Sam interviews Jenny Hoyos, an 18-year-old YouTuber who has cracked the viral short-form video code with 100M+ view Shorts built around budget challenges and personal storytelling. Jenny breaks down her complete system: the four idea criteria (novelty, uncertainty, knowledge gaps, complexity), hook construction with power words, foreshadowing, but/so storytelling, stakes, and the data tools her team built to optimize subscriber conversions.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Jenny Hoyos (guest, short-form YouTuber)
Introduction: Meet Jenny Hoyos [00:00:00]
Sam: All right, today we are going to get smarter about short-form video. Short-form video is something I am mega long on. Why? Well, have you ever seen TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts? These things are taking over the world.
Sam: Today’s guest is Jenny Hoyos. She is a short-form video genius, to be honest. Every single Short she does gets like 10 million views — every single one. And it’s not because she was famous before, it’s not because she’s doing crazy stuff. She has just figured out how to make viral short-form video. So I wanted to ask her every question I could. This is an episode of me learning from her.
Sam: How does she come up with ideas? How do you figure out a good idea versus a bad idea? How does she structure the video, script it, film it? What are the elements and the hooks that make the video more viral versus medium viral versus low viral — what is that knob?
Sam: So this interview is me talking to Jenny Hoyos, an 18-year-old short-form genius who is going super viral, and she’s going to teach us. In the next hour we’re going to get really smart about short-form. Let’s do it.
Who Is Jenny Hoyos? [00:02:30]
Sam: What we’re going to do is in the next 45 minutes you are going to tell us the specifics, the tactical, the breakdown of how you have cracked the viral code. You know how to go viral on TikTok, YouTube — yeah. But you are 18 years old. You live at home at your parents’ house. It’s only been two years since you started doing a lot of the content you’re doing. I scrolled all the way back and it started off not so great, but then now you’re getting like 10 million views per video. You’ve had a 100 million view Short. That’s kind of incredible. Give people a sense of who you are.
Jenny: Yeah — you nailed it right on the head. I’m Jenny Hoyos, I’m a YouTuber who makes videos around the life of a cheapskate, I guess you can say. You can call me like the anti-Mr. Beast. People call me Mr. Least.
Sam: Which is amazing branding. Amazing. We’ve had Mr. Beast on here and he’s like, “I spent $3 million per video.”
Getting Into the Creative Zone [00:04:00]
Sam: Curious — do you do anything to get yourself into a certain state of mind? I remember there’s a creator called Miss Excel that I love this story, I’ve told this many times. She creates content about Microsoft Excel — how to use it better — but she’s super high energy, she’s dancing and doing stuff. It’s a weird combo but it works. And she said before she records, she doesn’t think about what she’s going to say, she just gets herself into a state where she feels magnetic. She said, “I believe all content is just energy transmission — it’s me pushing my energy through the phone to you, and then you’re going to feel that way too.” Is that similar to what you do?
Jenny: Oh my gosh, I love this question because I used to struggle with this so much as an introvert. Most people wouldn’t see me as one but yeah.
Sam: The introvert with a billion views.
Jenny: I used to do what Miss Excel did — try to bump up my energy so that when I film I’d have the highest energy. But now I try to have consistently high energy throughout my day, every day. And I actually built that muscle by doing this thing for about a month: I would set up my camera for an hour and do a standup comedy show to myself.
Sam: Improvised?
Jenny: Improvised. I’ve never done standup comedy. And I did that just to learn to not be scared, to be okay telling bad jokes and just being myself. Then after that I would record my entire day — it wouldn’t even go online.
Sam: You would in the morning turn on the camera and do a standup routine just to get yourself confident, to be okay in the awkwardness, to get your charisma reps in. People go to the gym — you were doing that.
Jenny: Actually here’s what I would really do — this sounds cringe because I’ve never said it before. There’s this YouTube channel called Charisma on Command. In the morning I’d watch that. Throughout the day I’d repeat the things I learned in my head, and then at night I’d do the standup comedy show. But throughout the day I’d try to record as well, just to get my reps in. I tried to build up my charisma and personality just by recording videos no one was going to see.
Sam: I don’t think that’s cringe at all. Whenever I see somebody who’s good at something, I don’t assume they’re just naturally good at it. I assume they’ve worked at it. When you see somebody who’s great on camera or who’s got a charismatic personality, I assume it’s because they practiced. Maybe they did it informally — cracking jokes at the lunch table, that’s where they got their 10,000 reps. But if you don’t have that, or if you’re starting as an introvert, there is a deliberate way to get better, just like any skill.
