I Blew Up a Shorts Channel in 7 Days! — Transcript

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1. 0:00This, is my shorts channel. It has over 50 million  views. Dozens of viral videos, and a formula
2. 0:06that goes viral almost every single time… But, that was in 2023… I haven’t posted
3. 0:12a single short since then. And  while I was gone… this happened.
4. 0:24Can you still do it? I mean honestly… I don’t know,
5. 0:29man. The stuff that’s going viral right now?  I don’t even understand most of it. What does
6. 0:33“6 7” even mean? So you can’t.
7. 0:43So we made a deal. In this video, I’m gonna  create a shorts channel, completely from scratch,
8. 0:47get at least 1 million views on a single short,  and do it in 7 days. Wait, 7 days?! Dude! That’s…
9. 0:54Steven: More than enough. People  do this all the time… Right?
10. 0:59Come on, people are waiting for  you. Alright, whatever. What could go wrong?
11. 1:18Okay, day zero. Before doing anything else,
12. 1:20we need to figure out what this channel is  actually about. Since we only got 7 days to
13. 1:25make our viral short, we need a niche that’s  already getting a lot of attention right now.
14. 1:34So for research purposes, I spent 3 hours  scrolling on youtube shorts… and instagram…
15. 1:39and tiktok. Look, I’m not proud of it, okay? But other than the AI slop, reddit stories that
16. 1:44definitely didn’t happen, and brainrot memes,  something kept showing up. Business stories.
17. 1:50Why this company does this weird thing that sounds  dumb until someone explains it and you go “oh,
18. 1:55that’s actually genius”. Stuff that  makes you feel smart for watching.
19. 1:58Like magnatesmedia docs, but  shorter... and lower quality…
20. 2:02I noted down the channels and videos  that we can get inspiration from.
21. 2:08Alright, now, the fun part. What this channel  should look like? Name, font, colors, art style,
22. 2:14animations, even the channel’s mission  statement… Okay maybe no need to go that deep.
23. 2:19I want it to feel like there’s a real person  behind it. Not a big media company or a
24. 2:24youtube automation guru. And the best way to do  that, is using a real name. Like, Heisenberg…
25. 2:30Always wanted to have a channel with that name. For the art style, I’ve got something in mind.
26. 2:37Definitely not inspired from Fern, by the way.  You can probably do something much better, but I
27. 2:41don’t have time to overthink this. Moving on. I chose a simple font, and a color palette,
28. 2:45tweaked the character with ChatGPT, made  a banner in Canva, and set up the channel.
29. 2:50Oh, and this time, I opened accounts on  Instagram and TikTok as well. We’ll come
30. 2:54back to those later. Okay, I think we’re-
31. 2:57Wait. Did you just-
32. 3:02You really think… you can build  a brand… with a domain like that?
33. 3:06You… you can talk?! I mean, Shopify gave me that by default.
34. 3:11And you accepted it? That link… It tells everyone that you
35. 3:14didn’t care about your brand. You didn’t cook. You  need a real domain that people can trust, dude.
36. 3:20Come on, is it really that big of a deal? No… You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to,
37. 3:24so let me clue you in. I am not a random creator  with a sketchy link, Isaac. I am the brand!
38. 3:32Uhh… A guy opens his store with some ugly default link
39. 3:35and you think that of me? No. I am the one viewers  trust. What would you think if you saw that link?
40. 3:41That he’s a scammer? Exactly! You think MrBeast, ishowspeed,
41. 3:45Dude Perfect, or Zach King use ugly default links? Probably not.
42. 3:49They all use a dot store domain for their  store. Your name, dot store. That’s it. The
43. 3:53obvious choice. It’s clean. Memorable! People  see it once, they immediately know it’s your
44. 3:58store and trust it. And when they know it’s  your store… I mean come on, it’s a no brainer.
45. 4:02You get more clicks. And more clicks…
46. 4:05Equals more sales. Not bad!
47. 4:07Okay, fine. What’s the domain we should get? You know. You know exactly what we should get.
48. 4:12Now. Say my domain name. heisenberg.store
49. 4:17You’re goddamn right. Just get your dot store domain with the
50. 4:22link in description for $1 for first year. And seriously, huge thanks to the
51. 4:26legends at dot store domains, for  sponsoring these unhinged ideas.
52. 4:30Wake up. What?
53. 4:32Wake up! You alright, man?
54. 4:37Yeah, I just… Alright, everything’s ready. Let’s begin!
55. 4:48Look, I’ve played these games before.  The algorithm can change, new trends,
56. 4:52doesn’t matter. The core thing that makes  a short go viral, that doesn’t change.
57. 4:56Make people watch, and keep them watching. That’s it.
58. 4:59So the plan for today is simple. We’re  gonna use my viral recipe from this video.
59. 5:04First up, the video idea. While  researching yesterday, I’ve got
60. 5:08a list of solid video ideas. They all sound  promising, but this one caught my attention.
61. 5:12It’s a trending topic. I even saw a few long-form  videos about it doing well, which is a good
62. 5:17sign. It raises an emotion in the viewer, and  everyone under 30 would relate to this, I guess.
