In this episode, James Forbes shares his entrepreneurial journey, his experiences in video production, and the challenges he’s faced, especially during COVID. He discusses the evolution of his businesses, the importance of adapting to market trends, and the impact of technology on content production. James also discusses the challenges of using AI in video editing and monetization strategies on platforms like YouTube.
In this conversation, the panelists discuss the challenges and strategies of creating content on YouTube. They cover production costs, the importance of the algorithm, monetization methods, and advice for new creators. They also share their experiences with selling channels and the future of their projects, while emphasizing the importance of innovation and adaptability in a changing environment. James Forbes has a diverse entrepreneurial background and quickly adapted to video editing during COVID. He emphasizes the importance of pivoting with the market and using technology to automate processes. While AI has a role, human editing services are often more efficient.
Faceless content is flexible and scalable, but requires consistency and investment to succeed. Visibility is heavily dependent on YouTube algorithms, and testing different thumbnails is crucial. Forbes recommends following trends, diversifying revenue, and being patient, noting that it is possible to succeed even when creating in French.
00:00 Introduction and Presentation by James Forbes
02:32 Exploring YouTube and Faceless Channels
38:02 Business Models and Profitability Cycles on YouTube
44:29 Growth Opportunities and Production Team
47:14 Production Costs and Profitability of Videos
49:29 YouTube Trends and Algorithms
53:48 Thumbnail Strategies and Video Performance
57:39 Search Intent and Discovery on YouTube
01:03:42 YouTube Sales and Profit Strategies
01:06:43 Building Diversified Revenue Beyond YouTube
01:09:26 Optimizing YouTube Videos: Practical Tips
01:12:54 Entrepreneurship on YouTube: a viable model
01:17:30 Bus project / Mobile studio
Marc-Antoine Rioux (00:19)
Hello everyone, welcome to Déclic, episode number 3 with James Forbes. Hello James. How are you? Yes, yes. So, basically, today, James came to talk to us a little bit about his background, his multiple businesses both in video and in technology as such. I'll let him introduce himself, but James, I'll let you take the microphone.
James (00:26)
Hi man, how are you? Feeling good?
Well yeah, definitely, but... That's it, just to give a quick overview, and more detailed questions, but basically, right now, we have a production company that manages YouTube channels, ultimately, that means we really produce in-house documentaries on different types of subjects in different niches that we publish on YouTube and monetize. And that, it's definitely brand new, right now, it's in the last year, but before that, there's about a...
four and a half years, five years of learning through entrepreneurship and video that has brought us to where we are today. But also in parallel with that, we have another company that ultimately comes to do video editing on demand for everything that is short clips, whether it's people who make podcasts, whether it's people who want to do a bit like the PC Jolicoeur of this world, create content on social networks that are made for reels, tiktoks and vertical formats generally.
So that's what we focus on too, we offer monthly packages to those who want to do editing. We really take care of the editing from start to finish for these types of projects. Then we also use this company through our other company, so the two companies help each other through that. On the second company, we use 99% of the people abroad to do the video editing.
administration, customer management and others. We have really specialized in using international to maximize speed, time zones and profit margins for the company.
Yesterday I was looking at several hundred thousand dollars in payroll, US, that have been made in the last two years, let's say, internationally.
These are the two companies that we have. That's it. Otherwise, through that, since 2019, we went from not knowing how to do anything in video.
to have had 3-4 businesses through that, or that we made pivots through Covid, ultimately, to get by when we were no longer filming or directing, ultimately, in the house, businesses or outside, mostly, when we were closed during Covid. So, we decided to pivot just on editing and then find a new business model that is more stable and then more profitable, ultimately, for us than...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (02:55)
Mm-hmm.
James (03:06)
of always being caught up in being a little at the mercy of having people who necessarily have to go on site every time we want to have video footage to use for editing.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (03:16)
If we talk about everything that is business before, if we can put names on it precisely, who does what, all the kit, what was the business, what was your type of client? I think it was more like you were targeting big content businesses with a more crew of this world, but what was your typical client before and how has it evolved over time with the different businesses too?
James (03:38)
The clientele can always remain a little the same. The desired client was the big businesses or the big agencies, but generally, it always takes more time than you think, and it is always harder to develop these clients. Sometimes, it takes years to develop the same lines to hope to have a first contract. But when you launch in 2019, and COVID arrives in 2020, we agree that the pace was cut in half quite quickly.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (04:04)
It's for sure.
James (04:06)
But that's it, the typical client is generally self-employed workers, SMEs, some smaller agencies that sometimes could potentially be clients on 2, 3, 4 projects in a year, but generally you didn't have any recurrence. For the majority of these clients, we went on site, we had directors that we sent on site, who filmed, we created the content, we created the concept.
or concepts, it's mostly more videos that were like product presentations, company presentations, company culture, internal videos or things like that. We tried a lot more to lean towards A/B TEST type videos on Facebook, to be able to advertise with different formats. But we still arrived in 2019 surprisingly, we arrived early in the market with this kind of service, even though logically I came from...
of the industry ultimately agencies in Montreal. It was still something that was more common, but in entrepreneurship in general, it seems to be A/B testing and maximizing your videos on Facebook, Instagram or other. It was something that was not so common, and it was a little harder to sell. But when you look today, everyone is doing it, it's super common, and it's like the game that everyone is playing right now. That's it, it's really corporate videos and others.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (05:26)
Mmh.
James (05:29)
Then after that, COVID happened, we were stuck, we started editing for short formats and all that. But again, we were still ahead of schedule. It was 2020. To give you an idea, the Hormozi of this world, the PC Jolicoeur of this world all started popping up during COVID. But let's say in the middle of COVID, end of COVID. It was no longer 2021, 2022, 2023. We were still a little...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (05:50)
Mmh.
James (05:56)
ahead in the Quebec market, let's say, it's sure that internationally and everything, we weren't there, but in the Quebec market, we've always been a little ahead, sometimes a little too much. But each time, we pivoted because we were like me. It's maybe not the business model that will allow us to have the company that we want. And it's not necessarily the business model that we want as a lifestyle. You're always stuck going to the customer. As there were too many, it's funny to say, but there were too many one-to-one relationships with humans, which means that today, I have almost
Marc-Antoine Rioux (06:17)
Mmh.
James (06:25)
I really, just in chat, but really physical with humans, I hardly see anyone anymore. But, we really went from one to the other, but it's more the business model that we like today.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (06:35)
It is certain that scaling operations is a production operation and is not the same challenge as production as a SAAS.
James (06:39)
Here it is.
No. That's what we tried, and it was hard to have freelance directors that we find in many regions in Quebec, and even internationally, who are reliable, who go to the client. The fact remains that it's your face in the end. It's the face of the company that makes the good footage, that doesn't have any mistakes. When you do video production, the chances of having mistakes, anything can happen. You can forget your extension, you can't put in a light set.
Well, you forget your batteries. Your batteries are not... You have done everything so that it can be a problem. Then when it happens, the client, he has been booked for two months. He is ready, he has his text, he is stressed. Then, you can't do anything. Then generally, it's hard. There, the client is angry. So there, everything had to be done remotely because I wasn't there. So it was a bit... It was a bit complicated. Companies that do it, surely better than me in all that. But that's not what we wanted to do at the base. It was a bit complex.
So COVID happened and we didn't have the opportunity to change the business model. It was a bad one for a good one, let's say. But it made us pivot to our new companies.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (07:45)
Understood.
Because it was more precisely a "let's launch whatever it is, we figure out in full flight if we want how to build the plane" rather than saying "we have a plane, go fly it"
James (07:53)
Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly, I was working in an agency in 2019. I still had a good job. Then I had an aspiration to have really big positions. I'm going to work in the Shopify types of this world. I'm going to work in Ottawa or see the other options, the CN types of this world. It's like the big companies in Canada, they're big behemoths. Then you can still get in there for jobs worth several hundred thousand
per year as a marketing director or something else. That was really my aspirations. Then I had a horizon of probably being able to do that in 10 years from 2019. Then I tried to do it in the end after that. We just decided to start a company. It was another dream that I had. Then I said to myself generally people don't realize their dream. We'll try it and we'll see what happens. I had some money set aside. I was like I can offer you a year and a half, two years. I already had a condo. As I had some... I had made sure to be...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (08:26)
...
James (08:52)
financially flexible, let's say, to be able to do that. Of course, when it comes... No, no, that's it. Exactly. It's not doing it, but it's a little riskier. I'm still more flexible. I could do you a year and a half, two years without needing to generate a lot of income, at least a little income, but just to say. Then that's what happened, but COVID arrived, it's going to hit even harder. He had a lot of business, the PC, a certain moment of time, just to help while you pivot, and he just has more income coming in and everything.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (08:54)
You weren't the average student who came out of UQAM
Mmh.
James (09:20)
But for sure, we really got started, we built the plane, then we built it again. We change planes in the end, that's what happened. We built a plane, we jumped, the plane crashed, we built another plane, the plane jumped, we crashed, we built another plane, then we built another plane at the same time in parallel. So there, we fly two planes.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (09:27)
Exact.
and there you are jumping the plane to go to a drone and then taking care of it or almost there.
