The Formula To Break 100 Million Views On Shorts (ft/ Jenny Hoyos)

Episode 580: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) talks to Jenny Hoyos, the 18-year-old who has mastered the recipe of viral shorts. They break down her step-by-step process for creating content that pulls in over a 100M views. Want to see Sam and Shaan’s smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5 — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (2:14) How to build charisma (6:35) The 4 criteria of a great idea (jumpcut) (8:48) Make it personal (14:45) Mastering the hook (17:29) Metrics (18:52) The first frame (21:09) Foreshadowing (22:37) Storytelling in one word is “change” (25:06) The But & Therefore Rule (27:21) Building the stakes (30:43) Craft the close (32:14) Steal like an artist (33:52) Figure out who's watching (36:46) Study the channel for outliers (39:28) Where is the puck going? — Links: • Jenny Hoyos YouTube - ​​https://www.youtube.com/@JennyHoyosLOL • Charisma on Command - https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand • Miss Excel - https://www.miss-excel.com/ • Infinite Ratatouille Glitch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tskvmb0HPDU • Steal Like An Artist - https://austinkleon.com/steal/ • Get HubSpot's Free AI-Powered Sales Hub: enhance support, retention, and revenue all in one place https://clickhubspot.com/sym — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  All right. Today, we're going to get smarter about short form video. Short form video is something I am mega, mega long on. Why? Well, I don't know. Have you ever seen Tik Tok, Instagram reels? Have you seen YouTube shorts? These things are taking over the world. So today's guest is Jenny Hoyos. She is a short form video genius. To be honest, I mean, 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, crazy stuff. She has just figured out how to make viral short form videos. So I wanted to ask her every question I could. This is an episode of me learning from her. The tricks. So how does she come up with ideas? Like, how do you figure out a good idea versus a bad idea? How does she structure the video? How does she script it? How does she film it?

• 0:44Shaan Puri?

  What are the elements and the hooks that make the video more viral versus medium viral versus low viral? Like, what is that knob? So this interview is me talking to Jenny Hoyos, a 18 year old short form genius who is going super viral. And she's going to teach us. So in the next hour, we're going to get really smart about short form. All right, let's do it.

• 1:12Shaan Puri?

  Let's jump in. What we're going to do is in the next, I don't know, 45 minutes, you are going to tell us the specifics, the tactical, the breakdown of how you've cracked the viral code. You know how to go viral Tik Tok, YouTube. Yeah. But you are 18 years old. You live at home in your parents' house. It's only been two years since you started doing a lot of the content that you're doing. I went scrolled all the way back and it started off not, not so great. But then now you're getting like 10 million views per video. You've had a hundred million view short. That's kind of incredible. What is that you? Is that what your, what your life is like? Give people a sense of who, who are you?

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you nailed it right on the head. Yeah. So I'm Jenny Hoyos. I'm a YouTuber who makes videos around the life of a cheapskate, I guess you can say. I guess you can call me like, you know, the anti Mr. Beast. You know, people call me Mr. Least.

• 2:06Shaan Puri?

  Yes, which is, which is amazing branding. I mean, we've had Mr. Beast on here and he's like, I spent $3 million per video. And I'm curious also, when you record, do you like, you know, we talked about Hollywood, if you ever see an actor in their van or their, their truck before they're gonna go do a scene, they'll kind of get themselves into the character, they'll get themselves into a state of mind. Nobody can bother them. Nobody should go talk to them. Like, they are getting in the zone. I'm curious, do you do anything to kind of get yourself into a certain state of mind? I remember there's a creator called Miss Excel that I love this story. I've pulled this many times, but she creates content of all things about Microsoft Excel, how to use it better. But like, she's super high energy. She's like dancing and doing other stuff. It's like dancing plus Excel. It's a weird combo, but it works. And she said something like,

• 2:50Shaan Puri?

  before I go record, I'm not like, you know, I'm not thinking about what I'm gonna say. I just get myself into a state where I, she said, I feel magnetic. Like, I just get my charisma, my, my energy up so high. And when I feel like I'm there, I run to my camera, I turn it on and I start recording because I believe, she said, I believe that all content is just energy transmission. It's me pushing my energy through the phone to you. The way I feel, I'm gonna push it through and then you're gonna feel that way, too. I love the way she described that. That's very much how I do this podcast. I'm just curious, not everybody does things that way. Is that similar to what you do? Or how do, how do you approach kind of getting in the right state of mind before you create a piece of content?

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, I love this question because I used to struggle with this so much. I was like, honestly, an introvert. Most people wouldn't like, see me as one, but like, yeah.

• 3:36Shaan Puri?

  The introvert with a billion views.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I used to do what Miss Excel did. Basically, what you said. I used to like, try to bump up my energy. So that when I film, I have like the highest energy. But now I try to have like consistently high energy throughout my day, every day. And I actually built that muscle by doing this thing for like a month. I would set up my camera for an hour and I would do a stand-up comedy show to myself. I I'm I'm

• 4:05Shaan Puri?

  Like improvised or?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, improvised. I've never like, I've never done stand up comedy. I don't know comedy.

• 4:10Shaan Puri?

