MrBeast became the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world

I spent the last 10+ hours listening to MrBeast talk about YouTube and here's what I learned.

Last week, MrBeast surpassed T-Series to become the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.

But it wasn't always sunshine and rainbows.

As the saying goes...

"Rome was not built in a day."

It took MrBeast 14 years to get where he is today.

When he first got started.

He was not making any money from YouTube.

He did not have a camera or microphone to make videos - all his videos were shot on an iPhone.

The only thing that he DID have was an obsession.

An obsession with YouTube.

To make the best videos possible.

And eventually become the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.

When you're reading this, it might ring a bell in your head.

It might sound like where you're at right now.

An obsession to build something or become someone.

If that's the case, you're in the right place.

In the last couple of days, I spent 10+ hours watching some of MrBeast's most popular podcast appearances.

I was able to learn a lot of lessons on what it takes to become a successful YouTuber and I want to share them with you today.

If you want the watch the podcasts, I've linked them at the end :)

1️⃣ Unhealthy level of obsession

MrBeast is one of the most obsessed YouTubers you could ever find on earth.

He's been this way since he first started on YouTube at the age of 13 and he's admitted that it's unhealthy.

But it works for him.

Now you and I don't have to be obsessed with YouTube the same way he is.

Unless your goal is to surpass MrBeast as the most subscribed YouTuber.

But what you do need to have is SOME level of obsession towards your goal.

Could be getting to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Could be building an email list of 1,000 subscribers.

Making $10,000 a month.

Whatever your goal is - Get obsessed and do anything to make it happen.

Every other lesson I'm going to be sharing today bleeds through his obsession like:

1. Re-investing all the money he makes from YouTube back to making the best videos possible.

2. Obsessing over improving on every new video. There's always something you can improve.

3. Long term thinking - He's said he'll still be a YouTuber 10 years from now and that allows him to make decisions that help him become a better YouTuber.

📝Here's an exercise for you:

1. Take 15 minutes to write about what your obsession is (or you could also call it your vision)

2. Now write down what actions you need to take to make it a reality.

3. Come up with a plan on how to execute this plan on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and execute the plan.

For MrBeast, it was becoming the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.

He did everything possible to make it happen like reinvesting all his money back into his videos, learning & improving from every video he makes, collaborating with other creators to learn from them, etc.

2️⃣ Re-investing everything back

MrBeast emphasises a lot on re-investing everything he makes back into his YouTube channel.

His earliest examples were from when he first started making money from YouTube Adsense.

He was making $1/day and saved for a whole month to buy a microphone - which is pretty cool for a 16 year old.

Then he saved for half a year and bought a new computer.

Even to this day, he's spending more money than he's making from his channels and the reason for that is he's simply focused on one goal - Becoming the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.

Which he accomplished last week 🎉.

🤯 Fun fact: In one of his recent podcast appearances he said he's spending over $120,000,000 just this year (2024) to make YouTube videos.

Before takeaways, let's talk disclaimers:

MrBeast was a kid when he got started and it created the opportunity for him to re-invest everything he made back into his channel.

Now that his channel's grown it continues to help him with re-investing everything back.

But you might have responsibilities and you might not have the same opportunities as MrBeast but what you can do is invest the most amount of time and money possible to bring your dreams to reality.

It's not about how much compared to MrBeast you can re-invest but how much YOU can re-invest into your dream to make it a reality.

3️⃣ Build a community of like-minded people

In MrBeast's early days, everyone called him a "Freak of Nature" because of how obsessed he was about YouTube.

Everyone thought he was awkward and stupid.

He even went as far as to think that he'd never enjoy talking to people because the only thing he loved talking about was YouTube.

It all changed when he found a group of friends who were as obsessed as him about YouTube.

Now he talks for at least 10+ hours every day about YouTube with friends, other creators, etc.

That's one part of the equation of why you need to build a community of like-minded people.

The second part is having a group of friends focused on a similar goal can help you learn at an exponential rate.

Because they can learn and improve from your discoveries and mistakes & and you can learn from all their discoveries and mistakes.

Here's how MrBeast puts it...

Imagine a world where it's just you working solo and you work 12hrs/day every day for like a year. You're grinding, you make a mistake you learn from it and you do that for like a year. Then imagine a different world where you have 4 friends who are also equally grinding in something similar. Friend #1 makes a mistake on Friday, he teaches the other four people. Friend #2 makes a mistake the next week, teaches everyone and you're all learning from each other's mistakes. You're all constantly studying 24/7 and downloading each other’s brains. Now, after a year you're two years ahead of the guy who was just solo. It really does make a difference.

