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From Zero to 10 Million YouTube Subscribers - Mrwhosetheboss

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Arun MainiguestAli Abdaalhost

Dec 6, 20211h 36mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

115 min read · 22,626 words

0:00 – 3:12
Intro
1. AMArun Maini
  But I remember just before I fell asleep, I checked the view count and it was on, like, 3,000 views, and at the time, I was like, "Well, that, that seems high, but okay, I'll just sleep on it." And I got up the next day and it was on 300,000.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Whoa.
3. AMArun Maini
  And then I checked my kinda inbox, and it was filled with, like, uh, CNN News wants to talk to you, um, BBC News, Good Morning America, like, all these places wanted, wanted a piece of me, and I just, I couldn't understand what was happening. It was a mindset shift of like, whoa, this YouTube thing, like, this potential of virality, it suddenly became, like, quite real.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Hey, friends. Welcome back to the Deep Dive. In this episode, I speak to Arun Maini, who is Europe's biggest tech YouTuber, also known as Mrwhosetheboss. His channel has over nine million subscribers, and he's an absolute inspiration. In the episode, we talk about Arun's early life and how he would have these dreams of being a YouTuber when he was young and at school, and we talked about his journey of going full time on making silly internet videos on YouTube rather than doing a traditional prestigious consulting career at PwC. We talk a bit about his life as an influencer and what it's actually like to be Europe's biggest tech influencer and all the ridiculously cool things that he gets invited to do, and we also talk a little bit about the idea of hedonic adaptation.
5. AMArun Maini
  There is a point when you start to think, like, "What am I chasing here?" Like, how is my life different when I'm at 10 million versus nine million, or nine million versus one million? You know, at a certain point, you're making a living, it's your business, you're comfortable, and so you, you have to kind of separate yourself from that. You can't tie yourself to a number that you have no control over.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  I've been following Arun's channel for absolutely ages now, and it was such a, an honor and joy and inspiration to be able to speak to him. I've, I'm, I'm really gushing like I'm a real fanboy here, 'cause I am, and it was great. It's also, like, really interesting just how he, how much effort goes into the magic that is his YouTube channel, and you'll see for later on in the episode, I'm just absolutely flabbergasted as to just the insane amount of effort he puts into it, and hopefully that'll come through in the episode as well. So yeah, grab a cup of tea, and I hope you enjoy this conversation with me and Mrwhosetheboss. Let's go. All right, Arun, welcome to the podcast. How you doing?
7. AMArun Maini
  I'm very good. It's good to be here.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's nice seeing you in the flesh. We've spoken, like, twice, two, three times on the phone before, so it's, it's weird seeing you here. I was actually just in, in the toilet earlier today, and I was watching-
9. AMArun Maini
  Good [laughs]
10. AAAli Abdaal
  ... your, your Pixel versus iPhone camera comparison. [laughs] So yeah, I feel like I'm, I'm getting the full real-life experience.
11. AMArun Maini
  Satisfactory toilet video.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Yes. Yeah, it w- it was, it was quite... It w- it, it w- it was quite satisfying. Like, like, the B-roll you have, like, the little, like, sound, sound design when you show a photo, all the photos of yourself, all the selfies at different angles, different, like, focal lengths.
13. AMArun Maini
  I have actually-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Still very well done. [laughs]
15. AMArun Maini
  I have start-- [laughs] I feel like a DJ more and more every day, 'cause I'm spending more and more of my time looking at sound and how it syncs with the video.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Yep.
17. AMArun Maini
  So it's actually, it's... I'm glad you mentioned it. [laughs]
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, I thought the sound design was very well done. I was, I was gonna post a message to our editor on Slack and be like, "Can we do more sound stuff?"
19. AMArun Maini
  [laughs]
20. AAAli Abdaal
  'Cause it's just like, it, like, all the little subtleties of, of that-
21. AMArun Maini
  Like wh- where the beat drops and things like that.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  It... Yeah, it's, it's, it's very well done. Um, firstly, happy birthday.
23. AMArun Maini
  Thank you very much. [laughs]
24. AAAli Abdaal
  You, you just turned 26.
25. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, [laughs] um, so you know, y- you're, like, absolutely huge. You've got, like, 10 million pl- followers across the, across the social media platforms. What would your, like, school, high school self, secondary school self have said, let's say, let's say, say, 10 years ago, if you'd known that this is where you'd be at,
3:12 – 6:00
The early days
1. AAAli Abdaal
  at 26?