  Like That's amazing.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  And I did that just to like, learn to not be scared to like, tell bad jokes and just like, be myself and natural. Then after that, I would like, record my entire day, almost. And like, it wouldn't even go online.

• 4:25Shaan Puri?

  That is fascinating. You actually did that. You would, you would, in the morning, you would turn on the camera and you would just do a stand up routine just to get yourself to feel confident, to be okay in the awkwardness, and to get your kind of like charisma reps in. Is that what you were doing? Like, people go to the gym? You were doing that?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Actually, okay, here's what I would actually do. This actually sounds cringe, because I've never said it before. There's this YouTube channel called Charisma on Command. So, in the morning, I'd watch that, right? And then, like, throughout the day, like, I would repeat, like, the, the things I learned in my head. And then at night, I would do the stand up comedy show. Like, throughout the day, I would try to record as well, just to like, get my reps in. But that, that's essentially what I did. I tried to like, build up my charisma and personality just by like, recording videos that no one's gonna see.

• 5:08Shaan Puri?

  I don't think that's cringe at all. I think that makes total sense. Um, whenever I see somebody who's good at something, I don't assume they're just good at it. I assume they've worked at this. And when you see somebody who's good on camera, or somebody who's got a personality that's really, you know, charismatic, I assume it's because they practiced being charismatic. Maybe they did it informally, just in school all the time, cracking jokes at the lunch table and whatnot, and that's where they got their 10,000 reps. But if you don't have that, or you're starting as a, as an introvert, or somebody who's bad at it, there is a deliberate way to get better, just like any skill, just like building muscles, just like becoming good at, you know, tennis, or whatever, whatever else it is. And I actually feel, I actually look for this. I look for things that are really valuable to have,

• 5:53Shaan Puri?

  but nobody wants to practice it. And even worse, um, people would find it cringe or lame if you said, I'm practicing this.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04Shaan Puri?

  Because I'm like, that's a gold mine. That is, we agreed it's valuable. Nobody really works on it. So I don't even have to work that hard to get great at it. To become better than most people at it, because most people are not practicing. And even worse, even if people wanted to practice, they'd feel so lame, or it's taboo, or it sounds cringe, or it sounds awkward to do it. That's a barrier to entry. Most people are not willing to do that. I hunt down those skills and I develop them. And it's really great to hear you at age 18, doing that same thing. That's really amazing. So you've said before, there's four criteria for an idea. Novelty, uncertainty, knowledge gaps, and complexity. Can you explain what this means?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Knowledge gaps is basically telling the viewer, I know something that you don't, which is why you have to watch. Or similar to, we were talking about before, how it's like, I did X, so you don't have to. And then uncertainty is basically telling the viewer that you're doing something crazy that you don't know what the outcome could possibly be. Such as, like, I recently made a video where I sold everything my family owns. There's so much uncertainty and how is her family going to react? We need to see their reaction to her selling everything.

• 7:10Shaan Puri?

  You know, I'm not so much of a TikToker or YouTuber just yet, will be soon. But when I write even a blog post, or a Twitter thread, or something like that, I will often put like the central curiosity gap. Which is basically, what is the person curious about? That I can put up front where they're going to want to read to the end to see the payoff. Mr. Peace does this in his videos too, right? And he did a video recently, which was like, I have people age one to 100, trapped in these rooms. And the last person out is going to win. And the curiosity is, who's going to win? Is it going to be the old person? Is it going to be the young kid?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  That actually is something that comes down to the video idea itself. Because when I'm brainstorming an idea, we want the idea itself to have so many questions that need answered. Because at the end of the day, like, content creation on YouTube, what piques people's curiosity is a problem that needs to be resolved at the end of the video. Or a question that's going to get answered at the end of the video. And that's what I try to do in all of my videos.

• 8:10Shaan Puri?

  So let's look at one of them. So 23 million views you have. What does $1 get you at Starbucks? Like, literally, the title is the question, the unresolved question.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:19Shaan Puri?

  I don't know. What can you get? And I guess it's more like, what's the most you can get for the buck? For the buck, right?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:24Shaan Puri?

  How do you get the most bang for your buck? That's kind of brilliant. Okay. Who has the best dollar menu? 3.1 million views, also unresolved. Which, which place is it going to be? And you can see, literally, the first frame is like you holding a dollar bill with Burger King behind you. And it's kind of like, you know, you could see what you're going to do. You're about to test visually. You could see you're going to test, what can I buy with this dollar at this place? So the unresolved question is kind of interesting. The other thing I like that you do that, I don't know if you have any thoughts on this, but like, it seems like you weave in your personal life or your personal stories. So it's not just like, 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, but at least the video is more like, I don't know. I kind of connect with you more. I see your mom.

• 9:09Shaan Puri?

  I like that you're buying your mom a gift. You're kind of earnest about it. Is that a tactic that you think about, you know, kind of a personal story versus just a generic stunt?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Totally. I think that's what makes the videos. Like, quite frankly, there's 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 like my personal life because it's more relatable. More people comments about it. That's how we get that returning viewership.

• 9:34Shaan Puri?

  So what's an example of a video you did with a story that you could have done without?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Okay, the best example I have was I have a video where I made a garden on a budget. And you know, and if you search up other people's videos making a garden, they were averaging like 20,000 views, like people who make gardening videos don't average high views.

