How he makes $1.2M a year on Youtube without showing his face - Jake Tran

Jake Tran 0:00 I created my own little niche where viewers really only had me to go to. The reason why McDonald's is so big and they make billions of dollars is because they created a system to make the burgers for them.

Marina Mogilko 0:10 This is like 50 hours of video.

Jake Tran 0:12 I should not be working this hard, and I should be, you know, making a lot more money while working less. My people are all over wherever they're the best.

Marina Mogilko 0:18 First video, 555,000 views. Second video, 253,000 views.

Jake Tran 0:23 So we've definitely created a system that's pretty repeatable.

Marina Mogilko 0:26 You're building an in- like the whole media empire here.

Jake Tran 0:29 If anyone can really, you know, make the same videos that me and you make, why isn't everyone successful?

Marina Mogilko 0:34 Meet Jake Tran. He runs multiple faceless YouTube channels. He's a popular YouTuber and entrepreneur. He makes videos about political power, the dark sides of big businesses, true crime, and videos about how to recognize crypto and corporate scams. I really appreciate that on his channels Jake covers American issues that I see as an immigrant. For example, he made this video about the problem of food served in American schools, and it's a really serious problem. This video got almost 3 million views, and hopefully, hopefully we'll see some change, because as a mom, I'm really worried about what my kids are gonna eat at schools here. I met Jake back in 2021, and he was the first creator who I met who had a faceless channel. And of course, I became quite interested, because I run a company where we teach people languages, and I always thought that a language channel without a face could be something. Could be a great resource for students, and also a great marketing tool for my company. So in this conversation, I wanted to dig deeper into the processes that Jake has in his company to see how I, and also you, could potentially build a faceless channel for your business or just for yourself. And I also want to understand how he navigates

Marina Mogilko 1:39 criticism. Hey, guys, welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. I have someone who's doing something amazing on YouTube, which I want to learn about. His name is Jake. He runs a documentary channel, and you barely see his face there. And this is what I'm fascinated about 'cause I love the end product. I just watched your video about why celebrities are always unhappy.

Jake Tran 2:00 [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 2:00 Like, I really wanted to watch that video, but also how- the dynamics inside the video, like how you change the frame, how you tell the story, like genius. And also with the new technology, like ElevenLabs, I don't know if you're using it already to clone your voice. I mean, like, with your strategy, you can just scale your channel beyond you, and you don't have to be on the camera. This is what I wanted to talk about today. Can you talk about, like, how, how long have you been doing this, your Jake Tran channel?

Jake Tran 2:25 This channel, you know, all the years kind of blend in together, but it's probably been three or four years by now.

Marina Mogilko 2:31 Oh, wow.

Jake Tran 2:31 And-

Marina Mogilko 2:31 But the progress is amazing. Wow.

Jake Tran 2:33 Th- thank you. And I started out, you know, being a traditional on-camera channel-

Marina Mogilko 2:38 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 2:38 ... where it was just, it was l- like a personal brand channel. Uh, but the problem I quickly ran into is I quickly realized that if the entire channel is based on me and my experiences and what I've gone through in life, uh, you quickly run out of stuff to talk about-

Marina Mogilko 2:53 Mm

Jake Tran 2:54 ... 'cause you only, you've only lived so much. Um, so that's why a lot of YouTubers who are on camera all the time, they quickly burn out after, you know, maybe they're in the limelight for three to five years.

Marina Mogilko 3:05 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 3:06 And then they usually fizzle out, or they, their views just drop dramatically-

Marina Mogilko 3:10 Yeah

Jake Tran 3:10 ... or they just quit entirely. And I saw that very early on, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. And what I realized was there are these channels out there that aren't connected to a name, that don't show their face, and instead of the content being based on them, it's based on stuff that they research or stuff that they come up with.

Marina Mogilko 3:27 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 3:28 So in that sense, you never run out of video ideas-

Marina Mogilko 3:31 Yeah

Jake Tran 3:31 ... 'cause that's a really big bottleneck and, and a really big fear of a lot of people starting out is, like, how do I come up with video ideas?

Marina Mogilko 3:37 Exactly.

Jake Tran 3:38 Well, if you're just, like, 18, 20 years old like I was, and you don't have much life experience, you're gonna run out of video ideas very quickly.

Marina Mogilko 3:44 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 3:45 But if you base your videos on something that you research or you come up with, or, like, a storyline that you create fr- uh, from nothing, then you never run out

Jake Tran 3:55 of ideas.

Marina Mogilko 3:55 Yeah. You had several channels before. You had a taekwondo channel, right?

Jake Tran 3:59 Yeah, that was my first try-

Marina Mogilko 4:00 That was your first, yeah

Jake Tran 4:01 ... in high school.

Marina Mogilko 4:01 Uh-huh.

Jake Tran 4:02 Uh, very cringy. I removed all the videos, so you can't find them. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 4:05 Okay. [laughs]

Jake Tran 4:06 But yeah, back in high school, that was when I first fell in love with the idea of being a YouTuber.