James (09:46)
Yeah, here we are more in a plane that is going to go to a New York London on autopilot. But it's okay because it's five years in Syrian, five years in a life, if I have a few in another five years, I will arrive at 38 more or less. I mean, if at 38 I have achieved the goals that I have always wanted, I will be very proud. Then it is still extremely young. Then if she arrives at 42, it does not matter either. But it will have taken 10 years, 15 years, whatever. But it will still have been an interesting journey.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (10:08)
Exact.
the sooner you'll end up having results. The reality is that if you love what you do, it will go like nothing. In addition to that, the client will notice it and the whole team. It's not forced relationships. It's really passionate.
James (10:16)
Exact.
exact.
No no that's for sure, right. Right now we're still working on things that when I... I don't talk about it often because it's still that most people don't understand, and it's not because... Yeah right. It's not because I'm pretentious that I'm smarter than others, it's just that these are still things that are niche in the way we show them. People understand what YouTube videos are, people understand what editing is, but everything that happens behind the scenes is still weird for a lot of people, and even for us it still is. It's still there today, sometimes...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (10:36)
Hence why you had to be here today.
James (10:56)
Days when I didn't work that much, then I feel bad, but in the end, the money comes in anyway because YouTube pays you, but it's just, it's just weird. You don't talk about customers, you don't talk about... anyway, that's it. So it's another, it's another way of doing business, but it's still risky because you're still dependent on just one platform, but you know. If I had a, if I had to put my money on a company, I'd put it on Google, I'm not too wrong. It could happen, but I'm still an interesting hobby horse, on that.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (11:12)
Exact.
100%
James (11:25)
That's it, but yes, if we build the plane every time, while it spits, we try to get into the parachute and build it while it goes down.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (11:34)
exact.
I remember even from the beginning of the platform, you were telling me about an application equivalent that allowed, or at least that you were inspired, to use certain approval features at the level of the editing process, the renderings, etc. I think that was your transition from "we have the physical production business" and everything.
We want to bring it as software as a service in terms of editing, content production, etc. Maybe you can tell us a little more about the machine you have set up on this side.
James (12:11)
Exactly, but we take into account that the second company which is not YouTube, which is really the editing of videos on demand. Exactly, the editing of videos on demand, it's called PlusCrew. The idea is that for any type of task, you can have a dedicated team that will do tasks in real time, but that you, in the end, you know the delivery. You're not going to see the process, you're not going to talk to 12,000 stakeholders. All the things that we know in agencies.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (12:16)
We're saving YouTube for dessert here.
James (12:39)
or in service that can be paged here. Everything happens in an ecosystem, in the end, with a platform that we developed really custom with partners, plus we have devs who work on it, every week or every month, depending on the needs that we have to do. Basically, it's like a big CRM, worldly, but custom, but that all the tasks in real time are done by human beings connected inside.
and then self-validates. It really looks like a CRM, it's just that we built it ourselves. But let's not say a Monday anymore, but that we built ourselves. What makes the client deliver a project, the whole project is done inside automatically with employees at each stage who do the tasks, the revisions of the tasks, the spot checks of the tasks, etc. until the final delivery, which the client can review in our tool that we have.
copy a frame.io which is a video review tool, so that customers can put comments and other things. If there are corrections, it goes back into the process again. Then after that, it's sent directly to the customer. The customer can download it in his dashboard because he has a notification. Then he also sees the process of these videos in his dashboard and everything. So really from start to finish, it's automated, but it's automated by humans. It's not automated just by AI and others.
There are people who click on actions or who deliver projects. I don't need to open my dashboard to see if client number 3 is at this stage. No. I see my task that appears in my dashboard, I open it, I do the review or the thing that I have to do. I accept it. Apart from doing these other things, I don't need to see until they come back to me. He has many projects that I don't even see anymore. At the beginning, when we launched it, I didn't sleep much. I worked because we...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (14:13)
Mmh.
James (14:26)
clients were mostly in Europe. We worked with big clients from the Web-Edit world and others who were really clients in the end who buy catalogs of content. They don't buy from creators, but buy like the rights to be able, a little more, their content on other platforms in short format.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (14:43)
I'm going to spread this around.
James (14:49)
the customer people there, that
do tasks until today I almost do nothing as such task management, just watch projects then manage problems if there are any. Then integrate new clients when we have some just to be sure that the first videos are clean, that the editors and reviewers have understood and then after that we can move forward then also innovate on the system then customer edits. With the new features we see, the integration of captions, the way to be more dynamic and others. So we update customer edits or customer templates.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (15:17)
Mmh.
James (15:21)
so that they can know what they are newer, more up to date with the platforms. It's really cool, on a platform. In addition, we use it ourselves for our other companies, because it's going so well. That's what also allows us to keep both companies loyal, to increase everyone's income, and to ensure that we have the loyalty of our employees abroad as well. Sometimes, they have one video per day, sometimes, they can have 50. It depends, there are days that are really going to be rocky, there are days that are quieter.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (15:25)
Thanks Eric.
James (15:50)
But that's it, we tried to stick to it with our own montages so as not to necessarily send it to other worlds which would supposedly be more qualified since we would have faster or better quality renderings, but we send them to them, we train them, take a few weeks, and then afterwards it gives renderings satisfactory enough for us to use them, so we try to make our companies live internally from one to the other, as much as possible.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (16:11)
Nice. you know, maybe, that leads me to the question too, and we've already talked about it a lot in the past, but mainly, it's interesting because you have the side where you're going to find your own customers, and then you develop new business at that level. Then there's another side where you have a bit of the white label side too, which you can just graft onto any existing business on the market or in the industry, and then help it produce. So it's like...
James (16:36)
THANKS.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (16:38)
How do you do your business development other than just your relationship and then the butcher with a ray if you want, if he has other things
James (16:45)
For now, it's really just that. I'll have to start looking at other avenues, if we want to develop it and make it bigger. For now, it's not our priority in terms of income, in terms of profitability. It's really a tool that we use mainly for ourselves, for other companies.
it's sure that I could easily activate the SEO activate the ads. There aren't many companies in on-demand editing, ultimately, Franco-Quebec, Franco-French.
There are several who will use AI, there are several AI tools here and there, but it's really a company that takes your editing from A to Z, that delivers quality super quickly in a very reasonable time, that's always something. Then we are also able to understand, to learn the trends, to be helped with the strategy and others. There are a few, but it remains that it is not a market that is extremely saturated in this niche. But that's it, for now, we just don't want the big sir +, because it remains that...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (17:29)
Mmh.
James (17:44)
when you bring in more clients on one side, you have less time for other things. So right now, we're trying to balance the two together. Eventually, I'm thinking just to get my marketing skills up to date too, then to retest a little bit how it works right now, then to start making sales calls again, then to start looking for a little bit of reduced entrepreneur skills. But that's it for now. I wouldn't think that in the next few months, that's going to happen.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (17:48)
Exact.
Maxime Sincerny (18:11)
And then let's say, from the customer's point of view, what is it, you could summarize what the advantage and disadvantage of the service that you have set up versus, let's say, the regular method which is often to be done, which you had spoken about a little there, initially, but the main points.
James (18:26)
In fact, the advantages are just that the client puts his footage in a Google Drive or he puts it in our platform directly. From there, he receives final results. We just saved the time, the headache, the interactions, all the nonsense. We take into account that you lose by talking with and doing any project management.
That's one, that's the key. Two, is that AI still has a lot of aberrations, and will have a lot more in the future, so you're going to have things that you don't like, you have to take your time to still manage the AI assembly, to do certain actions and everything. So, if you really want a quality service, ultimately, that is delivered quickly, where you don't have to rack your brains, and you still feel like you're talking to a human, and that there's a human who manages your project, and who still has eyes.
humans and human hands working on your things too. In the end, you get a result that you see is perfect. It always respects the same thing. I always have the same type of result. I'm satisfied. I don't need to do revisions so much anymore because I know it's going to be well done. That's our advantage. You pay a premium, obviously, that if you do it yourself or if you do it with an AI or if you do it with a big production company, it's going to be extremely expensive. We undercut that a lot.
Maxime Sincerny (19:45)
Mmh.
James (19:48)
So we come to position ourselves there. But it is certain that for certain companies, certain people, it can seem a little more expensive because it remains that we... Well, it remains with humans, they pay the humans. But compared to large production companies, well there, we are really cheap there. That's for sure. Compared to them.
So the advantage is really there. Listening to a Hormozi for a few years, he says all the time, the day you are able to save time, save money to someone who has, well, someone who has money, it will be a good service that you can sell. So generally, the world will be ready to...
offer a lot of things, but it doesn't really save money, it doesn't really save time. Whereas me, someone who wants to make videos, video editing, like at the end of the day, automatically, I come to save money, then come to save time. Not compared to AI in terms of money, that it costs a little more. I don't in terms of time, but it's sure that at least the delivery will be of quality.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (20:40)
Mm-hmm.
