Well, we found a format that works. Our first airline sketch went viral on YouTube, so we made another one… and this one went viral too, this time on BOTH YouTube and TikTok, and doing much, much bigger numbers.

Here’s the YouTube version:

That’s three viral vids in a row.

I read somewhere that much of your success on YouTube comes from finding a format that works and then squeezing as much juice out of it as humanly possible.

Here’s how we found this format, and how you can find your own regardless of what medium you’re working with.

First, pick your constraints.

Before we started making any of these online videos, we set some constraints to guide us.

It’s kind of counterintuitive, but it’s much easier to create content and assets consistently if you’ve set up walls to bounce around in.

Our goal is simple:

Make two or three short (15-90 seconds) sketch comedy videos per week for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Boom, that’s our medium constraint. It seems pretty simple, but I find it helpful to write it down. As Charlie Munger says: “A majority of life’s errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do.”

Now, there are also a few brand constraints Tara and I have. All our content is funny and light. Not mean, not cynical, and always punching up.

With those medium and content constraints guiding us, it’s time to iterate.

Iterate within your format.

Iteration just means making something, testing it, improving it, and repeating that process over and over.

Tara and I made 25 videos before one went viral. That means we iterated 25 times. We played with length, content type, and style before finding something that really worked.

Now, does that mean all the previous videos were a waste of time? God no! Over those 24 videos, we were getting better.

I was getting better at editing. Tara and I were getting better at writing. We were getting a better sense of the topics that resonate and the ones that don’t. We were collecting information based on real-world feedback and using it to improve.

And at the same time, the algorithm was collecting information about us to try and find our audience.

This is one thing people often don’t understand. No video is wasted (even if it doesn’t perform the way you want it to) because it helps your distribution channel understand what you’re making and who you’re making it for.

And that takes time. Most people give up when they don’t get immediate traction cause they think it’s hopeless and a waste of time. It’s not. You have to keep putting in the reps, keep sending your assets into the world and keep improving.

As Naval Ravikant says, “It’s not 10,000 hours, it’s 10,000 iterations.”

With enough patience, good things happen.

Repeat the working format to exhaustion.

At some point, something is going to break through. And when it does, you have to ride that format until it stops working.

The first thing I thought as soon as “ultra basic” part 1 went viral was: we have to make a part 2. And we did within a couple of days. The sequel has now done more than 10x the views of the first viral video!

Guess what’s next? Yep, part 3 is in the works and will drop this week. This is what I mean about finding a format and repeating it.

Now, it’s very natural to think you are going to exhaust your audience by repeating the same format. But you are wrong for one simple reason: the scale of the internet.

First, the average person consumes SO MUCH CONTENT per day, that your first viral piece of content is a drop in the ocean. It’s sandwiched between other pieces of content.

And when you do drop your next piece of content even just a few days later, your viewers have consumed hundreds if not thousands of pieces of content since they saw yours.

That’s why it’s almost impossible to exhaust your audience with the format that’s working.

So repeat, repeat, repeat until it stops.

Then try something new.

Thanks for reading.

-Thomas

P.S. This is the best way to…

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