2. AMArun Maini
  So I actually, I distinctly remember a little meeting I had with a friend. Um, we were at school, and we were looking at other YouTubers on the platform. A- and we were, like, dreaming of what it would be like to have 10,000 followers. We, we would look at channels like that, and we're like, "Oh my God, I could do that, and this person has the audience that could fill a stadium. That's ridiculous." Because when you're looking at numbers like 10,000, you can actually visualize it, and when you do visualize it, it seems enormous.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
4. AMArun Maini
  Um, so n- I don't know, I think I would've cried or had a fit-
5. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
6. AMArun Maini
  ... if you told me. I don't know. [laughs]
7. AAAli Abdaal
  So one thing I f- I fou- I found really interesting about, about your story, and you talked about this a little bit in the podcast with Steven and a little bit in your Draw My Life video-
8. AMArun Maini
  Mm
9. AAAli Abdaal
  ... is that, uh, growing up, you were, you were a, a massive nerd, shall we say. [laughs]
10. AMArun Maini
  I'm a nerd.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
12. AMArun Maini
  I'm still a nerd. [laughs]
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, um, and, and, and you said that in, in primary school you ended up, like, playing chess for England or something. That's very cool.
14. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  And then in, in, in secondary school, things, things were a little bit, a b- a little bit difficult. I wonder if you can, you can talk a bit more about what that experience was like.
16. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. I think, I think m- more and more it's easy to feel insecure in yourself. Um, I think for me, YouTube was like a vehicle towards confidence, and I was almost lucky that I found it and, like, did it properly. But at school, I had very little reassurance in myself, and, like, people would constantly tell me, like, every touchpoint I had with another person was generally a negative one. It's like, "Oh, you're really nerdy. Oh, you're really lanky. Oh, your skin is awful. Oh, you need to shave that beard of yours," or if you call it a beard. Um, so I just didn't have a very good impression of myself.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm. And then how did, how did YouTube fit into this thing?
18. AMArun Maini
  So I think I was probably at my lowest point when I started YouTube. And to be honest, even when I started it, for the first few years, it wasn't a big part of my life, and I was quite embarrassed about it, and I wouldn't tell anyone.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
20. AMArun Maini
  But I think there was, like, an internal sense of like, "I am doing something that other people aren't doing," and that's quite, that's quite nice.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  So was it a kind of a way of, of having that, that, that aspect, hav- having an aspect of your identity that you could kind of point to internally and say that, "Yeah, I'm, I'm doing something cool?" Was the, was, was, was that the vibe?
22. AMArun Maini
  Something like that, yeah. I mean, I had no idea that it could be a career or what it would turn into-
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
24. AMArun Maini
  ... but yeah, it felt, it felt cool. I remember actually there was a point when I showed my friend that I had a channel at, with 5,000 subscribers, and he said, "No way. That's not you." 'Cause at that point it was only my hands, but I, I had to convince him. I had to be like, "Look, listen, that's my voice."
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
26. AMArun Maini
  "Now hear my voice in person. It's me."
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice.
28. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Uh, what, what prompted you to start, start the channel?
30. AMArun Maini
  So my brother bought me my first smartphone, and, uh, I think especially relative
6:00 – 15:03
Starting YouTube
1. AMArun Maini
  to my real life at the time, this smartphone was like, it was like a guilty pleasure. Like, I just fell in love with that thing.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
3. AMArun Maini
  And so, like, naturally just learned as much as I could about it, and then one day I just thought, "I've got enough info to share with people." So I just made this video on, like, how to customize it, just add themes, make it faster. And it just did better than I expected, and then I, I kept going
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay
5. AMArun Maini
  But I literally, I, I remember a point where my life goal was to get that phone to score a certain score in a benchmarking app
6. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
7. AMArun Maini
  Like, that was just my purpose. It wasn't a good phone, but I wanted it to be better, and that kinda created a drive to find out how to do that
8. AAAli Abdaal
  A lot of people have this thing where, where they get super interested in something, they, they go deep on it. But then it, I'll, m- I, I imagine, like, most people don't then go a step beyond and think, "I'm going to make a YouTube video about this thing."
9. AMArun Maini
  [laughs]
10. AAAli Abdaal
  What, what was it about you? Can you, can you remember, like, that made that, that leap?
11. AMArun Maini
  So-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Like [laughs]
13. AMArun Maini
  ... I actually don't remember.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
15. AMArun Maini
  I don't remember. I just, I'm just very, very, very grateful for whatever the trigger was.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
17. AMArun Maini
  Um, I'm assuming it was something to do with the fact that I did watch other YouTubers, and I think some part of me just wanted to be like them.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm. Were you, were you worried at all about what people would think when you started this out?
19. AMArun Maini
  E- extremely.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
21. AMArun Maini
  Extremely. Yeah, I mean, like, I was not a confident person, and I was very aware that on camera I was not going to give a good impression. Um, I [laughs] it was strongly driven by my passion for what I was covering, put it that way. [metal clangs] Ouch.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  On cam- on camera, as in if, if people saw your face that, that-
23. AMArun Maini
  Ye- yeah, I didn't reveal my face for a good few years, I think. It was just hands. Um, and even then people were like, "Your voice is so irritating. Shut up." [laughs] But yeah, it was good.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  What were the kind of comments like in those... Because, like, when I started, it was like, I started YouTube, it was like 2017. I was, I was pretty old. I was, like, 23. Um, and it was all educational content, where the comments were just broadly like, "Oh my God, thank you so much for helping me get into uni," kind of vibes.
