Why Graham Stephan is Killing the YouTube Algorithm

Nearly every single damn video that Graham Stephan has posted in the last 5 months have well over 100k views.

Hell, nearly all of his videos on his second channel, not even his main focus, has over 100k views.

And when you see that “bigger” names in the space like

• Grant Cardone
• Valuetainment
• The man in the red suit that you all know, but I’m not gonna say the name of because it’s trademarked and #dontsuemebro

• Hell, even Gary Vee, the King of Social Media himself…

…Who have dedicated staffs of camera men, video editors, entire production teams with more subscribers than Graham can barely crack 50k views on their videos. (Gary’s more of ~75k views, but still)

When you see all of this… you have to wonder… What is Graham Stephan doing differently than everyone else? 🤔

So in this post, we’re gonna look at what I believe to be the key factors on why Graham’s channel is arguably the most successful channel in the finance, making money space, beating the YouTube algorithm.

P.S — the video above is the video essay version of this post

Part 1: Scarcity

There’s this myth that to succeed on YouTube you need to post as much as you can, the more content the better, so you might as well post everyday if you have the manpower.

Let me be the one to say that that is a big fat lie

One of the biggest differences between Graham and at least the big names I mentioned earlier is that where these big guys post 7 days a week… Graham only posts 3 times.

(yes, his second channel posts more but he only start that after he grew his first channel)

Yet, with less videos > more engagement > more views > more loyal fans that just keep coming back again and again > faster growth.

Within the next few weeks to a few months — Graham is gonna past these guys…

Think about that for a second — one man, planning, filming, and editing these videos by himself living in one side of a duplex to save money is able to out YouTube guys with entire teams behind them

Why? One word — Scarcity

Actually there are a few reasons but this is the first one.

Think about it from your perspective.

You’re scrolling through YouTube, you see just another video from Gary Vee.

And you know that it’s probably just some recording of a keynote he gave or a consulting session he did while filming at the same time and he’s not even addressing YOU, the viewer, half of the time.

The video sounds like it’s probably pretty interesting, but you know that if you don’t watch this one, there’s gonna be another one tomorrow anyways so it’s okay if you miss this one.

But then you come across a video from Kurzgesagt, AKA In a Nutshell, and you know that they only posts twice a month, a fraction of what Gary Vee and others like him post.

But not only that, you know that it takes them well over 400–500 hours to make one of these videos, that they actually put their heart and soul into each video to make them as perfect, satisfying, and engaging as they can be.

Or in other words, they’ve built so much trust, with you that the moment you see a new video from them, you instantly click and watch all the way through to support one of your favorite creators.

This is the same thing with Graham, albeit on a smaller scale.

Every video you’ve watched from Graham, you can tell that he’s made it specifically for you.

He didn’t just repurpose a keynote he did to save time.

No, you can tell that he’s making videos for the sake of making great, engaging videos just for his audience — not to always shove a course in your face or asking you to join their free masterclass.

And when you’ve experienced this multiple times, he’s built up a good reputation with you.

On top of that, you know he doesn’t posts as frequently as others. So when you see a video from him in your newsfeed, you know that if you don’t watch it, there’s not gonna be another one tomorrow.

And we value things that are scarce and in low supply, Graham’s videos are perceived to be more valuable.

And we see this to be true with so many other amazing channels out there:

Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell: 9.2 million subs, posts 2 times a month

3Blue1Brown: 2m subs, posts 3–4 times a month

ColdFusion: 1.8m subs, posts once a week

Domain of Science, Learn Engineering, The Closer Look, Vsause, and countless. of other. examples…

But perhaps my favorite example of this :

LEMMiNO: 3.2 million subs, but get this, posts one video, every 2, to 3, months

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Part 1: tbh

Let’s face it — we all dream of getting rich.

We all want the lambos, the private jets, the mansions, and it’s cool to see people parading those things around on YouTube.