Marina Mogilko 4:11 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 4:11 And one of my fav- favorite channels at the time was a ch- channel called Linus Tech Tips.

Marina Mogilko 4:15 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 4:16 Uh, super big channels. They're still around today. And, you know, they have this giant office, giant warehouse, with all these different filming sets, and, like, a giant video editing team, and a giant production team, and I thought that's what I wanted. Uh, thank God I never went th- down that route-

Marina Mogilko 4:30 Mm

Jake Tran 4:30 ... because although their channel's great and everything, that just s- sounds like a giant headache-

Marina Mogilko 4:35 Yeah

Jake Tran 4:35 ... that I don't wanna deal

Jake Tran 4:36 with. The real big light bulb moment came when I read the book Blue Ocean Strategy.

Marina Mogilko 4:41 Mm.

Jake Tran 4:42 That book changed my life, and it basically shows you how to go into any crowded niche in any industry and carve out your own unique blue ocean-

Marina Mogilko 4:49 Oh, interesting

Jake Tran 4:50 ... where, um, you don't have any competition.

Marina Mogilko 4:53 What's the main takeaway from that book, if you remember?

Jake Tran 4:55 Yeah. They use the example of the wine brand. They talked about how entrenched the wine industry is. Um, there's all these big players, su- super high competition-

Marina Mogilko 5:05 Yeah

Jake Tran 5:05 ... very hard to break into. So how do you break into it? Well, this brand that I can't remember right now, they basically looked at all the factors of the wine industry, um, how complex the flavors are, how, uh, pretentious the labels are, all these different factors, and then they looked at what a- all the big players are currently doing.

Marina Mogilko 5:25 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 5:25 And then they just looked at all those factors, thought about what they wanted to keep-

Marina Mogilko 5:31 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 5:31 ... what, what they wanted to remove-

Marina Mogilko 5:33 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 5:33 ... and what they wanted to change entirely.

Marina Mogilko 5:34 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 5:35 And the result was this very super unique, uh, brand that just went viral-

Marina Mogilko 5:41 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 5:42 ... in a super crowded niche. So I took that basic idea and applied it to, um, finding a profitable channel or a viral channel.

Marina Mogilko 5:50 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 5:50 So basically what I did was I looked at all the different niches on YouTube that I'm a fan of.

Marina Mogilko 5:56 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 5:56 So one was, like, the personal finance niche or the money niche or whatever. Another one was the video essay niche-

Marina Mogilko 6:02 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 6:02 ... where people would review video, uh, movies-

Marina Mogilko 6:05 Mm

Jake Tran 6:05 ... like The Dark Knight-

Marina Mogilko 6:06 Mm

Jake Tran 6:06 ... or like why the Joker was the best-

Marina Mogilko 6:08 Mm

Jake Tran 6:08 ... villain ever written. I also looked at, uh, these, like, B-roll type channels, um, like Kurzgesagt in a Nutshell.

Marina Mogilko 6:16 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 6:17 And I basically looked at all those different niches. I took what I liked out of all of them. I removed what I didn't like. I thought about what I could add from other niches or other industries, and the result was this very unique channel that was very new at the time. Because no one else was doing, I created my own n- little niche where viewers really only had me to go to.

Marina Mogilko 6:37 Mm.

Jake Tran 6:38 If you just frame yourself as another personal finance channel, well, there's, like, 1,000 other channels people could watch.

Marina Mogilko 6:43 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 6:43 But because I created my own niche... The moment where I transitioned to, into, like, the type of content I make today was I watched a documentary or s- or some book or something on how fractional reserve banking works-

Marina Mogilko 6:56 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 6:56 ... and how sketchy the world of banking is.

Marina Mogilko 6:59 Mm.

Jake Tran 6:59 So I made a video on, like, the b- the absurd business of banking.

Marina Mogilko 7:02 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 7:03 And at the time, I thought, like, no one would be interested in this-

Marina Mogilko 7:06 Mm

Jake Tran 7:06 ... because this is just, like, super nerdy stuff.

Marina Mogilko 7:09 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 7:10 Uh, but I just wanted to make it anyways just to scratch my own itch. And I remember I scheduled the video for, like, 3:00 PM in the afternoon, but it turned out to be, like, 3:00 AM. I scheduled it-

Marina Mogilko 7:23 Oh, ri-

Jake Tran 7:23 ... incorrectly.

Marina Mogilko 7:24 Okay.

Jake Tran 7:24 But even though I did that, the video still took off.

Marina Mogilko 7:27 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 7:28 So that was the first step in the direction of, like, the darker topics I cover

Jake Tran 7:33 today.

Marina Mogilko 7:33 We know that clickbaity headlines on YouTube get views, but it's very easy to get too clickbaity, and sometimes viewers just don't enjoy it. On the one hand, it's Jake's superpower to have a channel without his face. On the other hand, longtime subscribers note a decrease in the quality of content compared to old videos because they notice a decrease in Jake's involvement. He was also criticized on the internet for advertising questionable companies. What about the controversy about your brand deals? I've just watched, like, Coffeezilla, all the... What was your reaction to that?