25. AMArun Maini
  Mm-hmm.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  But whenever I see comments on tech videos in particular, it seems like it's a bit more polarizing whenever you post a new video.
27. AMArun Maini
  The, the tech audience is quite, [clears throat] uh, the tech audience is quite hard to please. Um, so they're a very educated, uh, but also cynical bunch. They can be amazing, but they will pick apart everything you say.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
29. AMArun Maini
  And you can never contradict yourself. You have to make sure you're 100% consistent, and, like, you fact-check everything you say. And so when you throw that kind of pressure on, like, a, a 15-year-old who doesn't really know what they're doing completely, uh, you're gonna get things wrong, and I think I wasn't ready for people to pounce on me in the way they did. But it's good that it happened, because you develop a thicker skin.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Hm. How, how did people pounce on you?
15:03 – 20:29
Managing your time
1. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, and I think now I s- speaking to a lot of people who are starting YouTube channels, the survivorship bias means that the only channels they really see are the big ones.
2. AMArun Maini
  Yes.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  And it's hard to imagine that you could be doing this thing for five years before any real, quote, "traction" and, and start- starting to take it seriously.
4. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. And, and it's also tough to see what exactly led up to that moment.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. AMArun Maini
  So before I posted that hologram video, even though in my head I'm like, "Well, what was I pratting around at with those 300 videos before that? Why did I need to make those? I should've just made this from the start-"
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
8. AMArun Maini
  ... I needed to make every one of those videos to learn the things I needed to know-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
10. AMArun Maini
  ... to make the hologram video.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Did you end up going on, like, Good Morning America and things like that, like [laughs] ...
12. AMArun Maini
  I, I took on a few of them.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
14. AMArun Maini
  There were, there were a few, like, local news channels that I did, uh-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay
16. AMArun Maini
  ... yeah.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Well, what was that experience like? [laughs] Like, being on the news.
18. AMArun Maini
  Very... I, I felt a little out of place, we'll put it that way, 'cause I didn't know how to, like, present still. It was still, like the video itself, it's not something I'm proud of, like, from a production standpoint. [laughs]
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
20. AMArun Maini
  Um, I still wouldn't back, back how I came across in that video.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  And so you ended up sort of being a sort of-
22. AMArun Maini
  I, I won't watch them again-
23. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
24. AMArun Maini
  ... these interviews. [laughs]
25. AAAli Abdaal
  No, fair enough. Okay. So at that point you started taking things more seriously. What, uh, uh, w- what was your kind of non-YouTube life looking like at the time?
26. AMArun Maini
  I had a pretty good time at uni. Um, I was very disciplined with my time, because as I started to take YouTube seriously, it's like, "Well, okay, so I'm at uni, I've gotta have a good social life, I've gotta get a first class honors, I've gotta do YouTube." And so those three things alone means you're quite busy, and then you've got family. You know, you wanna see them, you wanna be there for the big moments. So I scheduled my time quite well such that I think I got everything I wanted to get done, done, but it just meant that I couldn't waste time. So I'd find myself in lots of situations where the v- the, the default option would be to just stay and just chat with someone.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
28. AMArun Maini
  But I had to be like, "Right, okay, it's 9:00. I'm gonna go script. Bye." [laughs]
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Do you still have that kind of attitude today?
30. AMArun Maini
  S- so what I've found is, like, the larger the channel has gotten, the more I've started to put my time at a premium. Uh, it's very much like that now except I think I, I am more in control of my time, and I'm more... I understand myself better. So for example, I'll have situations... Well, I'll try and, I'll try and set my life up so that the minute I finish working-
20:29 – 29:38
Life as an influencer
1. AMArun Maini
  And I've had loads of situations where I'm like, I then check my calendar and I'm like, "Oh my God, I can't do that," because I've said yes to this person for this thing.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
3. AMArun Maini
  And so if someone says, "Can you book a week off for my wedding in Italy in a year's time?"
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
5. AMArun Maini
  ... I am naturally very, very hesitant to do that, and I, I will delay it as much as I possibly can and probably try to confirm two weeks before.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  What sort of emails are you getting this, like, like every two days, like [laughs]
7. AMArun Maini
  [laughs] Do you want me to forward them your way?
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, please. [laughs] I get none of these emails. [laughs]
9. AMArun Maini
  Um.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  I get emails from, like, Chinese charger manufacturers being like, "Hey, can we, can we send you a review yet?" I, I ignore them. [laughs]
11. AMArun Maini
  Oh, I get those too. They-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
13. AMArun Maini
  Uh, I get, I get some makeup ones as well actually. "Hey, Arun, we, we love your beauty channel."