• 9:55Shaan Puri?

  So what was the difference? How did you get, if a normal garden video, 20,000 views, your garden video, 20 million views, what did you do to juice that video up?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I told the story of how Ratatouille is my favorite food, but it's so expensive to buy it. But technically speaking, I could just make a garden to have infinite Ratatouille for life. And it's my, and it's my favorite food, so it just works out. And then also my mom, my grandma were helping me for a portion of the garden. It just interweaves so many things that the people can insert themselves into.

• 10:25Shaan Puri?

  Right, so you took a normal thing with medium to low stakes. You added your why, why I care about this. And the why doesn't have to be life or death. I think that's kind of important. I think, uh, you know, a lot of the YouTubers did it as life or death. It's like, this is, you know, the craziest stunt you've ever seen. And I think Ryan Trahan and you, I think you guys are very, very likeable because it's almost like low stakes, stakes.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Oh, a thousand percent, especially like now on YouTube, people are so used to like these high stakes. Like seeing $10,000 in a title anymore. People don't even know what that even means because they're seeing people like Mr. Beast spend a million dollars. So it's like, you know, people are just so numb to these numbers or these stakes where almost these low stakes are high stakes.

• 11:10Shaan Puri?

  Right, okay, so let's take, let's do an example. Here's an idea and let's try to make it better using some of the, some of the techniques. We'll just riff on this and see, see where it goes. Live, live improv here. Okay, so, um, let's say I want to make a video about me, um, me making dinner. So I'm cooking dinner. One out of 10, you know, video concept, it's not, not going to be the most exciting. Let's use, show me how you would make it better. So let's use either novelty, complexity, knowledge gaps or uncertainty. How would you kind of make that idea more interesting?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  I love this. So for me, if I was to make that idea, making dinner, right? Intrinsicly not intriguing at all. But what's relevant to me is how much of a struggle it is as someone who has like a health condition, right? So like, that's one angle, right? Then there's also the angle of like, you're doing it on a budget, which is what I usually do. So that now that that's even more of an intriguing angle, like trying to make a healthy meal on a budget. Cause healthy is supposed to be expensive.

• 12:09Shaan Puri?

  Right. Or it could be, um, it could be, I'm trying to make a fancy dinner, but I don't know how to cook.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  That too.

• 12:17Shaan Puri?

  Or I'm a total beginner, but I'm going for gourmet.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And then like, there's so many different layers. And I also love to do juxtaposition where it's like, okay, I want to make a gourmet dinner with leftovers from last night.

• 12:32Shaan Puri?

  Or like a Lunchable or something like that, right?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. Turning Lunchable into gourmet. Then, you know, all of these are great ideas. And then at the end of the day, it's like, which one makes you most excited?

• 12:42Shaan Puri?

  Gotcha. Okay, cool. And then the personal story part would be, why am I making the dinner in the first place? Why does this matter to me? What are the stakes? So you, we made the idea more interesting by adding the contrast, the juxtaposition, the complexity, the novelty. But then the personal story might be, um, 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, you know, I'm an adult now. I moved out of the house, but I've never cooked dinner for anybody. I've never hosted guests. I gotta do it.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  The story is even better now because there's even an angle where what if you, the video is something along the lines of like, you're going to turn a Lunchable into a Dinerables because Lunchables, they don't have a dinner option. It's just lunchables, right? And then what's even better is your mom would always, would never cook for you, but she would always give you Lunchables for lunch. So now for dinner, you're going to give her Lunchables. I mean, it sounds a bit complex, but like as you script it, you know, remember like with complexity, the goal is to like add layers to give people more reasons to watch. But you don't want to actually confuse the viewer. And that kind of comes back in with the way you copyright it because you want to say it in a way that's, you know, easy to digest and drip feed that context.

• 13:51Shaan Puri?

  Right. Yeah. I was, when, when we were hanging out with Mr. Beast and he was telling us about some of his video ideas, what I realized was I was like, man, the reason his videos can get a hundred million, 200 million views is because. It's a concept so simple, you could literally just draw it with a stick figure drawing and people would get it. Two people who don't know each other, trapped in a room for a hundred days. Winner, you know, if they, if they make it the whole way, they get a million dollars, right? These are like simple, universal, easy to understand ideas. The, what you just did with the Lunchables, Dinnerables thing is both the kind of like that, that amusement. Like I'm doing this just for my own amusement. I'm not doing this to impress you. I'm doing this to scratch my own itch. Can I, can I do this?

• 14:34Shaan Puri?

  And like, I think that's very likeable and also very simple to understand.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I turned Lunchables into Dinnerables. Visually, you can imagine that.

• 14:42Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, okay, that's great. All right, I'm excited for you to go make that video someday. All right, so we got ideas and how to, how to basically brainstorm to turn any kind of mundane idea into a better idea using, using those techniques. Though, actually pulling it off, so delivering on it. So what is the most important part? What's the first thing you do when you're, when you, you have the idea? Now, first thing you gotta get right in order for a video to pop off?

• 15:05Speaker 01

  The hook. And, and it, the hook is so important that sometimes I figure out the most viral hook isn't the most viral idea. So then I have to come back to the idea and change the idea based on the hook.