And if you had to talk about, let's say trends in the video industry and the requests that you have in relation to these clients, it doesn't matter if it's related to Generation by AI it could be AR, VR, or whatever, what stands out the most or what requests you're like "we have to do something about
James (21:07)
For now, I'm more in a mindset of doing what I have to do and trying not to look too much at what's happening, otherwise you come to paralyze, you come to think that your company is always going to be burned overnight and you absolutely have to bring novelty into your company because otherwise you get overtaken. This is the case for several niches, this is the case for several things, but since it's not our main company or that logically, our eggs are, it absolutely has to work.
Why is it not that, because we know that it is a race towards the lowest price, it is a race towards innovation at all costs. So we did not want to be in that market. But the fact remains that there will always be companies that will be ready to pay a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars per month to have content that respects their brand, who will not need to manage it too much.
and who are going to be happy and satisfied with the end result, and are going to be willing to pay a little premium for that, compared to the new thing that is going to make the videos by itself. And in the end, everyone makes the same kind of video because everyone uses the same tool.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (22:10)
Exactly. It's also mainly in terms of volume, someone who has three videos to make, it's sure that it's maybe not ideal, but someone who has 1000 videos to make, if it comes to $65 per video, it becomes a lot of fun that you can get into
James (22:22)
Exactly, then we lost big clients because of AI. As I was saying, big ones, you're talking about several tens of thousands of revenues per month. Well, big ones, there are people who make millions and clients there, but you were talking about several tens of thousands of revenues just with a few clients that we lost because of AI for both captions and editing, and many other things.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (22:34)
...
James (22:44)
We did everything to try to keep them. I was going to Paris, management, but it was hard to beat. You have to be profitable at a certain point. Our business model is not a 100% AI-focused business model. We use it at certain points. Not AI, but technology to allow us to save time and to be able to offer at more advantageous costs for the customer.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (22:57)
Mmh.
Mm-hmm.
James (23:09)
But that's it. Then he has clients who stay with us because we don't use AI and we use a service that is a little more premium. On the other hand, you're always going to have the balance between the two. But it's sure that as you say, he has clients who made 1000, 1500 videos per month. Well, for them, saving €10 or $10 per edit was worth it. On the other hand, they went elsewhere and did other things.
Because for other clients, it's like, well, we don't mind. The quality is there, that's really what we like because we don't want creators to come back against us or brands to come back against us because there were a lot of mistakes in the subtitling, there were a lot of false cuts that were made that meant that, well you didn't see the nuances of a certain point where you didn't see the complete explanation and others, you So, we always come to... You in entrepreneurship, that's what I noticed, there, you always come to position yourself in a place in your market that is...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (23:53)
Mmh.
James (24:00)
that maybe it's risky because technology could break your business or the competition could really hurt. But on the other hand, there are always people who are willing to pay or have that service in some way. So, it's just positioning your price and your egg accordingly, continue to manage the customers, generate the leads, and then put your brand forward. It's going to be cool. You could be really good for a while, but the next day, you could get the egg on your foot cut off for...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (24:16)
Exact.
James (24:27)
x, y reason, but it's up to you to plan that. It remains that he is an entrepreneur, that's it, a strategic application. don't take it into consideration, it's a bit you who made the mistake. It's not the market that was mean or your competitors, it's just you who didn't light it up.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (24:30)
Mm-hmm.
No, exactly. But as long as you have the curiosity, as soon as there is a new trend, a new technology or whatever, to go see what it is, how you can apply it to your business, how you can improve your processes with it, you will stay in the game. The day you stop doing that, it's over.
James (24:46)
Exact
Exactly, but it's the balance between wanting to do it too much and not doing it at all. Generally, wanting to do it too much also burns you out, especially psychologically.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (25:00)
Yes, in terms of services, etc., the short-medium, long-term objective for PlusCrew is really to increase the volume of business and that it serves you more for other businesses precisely, to facilitate the processes with your other businesses than other things. Are there other services that you want to add or whatever? It's really a question of growing the volume.
James (25:22)
Right now, it's really just editing. After that, there's still going to be no idea. It's not in our plans at all. But right now, it's just editing. But after that, we can do any kind of task, as long as we learn how to do it, then we have people to do it, then we hire people to do it properly. But right now, it's really just video editing because there are other projects.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (25:40)
...
James (25:43)
even if we no longer have customers on that side. Which can possibly happen, but at least we will know how to back, it will be a tool and a platform that will be 100% useful for our other company.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (25:56)
You know, trend wise like content type, platform, etc. Is there anything that you see that as much as real short content, video, UGC, etc. Is there anything else that you see that may be coming or something that seems like it's going to revolutionize how companies and brands choose to show up?
James (26:16)
Yeah. For now, it seems like we're still in a time where everyone is using pretty much the same thing, and there doesn't seem to be that much innovation to say, OK, I see shorts coming, early on YouTube, you absolutely have to jump on it, or reels on other platforms. There are some, it's certain that X remains in English an interesting platform for creating content and then broadcasting.
There was several proofs during the elections, even other types of creators who made interesting numbers of views. Monetization can be interesting, but in French on X, we know that it is still a little less used. So for English content, there are still great opportunities to test at least to see a little profitability, depending on the niche that the customers have. The fact remains that all the long form on YouTube is...
is here to stay and is really relevant. That, within that, there are angles, niches, formats that can be used, depending on what you want to do, what is possible to be created with the resources you have at your disposal. The fact remains that for the long form, it's always that. It takes time, it can be expensive, it's a little harder to monetize, but the day that you monetize, it's really strong.
While short form is easy to do. You can still make a volume pretty quickly. You can put yourself forward with a brand in the space of a year, a year and a half like many creators have done in Quebec. Then you become like a star at a certain point. Short is good for that. But monetizing on shorts is still harder. Shorts, short form in general, Reels or others. It's a little harder, but there are still some who do it. I heard between the branches that there are people from...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (27:29)
Mm-hmm.
Mmh.
James (27:58)
François Lambert or PC Jolicoeur of this world pay... François Lambert not because he does it himself, but PC Jolicoeur pays for his content creation with the returns from Facebook monetization, one for one more or less. Facebook, TikTok and others. Maybe he even makes a profit, but I think above all that he is one for one. Because it is still interesting to say, it is one of the strongest brands at the moment of content creators in Quebec who is in PC Jolicoeur.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (28:11)
Nice.
James (28:26)
then it costs you almost nothing or at least it costs you nothing or you even make a profit with your content song. That for the short form is cool but it's still rare. François Lambert is especially I think during COVID with the lives and everything and still today he does a lot of lives. He must still make a good income which can be above 10,000 per month, I have a Canadian intuition or maybe even US on this platform. There are still options, the lives precisely it's...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (28:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mmh.
James (28:50)
Lives on YouTube in English, there are still interesting things there, more and more it's starting to grow. As all platforms are starting to copy each other a little, when you use this new feature copy from another platform, you can still stand out in a pretty interesting way. Then to be an adopter, a young adopter of this platform with the opportunities that it offers. Because generally the algorithms will want to push the new...
features of a platform to precisely increase or the competition that have copied the same functionality.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (29:26)
Right. Increase the pace of adoption and then after that, it just becomes natural the product of the content on that. Then there's another place where they can get someone's attention.
James (29:33)
Exactly. Exactly. I don't think that really right now, there are surely some there that I forget but something that... I mean I've seen it like 5-6 times, I say to myself ok, I think that's going somewhere. It's still a little while since I've seen it. Other than long format and everything on YouTube. But something that is accessible to the world, I haven't necessarily seen it recently. Other than X potentially. Or maybe the lives on YouTube.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (29:59)
Mm-hmm.
James (30:02)
On the other hand, the key is always that if you start today, even if it's the first time you publish on all these platforms, that no one knows you, then you create good content, then you do it once a day, once every two days, then you do it for the next year, year and a half, it's possible that you become a mini-celebrity in Quebec for your brand or for yourself in general if you are the brand.
often people forget, is that the real novelty or the real feature that you have to do, is just the constant being to publish every day. And it's equal to doing that so that everyone will recognize you. I had done it at the beginning, before Reels existed and everything, but it's starting to be popular. I did it with my Facebook page and LinkedIn. Like in the small universe, influencer, business for a period of 1 to 2 and a half years, 3 years.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (30:55)
Mmh.
James (30:55)
I was recognized, I talked to everyone, everyone recognized me, I went to meetings and everything. But I never stood out from the crowd of entrepreneurs. It was really my niche because I made content for entrepreneurs using video and other things. But if you make more general content like PC Jolicoeur or something else, you are consistent. Everyone starts to see you. You get 100,000 views on a Facebook video.
you get 50,000 views on multiple TikTok videos, you start building that eventually. You start growing it in a way that you look at the stats and it's always growing. But even if you do a 5,000 video, it's okay. You can just keep doing a bunch of 5,000 videos. You're going to hit the videos that have a good volume.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (31:28)
Exact.