Jake Tran 8:04 I mean, it definitely didn't feel good-

Marina Mogilko 8:06 Mm

Jake Tran 8:06 ... 'cause, yeah, I've, I've always gotten hate comments, but this was, like, the first big-

Marina Mogilko 8:10 I, I don't know, like, the whole drama, but it feels like he started and a lot of other YouTubers, they just followed the-

Jake Tran 8:15 Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Like, he started, then, like, a bunch of other YouTubers that... You know, the easiest route to fame is, like, criticizing others.

Marina Mogilko 8:23 That's true. Yeah.

Jake Tran 8:24 So all these other, like, smaller Coffeezilla types, like, jumped on the bandwagon.

Marina Mogilko 8:28 Yeah.

Jake Tran 8:29 It was definitely overwhelming. Looking back, there's probably some things that I could, could have done better.

Marina Mogilko 8:34 Have you changed your process of, like, thinking about brand deals?

Jake Tran 8:37 Yeah, we definitely vet them a lot more.

Marina Mogilko 8:39 Mm.

Jake Tran 8:39 Obviously, I didn't know. Obviously, I could have done a better job vetting them.

Marina Mogilko 8:43 Mm.

Jake Tran 8:43 And we've definitely improved our process.

Marina Mogilko 8:45 How do you select topics for your videos?

Jake Tran 8:48 It's a really big mix. I have a really big network now of, like, very

Jake Tran 8:52 unique people-

Marina Mogilko 8:53 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 8:53 ... from all the videos I make. So sometimes they su- suggest videos to me. Um, sometimes I have guests on, like, the celebrity video-

Marina Mogilko 9:00 Mm

Jake Tran 9:00 ... where, uh, they'll give me a video topic. He's, like, my advisor-

Marina Mogilko 9:03 Uh-huh

Jake Tran 9:03 ... Arvid Ali.

Marina Mogilko 9:04 Uh-huh.

Jake Tran 9:05 And y- yeah, we can talk about him.

Marina Mogilko 9:07 Oh, he was part of the video, right?

Jake Tran 9:08 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 9:08 The guy who was-

Jake Tran 9:09 Yeah, the guy in the video

Marina Mogilko 9:09 ... talking about, like, working with celebrities.

Jake Tran 9:11 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 9:11 Yeah. So he's your advisor?

Jake Tran 9:13 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 9:14 Interesting. How does that work in the YouTube world?

Jake Tran 9:16 It's, it's not, like, an official YouTube thing. So-

Marina Mogilko 9:18 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 9:18 ...

Jake Tran 9:19 he reached out to me as I was blowing up, 'cause he was a fan.

Marina Mogilko 9:22 Mm.

Jake Tran 9:22 So one day, I just get this random email. It says, like, the president of Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street.

Marina Mogilko 9:28 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 9:28 And it says, "Hey, Jake. Big fan of your videos. Let me know if you have time to chat today."

Marina Mogilko 9:32 Wow.

Jake Tran 9:33 And yeah, super random email. And I was like, okay, th- the president of the Wolf of Wall Street [laughs] -

Marina Mogilko 9:38 Yeah

Jake Tran 9:38 ... wants to talk to me. So I g- get on the phone with him. He turns out to be a big fan, and he turns out to have worked for a lot of celebrities-

Marina Mogilko 9:45 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 9:45 ... like, um, Jordan Belfort and a few other ones. And he's an advisor to a lot of, like, ultra-rich people.

Marina Mogilko 9:51 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 9:52 We were talking and, you know, I was telling him, at the time, I was really working hard. I was working, like, 10, 12 hour days. The channel was, like, blowing up.

Marina Mogilko 10:00 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 10:01 And back then, I was making all the videos myself.

Marina Mogilko 10:03 Mm-hmm. Editing, everything, idea-

Jake Tran 10:05 Everything

Marina Mogilko 10:05 ... research.

Jake Tran 10:06 Doing all the editing-

Marina Mogilko 10:07 Yeah

Jake Tran 10:07 ... thumbnail.

Marina Mogilko 10:08 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 10:08 So I was working, like, 10, 12 hour days, like, five, six days a week. It would take me around five, six days to make one video.

Marina Mogilko 10:17 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 10:17 So back then, uh-

Marina Mogilko 10:18 Wow

Jake Tran 10:18 ... that's why I only could post one video a week.

Marina Mogilko 10:20 So it's like 50 hours a video?

Jake Tran 10:22 Yeah. And at the time, I was making, like, a doctor's salary, like, I don't know, 200, 250K a year, which is really good.

Marina Mogilko 10:28 Google AdSense mostly?

Jake Tran 10:30 That and sponsors.

Marina Mogilko 10:31 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 10:31 Yeah. And I thought I was, like, the man.