But what’s more relatable?

Some guy with his own private jet or penthouse and Bentley using every chance he get to exaggerate and show off so that hopefully you will take him more seriously… And maybe even be a little jealous.

…Versus just a regular looking dude, with regular looking clothes, living not in a penthouse or mansion, but a duplex to save money, talking about financial topics that relate to everyone

Which is more relatable? Which is less intimidating to watch? And more importantly, which can you connect with more?

This one? Or this one?

My opinion? Definitely Graham.

You can see Graham is congruent to who he probably is in person — An honest frugal guy that is passionate about making money, business, investing, and real estate

He doesn’t put on a persona… …Like some other people do… He’s not shoving expensive courses or events down your throats.

And I think we’re getting to a point where people are starting to realize this, and gravitate towards people on YouTube who are more authentic and honest with their audience.

So reason #2 on why Graham is beating the YouTube algorithm? He’s just honest.

Part 3: Purple Cow

For the third reason, I think this lesson I learned from Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow, sums it up perfectly:

What was remarkable yesterday, is only average today, and mediocre tomorrow.

(definitely not verbatim lol)

See, when Graham was first building his channel, there were other channels in the same topic as him, but what made his channel remarkable compared to other ones is that he was one of the first to have this authenticity and transparency that we talked about earlier, with adding his style of humor into the mix as well.

The result? A breath of fresh air in the finance YouTube space. Something that put a completely different spin on what everyone else was doing.

And when you’re remarkably different, you stand out, you grow faster, people flock to you, you get a 2.5 million views on on “credit card unboxing video” (what?)

But if you’re just copying everyone else, you blend in with them and grow way slower.

In fact, I would say that every channel that’s grown super fast was because they were remarkable.

They chose to be original instead of trying to copy what works.

Case in point, if you look back at my older vids, I’ll admit, I was just trying to copy Graham too much, because I was just a big fan.

And because of that, I grew pretty slowly because it brings us back to the lesson from Seth Godin:

• Graham’s video style was remarkable, yesterday
• When I tried copying that remarkability, it came out just average, today
• And tomorrow, my old videos will just be mediocre along with every other copycat video on YouTube

And speaking of my channel, you can subscribe here 😀

So why is Graham Stephan beating the YouTube algorithm?

His videos are scarce, he puts his audience first, he’s authentic and not trying to put on some mask, but most importantly, his videos were remarkable.

But if we take a step back — isn’t this how we find success with anything in life? Putting the customer first? Being authentic? Being remarkably original? I think so. And if you do the same, based on all the examples I have, you will probably find success as well.

A couple of closing notes but before that, much like Kurzgesagt, these videos (and corresponding posts) just keep on taking more and more hours for me to make (around ~20 hours)

So in classic Graham style, put “I READ TO THE END!” in the comments below and hold down that clap button because it does help out a ton with the Medium algorithm (and you can do the same on the YouTube video if you want) 🐐

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If you want to see more video versions of posts like these of hopefully visually pleasing videos for the entrepreneur niche — consider subscribing to the channel, turning on the notification bell, and really, just you guys coming back because you enjoy my videos means the world to me.

So notes:

Are there other channels out there that don’t follow what I said to a T, maybe they post more often than 3 times a week and still have tons of engagement, views, loyal fans?

Absolutely, but what I’ve noticed going from a beginner to I would say around intermediate in the entrepreneur space, is that there are an infinite amount of ways to create success, however you define it.

When I was first coming up I’d always want to know exactly how people did this and this and this. And “if I wear the same brand of underwear he wears, I’ll find success too”

…But it’s just not like that, just take the general ideas and cherry pick the extra fine details that apply most to you instead of getting caught up in them.

Thank you so much for reading to the very end and I hope this post gave you a better understanding of the success of someone like Graham and how you can implement his strategies.

You’ve been awesome, I’ve been Jake, I’ll see you in the next one ✌