Exact.
And even if you try to predict it and plan it like crazy, the reaction might not be what you expect and you'll have to change your content or some segments might work. I expected it to be the filler spot for my episode. It's always interesting to leave the door open like that.
James (31:47)
...
Exact.
Exact.
Okay. You're still one video away from being... In fact, you're still one video away from doubling your visibility, there. That's often it, So if you just make videos with 1000, for example there, you make a video with... I tell you that twice, wouldn't be nice. It would be... It's not going to be much. But if you make a video with like 50,000 views, well you give up, if you've just multiplied your visibility by a lot. After that, your baseline is 50,000, and then there, you make videos with 100,000, well there, you've just made two. After that...
Your ratio is going to be smaller each time you increase the number of views but when I say that you make a video with 250,000 views or that you make a video with 1 million views, there, your whole destiny has just changed at a certain point after that it's just up to you to decide if you embrace it 100% or if you don't know how to manage it and then in the end it doesn't give anything, it just makes a video that has a lot of views and then you sell it for a couple of weeks and then it doesn't bring you any line, it doesn't bring you any sales, it doesn't bring you anything else, you know that, happens.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (32:54)
That's your party trick!
James (32:55)
It happens to a lot of people too, but you know, it's not a strategy. The real strategy is, for a year and a half, you're able to publish, and even if you only have 5,000 views per video, in a year and a half, you're really going to be somewhere else. But you just have to make content that's interesting, and then you're going to, well, I've broken the glass ceiling of 5,000 views, and then you know, 10,000 views.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (33:08)
exact.
Yes, after a couple of episodes, you're going to change your approach, you're going to have it better, you're going to be more comfortable, you're going to get your little hooks in, you're going to find a little formulation that works and that you get more results. It's mostly the classic one, it's cliché, but it's to start and go for it because you can plan 60,000 hours, it won't make you make videos.
Maxime Sincerny (33:33)
And speaking of interesting content, should we go to YouTube and find out a little more about this aspect, which I think would still interest quite a few people.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (33:40)
Ha ha!
exact.
James (33:44)
Yeah, sure, So what was it, it was in... Going back to last year, we were kind of looking for a new contribution. But we had been to YouTube events in the United States a couple of times. It's called VidSummit. We also went to VidCon and everything. We wanted to network with people in that field, because when you make video, it's the main platform. At least, it's the platform that everyone wants to conquer at some point because TikTok, you can conquer it, but it's not that much that's going to build you a...
a brand or incredible visibility. Yes, it can do it, a YouTuber, it always has a bigger aura than a Tiktoker. He still has a level of hierarchy in all that. There is no one who says a Facebooker. I mean, a creator on Facebook, everyone doesn't really care. They don't even have a name. Exactly. But you can make good numbers when you have customers who mainly use Facebook, and it's the best platform. They beat.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (34:29)
This is the place where you can just repurpose the rest of your content, maximize your views, and then you
James (34:39)
other clients who use other platforms but it just depends on your niche but that's it, it's been several times that we met people who had different types of content channels on youtube, that's them as creators who put their face forward who make people of whatever there content comparable to MrBeast but at a Quebec level or at high-one, Trois-Rivières you see they make big numbers they are young, they make money anyway for their age
for the type of content he does. good content, but you know that's not the content I listen to. Young people listen to that, and it's like Mr. Beast on airrack of this world. After that, you meet the other one who has a faceless channel, a channel that just talks about a specific subject, and it's like documentary mines. Sometimes it can be an hour, sometimes it can be 16 minutes, depending on the format that the creator chooses in his niche. When for...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (35:32)
if we talk about faceless channels just for people who are not familiar with it, really channels where you have animation, you have visuals, you have extracts that are taken from existing video tapes, but that in the end, the person who creates the content is never present other than for a voice-over, and even then.
James (35:50)
Exactly, even with a voiceover, it may not be seen as a faceless channel, because... even at the sponsor level, if you have the voice, you always have the same voice, and it's constant, you have more chances of being sponsored by others than YouTube pays you for advertising, but really sponsored outside. You have more chances, and you have better income if you have a unique voice than if you have a faceless channel, that the voice is not necessarily a brand as such. But even if it's the same voice...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (36:15)
Mmh.
James (36:18)
If it is not put forward that it is like the creator of the channel, really that you feel that the voice is a brand, you will almost not get sponsored or not much at least in general. In any case, I will explain the nuances. That, what is above, just that you do not see the face of the person. Generally, it can be any voice, but it can also be the voice of the person potentially. It is just that there are nuances through what to do.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (36:31)
Mmh, yeah.
James (36:43)
And that's it, why would someone decide to do that on YouTube versus putting their face? It's just a question of business model. Putting your face forward a little bit means that you're going to be a creator, an influencer, maybe more of an artist. Then over time, maybe it's going to work, and maybe you're going to become an entrepreneur with that. On the other hand, you have channels that are a little different.
which will be less established at the end of on a person or a " " in particular, but for example that you will be able to a business model in the back which has a growth which is greater. than a "channel", if it is your face, it remains this channel there, it is hard to delegate. While if you are not of face of the front or it is a voice which is less unique, you can have 20 "channels you can have 200 "channels", you can make mistakes, you can launch some which do not work, you can launch some which work, you can cut some, you can do what you want. In the end...
a business model that has more growth opportunities. But there are YouTubers who make tens of millions per year. It has nothing to do with the potential for money, that is to say it doesn't match the business model title that you want to create on this platform. And that's it, we, afterwards, spoke with several people who later became friends, then to ask questions, to sit things down, but we decided to...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (37:41)
Mm-hmm.
complete.
James (38:02)
to do a lot more research and then get started on it. I had been seeing it go through different levels for several years. Faceless channels, you know, it was fashionable, I was fashionable. You went on Twitter or now X, saw people talking about it. The market crashed or whatever, the YouTube cycle was... or the YouTube cycle had reached its seasonality, well you saw people talking about it, people talking about it no more. So, at some point, it's...
Is it a bit like Bitcoin or whatever? There are cycles, then it's really profitable for a period, after that it's dead. But that's precisely where you have to build brands, and then after that when it takes off, it's very profitable, and that's where you sell it. That's what we learned before last year, and then at some point we said to ourselves, maybe we can get started here, we have the resources at a reasonable cost, but we're still going to pay a lot per video. The idea is not to do a content farm or that it's just AI, you do...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (38:49)
Mmh.
James (38:56)
a little bit of the chnutte left and then right. The scripts are AI. You know, everything is AI because YouTube has gone on a crusade ultimately against AI content at some point. For Call, for Reuse Content, everywhere. We've really seen the cycles of the last year at different levels. It's impressive to live it because it affects you directly because it's one of the only sources of income that you have, let's say, when you're nurturing a channel. I can understand people who get their channel cut how stressful it is.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (39:06)
Mmh.
Exact.
James (39:25)
When you have several, it's less bad because you come to swing. Why a business model that is more profitable or with growth, it's there comes a problem with a channel, you are not necessarily dying because there is nothing more coming in as money.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (39:38)
Exactly. And are you able, out of curiosity, to quantify, let's say, the difference in reach of a video or am I going to check yes, this content is generated by AI?
James (39:47)
for now, no. Because we tried with and without and differences. I tried to find the answer, but for now, I haven't found it. There are words that we're going to get 6 million views, and words that we're going to get 2 million. We still have an interesting volume of data. I should have seen the data, but for now, I don't have an answer for that. I wouldn't think so.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (40:11)
when you also check, this video contains promotions inside or what is it has an effect or at least are you able to quantify this effect
James (40:21)
Logically no, unless your channel is flagged by YouTube at some point, most creators promote within their video, they can get 1 million views, they can get 10 million views, they can get 20 million views, I don't think so, I'm pretty sure not, but for the AI, I don't know, I tried both and I didn't get the data, it's really random, it's hard to say, does it give such a result.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (40:46)
Bye.
I was trying to make a connection with the Google update at the beginning of 2024 which targeted a little more precisely the content sites which made affiliates I was wondering if there was the same kind of crackdown in the YouTube algorithm itself?
James (41:04)
Well you see, surprisingly, the month of August, the month of September, let's say the end of July, August, beginning of September, they were really good months despite the fact that it was summer, but from that point on we were saying that Q4 was coming, so the algorithm must start preparing, and then September, well let's say like mid-September to today, it's really a downward slope. We have RPMs that are high, compared to the average, but our views are falling, but...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (41:28)
Mm-hmm.
James (41:34)
for some reason we don't. That's where we experience cycles and we learn after the cycle has passed the real reason for how it evolved as such. Right now, we have a really big spike and then it goes down. But this is supposed to be the busiest time of the year because everyone is investing like crazy in advertising. You see it in our revenue per thousand impressions because we can be at
Marc-Antoine Rioux (41:53)
Mmh.
James (41:59)
22 or 22 US per 1000 views. Not an impression, 1000 views. Comparatively, maybe this summer we were doing 10. There is still growth, but the views are decreasing. Why? When you look in each of the videos, your CTR is not that bad. The ratio of people who click on your thumbnail can cost your video after having an impression of your video.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (42:11)
Mm-hmm.