Sam: I actually look for things that are really valuable to have but nobody wants to practice. Even worse, people would find it cringe or lame if you said “I’m practicing this.” Because I’m like — that’s a gold mine. It’s valuable, nobody works on it, and the barrier to entry is that people feel too embarrassed to try. I hunt down those skills. It’s really great to hear you at 18 doing the same thing.
The Four Idea Criteria [00:10:00]
Sam: You’ve said before there are four criteria for an idea: novelty, uncertainty, knowledge gaps, and complexity. Can you explain what this means?
Jenny: Knowledge gaps is basically telling the viewer, “I know something that you don’t” — which is why you have to watch. Similar to what we were talking about where it’s like, “I did X so you don’t have to.” Uncertainty is basically telling the viewer that you’re doing something crazy, that you don’t know what the outcome could possibly be — like I recently made a video where I sold everything my family owns. There’s so much uncertainty: How is her family going to react? We need to see their reaction.
Sam: I’m not so much of a TikToker or YouTuber just yet — will be soon — but when I write even a blog post or Twitter thread I’ll put the central curiosity gap up front, so the person wants to read to the end to see the payoff. Mr. Beast does this too, right? He did a video like, “I have people age one to 100 trapped in these rooms and the last person out wins.” The curiosity is — who’s going to win? Is it going to be the old person, the young kid?
Jenny: That actually comes down to the video idea itself. When I’m brainstorming, I want the idea to have so many questions that need to be answered. Because at the end of the day, content on YouTube — what piques people’s curiosity is a problem that needs to be resolved, or a question that’s going to get answered. That’s what I try to do in all of my videos.
Sam: So let’s look at one. You have “What does $1 get you at Starbucks?” — 23 million views. The title is literally the question. The unresolved question.
Jenny: Yes. I don’t know what you can get. It’s more like — what’s the most you can get for the buck? How do you get the most bang for your buck?
Sam: And “Who has the best dollar menu?” — 3.1 million views. Also unresolved. And you can see in the first frame you’re holding a dollar bill with Burger King behind you, so visually you can see what you’re going to do — you’re about to test what you can buy with this dollar at this place.
Adding Personal Story to Any Concept [00:14:00]
Sam: The other thing I like that you do — you weave in your personal life or personal stories. So it’s not just “I’m going to do this crazy thing.” It’s like, “It’s my mom’s birthday and I want to get her a gift, and then you do the crazy thing.” The video is more connecting. I see your mom, I like that you’re buying her a gift, you’re earnest about it. Is that a tactic you think about?
Jenny: Totally. I think that’s what makes the videos perform, quite frankly. There are so many people who can do the same idea and it just doesn’t go as viral because they’re not telling a story. And that’s why I try to weave in my personal life — it’s more relatable, more people comment about it, and that’s how we get returning viewership.
Sam: So what’s an example of a video you did with a story that you could have done without?
Jenny: The best example is a video where I made a garden on a budget. If you search other people’s videos making a garden, they average like 20,000 views. People who make gardening videos don’t average high views.
Sam: So what was the difference? How did you go from a normal garden video getting 20,000 views to your garden video getting 20 million?
Jenny: I told the story of how Ratatouille is my favorite food but it’s so expensive to buy — but technically I could just make a garden to have infinite Ratatouille for life. And my mom and grandma were helping for part of the garden. It wove in so many things that people can insert themselves into.
Sam: You took a normal thing with medium-to-low stakes and you added your “why” — why do I care about this. The why doesn’t have to be life or death. I think a lot of YouTubers do it as life or death: “This is the craziest stunt you’ve ever seen.” I think you and Ryan Trahan are very likable because it’s almost low stakes.
Jenny: A thousand percent. Now on YouTube, people are so used to high stakes — seeing $10,000 in a title doesn’t even mean anything because they’re seeing people like Mr. Beast spend a million dollars. People are just numb to those numbers, so these low-stakes videos actually become high-stakes by contrast.
Live Improv: Making Any Idea Better [00:18:30]
Sam: Okay, let’s do an example. Here’s an idea and let’s try to make it better using these techniques. Live improv. So I want to make a video about me making dinner. One out of ten concept — not going to be the most exciting. Show me how you’d make it better using novelty, complexity, knowledge gaps, or uncertainty.