Marina Mogilko 10:35 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 10:35 And I was telling him, like, "You know, I'm making a doctor's salary, but, you know, I'm working s- super hard, but it's okay." And he kinda just burst my bubble, and he said that I should not be working this hard, and I should be, you know, making a lot more money while working less. And, you know, my instant reaction to that was like, "Yeah, sure."

Marina Mogilko 10:53 Yeah.

Jake Tran 10:53 Wouldn't everyone want that?

Marina Mogilko 10:54 Mm-hmm. [laughs]

Jake Tran 10:55 Um, and he explained to me that I'm, I'm doing it all wrong and that, you know, why is McDonald's so successful? Is it because they make a better burger? Well, no, because there are thousands of places out there that make a better hamburger

Jake Tran 11:08 than McDonald's. The reason why McDonald's is so big and they make billions of dollars is because they created a system to make the burgers for them-

Marina Mogilko 11:15 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 11:15 ... so that anyone can buy a franchise, and they just get that system pre-made, and it just works.

Marina Mogilko 11:21 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 11:22 He explained it like I'm, like, the small burger shop right now or the small business owner where I think that no one can m- make the videos better than me, no one can write the videos better than me, um, no one can serve my customers better than me. It's like the artist mindset, like-

Marina Mogilko 11:35 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who could do it-

Jake Tran 11:37 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 11:37 ... yeah.

Jake Tran 11:38 So he explained it to me like that, and that if I stick with this route, I'll eventually burn out, like most YouTubers do, and I'll never be able to, like, scale my income. So he told me that I need to find a way to create a system, just like McDonald's, that creates the videos for me-

Marina Mogilko 11:53 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 11:53 ... while maintaining the quality. And he explained to me, like, how I should go about doing it. And at first, I was very resistant, as any, like, artist type would.

Marina Mogilko 12:01 Yeah.

Jake Tran 12:02 Um, but, you know, I swallowed my pride, and I just, like- Did what he told me to do, and I slowly started, um, outsourcing the production of the videos, and I started l- you know, really small, bit by bit.

Marina Mogilko 12:13 I think the question of growth is crucial for every creator who started a channel by himself. So there are basically two ways

Marina Mogilko 12:20 to grow on YouTube: to build a media company and scale to multiple channels, or to continue working on the same channels. Creators often choose the first way because they're confident that they will be able to repeat their success with current resources, but in reality, there are many risks here. For example, the audience will not accept the new format or a new face. And also, you can't predict how your audience will react to the fact that you participate less. And as we see, longterm viewers definitely notice decrease of attention of a creator to his main channel. Jake was able to build multiple huge faceless channels and build a team around them. So how did Jake start delegating?

Jake Tran 12:56 So the first step was hiring an audio editor, 'cause I thought that was the easiest part to outsource, 'cause you're, you're just dealing with audio. So I did that.

Marina Mogilko 13:02 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:02 That saved me probably, like, an hour a week. And then what I did next was, I think, hiring a video editor.

Marina Mogilko 13:09 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:10 And, you know, my videos are very complex, so that was very intimidating for me. How do I train someone to, you know, do this super complex video? So I took it one step at a time. I had them start by editing just the easiest part of the video.

Marina Mogilko 13:24 Mm.

Jake Tran 13:24 So at the time, um, I would, like, show up on camera for the last 30 seconds, so it would just be a simple A-roll edit. So I trained someone to edit just that, like, 30-second clip at the end.

Marina Mogilko 13:36 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:36 Once I was confident in that and I saw that they were doing good, and they were doing just as good as me, I would slowly scale that up to, like, the last minute of the video.

Marina Mogilko 13:44 Mm.

Jake Tran 13:45 And then a little... Once I made sure the quality was, was good, I scaled it up to, like, the next two minutes.

Marina Mogilko 13:50 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:50 And eventually, the entire video.

Marina Mogilko 13:52 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:52 And I kinda just repeated that process for the rest of the production process. Next was probably, I don't know, thumbnails or something.

Marina Mogilko 13:59 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 13:59 But yeah, I, I eventually-

Marina Mogilko 14:00 What about research?

Jake Tran 14:01 Now I have a lot of writers that do all the research for, for me as well.

Marina Mogilko 14:05 Mm. How did you c- find them?

Jake Tran 14:06 There's two routes. So if a YouTuber ever gets over that hump of actually, you know, hiring people, the main route most YouTubers will take is, you know, they'll hire one person, like one jack of all trades that just learns how to do everything.

Marina Mogilko 14:20 Mm.

Jake Tran 14:21 And then their entire business becomes reliant on that one person.

Marina Mogilko 14:24 Yeah.

Jake Tran 14:25 Um, so it's a very fragile situation to be in. Um, I did not want that, but the problem is there's no industry of, like, YouTube script writers out there, so you have to train them from scratch.

Marina Mogilko 14:34 Yeah.

Jake Tran 14:34 So most people y- you find online that are writers, um, th- they've probably written a lot for blogs or SEO articles.

Marina Mogilko 14:41 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 14:42 So you have to take tho- those people and just train them to write your videos for you.

