😨 How to Get 2m Subscribers in 9 Months

How to YouTube

Hey YouTubers,

If you’re in the YouTube Twittersphere, you might have seen a few people mention this guy Sam Sulek who’s blowing up right now.

He posts daily vlogs where he drives to the gym talking about what he’s going to do in the gym, works out in the gym whilst talking you through it, then drives back and talks about how it went.

His numbers are wild. He’s gained 1.96m subscribers in 9 months, and is now getting 500,000+ views per video (with daily uploads).

But why is he so successful and what can we learn from him? Let’s break it down.

Unfair Advantages

With YouTube, you always want to leverage your unfair advantages, and I think Sam has two big ones.

First, Sam is jacked. Whether it’s natural or not (I’m not one to know), he is more shredded than most people on the planet. If he was a regular sized human, his content would be much less interesting. His physique shows credibility. Sam is clearly knowledgeable and he’s visibly put in the work, therefore he’s someone worth listening to. He doesn’t need to tell you about his qualifications, he’s wearing them.

Second, his personality. Sam has a great camera presence and is comforting to watch. He’s calm, likeable and feels like your friend. Lots of YouTubers can achieve this, but along with his physique it creates a relatively unique character for his ‘show’.

Other than that, Sam really doesn’t have any huge unfair advantages. There’s no fancy equipment or production quality. Most of you reading this email could get jacked and go to the gym every day talking to a camera, but for a variety of reasons, you don’t. Sam played to his strengths, followed his interests and did the work.

Takeaway: What can you do/talk about that no one else can?

Authenticity

The last few years on YouTube are sometimes referred to as the ‘Optimisation Era’, also known as the ‘MrBeastification’ of YouTube. This has meant fast editing, crazy on-screen energy, and ridiculous challenges.

Because of MrBeast’s wild success and the resulting attention on his channel, some people have taken this to mean that all channels should be doing the same things as him. Even educational ones.

But that’s not that case. We can learn some fundamental lessons about YouTube from MrBeast, but every channel has a unique value proposition and should make videos in their authentic style.

Sam does this very well. You can feel his authenticity. He is just a normal (insanely jacked) dude talking about working out in the gym.

But he’s also benefitting from some amount of timing the market. It seems that audiences are growing tired of over-edited hyper personalities, and Sam is a welcome breath of fresh authentic air to the gym bro space on YouTube.

Takeaway: lead with authenticity, play the YouTube game second.

Predictability

Predicability is slept on. The most successful channels and fastest growing channels all benefit from making relatively predictable content.

Why is this so important? It’s the same reason that the iPhone doesn’t change that much, or Rolexs don’t change much, or that McDonald’s fries don’t change much.

When you find something that people love, keep delivering on it.

Of course, you need to be conscious of changing markets and audience needs etc blah blah, but on YouTube, if you find a format that people love, just keep doing it.

Over time, you’ll collect an audience of people who love what you’re doing.

I know (with a reasonable degree of certainty) that tomorrow Sam will upload a video with the same format he’s been doing for months.

That’s what his audience wants.

But, before you go doubling down on one format, remember that this only works once you have found something that people actually want.

Takeaway: make lots of content to find what you like making and what the audience likes to watch. When you find something that works, double down.

Have an epic week!

Tintin 🧑‍💻

The YouTube Tin

🔬 My Channel: I make videos about YouTube to help you guys even more. Let me know what you’d like me to make videos about.

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