Jenny: So for me, if I was going to make that idea — “making dinner,” intrinsically not intriguing at all. But what’s relevant to me is how much of a struggle it is as someone who has a health condition. So that’s one angle. Then there’s the angle of doing it on a budget, which is what I usually do. A healthy meal on a budget — because healthy is supposed to be expensive. Or it could be: I’m trying to make a fancy dinner but I don’t know how to cook. I’m a total beginner but I’m going for gourmet.
Sam: Yes, exactly.
Jenny: And then there are so many different layers. I also love juxtaposition — like I want to make a gourmet dinner with leftovers from last night, or a Lunchable. Turning a Lunchable into something gourmet. And at the end of the day, which one makes you most excited?
Sam: Okay, cool. And then the personal story part is: why am I making the dinner in the first place? Why does this matter to me? What are the stakes?
Jenny: Exactly.
Sam: So we made the idea more interesting by adding contrast, juxtaposition, complexity, novelty. But then the personal story might be: I invited my mom over for dinner. She’s cooked for me my whole life. I told her I was going to cook her an amazing meal — only problem is I’ve never cooked dinner for anybody, I’ve never hosted, I just moved out of the house. The story’s even better now.
Jenny: And what’s even better is if the video is something like: you’re going to turn a Lunchable into a dinner equivalent — a dinner course — because Lunchables don’t have a dinner option. And what’s even better is your mom always gave you Lunchables for lunch, so now for dinner you’re going to give her that. It sounds a bit complex but as you script it — with complexity the goal is to add layers and give people more reasons to watch, but you don’t want to actually confuse the viewer. That’s where copywriting comes in, because you want to say it in a way that’s easy to digest and drip-feed context.
Sam: Yeah. When I was hanging out with Mr. Beast and he was telling us some of his video ideas, what I realized was — the reason his videos get 100 or 200 million views is because the concept is so simple you could draw it with a stick figure. “Two people who don’t know each other trapped in a room for 100 days, winner gets a million” — simple, universal, easy to understand.
Sam: What you just did with the Lunchables thing is both the amusement factor — I’m doing this for my own amusement, not to impress you, I’m scratching my own itch — and it’s simple to understand. “I turned Lunchables into dinner.” You can imagine it visually. All right, I’m excited for you to go make that video someday.
Hook Construction: Power Words and the First Frame [00:24:00]
Sam: All right. So we’ve got how to brainstorm and turn a mundane idea into a better idea. Now what’s the most important part of actually executing? What’s the first thing you’ve got to get right for a video to pop off?
Jenny: The hook. And the hook is so important that sometimes I realize the most viral hook isn’t the most viral idea — so I have to go back and change the idea based on the hook.
Sam: What’s the big-picture advice on hooks, and then what’s your tactical process?
Jenny: Power words should be the first thing that starts the video. Power words are things that will instantly hook people — very strong words like “free,” “zero dollars,” “stole,” or any crazy word. Because way too many people start their videos with “This is…” — it’s not telling me anything about the video and I actually scroll. But if someone says “Free chicken sandwiches all weekend” — I’m in. Where are these free chicken sandwiches? I was in the moment you said “free.” So that’s number one: start with power words.
Jenny: The second thing is you want the hook to be progressing the video. “This is [blank]” is just a statement — it’s not doing anything. It’s not telling me what you’re going to do. Versus “Free chicken sandwiches this weekend” — you’re already telling me the whole story. Or “I’m building a secret room” — you’re already telling me the action. Even though the power word isn’t until “secret,” it still works because it’s starting with the action. The story is progressing as opposed to a statement being stale.
Jenny: And another crucial thing for hooks, or in the general introduction of your video, is to foreshadow the end. Your hook has to be so clear about what the video is going to be — you’re not only setting up the video but you’re also seeing what the conflict is and what’s going to be at the end. All in one sentence, which is very hard. But that’s what a really good hook has.
Sam: So I have an example of one of yours — you have one that says “Movie theaters are overpriced,” and then the foreshadow is “so I’m going to make a movie theater at home on a budget of only $5.”
Jenny: Exactly. You want your hooks to have the setup, conflict, and what the resolution is going to be — all in one.
Metrics: Swipe-Away Rate and Retention [00:28:00]
Sam: What metrics in a video map to that? On a normal YouTube video the thumbnail and title matter and you can see click-through rate. What are the top two metrics for short-form related to idea and hook?