Marina Mogilko 14:46 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you train them how to come up with, like, a captivating intro, and then how to tell a story.

Jake Tran 14:52 Exactly.

Marina Mogilko 14:52 So you did the whole, the whole learning thing for them.

Jake Tran 14:54 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 14:55 Okay. Can you talk about, like, how much it costs for you now to produce a video, and how many people work on a video?

Jake Tran 15:00 Um, I'd rather keep that on the down low. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 15:03 Okay. [laughs] But, like, okay, is your staff, are, are the people here in the US, or you hire remotely?

Jake Tran 15:09 So ba- back to that channel Linus Tech Tips.

Marina Mogilko 15:11 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 15:11 You know, they had, like, this big studio.

Marina Mogilko 15:13 Yeah

Jake Tran 15:13 ... with all these in-person people, and originally, that's what I thought I wanted, and but what I found is that statistically speaking, there's seven, eight billion people on the planet, there's a very low likelihood that the best people are gonna be in your geographical area.

Marina Mogilko 15:28 Yeah, that's true.

Jake Tran 15:28 So my people are all over, wherever they're the best.

Marina Mogilko 15:31 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 15:32 Is, doesn't really matter.

Marina Mogilko 15:33 Mm-hmm. Is every video profitable for you now?

Jake Tran 15:35 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 15:35 Okay, so it covers the, the team. How do you select... Like, you ha- probably have, like, 100 ideas all the time. How do you select the one that you're gonna work on?

Jake Tran 15:43 That's a good question. Um, after a while, you build up some intuition.

Marina Mogilko 15:47 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 15:48 Like what will go viral and what won't. By now, we've come up with a few different series that we always repeat on the channel, like the Rich People Depressed series-

Marina Mogilko 15:55 Yeah, yeah

Jake Tran 15:56 ... that we're doing right now. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 15:57 Yeah, yeah.

Jake Tran 15:57 It's been-

Marina Mogilko 15:57 It's doing so well, right?

Jake Tran 15:58 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 15:58 I g- I get rec- I got recommended that video, like, many, many times before I actually watched it.

Jake Tran 16:03 Oh, great.

Marina Mogilko 16:03 So...

Jake Tran 16:03 Good to know. So yeah, we have a few different series like that, so, um, that makes it a lot easier, too, where if you have a successful series already-

Marina Mogilko 16:10 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 16:10 ... you can find another video topic that aligns with that series.

Marina Mogilko 16:13 Yeah.

Jake Tran 16:14 So that's another way. And I think that's it.

Marina Mogilko 16:17 And then so you come up with a topic, write a script, then B-roll. Is there, does the editor come up with B-roll, or you tell them where to take it? Like, how does that work?

Jake Tran 16:28 So by now, our editors are familiar with our editing style-

Marina Mogilko 16:32 Mm

Jake Tran 16:32 ... and what types of B-roll we typically use.

Marina Mogilko 16:35 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 16:36 Um, so I don't have that much input anymore. If there's, if there's, like, one line where I wanna s- specifically show this thing on screen, um, I'll tell them to do that.

Marina Mogilko 16:45 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 16:45 But they're, they're, like, pretty autonomous on their, on their own.

Marina Mogilko 16:49 Do you watch the final version of the video before posting?

Jake Tran 16:51 Yeah, I still do, uh, just because I found that where I add the most value in, in this entire system that I've created is, you know, the v- the video ideas and making sure... I'm kinda like the, the master chef.

Marina Mogilko 17:02 Mm.

Jake Tran 17:02 I make sure the food comes out good.

Marina Mogilko 17:04 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you have any other channels, or it's just the one that you're running?

Jake Tran 17:07 So we have the Jake Tran channel.

Marina Mogilko 17:09 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 17:09 1.8 million subs. Um, the channel

Jake Tran 17:12 I'm most excited about is called Evil Food Supply. Documentaries exposing how bad our food system is today. It's blowing up. Definitely the fastest channel, growing channel in that niche.

Marina Mogilko 17:22 Okay. [laughs]

Jake Tran 17:23 There's nothing like it.

Marina Mogilko 17:24 Let me, let me take a look at it. Evil Foods Channel?

Jake Tran 17:26 Evil Food Supply.

Marina Mogilko 17:27 Mm-hmm. Wow, it's growing super well. That's exciting. And you just started it, and it's basically every video has done really well.

Jake Tran 17:33 Yes. Like-

Marina Mogilko 17:33 What was your intuition behind this channel? How'd you come up with it?

Jake Tran 17:37 I literally just reapplied the same strategy that I came up with to come up with my niche.

Marina Mogilko 17:41 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 17:41 And applied it here. So I looked at, um, the food niche or, like, the health, nutrition niche. I saw all the gaps in the marketplace for that.

Marina Mogilko 17:49 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 17:50 Like, at the time, the food niche was either, or the, the alternative nutrition, health niche, it was either, you know, old white doctors like Dr. Eric Berg.