• 15:17Shaan Puri?

  When you think about hooks, I guess like what is the, what is the big picture advice when it comes to hooks? And then what is the tactical process you take?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Power words should be the first thing that starts the video.

• 15:30Shaan Puri?

  What's a power word? What do you mean?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Power words are things that will instantly hook people that are very strong words such as free, zero dollars, stole, or any like crazy word. Cause we, and the reason I say that is because I see a lot of people, like way too many people start their videos with, this is, I'm out. This is, is not telling me anything about the video. Like I'm, I actually scroll because it's like, it's, it's bad. As opposed to if someone says, free chicken sandwiches all weekend. I'm in. Where, where are these free chicken sandwiches? I was in the moment you said free. So that's the number one thing. You want your, your hooks to start with power words. The second thing is you want it to be progressing the video. The reason why this is, is also bad is because it is just saying a statement.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  It is not doing anything. This is blank, doesn't tell me what you're going to do. It's just telling me a statement as opposed to. Preaching to 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 even though the power words aren't until three words in, secret. It still works because it's starting with the action. I'm doing blank. I'm going to do blank. The story is progressing as opposed to a statement being stale. That's the second thing. And another thing that's very crucial for hooks or in your general like introduction of your video is to foreshadow the end. Your hook has to be so clear what the video is going to be about.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  You're not only setting up the video, but you're also saying what the conflict is and what's going to be at the end of the video, all in one sentence, which is very hard. But that's what a really good hook has.

• 17:08Shaan Puri?

  So I have an example here of one of yours. You have one that says movie theaters are overpriced. And you said, that's the hook. And then the foreshadow is, so I'm going to make a movie theater at home on a budget of only $5.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yep, exactly. You nailed it. You want your hooks to have the setup conflict and what the resolution is going to be all in one.

• 17:29Shaan Puri?

  What metrics in a video map to that? So like, for example, you know, on YouTube and a normal YouTube video, the thumbnail and the title matter. And you know that because you could see the click to rate, how many people actually choose to try to watch your video. When it comes to short form video, what metrics are the, you know, the top two that are related to idea and hook?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the idea slash hook metric would be the viewer's swipe away percentage.

• 17:55Shaan Puri?

  View versus swipe away. And what is like good? And then what's like amazing for that percentage, that that number?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've heard the average is 70, where pretty good for me is 80% plus. And excellent would be 85% plus. But for for for my channel, we average around 80, 85%. Which is not is very uncommon. Like, I think beasts is like at 75%. So I've heard.

• 18:23Shaan Puri?

  And then the second one is like the, so you have the viewer swipe away. And then what's the next most important metric? Retention?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Retention overall. Yes, retention, I'd say, because it just shows how how much the viewer enjoyed the video.

• 18:34Shaan Puri?

  What do you shoot for with retention?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  It depends on the video length, but generally you want to be at at least 90%. My team, we usually go for 95 plus.

• 18:42Shaan Puri?

  Wow. And again, I think for most people, it's like 15% or something crazy.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 18:52Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so the hook at the first frame, what about the visual? What works in the actual visual? Cause there's with short form, there's no thumbnail and people aren't really reading the title. I don't think so. What's your, what's your philosophy on how, what to put on screen? What that first frame should look like?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try to keep it as simple as possible. It's very similar philosophy to like a title and thumbnail, same psychology in a way where I try to keep it like little to no focus points, high brightness, high saturation. And we like, we'll go through, we'll go through so many lengths and measures and after effects and VFX just to make it like pop out just that much more. Such as like, sometimes we'll add artificial fire just to make it look crazier. Like one, in, in one of our shorts, I went to Hell's Kitchen, but that you don't really get that message across unless you actually add the restaurant on fire, you know? And it's like something as little as that.

• 19:46Shaan Puri?

  You're pointing up at the logo of the restaurant. It looks like there's a fire. Is that not real?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  That's not real. That's not real. People think it's real. Yeah, so we try to, we try to make like things really stand out. Even with the secret room, when I first hit the wall, I just dented the wall. I didn't even break a hole and we actually had to make a VFX where it would look like I made this giant hole. Like I broke a giant hole when reality, it wasn't a giant hole that broke. It was like a little teeny tiny hole because I had like a little small hammer. So it's like little stuff like that. We try to make, we try to enhance things to look even crazier in post.

• 20:17Shaan Puri?

  Interesting. And so what was the first thing you said? No, little to no focus points?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. So what I mean by that is we don't want any busyness to go on. I think, you know, it's a really good example. If you can show who has the best dollar menu, like in the first frame, just pause it and notice that that is not a real environment. Like we actually took myself, we rotoscoped myself and then we found a image of McDonald's on Google that was so much cleaner, that had no cars. The logo was clean, there was no trees, just so it could be perfectly like, just look perfect for the viewer. If that makes sense, that's what we try to do. We want the environment to look as clean as possible. So there's no busy points.

• 20:57Shaan Puri?