James (42:27)
Well, it's still average. The length of the video hits is similar to everything you've done this year. Your like ratio, your comment ratio, everything seems to be similar. Sometimes, there are even some that are better than videos that performed better. But the views are generally on a downward slope. What explains that for now? We don't know. And maybe next month, it's going to be...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (42:46)
Mmh.
James (42:52)
a month that will explode because we will arrive in December, companies will just invest like crazy in advertising on YouTube and then we will perhaps have our best month. This is the risk of YouTube, is that sometimes you can have two average months, but you can have an excellent month that has just paid off the last six months.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (42:57)
Bye.
Exactly. It must also differ a lot depending on the types of content and niches, because the reality is that if your faceless is in a niche where no one does Black Friday and you mega in something that has to do with B2B it is not necessarily profitable and it depends on your audience.
James (43:15)
there are things here.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (43:28)
sometimes there are super regulated industries also in terms of ads and all the kit, so you have a faceless in a niche, but you have trouble advertising because Google doesn't even let you advertise.
James (43:39)
Well that's for sure, that's why I choose the right niche, it's hard work there, you spend hours trying and then when you find one you launch yourself, you produce your first 10 videos and you hope not to lose the money, the fact remains that you can invest 10,000, you can invest 20,000 on your first 10 videos just to try to see if you're going to be monetized, it's sure that...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (43:58)
Mmh.
James (44:01)
as you progress through your first 10 videos, you'll know if you're better off stopping it or not. But generally, it could be that your 10th is the one who launches your channel and that there, if you hadn't made it to the 10th, you've lost everything that happened before. It's likely that it's a business that is... It's a business, it's a business model that is more at the mercy of several elements that you control less. But it's likely that the profitability is really interesting.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (44:08)
Exact.
Dude.
James (44:29)
And the growth opportunity is super interesting too. And you don't have to deal with a lot of elements, which are sometimes annoying for an entrepreneur, who can be the day to day of everything at the end of the day. It remains that, with three scriptwriters, we still have a manager.
We have a guy from thumbnail, has 4 editors abroad, well the others are in France, so we still pay them a lot per hour. that we want positions, certain niches we really want high quality editors there, can do animations and everything. After that, it's our team just for one channel. So he made another channel, made another channel, made another channel. bros.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (45:09)
Yeah, exactly. I also wanted to make people realize that it's not a matter of like a person behind their computer doing a little cap cut or whatever, and that at the end of the day, we publish videos, and wow, magic, it takes off, but you know, if you can quantify it there, without giving income or whatever, but more to say, how much do you have for a channel to say, well...
James (45:17)
No, that proves it, that's it.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (45:32)
Yes, I have x number of dollars, but for it to be sustainable, to make a volume of video that looks good, how much does it cost you per month to operate?
James (45:34)
Yeah.
Well, certainly, we still do... We try to make quality channels, but not top quality, which are as they say in the industry. And right now, it can cost, depending on the niches, and depending on the length of the videos, it can cost between 1000 and 2000 Canadian per video in editing. But in editing between all there, whatever. Well received.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (46:05)
everything that comes around with it, as you say.
James (46:07)
Because the idea is, you have to make at least 1000 per video to be profitable, but sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Videos that will pay for 6 videos sometimes. But that's kind of the game, it's to put the volume forward, then always keep moving forward. Then it always comes to rebalance itself in cycle then in phase. It's sure if you wait until you...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (46:28)
Mmh.
James (46:30)
you invest I don't know 1500 for a video, that you're going to make 1500 on this video, well the chances are that no. It's more that you're going to invest 1500 on 5 videos, and there are maybe 2 in there that are going to reimburse everything else and make the profit, there, you know. But that's the beauty of the thing, is that you can publish a video with 10,000 views, but you can publish one with 6.5 million, there, you know.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (46:36)
Exact.
THANKS.
James (46:50)
but the one at 6.5 million to pay for almost the year potentially, almost the entire year of profit, real, net profit, but that's it, that's interesting, but you're not aiming for that either because otherwise your company will be at the mercy of cycles you try to be a little more stable, but that's it.
Maxime Sincerny (46:54)
...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (47:10)
Mmh.
James (47:14)
We, the way we do it right now, there really is no brand in front, it might have a name, but there is no brand, like a Vox of this world. You know that these are faceless channels, but the animation is well done, always done the same. People take their time. They have like a team of 12, producers, showrunners, really everything, everything, everything, everything.
But that, eventually, we want to go towards that. But for now, it's not a skill that we have. It's a skill that we are developing. But that, it could be several thousand dollars per video. you are able to, each time you publish, to make at least 500,000 views, 800,000 views, a million and more. Because otherwise, it's just not sustainable. You're really going to burn, cash
Marc-Antoine Rioux (48:00)
Yeah. So you got your best friends in there, it's tube buddy and vid IQ and that stuff.
James (48:06)
Yeah, that's it because you look at the competition, look at the trends, look at the keywords when you make your titles. There are a lot of things that you come to inspire yourself slash steal from other channels that are not in your niche, but that you come to really inspire yourself at the level of the thumbnail, at the level of the title or other because you see, it works. Sometimes, it works, sometimes, it doesn't work. Even if you copy or steal exactly the packaging of someone else and you put it in your sauce, it is possible that your video flops.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (48:25)
Exact.
Exact.
James (48:35)
There's something really interesting about all this, it's that YouTube decides what's going to be trendy at a given moment because it's like, there it works, we push a market towards that, everyone sees it, there are lots of channels that pop, everyone makes money. And one day, this kind of niche, it's a little too intense, we come to regulate it. I don't think it's done the way I explain it, but it's a bit logical because you see it, I mean...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (48:51)
Exact.
James (49:04)
Everybody gets into a... let's say if someone on Twitter or on X who's going to talk about a type of niche, you're just going to see an intense volume get into there, but the audience also follows, makes a lot of people listen to him. There, he has a lot of channels that are going, and you see, the person has to do... there's one who makes 10,000 a month, the other one makes 400,000 a month, the other one makes 20,000, the other one makes 5,000. So you're like, okay, everyone seems to be making money, makes something there, you know.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (49:04)
...
James (49:30)
The idea is to be ahead of that trend, to be the one who makes 100,000 per month potentially, and not necessarily the one who makes just 5,000 per month. But you can arrive right in the middle of the trend, and still take it at the right time, and then make an interesting income per month.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (49:48)
For the same title that your old videos that live on the platform can also pick up on a random trend a year and a half later and you're like holy-
James (49:53)
Exactly. and we see that right now. Right now that's why we know that the algorithm changes at a certain level. Is it by itself, is it by someone who pushes, is it updates or whatever, I don't know. Because we're not at YouTube. But you know let's say right now, you'll see, we had a pattern of if you publish the first video, let's say on a Thursday morning, we had like 20,000 views in the first few hours.
We knew if it was going to work well or not. Right now, we're capped at 1000, 2000, 3000 views in the first few hours. Sometimes, it'll take 14 days before the video starts to go up. So there, your revenue cycle is really shifted. Instead of having 24 hours to see if your video is going to perform well and make adjustments accordingly, either title or thumbnail.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (50:24)
Mmh.
James (50:48)
Sometimes you have to wait 14 days, 34 days. We have videos where it took 34 days before seeing a satellite dish, then going from 15,000 views to 150,000 views.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (50:59)
We even see it in our shorts, sometimes I post a short that's a clip from the podcast for 4 days, zero views. The next day, I open my studio and I have 650 views on it. It's like, holy, they put it in one shot at night or whatever.
James (51:10)
So, it's over.
These are really weird curves, in addition to the times, they are 90 degrees. You see right now in the last two months, it is mainly our catalog that brings the profit. We carry content, we publish it, there are some that are profitable, there are some that are not profitable, but the profit really comes from our catalog. Compared to the month before, it was...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (51:28)
Nice.
James (51:41)
a little bit of the catalog and then the new videos that we publish. So there, at the moment, there...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (51:44)
Because you also have some, plus YouTube will end up pushing you into suggested videos too, and everyone who listens to this type of content and who will discover you like that too.
James (51:53)
exactly. Exactly. So that's it, it's really interesting, you learn cool stuff, you meet cool stuff at the same time in the YouTube environment. Then you see how we got cancelled, we got our not closed our account, but like demonetized for Reuse Content. had to make a presentation video that explains that we are not AI, but during that time, they really went on a crusade against everything that was...
faceless, everything was stuck for re-use content in certain niches, it's not all faceless. So there you go through this step there, but there if you fail this step there, we saw the channels, when you look at the stats, they make 1 million per year, 1.2 million per year in more or less the same niches as us. They are made cancel, demonetized, then they made application on Maps, it didn't pass, then it's 90 days.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (52:23)
Mmh.
