay value of exactly what we told you we were going to do in the thumbnail and then as we were with this format we have now it's so much more liberating to just leave stuff in and get to be ourselves and let like relax into letting people enjoy just spending time with us. I think with that said though, I think we still feel somewhat restricted by titles and thumbnails. That's for sure. And I think that's really hard, right? Because there's so much that we want to talk about and we are passionate about but if we can't figure out a thumbnail for it, it's almost like this weird space where you're like, well, then I guess we shouldn't even make it because if it has a bad thumbnail, it's not going to work. So I'm curious for you like what are some of those X factors for videos that push close to 10 million views compared to videos that are, you know, under a million. Do you have any sense of when you know for a fact because one of the things that Colin and I talked about with your penny series episode one had like a absolutely phenomenal thumbnail like that thumbnail was like striking when it when it came across our feet. It was both of us were like, yo, did you see this thumbnail? Like I screenshot some of my favorite thumbnails as inspo and I screenshot yours and showed it to Samir. I was like, yeah, it's possible. We'll just use that as the thumbnail for this because that thumbnail was so good. Wow. Heck. Yeah, please do if man X factors. I will first of all Colin I definitely agree just as a viewer of y'all's channel just seeing you guys incorporate more of your personality has just been so exciting to watch because it just makes it feel it is more digestible which is the ironic thing because we think cutting things out makes it more digestible, but that's a very like stressful point for the viewer to be like just sustainably experiencing that for a long period of time like a very high energy viewer viewership experience where it's like the very chill like that's what I love about the the penny series. I feel like you could throw it on the TV and you're like you don't care if you miss a little bit but it is fun to watch. It's a very fun experience. So I definitely love that with y'all's channel. That's such a different way of thinking on YouTube. I feel like a lot of people now are thinking so much about retention and being like every frame has to you know matter but I actually personally like that which is why I like for me watching vlogs on YouTube was so fun like a kind of Casey Neistat era like I would watch the guy do anything and I think you know Colin and I described two types of creators one being idea-based someone like Mr. Beast who's like going to swim with sharks or drop snakes. I don't know do something you know wild that's based on the idea and the title in the thumbnail and then you have someone like Emma Chamberlain who's like a pure relationship based creator where you could hang out with Emma drinking coffee for 25 minutes and it's just there because the relationship and it almost feels like you're a hybrid of both where you pull people in with the idea and then you they stay because of the relationship with you and I think that's actually one of the most interesting spaces to be in on YouTube right now where it's still a car. It's an idea competition when it comes to titles and thumbnails on the platform, but if you can get people in the door and then they like hanging out with you, you can probably sustain them video to video no matter what you make. Yeah. Wow. That's that's a huge compliment. I love Mr. Beast and Emma Chamberlain. I've I've honestly been watching Emma Chamberlain recently. She's her vlogs are so chill and I really do enjoy it. She's so great. But yeah, I think that is definitely the dream because I do love the artistic side of like thumbnails. I love the idea of like how can I convey this idea the best and I sort of look at it as a challenge, but I think the trap that we can fall into is almost optimizing too much and when it comes to thumbnails something I've even kind of my new thesis is that for me, I do want to have a relationship with my audience and I couldn't imagine I don't know if she does but I couldn't imagine Emma Chamberlain changing the thumbnail and title of if a video underperforms and I think that there's some very interesting subconscious intention with that because the whole point of her channel is not to be optimized. It's to maintain a community and maintain a relationship and I would almost feel like sad if I feel like she was trying to appeal to people beyond me. And so I've kind of vowed like I'm going to try to make the thumbnails best as I can but I'm going to I'm not going to change titles and thumbnails anymore because I feel like that is me telling my community you guys aren't enough for me and I'm trying to appeal to other people and so it's very subconscious and subtle but I really just want to simplify things and kind of create a safer happier environment for my audience to kind of thrive in and not think I'm trying to grow beyond them. So interesting super super cool. It's almost like care about the people who are watching not the people who aren't watching. Right and regarding the idea of like the 10 million viewership number. Yeah that X