63. 5:25I watched the original video, did some  quick research, and wrote the script
64. 5:30Voiceover, of course, ElevenLabs. Move into  Premiere Pro, and cut the silences. Great!
65. 5:37Visuals. I made some simple animations  in Canva, and got related movie scenes
66. 5:42from Youtube. I’ve already made a full video  exposing how I edit, so I’ll keep it short.
67. 5:47Put the clips together, add keyframes for  movement, auto captions with fast pacing,
68. 5:51trending music, a few sound effects, finish it  up with some cool effects for a fancier look,
69. 5:55and export the final video… Looks good.
70. 6:12Yeah, I think it’s pretty good. Why does it feel like something’s
71. 6:16missing though… Anyways! I published it on the channel.
72. 6:19Oh, almost forgot about tiktok and instagram.  I shared the video on there as well,
73. 6:23but let’s not focus on those for now.  It’s a shorts challenge, right? We’ve
74. 6:27got enough things to worry about right now.  I’ll show them at the end though, no worries.
75. 6:30I closed my laptop, and…  time to wait for the views…
76. 6:47Alright, not bad for the first day. I’ve  seen worse. We probably need to give it
77. 6:51more time. Let’s look at the analytics though. Oh… Well, that’s not a great sign. On my old
78. 7:01channel, a viral video would get above  80% swipe rate, and 90% retention. So
79. 7:06I guess the chances of this short going viral,  statistically speaking… is pretty low right now.
80. 7:21Okay, that was expected. I’ve been off  shorts for 3 years. Of course the first
81. 7:25one wasn’t gonna be perfect. Let’s just  analyze it and see how we can fix it.
82. 7:29Problem one. The topic sounds good on  paper, but the average person opens
83. 7:34shorts to get some quick dopamine hit during  his break. Watching a video about why he’s
84. 7:38doomed might not be a bright idea, heheh. So my next video idea is about a weird rule
85. 7:43in Brazil prisons, where inmates can reduce  their sentence by reading books. Pretty weird,
86. 7:47if you ask me. And it’s kinda fits our niche,  if you assume the government is a business…?
87. 7:51But the video idea wasn’t the only issue here. Problem two. In the intro, even though I thought
88. 7:57people would be shocked by the data, and  therefore keep watching, that doesn’t seem
89. 8:01like working either. No stakes. And no reason to  care. We need something better for the next intro.
90. 8:06Problem three. No real payoff at the  end. We gave no solution or anything
91. 8:10at the end. Just one of my terrible jokes… Not  everybody has a good sense of humor like you…
92. 8:14Would you want me to rewrite  the script for better- wait…
93. 8:17You didn’t see that. Anyways, we got our
94. 8:20points for improvement. So I wrote the new  script, better hook, and an actual ending.
95. 8:24Now, while doing all this, I watched similar  videos from other youtubers… to see what
96. 8:28they’re actually doing to go viral. And a few of them mentioned something.
97. 8:31You just take the transcript of a video that  already went viral, feed it into ChatGPT,
98. 8:35and ask it to write a new script on a  different topic based on that structure…
99. 8:41That’s actually good. But why does it… And we do our thing again. Voiceover,
100. 8:45footage, animations, editing,  captions, music, sound effects, and…
101. 8:51done. Now, it’s time to… wait… You know,
102. 9:07I actually don’t wanna give up on that first  video. The algorithm probably couldn’t find
103. 9:11its audience yet. Sometimes it just needs  a day to warm up. Yeah. Let’s hold this
104. 9:15for an extra day. I have a feeling about this… Okay this was a dumb idea. But that’s fine. We
105. 9:28still have time. I got this. And now, we wait again…
106. 9:47I told you. 21k. In 24 hours! The  analytics are even better. 80% swipe rate,
107. 9:53and 96% retention! We even started getting  some comments and subscribers as well.
108. 9:58We definitely did something good  here. The optimized script idea was
109. 10:01the secret sauce. If I still know  something about youtube shorts,
110. 10:05this short may even get us to 1 million views. Not gonna lie, my confidence was pretty low
111. 10:09after the first video flopped. But seeing  this gave me the dopamine boost I needed.
112. 10:14So… the only logical step from here?  We do it again. And we do it better.
113. 10:19The next video, why Yamaha makes  everything. Pianos, motorcycles,
114. 10:23jet skis, flutes, even bathtubs! Yeah, I didn’t  know that either. Hopefully, there are around 1
115. 10:29million uneducated people out there like me. Same process. Video idea and Zack D Films
116. 10:34transcript goes in, the optimized script goes  out. Man, how were we living before this thing…
117. 10:40Voiceover, cut silences, and for the visuals,  since we already got our winning formula,
118. 10:44let’s go a bit further this time. I spent  an extra hour to find actual footage,
119. 10:48make better animations, and give the edit  that extra polish. You know the rest.
120. 11:05Yeah. This could be the one.
121. 11:18Well, seems like we got our first push.  Not bad. Let’s check out the metrics.
122. 11:23Wait, what? That doesn’t make  sense. We did everything right!
123. 11:27Okay, what about the Brazil video? Last  time I checked it was still getting views.