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, yeah. [laughs]
15. AMArun Maini
  And I was like, "Well, well thank you," you know? [laughs] It's all sorts of stuff, but it's, a lot of it is, like, experience-based.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
17. AMArun Maini
  Like, I love the idea of, like, doing stuff that feels different. Um, I feel like I'm going off on a tangent here, but I am of the philosophy that I want to do something different every day, right? Even if that means on the way out to go to work I kick the door so my, like that becomes the day my foot is hurting.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
19. AMArun Maini
  Right? I want to lead a distinct life. And so when companies come to me and offer experiences and they say, "Okay, let's fly you around on a helicopter in London to take footage with our new phone," it's hard-
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Kinda cool, yeah. [laughs]
21. AMArun Maini
  [laughs] It's hard to say no. Or, or like, you know, let's hire out a theme park, or let's do this video in a plane and then you jump out that plane a- a- and like all this stuff is constantly coming in, because I feel like this is like the new age of influencers and every brand wants to be a part of it.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
23. AMArun Maini
  Um, obviously I have to turn down a lot of those because I'm like a tech channel and you have to like, you know, it's integrity first. So if a company wants you to do some big, you know, brand promotion you have to be very selective.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
25. AMArun Maini
  But I want to filter out those opportunities and make sure, like, I consider all of them.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  The fact that that stuff comes in makes it harder for you to say yes to things, 'cause then you don't want to be like, "Ah, crap, I said yes to that thing like a year ago and now I'm kind of-
27. AMArun Maini
  Yeah, yeah
28. AAAli Abdaal
  ... "
29. AMArun Maini
  And then I'll be sitting at like some baby shower thinking like, "Oh, I could've been in like the-
30. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
29:38 – 37:31
Goal setting
1. AAAli Abdaal
  um, in that you tweeted at the start of the year that, "All right, m- new goals for the year, m- 10 million subscribers on, on YouTube, a million followers on Twitter, and I think a million followers on Instagram." Uh, and you've now hit that milestone on Twitter and Instagram, and basically, b- basically g- gonna hit it on YouTube as well, which is awesome. Um, [laughs]
2. AMArun Maini
  [laughs] I don't think I'm gonna make it this year, but it's close enough.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Close enough. Um, the, uh, it, it strikes me that, that this is in stark contrast to at the start when you were 15 and you were like, "I'm just gonna make videos for fun." At, at what point did your goals shift to I'm aiming to be the UK's largest tech YouTuber?
4. AMArun Maini
  So I've always actually been very numbers driven. So even at the start when I didn't really have a schedule, I still had, like, sheets on my wall of, like, how many subscribers I wanted to hit.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
6. AMArun Maini
  Um, I've always had that in me. And actually, to be honest, I think as the channel's grown I've sort of tried to detach myself as much as possible from those numbers.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
8. AMArun Maini
  Because YouTube is one of those things that you just, you can't win. [laughs] So I mean-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Like-
10. AMArun Maini
  ... there's an element, there is a point when you start to think, like, "What am I chasing here?" Like, how is my life different when I'm at 10 million versus nine million, or 9 million versus 1 million? You know, at a certain point you're making a living, it's your business, you're comfortable, and so you, you have to kind of separate yourself from that. You can't tie yourself To a number that you have no control over.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  I, I, I agree wholeheartedly. Um, but you were doing that at the start.
12. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. Why?
14. AMArun Maini
  Because, so at the start it was like I was very much thinking of it in terms of, like, that conversation I had with my friend where we're like, "Oh my God, 10,000 people."
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. AMArun Maini
  "That's so many people. Let's try and get to that goal."
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
18. AMArun Maini
  Um, but it's, it's very much after passing, like, a million subscribers, for example, which in my head was this inconceivable number, that it was like, "Oh, if you pass a million you're just, like, you're a celebrity," you know? Um, and it's when you pass that and then you have this point of internal reflection where it's like, "I have just achieved everything I ever set out to and more. Why, why am I not elated all the time?" That you're like, "Okay, well actually this isn't as important as I thought it was."
19. AAAli Abdaal
  So the numbers for you, it sounds like the numbers for you were motivating in the early stages.
20. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  With, like, numbers on the wall and the subscriber counts and things like that.
22. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. The, the reason I do it now, like, the reason I've got this pinned tweet saying, "We wanna hit this, this, and this," is, is partly as a kind of a bit of a challenge, like a fun thing to do.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
24. AMArun Maini
  Um, but a lot of it is just to get other people on board, like my followers on board with kind of where my head's at, what I'm aiming for. It gives them something to kind of, like, aim for as well with me.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  But at the same time, so you're, you're setting this goal for yourself as a bit of a challenge, but at the same time you are also detached. Like, you're dete- trying to detach your personal sense of self-worth from the hitting of the goal.