Marina Mogilko 17:59 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 17:59 Like, he, I'm sure he's a great guy, but that's, like, usually most of the influence there in that regard. The other ones were probably, were usually, like, these white girls that appeal to, like, the female crowd.

Marina Mogilko 18:11 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 18:12 So there was no High-end premium documentary channel

Marina Mogilko 18:16 Mm.

Jake Tran 18:17 Making the videos the way I make videos.

Marina Mogilko 18:19 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 18:19 So I saw that gap. And then, so we have that channel. We just launched a third channel. Oh, yeah, so that channel we launched earlier this year. Over 250K subs, videos are blowing up, so really proud of that one.

Marina Mogilko 18:30 Is it your voice there?

Jake Tran 18:32 No.

Marina Mogilko 18:33 Okay, so-

Jake Tran 18:33 Voiceover actor.

Marina Mogilko 18:34 Nice.

Jake Tran 18:35 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 18:35 So it's no longer you, it's just the whole team.

Jake Tran 18:37 And we just launched a third channel recently called How To Get Away With It.

Marina Mogilko 18:40 Wow, two videos, 15K. First video, 555000 views. Second video, 253000 views. Wow.

Jake Tran 18:50 So we've definitely created a system that's pretty repeatable.

Marina Mogilko 18:52 It looks like the idea of having multiple channels without your face really works if you approach it in a smart way. It minimizes emotional burnout

Marina Mogilko 19:00 and allows you to release more content. But of course, you will need to be able to scale and monetize this without losing the quality.

Jake Tran 19:07 Going back to Lion's Detectives, he had, like, a bunch of channels, so that was always in the back of my mind, like, I wanted multiple channels. But on top of that, the practical purpose of it is that you have less risk. You're not a- entirely dependent on one channel, so there's less risk involved. I kinda like having different channels in different niches that are, have, like, their own set of videos that we can make for them. Um, that makes coming up with video ideas easier, and then we can also... It's a lot, also a lot easier to post, you know, a, a video today on one channel and another video today on another channel, and you'll still get a lot more views.

Marina Mogilko 19:40 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 19:40 Versus if I post two videos in one day on my main channel.

Marina Mogilko 19:43 Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Jake Tran 19:45 So yeah, there's a lot of benefits to it.

Marina Mogilko 19:47 What's the strategy with your channel? 'Cause it looks like these two are doing even better than, than your main channel, right?

Jake Tran 19:52 Yeah. Um, the strategy with my main channel, it's kinda like the center of everything.

Marina Mogilko 19:57 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 19:57 Um, that's where I experiment a little bit more with different video ideas. Yeah, I kinda use it for experimentation, that kind of thing.

Marina Mogilko 20:03 Okay. And do you plan to go into the short video niche as well?

Jake Tran 20:07 I went into it hard back when the YouTube algorithm was really pushing shorts.

Marina Mogilko 20:11 Yep.

Jake Tran 20:12 And then all of a sudden in, like, February of this year or something, my short views just crashed.

Marina Mogilko 20:17 That same happened to me.

Jake Tran 20:18 Okay.

Marina Mogilko 20:18 I think, I think it actually started December of last year.

Jake Tran 20:21 Okay. Yeah, for me, it was on-

Marina Mogilko 20:22 Yeah

Jake Tran 20:22 ... literally, like, February 1st.

Marina Mogilko 20:23 Okay. [laughs]

Jake Tran 20:24 I haven't focused on it because, you know, I have something that's working already, that I'm really good at, and I'd rather just keep making more long form videos.

Marina Mogilko 20:34 Mm-hmm. Are you planning to do more channels?

Jake Tran 20:36 Yes.

Marina Mogilko 20:36 Yeah?

Jake Tran 20:36 Um, this year prob- in 2024, probably two, maybe three more channels.

Marina Mogilko 20:43 God, that's fascinating. Yeah, I lo- I love that strategy. Can you talk about monetizing the channels? What would be, like, one, two, three, top three sources?

Jake Tran 20:51 T- uh, top source is probably sponsors.

Marina Mogilko 20:53 So brand, brand deals would be number one?

Jake Tran 20:55 Yes. Second is probably AdSense.

Marina Mogilko 20:57 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 20:58 Third is the YouTube membership. So on the main channel you can sign up for five bucks a month-

Marina Mogilko 21:03 Mm-hmm

Jake Tran 21:03 ... and you'll get a private documentary every month that's too controversial to be posted publicly.

Marina Mogilko 21:09 Wow, I love that approach. 'Cause I tried YouTube memberships, and I'm like, "Extra content?" Like, what-

Jake Tran 21:14 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 21:14 ... what can be fascin- this is fascinating. I feel like people would, would wanna buy that. Can you mention the topics that you have to know?

Jake Tran 21:20 [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 21:21 Or is like-

Jake Tran 21:21 Oh, yeah, I can definitely mention them. Um, we've done one on, you know, Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein.

Marina Mogilko 21:27 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 21:27 We've done one on MKUltra, the CIA's mind control program, where they would, like, drug-

Marina Mogilko 21:33 Okay, I haven't heard about that

Jake Tran 21:34 ... Americans unknowingly.