124. 11:31Alright. Something’s definitely wrong here.  So I went back to the drawing board again.
125. 11:36And checked Zack’s video and mine side by  side, from the eyes of an actual doomscroller.
126. 11:41The script is definitely there. I mean  we literally yoinked the structure.
127. 11:45Which means, the only thing that makes our  short worse, is the visuals. That video got
128. 11:49pretty wild animations that keep you hooked.  Mine? Some random movie scenes and Canva
129. 11:54animations. That’s what I’ve been missing. But it won’t be as easy as stealing the
130. 11:58script with a single prompt.  That guy probably has an army
131. 12:00of professional animators working for him 24/7. I don’t think I can learn 3D animation in 2 days…
132. 12:07Dude, it’s 2026. What?
133. 12:10I mean, you probably haven’t heard this  small thing called… AI VIDEOS! Have you?
134. 12:14Yeah, but… it would look kinda… cheap. Come on, look around. You’ve been literally
135. 12:20using it to create these scenes. They  seem pretty good to me. Just saying.
136. 12:27Alright, that could actually work. But  we need a proper workflow to pull this
137. 12:30off. We gotta make this short completely  different from anything I’d made before…
138. 12:50Day 6. We just need 970,000 views. No pressure. For the final video, I chose the topic “how
139. 12:57Nescafe changed the drinking culture in Japan”.  You know, back then, japanese people weren’t
140. 13:02drinking coffee… at all. Then Nescafe came  in, and with some sneaky marketing tactics,
141. 13:07they made Japan the biggest coffee consumers on  the planet. I mean, cool topic, surprising reveal,
142. 13:13sneaky tactics. Perfect fit for the channel! I’ve been using Zack D Films’ structure almost all
143. 13:20week. But for this last one, I wanted something  different. So I scrolled a bit, and found this
144. 13:25new channel that’s blowing up. Seems like they’re  making videos about gambling… I mean psychology
145. 13:30behind human decision-making… Interesting… But we’re looking for their scripting structure.
146. 13:35As I analyzed them, three things stood out. One. They open every script by making the
147. 13:40viewer a character inside the story. Like a  roleplay game. And they immediately state the
148. 13:45main problem. So the viewer feels like they  got personal stakes in the outcome. And they
149. 13:49have to watch till the end to solve it. Like,  we don’t say “How did Nescafe manage to make
150. 13:53coffee popular in Japan”. We say “You’re a massive  coffee company, and you have a problem”. Now the
151. 13:59viewer is not watching a situation. They’re  in the middle of it. They’ll literally go
152. 14:03bankrupt if they don’t watch it till the end! The second thing, is that they unfold the
153. 14:06solution step by step. Like this. And the ending, should reveal the
154. 14:11actual story. In our case, oh it was  Nescafe doing this the whole time.
155. 14:15So I wrote the script around these. Added my  own terrible jokes here and there, asked ChatGPT
156. 14:20to optimize it further, made the voiceover,  and moved on to the final boss. Animations…
157. 14:26Since we’ve been using this low-poly  art style, we gotta go all in.
158. 14:31First, I asked AI to generate a shotlist. Yeah, that didn’t work… Turns
159. 14:35out we have to use our brain. So I sketched a quick storyboard, wrote
160. 14:39the scene descriptions, and generated the images. Once all images are done, I started animating
161. 14:43them one by one. And damn, these video  models are getting out of hand! Anyways,
162. 14:48let me finish all the shots. Day 7. Yesterday just flew by.
163. 14:56Even though it’s AI, animations still  take a lot of time. But it’s done!
164. 15:00Now we’ll just put it all together. Voiceover. Visuals. Keyframes.
165. 15:03Captions. Music. Sound effects. And… Honestly, this is the best thing we’ve
166. 15:21made this week. The topic is strong,  script is tight, the visuals actually
167. 15:25held up. Zack, I’m coming for you, man. So I published it in all platforms again.
168. 15:31And I started waiting… and waiting… and waiting… But deep down… I knew something was still missing…
169. 16:05Isaac?! Dude, what the hell are you doing? What?! It’s… empty…?
170. 16:14Dude, what’s going on? Bro thinks he’s Kung Fu Panda.
171. 16:20Wait… you’re serious. I did everything,
172. 16:23man. The script, animations, everything!  Everything the algorithm wants. But that
173. 16:29feeling… Something’s still missing. Something the  old Isaac had back in the day. My secret sauce…
174. 16:40Fine. You really wanna know what was your secret? The old Isaac cared about his videos. He wasn’t
175. 16:45making shorts to get 1 million views. He wasn’t  making them to win an imaginary 7 day challenge.
176. 16:49Or to prove himself to someone else, whatever.  He was making them because… it was just… fun.
177. 16:56Did… did I just spend an entire week…  copying others, just to get… views?
178. 17:09Dude! You alright? I was… just trying to show that I still have… it…
179. 17:19Pathetic. What?
180. 17:21I knew you wouldn’t make it. It’s a different game  than 3 years ago. Your time already passed, dude.
181. 17:33Maybe you’re right… What?
182. 17:36Or maybe… that was the point…