26. AMArun Maini
  Yes. Yeah. I, I'm not, I'm not gonna be upset if we don't hit 10 million this year.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  I've been thinking a lot about goal-setting, um, s- 'cause I am writing a book themed around productivity-
28. AMArun Maini
  Mm
29. AAAli Abdaal
  ... where the core message is that really the secret to productivity is to enjoy, enjoy yourself, 'cause if you're enjoying the journey and having fun, then productivity takes care of itself as, like, the general theme.
30. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
37:31 – 46:10
Taking risks
1. AAAli Abdaal
  in the back of my mind that YouTube is my side hustle and I do medicine as my main gig. And n- uh, in the last probably few weeks I t- I kind of admitted to myself that I'm probably never gonna be a doctor again.
2. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. [laughs]
3. AAAli Abdaal
  And that was, that was, like, really scary because, m- you know, there was, there was the element of sunk cost. Uh, but, you know, having read a lot of Daniel Kahneman stuff I was like, "Okay, sunk cost fallacy. Like, who cares?" You know? It, it, it doesn't matter that I've spent six years at uni and two years working, um, to get to this point. There was also an element of fear in that, um ... Well, there were, there were two aspects of fear. One was what if I, what if, what if I get canceled and everything disappears? Then at least I'll be able to be a doctor again as, like, a, a fallback, backup option.
4. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  But the other element of fear which I think was stronger was that I built my brand off the back of, "Hey, I'm a doctor, went to Cambridge, blahdy blah blahdy blah. Here is a video about productivity." If I now stop being a doctor, will people think that I, am I, quote, just a YouTuber?
6. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  And do, do- does my kind of internet career now n- now, is, is, is that going to suffer as a result of losing this badge of, this badge of prestige of being a doctor?
8. AMArun Maini
  It, it's like what, what are you then? [laughs]
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, exactly. What the hell am I?
10. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Like, it's like how do I, how do I describe myself if someone asks, "What do you do?" It's like, "Well, I m- I make videos on the internet."
12. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, did you have any of those thoughts as you were leaving a fairly tra- uh, sort of traditional prestigious career that you'd worked for years to get to?
14. AMArun Maini
  The, the backup thing was definitely in my mind, like, having a backup option. Um, I, I think YouTube definitely felt like a risk more so at that point when it was like you can jump, you can make this leap onto this new thing, than it does looking back now.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
16. AMArun Maini
  I think when you look back it's always easier to be like, "Oh yeah, of course I made the right decision and it was obvious," and-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
18. AMArun Maini
  ... but it wasn't at the time.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, I remember have, having that thought process when I was in my final year of, uh, of uni where the YouTube channel I think had, had not even hit 1,000 subscribers at that point. I was, I was on, like, video number 35. I was on, like, 400 subscribers.
20. AMArun Maini
  Wow.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  And I was thinking, "Okay, I've got finals coming up. I could take finals seriously or I could take YouTube seriously."
22. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  And I was like, "Okay, I'm pretty confident that based on my current medical knowledge I could pass finals, just not do very well. And I'm pretty confident that I'm out of the running for a distinction because of the way the numbers worked out."
24. AMArun Maini
  Oh. [laughs]
25. AAAli Abdaal
  So I was like, "Okay, every percentage point I get above a pass mark is therefore kinda wasted effort," assuming there's no correlation between performance as a doctor and performance on written exams, which most people said there wasn't. Um, so I threw everything into YouTube at the time.
26. AMArun Maini
  So, so you were in a position where with very low effort you could get a pass-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
28. AMArun Maini
  ... with extremely high effort, well-
29. AAAli Abdaal
  You could p- to potentially maybe probably not even p- be in the running for a distinction.
30. AMArun Maini
  Right.
46:10 – 50:00
Quality vs Quantity
1. AAAli Abdaal
  stuff, where I've kind of said the stuff that needs to be said-
2. AMArun Maini
  Mm-hmm
3. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and now it's like we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to come up with ideas, meant that we were putting out videos that I wasn't happy with. And then I thought, "Okay, what if I just don't stick to that schedule anymore?" And I did the kind of Tim Ferriss fear setting exercise.
4. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  You know, what's the worst that could happen? What are the worst case scenarios? And wrote them all out in, in detail and realized that actually these are all, all these worst case scenarios are pretty unlikely. And, you know, having done this for now four, four and a half years focusing on quantity, we can now shift to focusing on quality and not being wedded to an upload schedule or not being wedded to this video has to come out at this certain time to appease this particular sponsor.
6. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  'Cause if we want, we can just drop the sponsor and it, like it doesn't matter, who cares? Um, and then that felt like ridiculously liberating, and as I was doing one of these, I think as I was doing one of these Tim Ferriss exercises of like what's the worst case scenario, I was like tearing up a bit thinking like, "Oh my God, like all of this has go- gotten to this point where I can be like, you know what? Like, I can take a step back and it's not gonna be the end of the world."
8. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Um-
10. AMArun Maini
  The realization that you have control.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
12. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, and I was very, uh, like the, the, that thing you said where you're almost, you know, I c- I can't go to a friend's wedding because I have work.
14. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  I have found myself thinking in those terms these last few months, especially as our team has expanded now and we've got like 16, 20 people-ish, depending on how you count full-times and, and, and part-timers.
16. AMArun Maini
  That's crazy. I've got two.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, it's mental. [laughs]
18. AMArun Maini
  [laughs] Wow.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, but I found most of my time being spent on being a manager and sort of Zoom call after Zoom call, meeting after meeting after meeting, and no time for actually thinking about videos and-
20. AMArun Maini
  Mm
21. AAAli Abdaal
  ... filming content and, and stuff, which is the thing that I love doing. And one of my friends who was, I was liv- I was liv- I was living with is a doctor working in A&E where his schedule was like ridiculously absurd and he was like, "Right, I've got a day off. Do you wanna grab dinner?" And I was like, "Uh, God."
22. AMArun Maini
  [laughs]
23. AAAli Abdaal
  "No, look at my calendar. Sorry, I'm, I c- I've got 20 minutes of time between like 10:00 PM and 10:20 PM, and then I have a call with someone from the US at 10:20." And he was like, "Dude, what are you doing?" [laughs]
24. AMArun Maini
  It's, uh, yeah, that, that's bad when you realize your schedule's worth and, worse than his.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Um, so now we're like, okay, take a step back. I'm gonna focus on the content and this is gonna kind of manage the business side of things and try to find more of a, more of a middle ground there.
26. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, but it sounds like that's similar to the experience you had on the whole like quality, quantity thing-
28. AMArun Maini
  Yes
29. AAAli Abdaal
  ... back then.
30. AMArun Maini
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I still need to do work on it internally, um, but more and more I do want to focus on the things I'm good at and the things I'm needed for. So I never wanna veer away from not being the presence on my channel. I don't want other hosts and things like that. So if it means having less staff and having a, a smaller operation overall, that's, that's fine by me 'cause I, I love doing the core parts of it.
50:00 – 55:20
YouTube Analytics
1. AAAli Abdaal
  look at my metrics at all, so I would love to learn from you about, like, what can I be doing. How, how, how much time do you spend in, in the YouTube Analytics?
2. AMArun Maini
  I look at it for every single video that I post. So two days after it's gone live, I'll kind of ... I'll spend a good half an hour just going through it, being like, "What countries did this hit? How long did those people stay on for? When did the majority drop off? Was there a significant spike or a significant dip? Did certain parts make people go back?" Um, things like that. Because you can see all of it, it's like, why wouldn't you? [laughs] Well, you don't, but I think you should.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. I really think I should as well. Like-
4. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  S-
6. AMArun Maini
  So I found things like, for example, if I ask people to subscribe really early in the video, it was detrimental because you'd get a, um, a drop of, like, 20% of viewers potentially, but they wouldn't be subscribing. They'd just be irritated by the fact you've asked them to subscribe without showing them why.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
8. AMArun Maini
  Um, because at the start of a video in the first, like, 15 seconds, people are very, very easy to lose. It- it's at that point that they decide whether they're going to, you know, full screen you and kind of invest in this video-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
10. AMArun Maini
  ... or whether they're gonna, you know, click on one of the 30 that are kind of grabbing their attention from the side.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  How, how should I start? [laughs] If I, if I ... If you're like ... If you were, like, kind of my, my YouTube mentor or whatever, like, how would you advise me to start looking at retention graphs and, and analytics a bit more? What's the ... What, what's, like, a good, a good starting point?
12. AMArun Maini
  Um, I, I would look for troughs. So look at kind of points where you've got viewers that are stable, and then when they go down, and try to identify why they've gone down at that point. So for example, one of the other things I found was, like, I would do a round off at the end of a video, and at the point where you start rounding off a video, anyone who feels like they've got it-
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
14. AMArun Maini
  ... they're like, "Okay, I'm done. This is the end of the video." And so instead what I've started doing is the m- the second I finish the key content, I'm talking about the next video.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
16. AMArun Maini
  So it's literally like, "And that's what happened to Samsung. Okay, for the video on this, that's there. For the video on this, that's there."
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
18. AMArun Maini
  And I found immediately that, like, the amount of clicks I was getting on my end cards-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
20. AMArun Maini
  ... to lead to the next video were like ... They tripled. And so my outro now has my face in it. It didn't used to have my face in it. It just used to be this kind of blaring music.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
22. AMArun Maini
  But now it feels like a continuation of the main content.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  It does, yeah.
24. AMArun Maini
  And I'm kind of being like, "Look over there. Look over there," and they can see me pointing to videos. Um, and I think actually, I think you said this once, uh, not that long ago actually, that the people who watch till the end are the most valuable-
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
26. AMArun Maini
  ... audience members-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
28. AMArun Maini
  ... 'cause they're more likely to follow through, right?