Marina Mogilko 21:36 Mm-hmm. Do you advertise your membership saying, like, "Hey, we're releasing a video on this topic"-

Jake Tran 21:40 Yes

Marina Mogilko 21:40 ... and this is how they subscribe-

Jake Tran 21:42 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 21:42 ... because they wanna, they are excited about the topic?

Jake Tran 21:44 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:44 That's great. I think you're the first YouTuber who I meet and, uh, you talk about, like, memberships being a one of the top sources of income.

Jake Tran 21:52 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:53 That's great. Can you give advice to people who are starting a faceless channel and also trying to build a, an empire around it, like s- starting multiple

Marina Mogilko 22:00 channels?

Jake Tran 22:01 I think one of the best advice that I could give is, number one, you know, nothing that I do or you do is impossible.

Marina Mogilko 22:10 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 22:10 It's not like we're trying to discover a new particle or launch a rocket into space.

Marina Mogilko 22:15 Yeah.

Jake Tran 22:15 We're literally just making videos.

Marina Mogilko 22:16 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 22:17 And everyone watching this, you guys all know what videos look like. You watch it all the time. Everything that me and you do, it's far from impossible.

Marina Mogilko 22:24 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 22:24 I think that's the first thing people have to keep in mind. And then the follow-up question to that is, if anyone c- can do this, if anyone can really, you know, make the same videos that me and you make, why isn't everyone successful? It's because people don't have a strong enough why.

Marina Mogilko 22:39 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 22:39 Because if you have a, a strong enough why, where you, like, f- fully believe with every ounce of your being, like, "I need to be successful with this," or, "I need to have a f- a profitable faceless channel," if you have a strong enough why, you'll f- figure out all the s- all the-

Marina Mogilko 22:54 Yeah

Jake Tran 22:54 ... granular details.

Marina Mogilko 22:55 Exactly.

Jake Tran 22:56 So for me, you know, I grew up poor, and all the other stuff, so that was a big motivating factor. I wanted to, to take care of my parents.

Marina Mogilko 23:02 Yeah.

Jake Tran 23:03 Um, I wanted to, like, you know, prove all the doubters throughout my life wrong.

Marina Mogilko 23:07 Mm-hmm.

Jake Tran 23:07 So people have to find, like, their own internal why that will, like, push them through all the, all the times that suck.

Marina Mogilko 23:14 That's great. Great answer. Can I ask last question about your watch? It looks great. What is it?

Jake Tran 23:19 It's called, uh, from a brand called GP, Girard Perregaux.

Marina Mogilko 23:22 Uh-huh.

Jake Tran 23:22 And it's a skeleton rose gold watch that I got for, uh, a million subscribers.

Marina Mogilko 23:27 Wow. It looks great. Thank you so much. It was super useful. Um, I'm doing this because I also want... Like, I have a YouTube channel where I talk about languages, so I s- I'm starting different channels like TOEFL, GMAT, like, all of the standardized tests that people take. Uh, and I'm learning from you, from Charlie, how to build that.

Jake Tran 23:45 Yeah, feel free to reach out if you have help. And I think your situation's great because language is inherently a more, like, content thing.

Marina Mogilko 23:53 Mm, yeah, there is a lot of content around language. It's just different type of audience, not too many brand deals, but we have a course that we can sell.

Jake Tran 24:00 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 24:00 Yes, I decided to jump on a call with Arvid to ask him all the questions because Jake was telling me so much about

Marina Mogilko 24:07 you, so I, I just needed to chat with you for this video. Um, can you tell me a little bit more about how you came to this recommendation for Jake that he needs to build this McDonald's type of system out of his channel? 'Cause I think it's really innovative for a lot of creators, 'cause every creator thinks I think I'm a star. No one can replace me. Like, it has to be me in the video, when realistically thinking, you know, there's so many people who can replace me. [laughs] So what would be the strategy for a YouTuber like me who wants to automate the business, but the problem is I have three channels, uh, where I'm the face, and, uh, there's like... I don't see any, uh, viable way how can I exit them right now? So what would be a strategy for YouTubers like me who built their whole media into, uh, empire on their look?