  So, all right, so great. So we've done idea, how to go from meh to good to great. We've done the hook, how to grab them by the throat, get that 80, 80 plus percent view rate. Now you said foreshadowing is the next part. What is foreshadowing? And how do you do it? Cause I, this is one that I've heard. Obviously I've thought about the ideas. I've thought about hooks. This is not something I do in my process. What is foreshadowing?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Foreshadowing is when you give a viewer the expectation of the end of the video. And the way I've coined it is you basically want to tell the viewer that there's an Amazon gift card at the end of the video, essentially like they need to watch till the end. Sometimes you'll have to explicitly tell the viewer, oh, you'll get blank at the end of the video. Usually a lot of my foreshadowing is implied. So who has the best dollar menu? It's very implied that by the end of the video, I'm going to tell you who has the best dollar menu.

• 21:47Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Essentially. And that's, that's usually the best foreshadowing. One that's like so obvious because it's within the hook and it's implied. But an even better, even stronger foreshadow and hook is when you have a mechanism. So an example of that is what does $10 get you in Miami? Now, not only do you know by the end of the video, what $10 gets you in Miami, but you also know what, how I spent the $10. Now the mechanism is actually seeing the money being spent because in the first second, you see, oh, she spent $2, we're at an $8 budget. And then a couple of seconds later, oh, now she's at five. And we have a sense of progression of where the video is going. Cause otherwise, if the viewer does not feel like the video is constantly progressing, then they're going to leave because they don't feel like, even though you said that there's something at the end, they don't know where the end is.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  So it's also very important to make it clear.

• 22:36Shaan Puri?

  Let's talk about storytelling. You have a great quote. You said, what is storytelling? Storytelling in one word is change.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:45Shaan Puri?

  Unpack that. What does that mean?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  I think the biggest thing is progression. I guess when I say change, I mean progression. So similar to what I was just saying, like the viewer wants to feel like they're constantly either learning or laughing even more, or they are building towards something. They don't want to feel like, you know, they're watching something stagnant, like they're just watching paint dry. 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. So I subtly did that in my short that hit 100 million views. So basically, I built a secret room with $0. And my goal was to have a secret spot to watch YouTube. And in the beginning of the video, my mom was yelling at me for destroying the house

• 23:30Speaker 01

  and how there's nothing under there, like, I'm crazy, what am I doing? And then at the end of the video, she ended up having the secret room and pretending like it was hers now. It was very subtle, but like, change like that is what actually made the viewers not only watch till the end to see how that gets resolved, but also re-watch the video again, knowing that.

• 23:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's interesting. And re-watching, that's like a big part of your strategy, right?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yes, it's number three. Number one is hook, and number two is overall retention, which is video progression. And number three is re-watchability.

• 24:02Shaan Puri?

  What gets somebody to re-watch?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  There's not that many things that get people to re-watch, so it's probably the toughest thing to do. So you could do Easter eggs, which is essentially like hiding little things in the video that people are gonna comment about and potentially watch again to see, like, did that actually happen?

• 24:20Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I do that all the time. I like a video, I open the comments, then they reference something that I didn't see the first time, so I end up watching it again.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:26Shaan Puri?

  And then I go back to the comments, and it's still looping in the background, and I probably end up watching the video three times.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that's one way. Another very easy way to do it is just tutorial videos in itself are re-watchable, because people, especially if it's on shorts, people are not gonna watch a tutorial once and automatically know all the steps. So usually, when you have specific steps or lists, or listicles is what it's called, it makes it very easy to re-watch. And then my favorite method is actually having twists in your videos. Because when you have a twist, now the viewer is gonna wanna re-watch the video with that new knowledge, knowing what the twist is.

• 25:03Shaan Puri?

  That's interesting. I like that. What about storytelling mechanically? So what are some techniques? I know you've talked about this, I think, the but therefore method, which, did you get that from the South Park guys?

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

• 25:18Shaan Puri?

  Explain what that is.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so but-so storytelling is basically adding conflict throughout the video so that it makes it more intriguing as the video continues. So an easy example is if I made a video going on a walk, let's say, very bad idea. But, you know, I went on a walk, and then it started raining, and then... I kept walking and then I kept walking and then like, like there's nothing, there's nothing new that's like really happening because it's just, you just keep doing things. It's like, and then this, and then that, like, that's such a boring story as opposed to constant conflict being created when you say, but so. So, for example, 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

• 26:04Speaker 01

  know where I am. So I went to pull out my phone, but uh, my phone is dead. So I started running and you see what I mean? Like the story feels more intriguing because you're instantly adding more conflict and you're instantly finding that conflict much easier by simply saying, but so.

• 26:23Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, 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 of the ands. They're like, this is how toddlers tell stories when they, you know, they came from, from school. It's like, and then, and then this happened, and then this happened. And then, then this, she gave me this, and then this, and then I got candy, and then this. And he's like, just cross out all the ands and just try to replace them with but, and you know, but so, right? So, but this, I wanted this, or I was doing this, but then this happened. So then I was forced to do this, but then I encountered another obstacle. So then I tried this other technique. And all of a sudden, like any story can become interesting just using that. Like, that's probably one of the highest leverage techniques that just changes the interestingness of a story. Another one is stakes. Do you use stakes in your story? I

• 27:08Shaan Puri?

  know, like, uh, you know, basically what's on the line? Why does it matter that you do this? Uh, I know a short is so, so small and lengthy, you know, you can't build it up in the same way you can build up a movie or a documentary, but have you used that? Or do you play with that idea?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love using stakes. And the way I see stakes is also like including a why, right? And usually with stakes, it's either like artificial or just like a personal why. But for the most part, I usually try to make like real stakes. I kid you not, like we always default to like what, what's actually happening in my real life that we can actually include as real stakes.