Jenny: The idea and hook metric would be the viewer swipe-away percentage — views versus swipe-away. And what’s good versus amazing?
Sam: Yeah.
Jenny: I’ve heard the average is 70%. Pretty good for me is 80% plus, and excellent would be 85% plus. But for my channel we average around 80 to 85%, which is very uncommon. I think Mr. Beast’s is around 75%.
Jenny: And then the second most important metric is retention overall. It shows how much the viewer enjoyed the video.
Sam: What do you shoot for with retention?
Jenny: It depends on the video length, but generally you want at least 90%. On my team we usually go for 95% plus.
Sam: Wow. I think for most people it’s like 15% or something crazy low.
The First Frame: Visual Philosophy [00:30:30]
Sam: Okay, so the hook at the first frame — what about the visual? With short-form there’s no thumbnail and people aren’t really reading the title. What’s your philosophy on what to put on screen, what that first frame should look like?
Jenny: I try to keep it as simple as possible. Very similar philosophy to a title and thumbnail — same psychology. I try to keep it little to no focus points, high brightness, high saturation. We go through so many lengths in After Effects and VFX just to make it pop out just that much more. Like sometimes we’ll add artificial fire to make it look crazier — in one of my Shorts I went to Hell’s Kitchen, but you don’t really get that message across unless you actually have the restaurant on fire. So we added a little fire effect to the logo.
Sam: That’s not real? People think it’s real?
Jenny: Yeah. It’s not real. We try to make things really stand out even in post. With the secret room, when I first hit the wall I just dented it — I didn’t even break a hole. And we had to make a VFX where it looked like I made a giant hole when in reality it was a teeny tiny dent from a small hammer. Little stuff like that, we try to enhance things to look even crazier in post.
Sam: What does “little to no focus points” mean exactly?
Jenny: We don’t want any business going on. A really good example is “Who has the best dollar menu?” — if you pause the first frame, that’s not a real environment. We actually rotoscoped me out and found a Google image of McDonald’s that was much cleaner — no cars, clean logo, no trees — just so it could look perfect for the viewer. We want the environment as clean as possible so there are no busy points.
Foreshadowing: Telling Them What’s Coming [00:34:00]
Sam: All right. So we’ve done idea, we’ve done hook. You said foreshadowing is the next part. What is foreshadowing and how do you do it?
Jenny: Foreshadowing is when you give a viewer the expectation of the end of the video. The way I’ve coined it is: you basically want to tell the viewer there’s an Amazon gift card at the end of the video — essentially they need to watch till the end. Sometimes you’ll have to explicitly tell the viewer “you’ll get [blank] at the end.” Usually a lot of my foreshadowing is implied. “Who has the best dollar menu?” — it’s very implied that by the end I’m going to tell you who has the best dollar menu. That’s usually the best foreshadowing: so obvious because it’s within the hook and it’s implied.
Jenny: But even stronger foreshadowing is when you have a mechanism. An example: “What does $10 get you in Miami?” Not only do you know by the end what $10 gets you in Miami, but you also know how I spent the $10. The mechanism is actually seeing the money being spent — in the first second you see she’s spent $2 of an $8 budget, and then a couple seconds later she’s at $5. We have a sense of progression. Because if the viewer doesn’t feel like the video is constantly progressing, they’re going to leave — they don’t know where the end is.
Storytelling: What “Change” Really Means [00:37:00]
Sam: Let’s talk about storytelling. You have a great quote: “Storytelling in one word is change.” Unpack that.
Jenny: I think the biggest thing is progression. When I say change, I mean progression. Similar to what I was just saying — the viewer wants to feel like they are constantly either learning, laughing even more, or building towards something. They don’t want to feel like they’re watching something stagnant, like they’re watching paint dry.
Jenny: The best storytelling is when there’s character development — change in the actual character — where at the beginning of the video the character started at one point and is now at a new point at the end. I subtly did that in my Short that hit 100 million views. I built a secret room with zero dollars, and my goal was to have a secret spot to watch YouTube. In the beginning of the video my mom was yelling at me for destroying the house. And then at the end she ended up having the secret room and pretending like it was hers. Very subtle, but change like that is what made viewers not only watch till the end but rewatch the video again.
Sam: And rewatching — that’s a big part of your strategy, right?
Jenny: Number one is hook. Number two is overall retention — video progression. And number three is rewatchability.
Sam: What gets somebody to rewatch?