James (52:45)
Overnight, you were making 100,000 a month or whatever, 120,000 a month US. Then you're making 0 for the next 90 days.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (52:54)
You're there, you do like Meet Kevin and you make videos every 3 days like It's over, I quit YouTube.
James (53:00)
You don't have any money on top, you just keep your brand. But what they do is they just sell the channel to companies who buy catalogs for when they re-brand, to keep the money. We managed to get through, but it was really a laborious process and fun at the same time, but it's still that you learn through all that.
All the changes, we've seen them, all the developments, we've seen enough of the new little features that YouTube adds as we go along. The thumbnail testing objects, we've really specialized in being good with this tool because when we talked with NetRev, we said to use it and they had just launched it. As we know, if there's a new feature, it's better to use it because it can give you advantages at the platform level. That's it with the new YouTube test objects.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (53:43)
Mmh.
James (53:48)
We really learned by trial and error how to use it, right now, for real, when we publish, instead of just changing one thumbnail for another, you can put three, then the algorithm pushes you, and then it's the world of the percentage. In fact, which of the thumbnails with the best percentage listen to you? It's not even the best CTR, it's like when people clicked, which one was listened to longer? Then there, you see these numbers.
There you can decide which one you keep or you let it go and YouTube decides according to the performance which one it keeps. But before you had to change 1 for 1. So you put 1, there it didn't work. So we had 3% CTR, there you put another one. But there he went up to 5.1, but you put 5.1, it's not that high, I'm tired of another one. There he fell to 4.2, there you go back to the other one. It was a joke while there you let it go, you watch and you choose the one that performs. Then you can do it several times. It's enough to increase your CTR curve.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (54:18)
Mmh.
Maxime Sincerny (54:20)
THANKS.
James (54:43)
But we are really masters of this I think we have easily saved at least several tens of thousands of dollars in revenue that we would not have had if we had not done this. Ok, let's say the video has 5000 views, then you see that it has a CTR not too good. if we had not done 3 or 4 thumbnail tests, the video would never have reached 250,000 or 300,000 views. 300,000 views you pay for 4...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (54:54)
Mmh.
Exact.
James (55:12)
maybe even five videos that are less profitable, you know. Compared to if it had flopped, well you would have had five unprofitable videos, and maybe the sixth one wouldn't have been profitable either. Just trying to always use the new features to beat the algorithm a little bit and it puts you forward. But sometimes you saw it, there, let's say, at the beginning we were like "yeah, you know, is it really that we changed the essential terms that make the difference?" But now it's like, I don't know, 25 times that we have the proof.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (55:23)
Mmh.
James (55:40)
and you really see the curves doing that, and then the views doing that at the same time. Because in the end, it's a game of impressions versus the number of people who click on it that give you views. If YouTube is generous with you and gives you 100,000 impressions, and you're not smart enough to give them a thumbnail that has a CTR of 10, you're the one who loses out because 100,000 views, 10 CTR, you start to move forward. 100,000 impressions with 10 CTR, well you start to move forward somewhere, but...
Maxime Sincerny (56:01)
...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (56:02)
Mmh.
James (56:09)
if you do 100,000 impressions and then you only have 3 CTRs, well you have no data there, I mean, you stay flat and it doesn't move forward. So sometimes you're going to have like 1 million impressions and a video that does 10 CTRs or 12 CTRs, well you know that it's going to continue to bring you money and profit for no matter how long your dog is going to be cold, you know, videos... The video that pays us the most, it still pays us on the days when we are less...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (56:29)
Yeah, right.
Maxime Sincerny (56:29)
Well, let's do it cool.
James (56:36)
Enjoy the news we publish and always be in the top 5 videos that bring us more money per day.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (56:42)
Then to date, how long ago is that one?
James (56:44)
I have seen some.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (56:45)
So.
Maxime Sincerny (56:47)
and almost a year.
James (56:48)
But you know, it's rare there. Maybe, no maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe not that far away. But that, that means that basically I'm going to find it there.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (56:50)
Mmh-hmm.
Maybe nine months, yeah.
James (56:56)
9 months ago. So in January... So you know, it doesn't happen all the time, but all the videos we have with more than a million views, generally, they always pay a little bit like $30 there, $50 there, $100 there, per day. But when you calculate it, you know, you make your money... Generally, you make your money in the space of fifteen or thirty days.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (57:12)
Mmh.
James (57:22)
But if after that over 9 months, you bring in, I don't, 100 dollars a day or 300 dollars a day, that's interesting. I mean, if you calculate it, you need 20 videos, 30 videos, that starts to make interesting income. And that's just profit. It's just profit for 9 months.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (57:30)
exact.
Mmh.
Maxime Sincerny (57:40)
You target more the search intentions on the platform or especially the discovery then precisely bet on the algorithm which discovers you. the good thumbnail, you the CTR. YouTube gives you more space because you make them more money. Do you have a mix of the two? Are you based on the intentions for the long term? And maybe explain if you want, you what. I think you understand what I mean by intention but for the others...
James (58:00)
Yeah, basically... Yeah, no but that's a good question because it's a mix of both. Right now, we're trying to go for trends that already have volume on YouTube to begin with, and then YouTube pushes it forward. For some reason. that's for sure
but it remains that you see, he focuses on certain trends, then he really embraces a lot, like P Diddy it was... He had phases, there were the police arrests, there was P Diddy, there were the elections, like these three passed in the space of 3 years, let's say, a year, a year, then... we, there are trends in that that we haven't done because he has a mandate, he just can't do everything, but he has a blog...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (58:45)
Our YouTube channel is going to be taken down, you said election, crypto, P Diddy in the same sentence.
James (58:49)
There are people who have made thousands of dollars, millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars with these three trends by being in the right place, at the right time when the trend started. That's it. That you don't even have to optimize that much for the thumbnail or that much for the title. But if you're in these niches, because your title makes sure that you're still targeting that niche.
It's going to be fine. Afterwards, it's up to you to optimize accordingly. On the other hand, we have enough other types of channels like we're working on a True Crime channel that's much harder to start, but more sustainable over time. But the fact remains that, right now, we're publishing videos and we're getting like 89 views. The video is good, but the algorithm isn't warmed up. It's a new channel. It's going to take time. We're going to wait for the next 10 videos. It might have cost us 10,000, 15,000.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (59:19)
Mmh.
James (59:44)
But we'll see maybe how the ninth, the eighth or the seventh will be the right one. But that's it, there we work a lot more on search intentions. But it's not like you think in SEO. We don't necessarily want our traffic to come from people who searched for what we were putting forward. We want YouTube to suggest videos of similar content to us next to it.
That's the key in my opinion. When you talk about SEO, YouTube SEO, I think that's more important than the search engine itself. Because what's stronger is the videos that are suggested, that's where you're going to have a bigger impact and that YouTube is going to put you forward. But it's certain that if you're doing content on a cell phone, you play on Samsung, you put it in your title, whatever. But if you're doing content, let's say on a...
of a True Crime video that is a specific case, you can go there by putting a dramatic title with the case of the name of the person or you can just go there and there are plenty who do that, they just make a dramatic title and you will discover what the case is through the factual shots. It's not even the name of the case that still has a craze necessarily on...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:00:52)
Mmh-hmm.
like, you'll never guess what happened to this lady, blablabla, there, worse...
James (1:01:01)
Exactly, exactly. Then there you make a thumbnail with a circle and an arrow. You know, doing it there, it always works well. That's it, you use the suggested videos more. That's really where we focus. But even there, we know it. Then it doesn't work every time we do it. But you see channels, it's crazy the numbers they do there. In terms of the number of views, with the recurrence of the videos they publish, and to always have this consistency of views there.
then he uses super high level stuff but the world is used to that channel, YouTube there is surely an authority rank of that channel which is higher and he will just always push it forward that makes a big difference, a True Crime channel which makes 1 hour videos which make 1.3, 4.7, 5 million views per video each time he publishes every 3 days or 4 days
with RPMs at $20 and then $12, that's millions of dollars a year in revenue. Then there are two, three like that. There are some who are able to crack it properly. There are some we just don't know, then who must have 50 channels, then all separate brands, then everyone...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:01:53)
it goes fast
Mmh mmh.
James (1:02:17)
The genre, even the resale of YouTube channels is still something interesting. Because if you have a catalog of channels, you can still sell it to an interesting guy. To companies of this world, like Spotr, they give you more money, they don't cheat you. But companies, but MrBeast, it's a media holding company. And inside, he's going to buy a lot of YouTube channels to increase his revenue baseline.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:02:29)
Mmh.
James (1:02:45)
So they can give 4 times the profits or 5 times the profits on a catalog of about ten channels that bring maybe, I don't, 100,000 per month of combined revenue. That's still interesting because it could just be parts of the channel that were less sure, that will perform over time and that the catalog will just be satisfactory for a company that buys 100, 200, 300, etc.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:02:57)
Mmh.
We're going to make a section for you on transfert.ca, selling YouTube catalogs.