• 27:41Shaan Puri?

  So for example, in that secret room video, it's like 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 trying to build a secret room.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:52Shaan Puri?

  But then by the time you take the sledgehammer to the wall, the stakes have actually elevated. It's like, oh my God, she's breaking down her house. She better pull this off or else, you know, now you thought YouTube was a problem. Breaking the wall is going to make her mom even more mad, right? So you know, the best stories actually increase the stakes over time.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yes, and we want the viewers to be at the edge of their seats all the time. Like, I know this conversation is like primarily on shorts, but like even on like my recent long form, the stakes were incredibly high where I sold everything my family owns. And the stakes were basically like, this is what kept the viewer at the edge of their seat where it's, 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 make to prove that cash is better than trash. Essentially, so now like, it's like, it's a crazy idea. Stakes are high because she can get in big trouble with her parents. And then it's like, you know, when is she going to get caught? How far is she going to get?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  And while I'm saying all this, I'm showing clips of like me taking the microwave and a bunch of decor and moving furniture out of the house. And like, it's like, oh my gosh, this is legit. Like, this is crazy.

• 29:00Shaan Puri?

  Right, things are getting messy now.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like the, you know, even great TV shows, Breaking Bad, for example. So what's the change? He's a high school teacher, kind of a pushover, pretty boring life. Then he gets diagnosed with cancer. He knows he's going to die and that his family's going to be left with no money. So big stakes all of a sudden. Okay, but he's a high school teacher, so where's he going to get money? So he decides to, you know, deal drugs, basically to sell drugs in order to get money. But he doesn't know anything about making drugs. So he goes and he meets his high school, you know, former high school student. But that guy's a druggie, so he doesn't know anything. So this guy takes over and actually creates a proper lab out of it. But. The cops come after him, right? That's the story. And along the way, the stakes get bigger and bigger. At first, it was, he needs a little bit of money.

• 29:48Shaan Puri?

  Then it's, oh, the, you know, the dealer that he's working with tries to rob them. Then it's the DEA is after him, but the DEA is his brother in law. And it just goes on and on. And eventually he's running this empire and the stakes have gotten even bigger. Now it's life or death. And, um, you know, he's sitting on millions of dollars. And so the stakes escalated, which is why a lot of people consider Breaking Bad, one of the greatest shows, because it did that so well.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:11Shaan Puri?

  I want to recap. We started off saying, let's build the perfect short. We did idea and how you, how you could tag the idea to make it, take a, a idea and make it more interesting. Then we have the hook, the first frame. How do you grab their attention and get, you know, 80% of people to actually watch versus just swipe away? You have foreshadowing, which is hitting at what's to come, the payoff, the promise of what might, might come at the end. And then you have the retention, the storytelling, what keeps you hooked? What keeps you engaged? That sense of progress as the video is going on. Last thing is the ending. So what's the end of this perfect short that we're creating? What, what do you, how do you think about an ending? And how do you, what do you do in your ending? So I noticed some of them are kind of like abrupt. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a lot of people on short form content will sometimes not even give a payoff because their retention will be like crazy high because they would have no drop offs. But at the end of the day, there is no viewer satisfaction. If you just like, don't give a proper payoff. So my intention with endings is to keep it as short as possible while giving some sort of payoff, even if we have some sort of retention drop, because our goal is to ensure viewer satisfaction. So the next time the viewer knows, oh, she's at least going to complete the story at the end of the video.

• 31:25Shaan Puri?

  So not frustrating.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Exactly. So we want the payoff to feel so good. And the way it's called is, there's, there's a theory called peak end theory, where essentially you dictate your emotions or feeling or opinion towards something based on the ending. So like, just like you would watch a movie, you can be bored for the whole thing. And then like the last 30 minutes was really good. And those 30 minutes will dictate your feelings throughout the entire movie. You would say, that was the best movie I've ever watched, even if the first half, you hated it. Right? Just because the ending is the last thing that you remember. So that's why we want the endings to feel intense emotion. So just close it off with either a strong wholesomeness or like just the funniest moment in the entire video. And a lot of the times we like to do twists just because that'll have great rewatchability. Essentially.

• 32:11Shaan Puri?

  Interesting, interesting. So that's the, that's the perfect short. Now let's talk about the process. So, you know, you've done some interesting things. I, I've heard you talk about getting ideas. You're like, I got thousands of ideas for shorts. You know, steal like an artist. What does it mean to steal like an artist? And what have you done to kind of steal like an artist to generate lots of, lots of great ideas?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, stealing like an artist is essentially taking inspiration and rather than actually recreating video ideas. So for the most part, what I mean by that is I, I usually steal from like topics or like different movie techniques as opposed to like taking actual ideas. Cause I don't know, I feel a little icky doing that.

• 32:55Shaan Puri?