Jenny: There’s not that many things. It’s probably the toughest to do. You could do Easter eggs — hiding little things in the video that people are going to comment about and potentially watch again to find. Like, I’ll like a video, open the comments, they’ll reference something I didn’t see the first time, so I end up watching it again. And it’s still looping in the background — I’ve probably watched the video three times.
Jenny: Another very easy way is tutorial videos. People are not going to watch a tutorial once and automatically know all the steps. When you have specific steps or lists — listicles — it makes it very easy to rewatch. And my favorite method is having twists. When there’s a twist, the viewer wants to rewatch with that new knowledge, knowing what the twist is.
The But/So Framework [00:42:00]
Sam: What about storytelling mechanically? The but/so method — did you get that from the South Park guys?
Jenny: Yes.
Sam: Explain what that is.
Jenny: But/so storytelling is basically adding conflict throughout the video so it makes it more intriguing as it continues. An easy example: if I made a video going on a walk — very bad idea — I went on a walk, and then it started raining, and then I kept walking, and then I kept walking. There’s nothing new happening. It’s just “and then, and then, and then.” That’s a boring story.
Jenny: As opposed to constant conflict. “I was walking, but then it started raining. So I had to find an umbrella. But I’m in the middle of nowhere and don’t know where I am. So I went to pull out my phone, but my phone is dead. So I started running…” — you see what I mean? The story feels more intriguing because you’re instantly adding conflict and resolving it.
Sam: There’s a great clip of the South Park guys doing this where they have a story written on a whiteboard and they just cross out all the “ands.” “This is how toddlers tell stories — they came home from school and then this happened and then Miss She gave me this and then I got candy and then this.” Just cross out all the “ands” and replace them with “but” and “so.” Any story can become interesting just using that. That’s probably one of the highest-leverage techniques.
Stakes: Why It Matters [00:45:30]
Sam: Another one is stakes. Do you use stakes in your story? What’s on the line, why does it matter — and a Short is so small in length you can’t build it up the same way you can a movie or a documentary. Do you play with that?
Jenny: Yeah, I love using stakes. And the way I see stakes is also like including a “why.” For the most part I usually try to make real stakes. We always default to: what’s actually happening in my real life that we can include?
Jenny: In the secret room video, the initial why and the initial stakes are you want to watch YouTube, your mom’s yelling at you saying you’re watching too much YouTube, so you’re building a secret room. But then by the time you take the sledgehammer to the wall, the stakes have actually elevated. Oh my God, she’s breaking her house — she better pull this off. Now you thought YouTube was the problem; breaking the wall is going to make her mom even more mad.
Sam: The best stories actually increase the stakes over time.
Jenny: Yes. And we want the viewers at the edge of their seats at all times. Even on my recent long form, the stakes were incredibly high — I sold everything my family owned. I’m selling everything without my family knowing, and I’m going to keep selling bigger and bigger items until they notice. But when they do, I’m going to give them all the money I made to prove that cash is better than trash.
Jenny: Now like, the stakes are high — she can get in big trouble with her parents — and then: when is she going to get caught? How far is she going to get?
Sam: Even great TV shows. Breaking Bad — what’s the change? He’s a high school teacher, kind of a pushover, pretty boring life. Then he gets diagnosed with cancer, knows he’s going to die, his family is going to be left with no money. Big stakes all of a sudden. But he’s a high school teacher, so where’s he going to get money? He decides to deal drugs. But he doesn’t know how to make drugs. So he goes and finds his former high school student, who’s a druggie. So this guy takes over and creates a proper lab — but the cops come after him. That’s the story.
Sam: And along the way the stakes get bigger and bigger. At first it was he needs a little money. Then the dealer he’s working with tries to rob them. Then the DEA is after him. Then the DEA is his brother-in-law. Eventually he’s running an empire, it’s life or death, he’s sitting on millions of dollars. The stakes escalated — which is why a lot of people consider Breaking Bad one of the greatest shows ever.
The Ending: Peak-End Theory [00:52:00]
Sam: Last thing: the ending. How do you think about endings? I noticed some of yours are kind of abrupt — is that intentional?
Jenny: A lot of people on short-form content will sometimes not even give a payoff because their retention would be crazy high — no drop-offs. But at the end of the day there is no viewer satisfaction if you don’t give a proper payoff. My intention with endings is to keep it as short as possible while giving some sort of payoff, even if we have some retention drop. Because our goal is to ensure viewer satisfaction, so next time the viewer knows: she’s at least going to complete the story.