James (1:03:13)
well if I have one, a channel in one of the niches that we, that we, that we are on YouTube, on Flippa or something like that, is like the, platform, the big sales platform. There, I came across it by chance. Then it's really one of the channels that we, at the beginning we have, we were inspired at the end to create another channel. Then you see, it was making big numbers, there. It surely had business from Reuse Content, it's made from Cancellé and others. But there, it came back recently. It still makes several million views per video.
you see, sell once the profits.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:03:46)
Flippa for transfer is like Frame.io for Pluscrew. This is the model.
James (1:03:54)
Exactly, exactly. They sell once the profits. So let's say if they make 50,000 per month, they sell once the annual profits for the sale price. You see that if you just sell a channel, that the brand is not that renowned, but that you still make interesting profits for Mr. and Everyone, a company that makes 50,000 per month in profits, it is still interesting for no matter who operates it.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:04:15)
Mmh.
James (1:04:20)
You can sell it just once the profits. On the other hand, if you sell a catalog of 10 channels or if you sell a channel that is a real " " channel like Vox of this world, you can sell 4-5 times the profits. It is still an interesting return on investment. YouTube is not a business that you build over 20 years either. You ultimately put on a cycle of...
of extreme profit and extreme bankruptcy in tech. You know that everything is going to stay there for 40 years, the chances are slim, but it's possible. But that's it, if you have a channel and you build your business around it, you can't have a 40-year lifespan. You have to do something on the side, you have to sell parts of it, you have to sell the whole thing, you take advantage while the supply is hot to take advantage of the opportunity you created for yourself. That's not the kind of business.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:04:55)
Mmh.
especially that you build revenue streams that take advantage of that, but that don't just depend on what YouTube pays you either because overnight, they can decide that you're not the hot one anymore, and bye there.
James (1:05:16)
...
Exactly. No, exactly. Exactly. 100% and what happens is that often YouTube Money is really a glitch when you think about it because we have a team, we pay people all that but you know there are a lot of people who do their own thing. There's an editor who does stuff, there's a guy who comes to film, he doesn't pay that much and they make 50,000 a month, 60,000 a month, 100,000 a month. When you've worked your whole life at a normal job,
And then the next day you make a video a week on YouTube, and you get 100,000 a month, your brain disconnects like that, you just don't understand what's going on. It doesn't happen to everyone, but there are some who it happens. When it happens, they might have trouble managing it at a certain point, like an entrepreneur, you know, because they're still self-employed. But the problem is when the channel crashes, or when something happens, they lose everything. Whereas if you develop others...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:06:09)
...
James (1:06:17)
type of related income, products, a SaaS, AI company, or whatever, then you build that on the side, at least if something happens with your channel, you don't find yourself with your feet in the water having to start from the beginning. the profits that you will generate from it, they will have been elsewhere, then will have been well invested instead of buying yourself junk, then increasing your lifestyle like crazy, because now you think you are a millionaire on paper.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:06:43)
exact.
James (1:06:44)
We went to Dallas, we went to California, we met a lot of people, and you see it there. What I'm saying here is a tiny percentage of... all the creators on YouTube. But when you're in that environment, and you go to an event, and 2,000 people, you're like... you're starting to be a lot of people. And that, 2,000 people, you know, it's microscopic compared to the overall population of people who are on YouTube and who make good money, you know. But you're right, there are 2,000 people here who make money with their channel, mostly.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:07:04)
...
Mmh.
James (1:07:14)
small or large volume, it doesn't matter. You're like okay, there's definitely something there. Maybe I'm just stupid for not understanding. I'm in this, because if you're not in this, you're not stupid, you don't know it exists. But when you're in this, you know how to do it, you have the equipment, you have the resources, everything. Then you don't do it, then you just watch the train go by, you're like man, I'm stupid here. I'll say, I'm here, I was touching it there. It's like someone who got sold 5-6 bitcoins in 2000.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:07:28)
No, no, go ahead.
James (1:07:42)
in 2017 or 2016, I mean. If you sold yourself in the meantime, you had it in your hands. Today, you might be crying in a tavernouche because it was 92,000 USD and you would have a fortune in your pockets. We were there, we were touching it, we were there, but we didn't grab it. Whereas there, we grabbed it because we were still... There are a lot of people who make money with their YouTube channel. It's not impossible. It's not that trivial. Even in Quebec, in French...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:07:54)
Mmh.
James (1:08:10)
Because with the opening to Europe, and then France in the end, you can have a channel in French in your language, and you can make good money. It's rarer, it's harder, but it exists. But in Quebec, there's no reason not to be able to make videos in English. I mean, whether you have an accent, whether it's not your language. ChatGPT is there, Eleven Labs is there. You can pay people to help you transcribe. You can pay people on Upwork to do whatever. There's no reason that someone in Quebec...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:08:20)
Mmh.
James (1:08:39)
which is his English and not exceptional. Be prepared to make duplicates.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:08:42)
And especially even with the FaceLess formula precisely, then the whole kit, then the tools which are available for voice-overs, then you could like move your lips, say nothing, then you will be able to make a video which has style, then which has views there, you
James (1:08:46)
to the safer station.
Yeah, potentially, potentially.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:08:56)
And if we talk about the experience, it's good because we touched on a lot of little points throughout the discussion, both in terms of speed and your title, your description, If you had some kind of little advice to give in a minute to the person who starts YouTube and who asks himself how to optimize his thumbnail, his title, what I need to do, etc.
What is a bit like the process, if you like, in a few small easy steps to think about it?
James (1:09:26)
Yeah, but the process... If you have a channel and you've never posted anything, you put out the first video and you get better from there. It doesn't matter how much you think about everything, it's not going to change anything. You just want to go to bat, and then try to hit yourself for an average that makes the most sense possible. So, consistency. Then with each new video you post, you try to improve something.
The most important thing is, are your first 30 seconds, up to your first 45 seconds, really the best. You know, all your time in the video should be spent on that. After that, are my video, people going to listen to it for as long as possible. You know, you have to bring people to the end because if people listen to the beginning and then drop after, well YouTube is not going to put me forward.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:10:10)
the quadruple intrigue of this world's Mr. Beast.
James (1:10:14)
Right, it's all these little things at the beginning. But when you start, it's not just that you stop yourself from posting because of that. So you post, not good. There, you look at a metric and you're like, OK, this, I'm going to try to improve it. So let's say, it's your CTR, you make a better thumbnail. If it's... the sentence is when you start at the beginning, you really don't have any views. You just have to go, you get inspired by other videos. You like, I think what I do is relatively good. A lot of times, people, the mistake they make is they don't look at what's happening elsewhere. They don't want what other people are doing to bring it to them.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:10:40)
Exact.
James (1:10:43)
to at least give ourselves a start, at least one that will have a little more potential.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:10:47)
Well yeah. Look at where the world is looking, what the world is looking for, and then how you can differentiate yourself from that, and then do your homework, you know.
James (1:10:50)
Listen.
Exactly, if you already have a channel, then it's to look, who gets decent views, it could be 1500 per video, whatever. It's still relatively good when you start. We have a lot of channels that don't even get 1000 views there, when we start that, it's quite normal. That's it, the idea is to look at your metrics, then say ok what is my metric that needs to be optimized the most. It comes to the same point.
Is my 30 seconds I'm below 70% in majority or is it like I really have a bad rating there I'm still at 30% of my first 30 seconds if yes, at the best your intro. Is my average view duration it's really not good, makes it like at...
Sure, if you have 16-minute videos versus hour-long videos, by the law of numbers, the AVD is going to be different, but you look at your metric versus the length of your video, you're like, are people listening to 50% of the video, 10% mostly, 5%? Then you act accordingly. Otherwise, the thumbnail, it's the same thing. It's really like, look at your worst data in YouTube's big data.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:11:39)
put it into perspective.
James (1:11:59)
You just have to stick with that one, and then just try to do that for the next videos until you increase the statistic significantly enough to improve your videos in general. After that, you're going to move on to the other one. Once you're going to set like the big four YouTube metrics which are often the average view duration, the CTR, the intro, and then the title, let's say, even if it's not necessarily the one that's going to have the biggest impact, it still has it.
When you have perfected these points, logically you will have good YouTube videos. After that, is my niche profitable enough, are my videos effective for the right audience, is it, is it, is it. After that, you will be able to move forward. But that's really where you have to focus because if you have that of being an artist on YouTube, it can happen and that's fine if that's what you are. But it's harder to monetize or you will get discouraged more quickly.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:12:34)
Mmh.
Exact.
James (1:12:55)
But that's it, if you want to be an entrepreneur to make money, think like an entrepreneur, and even an entrepreneur. I mean, if you're very autonomous and you make videos on YouTube, it's the same thing, but you're not an entrepreneur because you don't create that much value, but the fact remains that if you want to build teams, have several channels, and really monetize with a possibility of sale at the end, which in my opinion is the summary of an entrepreneur, you can do it on YouTube, it's possible.
it exists, and it's achievable, but it still costs money, and you have to be patient, but you can get there, that's for sure. You just have to, you're stupid to say, but that's it, you have to steal what others do well to bring it into your sauce, and after that, you'll get to the right place, and when you start making a profit, you'll be able to invest in channels that are a little more creative, that are a little more you, like that, you but it's really the best way I've found for now. you'll probably discover others in the future.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:13:35)
Mmh.