factor. I wish I could predict the reasons these things happen but I definitely have noticed a pattern in terms of like the videos where I survived or overnight in or you know kind of those more broadly appealing ideas as long as I can kind of do those fun things and try to just be myself in that situation and almost flog. I think that's kind of my recipe that YouTube's kind of given me to on a silver platter to pursue. So and that's what I'm most excited about to where I feel like the most community and like most the best relationship with my audience. So I'm super excited about that. How do you think about investments into your content specifically with the Tesla and then any other you know investments on the horizon when it comes to content the Tesla. Oh my gosh. So this this car was like my dream car and I was super excited about it such a fan boy of Tesla and I had all these ideas on my little video ideas list my Google Doc of ideas and like so many of them were Tesla ideas like autopilot such a crazy feature like there's so many crazy things you can do with this car and I feel like how is no one made Tesla autopilot for 24 hours or like something like very simple just using the the core elements of this car like there's a summoning feature. What if you sent an empty Tesla through a drive-thru like there's so many cool things you can do with this. And so I was like, all right, I'm going to try to lease this thing and we'll see if it pays off. And so that's what I did. I have a three-year lease on my car and it's I love it so much. It's probably past the point of justifying the amount of money per month, but it was so cool. Like I got to make Tesla autopilot for 24 hours straight and that video definitely paid for the Tesla and then some you know, like it was amazing super successful. And the thing is I do think there was an element of luck to that. Like I I was very confident in the ideas and I got the mr. B seal of approval. He was like if you do that video is going to be your first one hit 10 million and he's like prophetic I guess with the YouTube algorithm because it was he was right and so that was super crazy. And yeah, that was really successful and then I did sending empty Tesla autopilot through the drive-thru such a fun video and collectively those have like 26 million views together or something. And so definitely was successful and paid for you know, the the Tesla itself. However, I'm not confident. That I can continue like sort of betting on like these investments to pay off to this extent and I don't know like I have some ideas that would cost a lot of money, but I've kind of come to terms with like I'm confident in my ability to make videos that don't cost a lot of money. Like how can I go that direction which is why I also love the penny challenge because it kind of leans into the advantage that we have that mr. Beast doesn't like is he's amazing like I love mr. Beast, but he's kind of in this creative space where I'm trying to top myself financially, but what if I what if I try to do the opposite? What's the what can I do with minimalism? What can I do in the opposite direction where like I actually sort of refrain from any sort of financial abundance and like what if I really just try to start from nothing and so that's kind of the another aspect of the pity challenge, but ultimately what I'm saying is I'm really moving forward trying to lean into not spending as much money and not making that a crutch of mine that I have to depend on because I don't think it's relatable. I don't think it's like as exciting to watch as we may think or as we give it credit to and kind of to your point about like Emma Chamberlain like she's so great. I don't care if she spends a lot of money on something to watch or do her thing, you know, and so I really do appreciate that about her and I'd love to try to achieve that for myself as well. I think additionally with the penny challenge. It's like it's something everyone can do right? And so I think that's really cool and you can imagine yourself in that situation like as I'm watching that series. I'm like, well, how would I do this? Like what's my version of this? Because it's so actually attainable to do what you did. So I think that's really cool that it broadens and allows for every viewer to think about like, oh, I can do that too. Not every viewer can buy a Tesla, but every viewer can think about what it's like to start with one penny and live a week or build it up to a thousand bucks. Did you have a sense when you left college of what monetary success meant to you on YouTube? And at what point did you hit that? Wow. I would say that the idea of monetary success to me, I kind of say it in that dropout video, but I was shooting for an economics degree and that would hopefully provide a salary of like 45k out of college where I lived. And to me, if I could reach that, I would say I made it especially because this is something that I love to do. I love the idea of an economics job as well. Like that seems super fun, but I just feel like this is a lifestyle that is just completely like a dream and a huge privilege. And so when I reached that, I don't know when I reached it. It must have been maybe like a year after I dropped out and I was like, wow, this