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the end card thing is something that we started doing as well, uh, about, about a year ago and it, and it worked really nicely, but kind of beyond that, I didn't really ... I don't really look at the numbers 'cause it's-
30. AMArun Maini
  Scary?
55:20 – 1:14:08
Creating YouTube videos
1. AAAli Abdaal
  that's gone into this."
2. AMArun Maini
  It's-
3. AAAli Abdaal
  It's insane.
4. AMArun Maini
  It's, uh, kind of the, the way I describe it is a, an aggregation of micro-refinements.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
6. AMArun Maini
  So it's like all that stuff hasn't happened overnight. If you kind of go back through the channel and watch one video every year-
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
8. AMArun Maini
  ... you'd see a few new things each time.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
10. AMArun Maini
  So like the day that I decided, "Okay, I'm gonna spend more time on music and try to create moods-"
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
12. AMArun Maini
  ... with what I'm saying, the day I decided to put my face in a circle so I'm visible at all times.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
14. AMArun Maini
  Um, and we've tried these experiments, looked at those graphs, seen that they've worked, and then realized, okay, these are mainstays.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Data ... Is, is it like you have a gut feeling that when I put my face on the thing while showing overlay it'll work?
16. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  And then you act- and then you look at the data? Or-
18. AMArun Maini
  Yeah, yeah, exactly that. So you have a gut feeling.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
20. AMArun Maini
  You try it, it works or it doesn't work, and then you action it.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  And how can you, how can you tell? Like, you adding your face versus not adding a face, it's not like you're releasing the same video face and no face-
22. AMArun Maini
  Yeah
23. AAAli Abdaal
  ... so you have a control. It, yeah.
24. AMArun Maini
  It, it's tough, but like I think when, when you spend that much time with the data, you have a gauge on how well a certain video will keep people.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
26. AMArun Maini
  So for example, I know that if I make a camera comparison, they don't have good retention. Like an average camera comparison might have 45, 50% retention.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
28. AMArun Maini
  Right? And so if you do a camera comparison and it gets 55%, you're like, "That is an outlier."
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, okay.
30. AMArun Maini
  Or if I do an unboxing or a top 10, if I do a top 10, that's gonna get really good retention.
1:14:08 – 1:21:00
Long & short term thinking
1. AMArun Maini
  growth has happened recently, so I'm still taking in the fact that I have a large YouTube channel now. It's, it's new to me, so I haven't had much time to think about these things. But, um, I like to think of myself as a teacher. I think if I had to identify myself as one thing, it would be it, someone who educates people.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
3. AMArun Maini
  And so I would like my brand to mean or be associated with teacher.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
5. AMArun Maini
  And so whether that means through books, apps, I'm not too sure what the mechanism is yet, but I have that kind of vision-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
7. AMArun Maini
  ... of, like, being, I guess, synonymous with technology or education.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  When did you realize that that's what you wanted to do?
9. AMArun Maini
  Very recently. [laughs]
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. How did you come to the realization?
11. AMArun Maini
  I have, like, a... So I've got this new management team, and I think while I'm kind of stuck in the nitty-gritty, they're very good at sort of seeing the bigger picture. And we have these kind of weekly calls where they're used to seeing the journey and the trajectory of YouTubers becoming businesses. And so they can kind of, like, impart a bit of that wisdom or, like, this is what has worked for this person. This person found this thing really fun. Consider it.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
13. AMArun Maini
  And so I have considered it.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  So how did that land on teacher?
15. AMArun Maini
  Um, they asked me at one point, like, "What, what do you see yourself as?" And I... It was then kind of a moment of self-reflection where I was like, okay, if you boiled it down, that is what I do.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
17. AMArun Maini
  I'm trying to, like, make tech fun.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  And you see that as being, like, a teacher-type role?
19. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Interesting.
21. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. I think, like, if I had... If I was put into a school and someone said, "You have a class to teach of, like, 20 kids," I think I'd do a really good job.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
23. AMArun Maini
  Um, not saying that that is the job that I want to do. I c- you know, I can obviously, through my camera, I can teach millions.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
25. AMArun Maini
  Um, but that, that is actually what I like.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  So I had a similar, a similar realization about probably in the last year, where I was... I was trying to answer this question of what the hell do I want to do with my life.
27. AMArun Maini
  Mm.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  And one of the strategies I came across was, um, the idea of a- asking yourself, what do you want written on your gravestone?
29. AMArun Maini
  Oof.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  And I thought, I thought about this. I was like, okay, let's actually take this seriously. What do I want written on, written on my gravestone? And I came v- very quickly. I was like, okay, some combination of good father, good husband, and inspirational teacher. And I was like, ooh, that's interesting.