4️⃣ There is always room for improvement

MrBeast is a perfectionist.

But the difference between most perfectionists and him is that it doesn't get in the way and stop him from publishing videos.

There have been times when he has decided not to publish videos after they were shot and edited but he continues to put out videos.

What he focuses most on is - Learning from his last video and improving in the next.

In one of his podcasts, he mentioned that somebody should ALWAYS be critiquing your videos...

There's no such thing as a perfect video. Someone should always call you and s**t on your video because it could be better. Imagine if someone does that for every video you upload. Hundreds if not a thousand of videos over the next 10 years and every single time someone's critiquing you, you're applying what they're critiquing. Imagine the compound effect over that time span? It's invaluable. But if you upload 100 videos and very few people are sh***ing on them then you just lost so much compound effect.

📝 How can you bring this into your own life?

1. You could have friends you trust and ask for their opinions/feedback.

2. Build a community of people who have similar values and goals - so you can learn from them.

5️⃣ Long-term thinking

In one of the podcasts he said...

If you want to be a YouTuber and you're thinking on the scale of 10 years. Like if you are grinding, you're obsessed and you're studying and learning every day. You surround yourself with smart people and work like hell for 10 years. There's probably a good chance you'll make it. But if you do that over the course of 6 months or a year, I don't know. That's why I like to think over the span of a decade. A lot of people are very short-term sided but you know as long as you're innovating, adapting reinvesting and if you do it intelligently you have good odds of killing it.

What he's saying isn't said by only him.

It is said by almost everyone who became successful.

Who built billion-dollar businesses.

That's simply the only way of becoming successful.

You could get "lucky" and make it in a year or two, but you can’t rely on luck.

You have to increase your odds of becoming successful if you’re serious.

6️⃣ You're an idiot until you're successful, then you're smart.

This was a quote by him...

The thing is you're an idiot until you're successful, then you're smart. It's just at some point you cross that tipping point and people go from judging you and being like "You're too obsessed, you're a freak" to "Oh wow, congrats look at you. You hire people and provide jobs, you're cool. Good job." It's like kind of blurry where that line changes.

This is similar to long-term thinking. This has happened and continues to happen with people with big dreams and ambitions and you have to learn to be okay with it, trust your gut and grind.

7️⃣ Collaborators > Competitors

When Lex Fridman asked...

You give away a lot of the secrets, basically everything about how you operate. How do you think about that? Because that's pretty rare.

MrBeast said...

I don't hold anything back. Most people in my position, I don't think would take this stance. But I just see everyone else as collaborators, not competitors. I don't think giving advice and helping other creators do well in any way harms me. I think it only brings more value to my life.

This is pretty apparent with how transparent he has been in all his podcast appearances.

Recently he took it to the next level with the launching of Viewstats.

It's a suite of tools for YouTubers which he first built for his team and now is available for every YouTuber in the world.

This is how people who get to the top operate, they are confident in themselves and know they have nothing to hide.

In an interview of Cristiano Ronaldo, Cristiano said...

I am giving you the map. You are willing to do that? It's the main point. Everyone wants to be Cristiano, but it's difficult. It takes discipline.

Those at the top are not afraid of anyone, they know what it took for them to get there and they're willing to share their secrets.

It's usually the ones at the bottom who think sharing an idea or a thought could ruin everything.

8️⃣ Constantly learning

In one of the podcasts, Samir asked…

What does MrBeast do for fun?

And MrBeast answered saying…

In a perfect world, I'd love to go hang out with Elon Musk or stuff like that but obviously, that's not possible. If I had like the perfect friend group I'd go hang out with other entrepreneurs and if right next door there's another YouTuber I’d just walk over there and be like “Yo teach me something.” that at the end is what I love the most.

That teaches us a great lesson - Have a hunger to learn something new.

Think about it like this…

MrBeast is the most subscribed YouTuber in the world, why would he go to another YouTuber to learn something? Because he knows there’s always something you can learn from another person.

That’s a skill that you need to build even if you want to become a content creator or not.

It’s an essential life skill.

This is just the gist of what he talked about in the podcasts, if you want to go deeper and learn more (which you will) - check out the podcasts below:

1. Watch this if you’re just getting started with YouTube.

2. This episode takes a more philosophical approach to YouTube.

3. The following two are great if you've been making content for a while and have a bit of understanding about YouTube

4. Watch this AFTER you watch the first Colin & Samir episode of MrBeast ☝️

I hope you enjoyed this week's read - If you did, share this with a creator friend who might find it valuable ❤️

Till next week ✌️

-Amaanath