Arvid Ali 24:56 Yeah, so I think I would just take it one step at a time. So I wouldn't, like, jump the gun and just completely take yourself out of videos and hope for the best type thing. It's more like, okay, uh, let's start with everything on the backend. So do you have courses that you sell? Do you have, um, a team of video editors? Like w- you know, how involved are you really on the backend side? And most YouTubers that I know, they're a little bit too involved, especially when it comes to the research and scriptwriting side. So every single thing you can do on the backend, that's the first thing that I would focus on. And, and I've rarely found a YouTuber that's just purely, you know, just shows up, says what he, what he or she needs to say, and leaves. Um, uh, that is the level that you wanna get to first. And, um, some of the... I'll be careful on, on, you know, not to mention specific names, but, like, some of the Hollywood famous people that ever show up on, on, on YouTube or, you know, uh, they are really good at just doing what they do, which is the scripts, everything's fully written for them. They don't, like, get in- get themselves involved into anything really. And so you wanna get to that place first, which is like, can you just show up, and was all the research given to you? Was the format at least given to you? Um, and I definitely would take acting classes, uh, for YouTubers that haven't. Um, that's one of the big distinctions that I've seen with, like, the very big YouTubers that succeed long term is they've taken acting classes, uh, because it just switches your mindset as to what your role is. Um, and it allows you to really just focus on, like, uh, your tonality, the way you present yourself, and being as just, like, purely entertaining as you can. Once you get to that phase where you're really just showing up just on the camera when you need to, then phase two is like, okay, um, can I adjust my video a little bit so it's not as much about, like, me talking into the camera? You know, maybe you show other people talking to the... You know, you, you show other individuals, or you're, or you're talking, um, uh, you're d- you're doing a voice, a voiceover over parts of the videos. It's not just you, um, showing your face all the time. And, uh, and then the third phase is among the channels that you have, certain channels you'll notice is really driven around you and your personality and your face. Other channels you can really embed other individuals and allow them to show up as an expert or as a guest or whatever it might be. So, um, oftentimes I, I've really not found that, like, the energy drain is not necessarily from, uh, the pure amount of time you spend, like, looking at the camera. It's from everything else that led up to it, and it's from everything else that you need to think about afterwards. The first thing I would say is most people don't accomplish that first step, which is the most important, which is like, can you get yourself outside of all backend operations?

Marina Mogilko 27:33 Mm-hmm.

Arvid Ali 27:34 And a key part of that is that it can't be too expensive as well. Like, you really do need to find people, um, who you train who are cheap both locally and internationally. I, I've noticed a lot-

Marina Mogilko 27:43 What's the ballpark figure for, like, pro-

Arvid Ali 27:45 Oh, yeah

Marina Mogilko 27:45 ... producing one video if we find people internationally?

Arvid Ali 27:49 Yeah. Uh, I have a very firm rule that all expenses, everything included, including, like, anything that you can think of, um, you cannot go above 50% of revenue in expenses.

Marina Mogilko 28:01 I f- I feel like for a lot of YouTubers, especially who are just starting out, right, they don't have any... They, they're not even monetized yet, but they're already-

Arvid Ali 28:08 Oh, okay. Yeah

Marina Mogilko 28:09 ... like, what is the minimum that you can pull off-

Arvid Ali 28:12 Yes

Marina Mogilko 28:12 ... with, with an okay quality? [laughs]

Arvid Ali 28:14 Sure, sure. I think you can get a... I think, um, if you're paying people hourly internationally, um, like, let's say people in Indonesia or Bangladesh or these kinds of countries, like, if you're e- even able to pay them, um, $7 an hour, $8 an hour, that's a lot of money. Like, I was born in Bangladesh, so I s- you know, speak from it in that, in that view. Um, that's a lot of money that they can be very grateful for. Um, and the key thing is that they tend to be very trainable. You know, they might not be the best starting, um, but they take feedback really well, and they'll keep improving if you can give them good feedback. So I tend to prefer, um, usually Indonesia, Bangladesh. Um, South Africa tends to be good, especially for this, for the research, research and scriptwriting side. Um, Eastern Europe tends to be really good for the thumbnail design especially. That's where a lot of people go for thumbnail design. And thumbnails, d- they're not expensive. You know, $25, $30. So at the end of the day, you can have a very good video, um, at, you know, few hundred dollars. Like, it... I, I think if you take your effort plus a few hundred dollars, you can start to have really good videos, maybe $1,000 max, but it really shouldn't be costing, you know, way too much money. But I think where you can save money is if you focus on people who are pretty cheap to begin with, expect that their first draft might not be the best, but really focus on giving very specific feedback and seeing if you can improve upon that. And that is one, one other recommendation is, um, initially you need to expect that, like, for every five people that you try, only one person's really gonna be good for you. Uh, ideally maybe two, but, like, you need to give it a shot with five people with the same project. So the way that we test people is, um, we will, um, uh, let's say for a thumbnail, it's like you'll give very specific instructions to five different thumbnail designers, see which of the, those five really produce the right thumbnails, and then you might give a second, you know, feedback and then see who's really good at taking feedback. Same thing with the video editing. You don't wanna give a whole video. Just the first, you know, first 30 seconds, first 60 seconds. Just test people out and see what they can produce.

Marina Mogilko 30:12 Thank you so much, Arvid.

Arvid Ali 30:13 Yeah, thank you.

Marina Mogilko 30:13 That was amazing.

Arvid Ali 30:14 Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks so much.

Marina Mogilko 30:15 And that was super useful. Thank you.

Arvid Ali 30:17 And then-

Marina Mogilko 30:18 And, and hopefully, yeah, I will start implementing your advice [laughs] 'cause it's-

Arvid Ali 30:21 Yeah. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 30:22 ... it's amazing.

Arvid Ali 30:22 Sounds good.