is like how much I'd be making if I, you know, got that job that I was thinking about getting after college. And so that was my idea of monetary success. And ultimately I had these dreams of like one day I would build my dad a house and you know, I had these like huge unrealistic things where I like I don't know how we'll get there. Like that amount of money would be crazy cool. But yeah, it's just like kind of beyond that has just been arbitrary in terms of what I considered to make me happy. You know, I think that for a lot of my friends in college as well, like the difference between being like the angriest person in the room and the happiest person in the room was like 300 bucks in their checking account. And I've just always held that close to me. Like as long as we have enough to, you know, just like have the lifestyle that we want in terms of like, oh, we don't have to worry about rent. We don't have to worry about groceries. Like that is like the bottom line for me where I'm like extremely happy. So everything beyond that has just been, you know, obviously a huge blessing, but it really hasn't changed like my gratitude for the job. I'd love to know like what does your family think about your career as a YouTube creator, especially in the beginning when you made that jump and then now so I actually I don't know if I've said this online, but I have a super super small family. It's basically just my dad like my mom's not my life. And so my I have a brother as well. Literally my family just my dad my brother and my dad has just been incredibly supportive like all these crazy endeavors like trumpet in middle school running and now YouTube. He's just been my number one fan and man, it's just been a real real blessing to have his support because out of everyone that criticized me when I was trying to drop out of college granted like the could I don't look at the criticism as like they're being mean. I've learned to realize like that's such an empathy that I didn't deserve at the time. Like I didn't appreciate it as empathy, but you know, my dad was supportive. He's like I've seen you do it running. I've seen you doing it with with band. Whatever. I've seen you do it with school. I believe in you and having that from like the one person in my life that I feel like was my family. It was like the biggest just like I don't know breakthrough for me. So it's been great. My dad like he'll watch every video and like we don't really talk about it too much but he'll text me and be like ha ha the jokes were so funny and I know he's watching our video and just like dying laughing and so that means the world and the biggest the biggest blessing like on my dream board. I told you guys like I want to build my dad a house and I actually in three weeks. He's going to be moving into his dream house that I was able to build for him and we've kind of been documenting that series because ultimately like we like my family. We don't come from too much and he hasn't owned anything his life and I'm just like this is like the biggest dream come true just to be able to provide him this and it's like it's it really is emotional. Like I've cried many times at the house, but it just represents so much, you know, the idea of stability just as a family. The idea like, oh, wow, we know that we're going to be okay and like this is a really fun time. So yeah, my dad has just been amazing throughout this whole thing. That's really great, man. That's awesome. That's so cool. What advice would you give to a startup YouTube creator right now? Who's trying to become the next Ryan Trahan go watch Colin Samir. No, I do think you guys are a great resource. I would say the biggest most exciting and life-giving habit that I have is I talked to a couple YouTubers very consistently and they're some great friends of mine and we'll talk beyond just like, all right, what do you think about this thumbnail? What do you think about this title? We'll talk about like, how are you feeling emotionally about the idea of doing this for another five years or like you I noticed in this video. I don't know. I just feel like it's kind of different from your regular content. Like how are you feeling? Okay. Like, how do you feel about this video? Can't you guys do you want some feedback about this? And I would say just having like those people to make you feel sane like this is such a weird weird job. I'll be at a huge blessing but it is it can make you feel kind of like I'm going nuts. So having a community of people that you know creators that are doing the same thing and I don't I like I said before I don't think subscriber count matters. Like I've learned more from people with less than 10,000 subscribers than some people that have like over 10 million, you know, and I think it really just comes from, you know, having that friendship and that community Brotherhood, you know moving forward. So that's been my biggest thing. Okay. So this is a question we ask a lot of different creators that we speak to. Okay. Imagine tomorrow tomorrow, you no longer can create YouTube videos. Oh, no, but you can leave one video up on your YouTube channel that will stay there for the rest of time. Oh man to video. Do you pick? Okay. Oh man, that's a tough one. Okay. While I go find while