  Well, it's steal like an artist, not a steal like a thief, right?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:59Shaan Puri?

  Steal like a thief is you take the exact idea from something directly in your lane and you just copy it.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 33:05Shaan Puri?

  You copy it word for word, frame for frame. There's people that are doing that. Steal like an artist, I think is you find inspiration from things direct, but also indirect, adjacent spaces, right? And then you put your remix on it. You have to find a way to add your twist to that same base idea.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think the easiest example where I stole like an artist is I'm very inspired by like what Mr. Beast does. Like he genuinely is like changing people's lives. He is philanthropic, you know, he's making people happy. And it's like, how could I do that with the Jenny Hoyos twist? And it's quite literally doing what he does, but on a budget. I think that's like the best example, just like I, whenever like I want to take inspiration from someone, I try to find what's my unique perspective that I can add to it.

• 33:50Shaan Puri?

  That's great. You've also done, like built some tools, I think. You like scrape, you scrape data off these platforms so that you're able to analyze a bunch of videos and you're looking for some kind of outlier, I would assume, or you're looking for something in that data. Can you describe what you did and what you looked for?

• 34:09Speaker 01

  You know, like, like you said, uh, my team has built a bunch of tools and the goal for that is to understand our viewer psychology. So recently, our number one goal is to increase subscriber conversions because we have over a billion views and two million subscribers. Where the average person would have like 10 million subscribers. So we're like, okay, let's increase our subscriber conversions. And essentially what we did was we created a tool where we took all my videos and I manually labeled what I did in each of those videos. So some of them were labeled as had my family in it. Other videos were labeled as malicious content. So me pranking. Others were labeled as like wholesome and etc. Like,

• 34:52Speaker 01

  I just labeled every video, every video with any possible thing the video could be about. And a bunch of different like things we did, for example, if I mentioned YouTube or if I said subscribe or literally anything that could have happened, I labeled them manually. And then we put them in a graph and a chart to see the subscriber conversions on that specific video to find how I can maximize subscriber conversions. And doing something like that, we found that I double my conversions when I have my family in the videos and specifically when I'm making wholesome content where I surprise them such as like, you know, uh, giving my mom a birthday present. For example, we'd have twice the amount of subscriber conversions. But then, because we have these tools, actually, what's interesting though

• 35:34Speaker 01

  is, you know, if you don't have this tool, the average person would see on my, it would be like on my YouTube studio, they could be like, oh, you got double the amount of subscribers, so you should do that. But that's not necessarily the case because what we found was I got double the subscriber conversion, but 10x less the 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, which in theory means that's actually what's going to get me more subscribers. It's basically little things like this that we're building tools for to find how we can maximize views, retention, viewer satisfaction and etc.

• 36:12Shaan Puri?

  One of the other things that I really liked was when you described you were studying the platform and you're like, I will go look at a channel and I look at a short. And you know, if I see a short that has 10 million views, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best concept if the person on average gets 10 million views.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 36:30Shaan Puri?

  But if they on average get 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. Was that right?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah, it's all relative.

• 36:46Shaan Puri?

  How did you do that? What did you do? Is that manual? Did you just go channel by channel and just try to look at their view counts? What did you do?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, unfortunately, that was all manual. So usually the way I find these outliers is by going to trending every single morning. Every morning I will go onto the trending page and I'll watch every single trending short.

• 37:03Shaan Puri?

  That's like your morning routine?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my nighttime routine because it's like they change it.

• 37:10Shaan Puri?

  And my lunch routine. I'm always doing that.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. What's crazy is too, once you get used to it, you actually don't have to like just rely on trending because now my shorts feed is just a bunch of trending shorts because I watch trending every morning and night. Now, when I go on the shorts feed, I find trending like content as well. And then I have a swipe file, which is what I actually learned from the book Steal Like an Artist. And then I have a swipe file that I'll put all these things in if I want to steal like an artist.

• 37:35Shaan Puri?

  I want to ask you a couple more questions, tactical questions. One, audience, so do you, you know, there's, there's different theories in marketing. They're like, you need to have a persona or a target avatar. There's other people who say, I'm just making for me. There's other people who say, you know, you should do a market analysis and find the biggest market possible, then a psychographic analysis, what they care about, blah, blah, blah. All right, that's, you know, what do you do? You're actually winning. What do you, what do you do when it comes to audience?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I used to have my younger self as my avatars and you know, I think you can go pretty far doing that, but I realized if I want to get to 100 million subscribers, like I need to have multiple avatars. And now at this point, like I don't necessarily talk to one specific person. I'm just trying to cater to every audience. It's like, I guess, long story short, I used to do all that market analysis, but now I don't. So, yeah.

• 38:28Shaan Puri?

  So what do you use as the guiding principle now? Just like, what would anybody, what would everybody be interested in? Is that the different, a different question?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, the guiding principle is making content that's intriguing for kids. Cause at the end of the day, like, that's the biggest audience on YouTube, while making it mature enough for adults to also watch. So, you know, there's a lot of kids content where people are screaming. It's like, how do I make kids centered content that isn't screaming? And it's a little more like, natural.

• 38:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like, you know, Pixar did this amazingly, right?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:55Shaan Puri?

