Last week, I shared our first big mistake.
But two weeks ago, I shared some big news:
We’re working with the legendary Dave Asprey to grow his YouTube channel.
Today…
​​I’m giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how it’s going.
If you don’t know Dave…
He’s a pioneer in the biohacking space.
He started a company called Bulletproof, which became famous for mixing coffee, MCT oil, and grass-fed butter. He has a goal to live until 180 years old.
And now we get to be a part of that story.
This week, our first video with him went live.
In the first 5 days, it’s pulled in 12,000 views – 10x-11x more than the average. It’s the 3rd highest-viewed podcast out of the last 35…
And it might become the #1 viewed episode in 2024.
You can check out the video here.
This is a huge win right out of the gate.
It’s funny to sit back and think about how all of this happened, because I first heard about Dave almost a decade ago.
It’s 2015, and I’m a year into working in-house with Mindvalley.
I’m sitting in the kitchen having my breakfast, when the new guy walks in.
I kid you not, he pours a cup of coffee and drops a thick chunk of butter in it.
He goes to take the first sip, then he glances over at me…
My face is tangled in a knot, baffled at what I’m seeing…
“I know,” he says…
“It’s not everyday you see someone eat a stick of butter with their coffee.”
“Why do you put butter in your coffee?” I shoot back…
“Have you heard of Dave Asprey?”
That’s when I found out eating fat was actually good for you and your brain’s performance, and it’s also when I discovered The Father Of Biohacking.
Within the next few weeks, I swear to you, the entire office was putting butter in their coffee. I even saw a guy eat butter as a snack. Nothing else.
And it’s all because of Dave.
Dave runs about 8 brands all in health and human optimization. I’m passionate about this industry. So when Dave’s CMO reached out to me a couple weeks ago to talk about helping to grow his YouTube channel, I was all-in.
For this first video we helped with, we focused on thumbnails, titles, and producing a 30-second teaser trailer to drive retention. We designed 9 thumbnails for this. 3 of them are running in an AB test now.
Since this is a podcast, there’s minimal editing which was handled by Dave’s amazing internal team. So we can’t take all the credit, and we wouldn’t.
But I feel inspired to share how we approached this video:
1) We listened to the podcast with the precision of surgeon’s scalpel, noting every marketable soundbite. We ‘hook stack’ those sound bites together for a 30-second trailer, while still telling a mini story itself in the trailer.
2) We model the thumbnail after what’s currently working for YouTube podcasts now. We need to convey it’s two people talking back and forth, so it attracts an audience who’s ready to absorb pure information for an hour.
Then we simply hook people based on the thumbnail text. The two thumbnail texts we’re testing are:
- Vascular disease is the #1 thing that takes people out.
- A heart attack can cost $200,000.
We first designed a thumbnail that directly modeled Diary Of A CEO, which is the most popular YouTube podcast on the market right now. But the team felt it was too close to their style, so we’re trying to innovate a new style right now.
We’ll share more data on that as it comes in…
3) For the title, it’s always tricky. You can zoom in and hook with a part of the conversation. Or you can zoom out and hook with the overall essence of the conversation.
We decided to zoom out and hook with about 70% of what the podcast talked about.
Plus, there was a section where the guest (a cardiologist) referred to his biohacking background. Dave replies, “biohacking cardiologist? That’s going to be remarkably cutting-edge.”
That’s when I heard the hook.
So we simplified it to ‘Biohacking Heart Doctor’ and led with it in the title. Which is a best practice for podcasts on YouTube right now.
It’s been a pleasure working with the team so far, and we’re JUST getting started. We got plugged into the podcast process to bring more views. That’s the example I just shared above.
But our main service is to produce custom videos, 10-15 minutes each.
We’re about to finalize 6-8 scripts this week, so we can hit an October 15th recording date. We’re spending extra time to make sure this starts with a bang, and Dave himself has made our job easier because he’s already a content machine.
His podcast has 350 million downloads and his Instagram over 1 million followers. He’s no stranger to creating content. So one of our core strategies is making a backlog of all his best-performing content, then repurposing that to go viral on YouTube.
There are three main things we’re looking at:
- His bestselling books…
- His viral Instagram content…
- His most popular podcast episodes…
These alone will give us more content ideas than we could ever ask for. And since we have a tight deadline, this is what we’re going to leverage first.
Sometimes, it can be as simple as expanding on a viral Instagram post…
Or even taking the ‘most replayed’ section of a podcast episode, and reformatting it to work as a standalone video for the YouTube algorithm…
Which brings me to my simple philosophy around YouTube:
Generating a view is easier than generating a dollar.
When you create content, you don’t have to sell a product. You can simply sell an idea, a philosophy, or a positive feeling. Because when you sell this idea or feeling, you can then turn it into a profit. It’s much easier to do business this way in my opinion.
Especially through long-form video content.
This is why I love YouTube – because it’s not just about views, it’s about creating lasting connections with real people.
So if you want to see how we’re bringing Dave Asprey to 100,000 subscribers and beyond, while getting people hooked on his mission to live to 180 years old…
Then stick around.
I’ll be documenting every step of this process – how we help Dave and others take their stories to billions on YouTube.
Because if you want to build a brand that lasts, this is where you’ll learn how.
This is Week 7 of building my business in public.