I go find mine. Will you guys tell me what yours is? Have we ever answered this? I don't know if we've answered this, right? I don't think we've answered this, right? It's our show. Oh man. We ask that question. Yeah, right. I would I might say something kind of unconventional or something. I haven't even thought about before but I think it's when we when we left our last company and we first started thinking about doing YouTube. We wanted to start this skateboard company and we did and we used YouTube to talk about the skateboard company that we started. And so I would probably leave episode one of that up because for me it represents like what this partnership has been which is just Colin and I sitting over a coffee and having an idea and then you know doing everything in our power to bring it to life. And I think that's what this whole career has been and that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I want to be known as as that and remembered as just someone who was able to bring ideas to life whether mine or someone else's. Yeah, I would I would agree with that. We always said YouTube was just an incubator for ideas. And we were always interested in sort of the same with you. I think with the water bottles is how do you use YouTube to build something greater or bigger man. Yeah. And so I think that series episode one I remember when we put it out I was like this is what I've always wanted to make this is what I loved watching this is the series I always wanted man what a feeling that's that's so awesome. I wish I had like that breakthrough type of video where like all right we put everything into this but if I'm being honest I just scrolled down a bit and I remember there's this video. It's got like 50,000 views I think but it's called chase though 43,000 views three years ago. It's called chase your dreams kids. And I think that's the moment I hit 50,000 subscribers. I was running a marathon in Eugene Oregon and I had a great time there and Post Malone's album just came out beer bongs and Bentleys. I was listening to it. We're driving through the forest. It's so just euphoric and I go sit down in this like rental car and I just talked to my audience and I go on this little like kind of rant and like it just very emotional rant. And I feel like that that is kind of the thesis for honestly not not only my YouTube career but my life like use your imagination to your benefit. I think we're all very gifted and like very imaginative creatures that can make amazing things come to life. And so if I could embody anything in that it'd be that video I could have never imagined that I would be talking to 50,000 people. I come from a town with a population of like 3000. One year ago I had like less than 400 subscribers and I thought that was crazy to be honest with you. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting me no matter what. You could be spending your time doing literally anything else. I love you. I love you guys. I really do. I know people say that but like if there's anything I can do for you guys other than pouring my heart into my content every day. Let me know. Here's to another year. Well cool. That was an awesome interview. Awesome. Likewise. I really appreciate you guys. Such good questions and I really appreciate you guys just reflecting. That's super fun. All right. So that was our conversation with Ryan Trahan. Not only is he an awesome creator but he's just an awesome guy. That was so fun to talk to. He is a 10 out of 10 guy. Samir said he's a 7 out of 10. I don't know why he would say that. I did not say that Ryan. I think he's a 10 out of 10 guy. I did not say 7 out of 10. Just kidding. We both agree. 10 out of 10 guy. So fun to have Ryan on the channel. Make sure to go check out his penny series if you haven't watched it already. Maybe you saw it. It was number one on the trending page obviously. Yeah. But it is such a good series. All the videos on his channel are amazing. Go check him out. And if you made it to this point in the video and you're not subscribed definitely a good time to subscribe to the channel. We talk about the creator economy. We talk with creators on a weekly basis on this show. So if you're into that definitely subscribe. Make sure to like this video comment below if you think Ryan is on track to becoming the next Mr. Beast and make sure to check out Jelly Smack. The link for that is in our description. If you're looking to expand your audience and revenue across multiple platforms definitely check out Jelly Smack and tell them we sent you. We have some really good interviews coming up in the next few weeks. So if you're not subscribed to the channel make sure you subscribe so you can get notified about when those episodes drop. That's it really. Check out Jelly Smack. Subscribe to the channel. Like the video and we will see you next week. Roll the outro. Like I want to know do you guys ever have these identity crisis? Do you guys ever wonder like what if I did this or this or like is Colin and Samir something different? We are we're 10 years older than you so we've been through many existential crises. Yeah we've had a lot of existential crises. Many of them documented. Yeah a lot of them. Various YouTube channels. We've also lived. Or podcasts.