  Pixar did it, made movies that an eight year old and an eighty year old can both go and enjoy. And maybe for different reasons, but it's one product. It's one piece of content that just appealed to such a, to totally different age groups.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. And then it helps having my mom in the videos too. Like, I try to have her as much as possible because people can relate to me coming from a young perspective. Or people also watch us because they see my mom and they're like, oh, you know, I watch the videos. Cause it's like, it kind of reminds me of me and my daughter. You know, it's like, it gives the viewers multiple reasons.

• 39:28Shaan Puri?

  Give me your take on where you think this all is going. So, um, it's amazing that every platform is now short form video. It's amazing that people are getting millions and millions. You can, you've gotten a video with a hundred million views. That number is, is bananas. But also I think people are trying to figure out how to switch to long form. And a lot of people are kind of using their shorts to try to get to that. Cause maybe they sense that the shorts is not building as much loyalty or trust. You know, the algorithm picks what you see, not you going and seeing the people you've chosen to follow necessarily. So where do you think this all goes? Like, five years from now, what does this look like? Where do you think the puck is heading? Uh, or what are your kind of predictions for what you think, where you think the value is? Or what you think there may be some misconceptions other people have? Take any of that of like, where do you think this all is going?

• 40:13Shaan Puri?

  I'm just curious to hear your takes.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I feel like, I feel like it's going to be like the extremes that do well. In the sense of like, I think either short form content is going to be continuing to grow or really long form content, twenty minutes plus is going to continue to grow.

• 40:27Shaan Puri?

  Or really quick value.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yes, really deep or really quick, quick value.

• 40:31Shaan Puri?

  You kind of don't want to be in between.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. That, that's genuinely like where I think it's going to go. Yeah, I, I think, I think social media is going to kill Hollywood, honestly.

• 40:42Shaan Puri?

  So let me ask you about you now. So you, you're obsessed. Is that fair to say?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm, I have a very obsessive personality. It's scary.

• 40:50Shaan Puri?

  Do you get obsessed about other things? Is this the first thing you've become obsessive about? Or did you like get obsessed with some video game before that?

• 40:56Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed with, I get obsessed with everything. It's, it's a problem.

• 40:59Shaan Puri?

  It's a problem or it's a benefit?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  It's, it's both. It's both. Yeah.

• 41:02Shaan Puri?

  And what is your, what's your goal with this? Like, I guess, you know, people ask me this all the time. They're like, so when people get like a, like a million views or 10 million views, do they get money from that? Is that the, is, are you getting rich off this? Is that the goal with this? You're 18. What do you, what do you want out of this? What's your goal?

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm basically living to fulfill my childhood dreams. So as funny as it sounds, like I started my YouTube channel when I was eight years old. Like I, I am literally living the dream and like, I just want to keep like achieving my childhood goals, which is like, it's kind of cringe probably to say, but like, quite frankly, like that, that, that is the goal. And ideally like, honestly, like I really do want to inspire people to understand the value of money and to not be so spoiled because you know, when I was a kid, I didn't understand the value of money. And I would always ask my family for things and you know, like my parents being nice, like they would give me these things. And it's like, it wasn't until I got older, when I realized like, oh my gosh, like they're working so hard to make money. And I would be asking for these things like, that's not right. I don't know. Like, and I, and you wouldn't even need it.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  And I want to inspire people to like, live a happy, fun life without needing that much money, which is why like my content is centered around having fun on a low budget.

• 42:12Shaan Puri?

  See, that's interesting because I thought you were saying, I want to inspire people, because I'm going to, I want to be the biggest YouTuber and I want to inspire people who, you know, that you could make it as a YouTuber and blah, blah, blah. What you said was very different though. You were like, your, your thing that you do in these videos is about having great experiences, either, you know, giving a great gift or having a, creating a front project or eating your favorite food. But without having to spend a ton of money, being more resourceful,

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Yes, resourceful.

• 42:41Shaan Puri?

  Being more handy, being more sort of self-reliant versus, you know, money reliant. And that's kind of cool. I didn't realize that that was your goal. I'm glad you told me that. That makes me kind of think about what you're doing in a different perspective. And I think it could be a lot bigger if that's the perspective versus I want to be the biggest star I can be.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Totally. And it's kind of tough, though, because I'm going to be completely transparent. Like, I genuinely want to be the next Mr. Beast. Like, I want to be the female Mr. Beast, like, over 100 million subscribers. But I still want to stay true to that message, which is going to be kind of tough, as it's like, you know, Mr. Beast spends a lot of money to be where he is. Can I do that without? I don't know.

• 43:21Shaan Puri?

  Right. Well, that's the whole, that's your premise. That's your whole thing. So, um, all right. That's, that's kind of amazing. Jenny, thanks for doing this. Thanks for coming on. Uh, where should people find you? And what's the, what's the shout out? What do you want, what do you want people to do from here?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  If you want to work directly with me, feel free to email [email protected]. We can have a one-hour consultation call together and I will review your, your videos, your business. You know, let's, let's blow up on social media.

• 43:47Shaan Puri?

  Love it. Thank you, Jenny. Thanks for doing this.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, this is so much fun. I love this. Thank you so much for having me.