Sam: Not frustrating.
Jenny: Exactly. And the way it’s called — there’s Peak-End Theory, where essentially you dictate your emotions or feelings about something based on the ending. Just like a movie — you can be bored for the whole thing and then the last 30 minutes were really good, and those 30 minutes will dictate your feelings about the entire movie. You’d say “that was the best movie I’ve ever watched” even if the first half you hated. The ending is the last thing you remember.
Jenny: So we want the endings to feel like intense emotion — either strong wholesomeness or the funniest moment in the entire video. And a lot of the time we like to do twists, because they’ll have great rewatchability.
The Process: Idea Generation and Stealing Like an Artist [00:55:30]
Sam: Now let’s talk about the process. You’ve said things like “I’ve got thousands of ideas for Shorts.” “Steal like an artist.” What does it mean to steal like an artist and what have you done to generate lots of great ideas?
Jenny: Stealing like an artist is essentially taking inspiration rather than actually recreating video ideas. For the most part, I usually steal from topics or different movie techniques as opposed to taking actual ideas. Because I feel a little icky doing that.
Sam: It’s steal like an artist, not steal like a thief. Steal like a thief is you take the exact idea directly in your lane and copy it word for word, frame for frame.
Jenny: Exactly. Steal like an artist — you find inspiration from things direct and also adjacent spaces, and then you put your remix on it. You have to find a way to add your twist to that same base idea.
Jenny: The easiest example where I stole like an artist: I’m very inspired by what Mr. Beast does. He’s genuinely changing people’s lives, he’s philanthropic, making people happy. How could I do that with the Jenny Hoyos twist? Quite literally doing what he does, but on a budget. That’s the best example. When I want to take inspiration from someone I try to find: what’s my unique perspective I can add to it?
Data Tools and Subscriber Conversion Optimization [00:58:30]
Sam: You’ve also built some tools — you scrape data off these platforms so you can analyze a bunch of videos. You’re looking for some kind of outlier, I would assume. Can you describe what you did and what you look for?
Jenny: My team has built a bunch of tools and the goal is to understand our viewer psychology. Recently our number one goal is to increase subscriber conversions. We have over a billion views and two million subscribers, where the average person would have like 10 million subscribers. So we’re like: let’s increase subscriber conversions.
Jenny: What we did was create a tool where we took all my videos and I manually labeled what I did in each one. Some were labeled as “had my family in it,” others were labeled “malicious content” — me pranking others — others were labeled “wholesome,” and so on. I labeled every video with every possible thing it could be about. If I mentioned YouTube or said “subscribe” — literally anything that could have happened, I labeled it manually. Then we put them in a graph and a chart to see the subscriber conversions on that specific video and find how I can maximize them.
Jenny: And doing something like that we found: I double my conversions when I have my family in the videos, and specifically when I’m making wholesome content where I surprise them. Like giving my mom a birthday present would have twice the subscriber conversions.
Sam: But —
Jenny: But what’s interesting is that even if you saw on my YouTube Studio that you got double subscribers on that video, you’d think “I should do that.” But that’s not necessarily the case. What we found was I got double the subscriber conversion but 10x fewer views when I do that. I actually get my regular conversions when I do “malicious content” but 10x the views — which actually means I’m getting 5x more subscribers. In theory that’s actually what’s going to get me more subscribers. It’s little things like this that we’re building tools for.
Finding Outlier Ideas by Studying Trending [01:02:00]
Sam: One of the other things I really liked was when you describe studying the platform. You said: I look at a channel and a Short, and if I see a Short with 10 million views that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best concept — if the person on average gets 10 million views. But if they average 10 and this video gets 30, it’s an outlier concept for their baseline. And then you looked at all those outliers to figure out the differences between great ideas versus just normal ideas. Is that right?
Jenny: Correct. It’s all relative.
Sam: How did you do that? Was it manual?
Jenny: Unfortunately, all manual. The way I find outliers is by going to trending every single morning. Every morning I will go on the trending page and watch every single trending Short.
Sam: That’s your morning routine?
Jenny: And my nighttime routine, because they change. And my lunch routine. I’m always doing that. And what’s also crazy is once you get used to it, you don’t have to rely only on trending, because now my Shorts feed is already a bunch of trending Shorts — because I watch trending every morning and night.