In a few months, it's not too bad, I'm not worried about the future.
easy to question yourself. Often when you just put your heart and soul into a coordinated video you post and you have 89 views, it can discourage you pretty quickly.
James (1:14:04)
So clearly, the game is long term. For real in the long term, if you aim for the long term, you can really have a beautiful business model.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:14:08)
Mmh.
That's the beauty of YouTube versus social media too, where the lifespan of the content itself isn't... It's not 6 hours, it's not a day or whatever.
James (1:14:21)
Okay, enough of these artistic stunts, I'll tell you
Okay so Youtube is impressive. At first when I was talking with people who would lie to us a certain point friends in the field that there are already channels. I asked the question when we should publish, what day, date, what time. They were like that doesn't matter. I'm like no but that's not the answer I want to know. I just want to stop leaving you with that. It's like I want to know. I'm sure that Thursday at 10:30 versus Friday at 3:00 pm I'm sure there's data that says... He doesn't really say but I look at my...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:14:42)
Mmh.
James (1:14:54)
to my graph in YouTube that tells me the hours of my audience when they are online. Look at these graphs, it doesn't mean anything, everything looks pretty much the same. There's not really any data that tells you that she would have published on Saturday at noon at night. At 10:30 and then 3 in the afternoon, the colors are pretty much the same. You just shouldn't publish in the morning or in the evening, but everyone knows that. And then, I'm there, you try to find your time and your day, and then you end up finding your "you're like "well, it seems to make sense on Thursday at such and such a time".
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:15:00)
Mmh.
James (1:15:23)
But that's where you see after that they are still right because there are videos that work 35 days later, there are videos that still work 9 months later, you know. But I still think that being able to publish at the most optimal time for your audience, well because it gives the kick-start. But it's true that it doesn't matter so much because it's possible that you make $5,000 in revenue on a video in the space of 35 days. that even if you had published on Friday or Thursday it wouldn't have mattered because...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:15:26)
Mmh.
But to your point, is that if you do it in peak time, that people frequent your type of content and that you have a good CTR, and that you get impressions dropped more quickly, well it's sure that your result, would be perhaps in 35 days, to coordinate that, and to have the perfect storm, if you will, at the beginning of the life of the video, will ensure that perhaps in a few days, it will be rendered, or would the other one be rendered in 35 days.
James (1:16:14)
Yeah, I thought that at first but sometimes it's impressive. Sometimes you'll have a video that's going to be really good at first and then it's going to flop. There are like several parameters that we know we have to have, that if we don't have it won't work or it won't work as well. But sometimes we're surprised, it still works well. You see before as I was telling you, we could get 24,000 views in the first hour. We thought we had found it on average, we thought we had found our sweet spot.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:16:28)
Mmh.
James (1:16:39)
Then you see it's completely the opposite, it's like 1000 views in the first 24 hours or whatever, then it starts to perform days later. It's weird, but it remains that you live with all that, and it remains that that's the challenge. that for her otherwise it becomes a little dull at a certain point. You put videos online, they make money or they don't make money, and then you do more or less always the same thing.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:17:02)
Mm-hmm.
James (1:17:09)
If it still worked, memory, you really do all that for 3 years, 4 years. Whereas there YouTube by default gives you a challenge and then you live with it, you learn it and then it adds something. You see it the same way, it's like a video game, you enjoy it when it works, you stay a little longer when it doesn't work. At one point it works, you live with it.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:17:19)
Exact.
The killer question for not rewatching a certain Quebec show: when is the bus leaving?
James (1:17:35)
Ha ha ha!
We're going to We're going to finance it with the channels. No, that's it. If it stays, another project or that we had in mind. We still have it in mind, it's going to be something really cool, but it might take a lot of money to do it. Right now, it's better to make money to finance it rather than putting all the money into it. In the end, coming up short because you don't have the cash flow for the feeder, don't have the cash flow to keep it alive.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:17:55)
Mmh.
Exactly. Without being mega extensive on this, you can tell us a little about your project because it still has a good link with everything you were doing at the influencer level. The meetings you had with Alice, the shows in California, etc. I think that, eventually, it could become a kind of mobile studio. And to put everyone in context, we're not talking about a mini bus, a school bus, we're talking about a big coach.
James (1:18:05)
Bye!
No, exactly. It's when we were looking for opportunities on YouTube, we said to ourselves that having a huge mobile studio to go meet the creators we like, I mean. You know, to come up with something that impresses them, because it's coming up with your car, your van, whatever, but what do you have to offer them, as long as you come up with a big bus that's a mobile studio, we know that we're going to attract the attention of a few people at a certain point, that they're going to have to give visibility and so on. But the fact remains that if it's still the...
In entrepreneurial life, you have two types of approaches. Invest a lot of money to have a huge burn rate, to potentially make profits that will potentially sell for a super high multiple. That's like all the tech we know and others. Or you launch a company that makes positive cash flow day one, more or less, then that allows you to have an interesting lifestyle, then to finance everything you have to do.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:19:27)
Mmh.
James (1:19:27)
The bus was the first model, YouTube channels or the video editing business is the second model. We learned from the first that it was still stressful at the base. It's something that we don't have the skills today to say to ourselves we raise money, we raise sponsors with a project that is not finished and that we will go with loans with the bank.
So we learned from that, then on the other side we mastered a model that we are more confident in, of making profit day one, of building teams, of scaling projects across multiple people, multiple types of platforms or multiple business models, we know we are capable of that, but the other side we know we are not capable of, but it is not our primary skill, it is the first time we do...
that kind of thing. And then, with everything else that is converting a bus and everything, that we do not have these skills. So we are just pivoted, to say to ourselves, the other one, we can put it on standby, and then we will create what we have to create to be able to finance this project at a certain point. Which will eventually happen or maybe not happen. I mean, at that point, I don't know. And, you still have the fact that it is the life of an entrepreneur to be able to say to yourself, a project, I will put it in the water if I find an opportunity that is more profitable, that will be...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:20:23)
Mmh.
James (1:20:47)
more sustainable, there will be better sustainability over several years, but I think that this project will always...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:20:50)
Exactly, it's more a question of your time than of the project itself.
James (1:20:55)
Exactly, this project will always exist. The day we put it forward will be really cool. But this is more of a fun project, really... If you do it with money, which means that you have companies that have revenues and profits that allow you to have a little fun.
a project that is cool to do. you do it by being at a loss every month, hoping that at some point, someone will give you visibility, you are a bit of a "klout chaser", you run after the visibility and fame of other people, in the end you lose yourself through this in your values, you become a bit of a sensu who tries to take advantage of relationships with all the other people he meets. Which we are not since we never wanted to be.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:21:38)
Mmh.
James (1:21:40)
The proof of that is that we are ready to put something that costs several tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, whatever, on standby for a complete project, while waiting to be able to do it with the right values, and how we want to do it. The fact remains that yes, it still exists, it has been a little standby for a year.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:21:59)
very very hot. Do you want to make a kind of small plug precisely for the website for all the businesses and etc. maybe in conclusion then what's coming what do you have in the pipeline and etc.
James (1:22:12)
Yes, certainly, but any entrepreneur who wants to do video editing, style, reels, TikTok, all vertical formats, but who wants something professional, we really brand captions, corrected, meaning, there may be mistakes, but we come to make the necessary revisions, then have something that there is no aberration, that your content is clean, you can put it forward, you can do...
As much 6 publications per month if you want as you can do 30. With PlusCrew, that's what we do. We do it every week. We make several thousand videos per week, as much in France, the United States or Quebec.
maybe Self-Employment or SME, but it's a big company that wants to make 2000 videos per month. We can do it too. There, we already do it, and we have already done it in the past. It's sure that it's the best place I can do because it's a lead and it's a more adequate direct relationship, while YouTube channels, you have one or two people, even 100 more people who watch a video, which already makes a thousand views, the report doesn't really have a big impact, while building relationships with entrepreneurs.
one to one and help them believe in their brand, ultimately on social media with video, well you know that one to one, I always have a big impact. Pluscrew.com Otherwise, well just write to me James Forbes, and on Facebook, you'll be able to find me pretty easily.
Maxime Sincerny (1:23:21)
...
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:23:21)
exact.
Thank you for taking part in the exercise, for talking a little about all these models, about your background a little, how it went, etc. Then we will meet again for the next episode at the beginning of December. We will have a more internal episode at least, that we will present a subject with someone from our team as such.
Maxime Sincerny (1:23:32)
Thank you so much.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:23:52)
at that level. This is going to be the first time that a member of our team is going to come on the podcast too. It's going to be interesting.
James (1:23:58)
Nice thanks to you guys Ciao.
Marc-Antoine Rioux (1:24:00)
Alright, thanks!
Maxime Sincerny (1:24:01)
Thank you so much.