1:21:00 – 1:32:02
Money & Hedonic Adaptation
1. AMArun Maini
  I use it just for convenience. So, like, it might mean that I could take an Uber instead of walking or... It, it just allows you to live your life in the way that you want to live your life. Um, you could order in food one time instead of, like, needing to cook yourself. Those kinds of things. Um, I don't buy a lot of possessions. I get sent a lot because of my work, but I personally, like, very irregularly because, I mean, the things that I, I enjoy and things that I look forward to are basically just all experiences. Like, this weekend is worth more to me than any, like, MacBook.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. You know, this, this, this whole idea of hedonic adaptation, that once you hit, like, w- w- whatever, whatever you gain, you become accustomed to that thing, and then you, well, then it, y- you need more of that thing to-
3. AMArun Maini
  Mm
4. AAAli Abdaal
  ... to, to sat- to satisfy yourself. Um, I find that for me, the more money I make, the more the goalpost shifts, the more the bar for how much money I need to be comfortable starts to suddenly rack up, and it's like, ooh. You know, I thought I was actually pretty happy in a £1,000 a month rental place, but, oof, 4,000 a month gets you a really nice [laughs] rental place.
5. AMArun Maini
  [laughs]
6. AAAli Abdaal
  And so I'm not, I'm not even gonna l- look at what 10,000 a month gets you. Like, that level of stuff.
7. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Do, do you find yourself doing that at all?
9. AMArun Maini
  Um, yeah. It's actually like I think about hedonic adaptation a lot, and I actively try not to do it because I think it leads you to a life of, like, living in a huge house with a enormous suite of cars on your own. [laughs]
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
11. AMArun Maini
  Um, feeling like you can't even hang out with normal people because your life is so far removed from theirs that you're different. So I don't think it's a good path to go down.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  I-
13. AMArun Maini
  But it's really hard to separate yourself from it. It's like if you could afford a Lamborghini, why would you not buy a Lamborghini?
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
15. AMArun Maini
  Um, th- those are internal conversations that I'm sure, like, most top YouTubers will have with themselves. Um, but I mean, the way I, like, look at cars is like, okay, I'll get a crummy car, and then two years later I'll get a medium car, and then I'll get a slightly nicer one, a slightly nice one. Like, there's no rush to get to that end goal.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  And so even if you could theoretically afford a Lamborghini, you're, like, working up to the buying of a Lamborghini, potentially, if that's what you're into-
17. AMArun Maini
  Yeah
18. AAAli Abdaal
  ... rather than just going straight for it because you can.
19. AMArun Maini
  Yeah. A- and I also, like the way I see houses is like a big house, you can only be in one room at any one time, [laughs] right?
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
21. AMArun Maini
  Like, I, I don't, like, I don't see the point.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
23. AMArun Maini
  I quite like the idea of less time spent Hoovering floors-
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
25. AMArun Maini
  ... on, you know, like, three different stories-
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
27. AMArun Maini
  ... and more time just doing things I wanna do.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  I mean, the value of a big house is in being able to host people, I think.
29. AMArun Maini
  Yeah, but then you can-
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Or nothing
1:32:02 – 1:36:58
Quick fire
1. AAAli Abdaal
  100."
2. AMArun Maini
  Yeah, yeah.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  "I wanna, I wanna give a good shout-out to my 74 subscribers." [laughs]
4. AMArun Maini
  [laughs] Yeah. That keeps showing up in my recommended.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. It occasionally comes up. Yeah, that's quite, quite interesting to see. Um, this has been fantastic. I'd, I'd love to, um, end with some like quick fiery type questions. Okay, so quick fire. Um, what advice would you give to your younger self?
6. AMArun Maini
  It'll be okay. [laughs]
7. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs] Um, who would you say has had the biggest influence on your career?
8. AMArun Maini
  Probably Marques.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, how so?
10. AMArun Maini
  Marques, so MKBHD, he was one of the tech channels I watched when I was younger and when I was kind of with my friends and we were talking about being a YouTuber and getting 10,000 subscribers and things like that. So from a very early age, I kind of... He provided a framework for what, how it could work.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  What's one tip for someone who's looking for success?
12. AMArun Maini
  Start with something you enjoy and that you're passionate about and that you'd want to be the best at.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  What does the first and last hour of your day look like?
14. AMArun Maini
  So both of them more recently are without phones. [laughs]
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
16. AMArun Maini
  So my entire waking day is with phones, and the first two are like, get out of bed first, start your day, and then turn off airplane mode, and the last hour of my day is normally like just lying in a dark room somewhere.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, interesting. [laughs]
18. AMArun Maini
  Yeah.
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
20. AMArun Maini
  It, it's a thing about sleep. Like I've had a lot of problems in the past with sleep.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
22. AMArun Maini
  And one of the piece of advice that's really helped is trying to sync your life with the real life cycle of the sun.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
24. AMArun Maini
  And that involves the brightness of the rooms you're in.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
26. AMArun Maini
  So I look like a bit of a freak, but if someone calls me, for example, like when I'm about to sleep-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
28. AMArun Maini
  ... I will just be sitting in darkness. [laughs]
29. AAAli Abdaal
  And has that helped your sleep?
30. AMArun Maini
  Mm.