Jenny: And I have a swipe file — I actually learned this from the book “Steal Like an Artist” — where I put all these things in.
Audience and Avatar Strategy [01:05:00]
Sam: Let me ask about audience. There are different theories — some people say you need a specific persona or target avatar, others say “I’m just making for me,” others say do a market analysis and find the biggest market possible. You are actually winning. What do you do when it comes to audience?
Jenny: I used to have my younger self as my avatar, and I think you can go pretty far doing that. But I realized if I want to get to 100 million subscribers I need to have multiple avatars. Now I don’t necessarily talk to one specific person — I’m just trying to cater to every audience.
Sam: So what’s the guiding principle now?
Jenny: Making content that’s intriguing for kids — because at the end of the day that’s the biggest audience on YouTube — while making it mature enough for adults to also watch. There’s a lot of kids content where people are screaming. How do I make kid-centered content that isn’t screaming and is a little more natural?
Sam: Like Pixar did this amazingly. They made movies that an eight-year-old and an eighty-year-old can both go enjoy, maybe for different reasons. One product that appealed to totally different age groups.
Jenny: Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. And it helps having my mom in the videos too. People can relate to me from a young perspective, or people watch us because they see my mom and they’re like, “It reminds me of me and my daughter.”
Where Is Short-Form Video Going? [01:08:00]
Sam: Give me your take on where you think this all is going. It’s amazing that every platform is now short-form video. People are figuring out how to switch to long form, using their Shorts to try to get there because maybe the Shorts aren’t building as much loyalty or trust. The algorithm picks what you see, not necessarily people you’ve chosen to follow. Where do you think the puck is heading? What are your predictions?
Jenny: I feel like it’s going to be the extremes that do well. Either short-form content is going to continue to grow, or really long-form content — 20 minutes plus. Really quick value or really deep value.
Sam: Kind of don’t want to be in between.
Jenny: Exactly. That’s genuinely where I think it’s going.
Sam: I think social media is going to kill Hollywood, honestly.
Jenny’s Goals and What Drives Her [01:10:00]
Sam: Let me ask you about you now. You’re obsessed — is that fair to say?
Jenny: Yes. I have a very obsessive personality. It’s scary.
Sam: Did you get obsessed with other things before this? Is this the first thing you’ve become obsessive about, or did you get obsessed with some video game first?
Jenny: I get obsessed with everything. It’s a problem.
Sam: Or it’s a benefit.
Jenny: It’s both. It’s both.
Sam: What’s your goal with this? People ask me all the time — when people get a million views or 10 million views, do they get money? Are you getting rich? You’re 18. What do you want out of this?
Jenny: I’m basically living to fulfill my childhood dreams. I started my YouTube channel when I was 8 years old — I am literally living the dream. I want to keep achieving my childhood goals.
Jenny: And ideally, honestly, I really do want to inspire people to understand the value of money and to not be so spoiled. When I was a kid I didn’t understand the value of money. I would always ask my family for things and my parents, being nice, would give me these things. And it wasn’t until I got older that I realized — oh my gosh, they’re working so hard to make money and I was asking for things I didn’t even need. I want to inspire people to live a happy, fun life without needing that much money. Which is why my content is centered around having fun on a low budget.
Sam: See, that’s interesting because I thought you were going to say “I want to inspire people because I want to be the biggest YouTuber.” What you said was very different. Your thing in these videos is about having great experiences — giving a great gift, creating a fun project, eating your favorite food — without having to spend a ton of money. Being more resourceful, more handy, more self-reliant versus money-reliant.
Sam: I think it could be a lot bigger if that’s the perspective, versus “I want to be the biggest star I can be.”
Jenny: Totally. And it’s kind of tough though — I’m going to be completely transparent. I genuinely want to be the next Mr. Beast. I want to be the female Mr. Beast. Over 100 million subscribers. But I still want to stay true to that message, which is going to be a challenge. Mr. Beast spends a lot of money to be where he is. Can I do that without that? I don’t know.
Sam: Well, that’s your whole premise. That’s your whole thing.
Sam: All right. That’s kind of amazing. Jenny, thanks for doing this. Where should people find you and what’s the shout-out?
Jenny: If you want to work directly with me, feel free to email team@jennyh.com. We can have a one-hour consultation call together and I will review your videos, your business — let’s blow up on social media.
Sam: Love it. Thank you, Jenny. Thanks for doing this.
Jenny: This was so much fun. I love this. Thank you so much for having me.