The Startup Ideas Podcast - My reaction to MrBeast's LEAKED 36 page production document

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

My notes on mr beast's LEAKED 36 page leaked "how to succeed in mr. beast production" documentTimestamps:00:00 Intro01:12 Initial Thoughts02:38 Clarity of the Goal03:27  YouTube is eating all media:04:27 A, B, C player framework05:15 How to go viral08:21 Why isn’t MrBeast building the Y-Combinator of Creators? 09:12  He defines his own language. ie: lull, reengagement 11:26 Startup Idea 1: Audience and Engagement Insights Software for YT 12:32 Obsession is a prerequisite 13:13 Bias for Action14:01 Grounds Himself15:54 Constraint Fuels Creativity17:39 Always have a Backup Day18:54  Communication is key19:37 Leverage Experts21:55 "No does not mean no" can get toxic22:43 Meritocracy 23:27 His numbers are HUGE28:02 Keep things simple27:15 Work Life Balance Debate  28:20  What is the goal of our “content”29:37 Ads as Content30:18 Does his culture scale 31:12 His incentive structur  32:28 Final thoughts1) YouTube is eating all media:• 99% of TV shows would flop on YouTube• Platform-specific content is crucial• MrBeast: "We are not Hollywood"2) A-player mentality:• Only hire obsessive, coachable people• B-players can be trained, C-players must go• "There's only room for A-players here"3) Re-engagement strategy:• Hook viewers at 3-minute mark• Use spectacles that only MrBeast can do• Example: Carl watching Josh in prison video4)  Data-driven content:• Creators are data scientists, not just entertainers• 60M views = same as presidential debate• Obsess over audience retention graphs5) Constraints fuel creativity:• Don't rely on big budgets• Example: Year's supply of Doritos is more engaging than $20k cash• "Creativity is the answer, not money"6)  Communication is key:• Define when to use in-person, email, or text• No excuses, move on mentality• "Late" isn't in MrBeast's dictionary7) Consultants are cheat codes:• Leverage expert knowledge• Example: Call previous world record holder• "Consultants are a gift from God"8) Brand deal integration:• Make ads part of the content• Avoid boring, scripted brand mentions• Goal: No viewer realizes it's an adWant more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas 🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com/70,000+ people are already subscribed.To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up tohttp://boringmarketing.com/FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

So Mr. Beasts, how to succeed in Mr. Beast's production document just leaked. And I think it's actually really interesting read. I think that if you're a creator, you're an entrepreneur, you're a founder, you're working in a company, it's worth the read. Love him or hate the guy. I just think that there's something that you can take from this. And I posted it on Twitter. It got like a million views, 10,000 bookmarks. So today, let's get through my unfiltered analysis reactions of the newly leaked Mr. Beasts production document.

So I'm not going to read you all of this. You guys can read yourself while I'm talking. But I think I'm just going to give you my reactions to all 36 pages and what I find most interesting. So first is he doesn't call this a rulebook. You say this is not a rule book. and it's not just like a bunch of hey you need to follow these things but I find the most interesting thing is he's so casual about the whole thing I feel like it's a friend of mine who's writing to me and I'm just reading it's like

almost like he's texting me this he even calls out that there's grammar issues and I think that's really powerful it feels like he just like had a pot of coffee one night. I can just like picture it now. And he just started writing. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and he, he, like, published this. So I think that more companies should do this, have their founders. Um, just, just, just write what they're feeling about, uh, you know, how to do X, Y, Z. Let me take a sip. And as I'm drinking Coca-Cola Oreo edition. Don't ask me why. I'm trying it. And yeah, I'm not sponsored, obviously, but it kind of slaps. Okay, so that is page two.

Let's go to page three. So he says something here that's really interesting. He said, I can make a separate book for creative, a separate book for production, a separate book for editors, but I think that'd be dumb. I actually would kill to see what those separate books would look like. But I understand his point. His point is this is a book for everyone here, but I do think I would love to see that. And I wonder what you think would be in some of those books, too.

I love how clear the goal is for this whole document. He says, you know, our goal here is to make the best videos possible. All companies need this. All companies need just a really clear goal in English or whatever language, but like sixth grade, fifth grade, seventh grade, just really easy to understand. but this document is so simple that even a child could read it. And probably because some children probably are reading this. And I mean, I'm joking, obviously not children, but young people are reading this.

He makes it really, really simple. So page four, he says 99% of movies or TV shows would flop on YouTube. Now, that sounds really obvious when he says it. But I never thought of it that way. I guess, yes, every medium is different. What works on mobile, what works on different social platforms, don't necessarily work on each other. So the fact that Jimmy will call him Jimmy, even though I think there's two people on the planet, you either call Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast, or you call Mr. Jimmy. You know what, I'm not calling him Jimmy. We're going to keep it. I'm going to call him Mr. Beast because that's how, you know, I don't know him personally that well.

although I have DM with him a couple times. All right. Mr. Beast, he's got that YouTube blueprint, right? And I think that saying that to everyone that, you know, we are not Hollywood or different. What works there won't work here. I think is really, really smart. He says something at the bottom, which I don't know about. He talks about you're either an A player, B player, or C player. There's only room in this company for A players. A players are obsessive, learn for mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don't make excuses, believe in YouTube.

B players are people that need to be trained into A players. C players are just average employees. If you're a junior A player, I don't know. Could you be on Mr. B's team? Does that not work? I don't really understand his vibe here. And I think that there's some people that just are, you know, they don't come out of the womb as A players, right? They need to be groomed. stuff like that. So I feels like a bit much. I get his point, but let me know in the comments what you think of that comment. Page five. Okay, this is interesting. So here he explains how to go viral on YouTube in just a few words. So that's really cool. He just like breaks down like this could be a hundred pages. He breaks it down into basically one page. So on one hand, I think it's genius. On the other hand, I actually don't believe this applies to all video creators. For example, me, myself,

I create niche B2B business content. I create content around how to come up with startup ideas and tactics in terms of taking those ideas and chipping them. Some of my best videos are literally like two hours long and with like very little preparation, just like live cooking. I mean, this video, who knows? Maybe this video gets a million views, but it's literally just me talking about, you know, reacting to something. And it's not like super, super optimized at all. So I think for niches, I'm going to have to disagree with you, Mr. Beast. But for maybe if you want to be for everything, if you want to be a top 10 video creator, I do think he's right. Don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you

millions and I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-loving business is waiting for you. Page six. I looked at this. This is a key moment for audio and retention. And really the big thing that stuck out to me was that 60 million people clicked on his video. 60 million.

million people. We just had the debate in the U.S. here. Donald Trump, Kamala Harris. And that's like about the same amount of people who watch that debate, who watches Mr. B's video. There's more people who watch this video than live in Canada, the second biggest country on the planet. So that's crazy scale. It was also a big reminder to me that, you know, I used to think of YouTube creators as entertainers, but they're actually more like data scientists than they are entertainers. So when you look at the top 100 YouTube creators, they are obsessing over the data. And I think that was quite an interesting takeaway from this one. Page 7.

Here I'm calling out Mr. Beasts. Why isn't Mr. Beast building the Y Combinator of Creators? As you're reading this, you'll see. If he understands how to make people go viral and distribution is more important than product now, it's just from a, it's just easy, you know, it's easier to build product. You can use like AI tools and other software to go and create those products. But it's harder to get distribution. So I just don't really, like, why is he selling a Lunchables competitor right now with KSI and Logan Paul?

which he got tons of backlash for, when he could be building the Y Combinator of creators, building products, software, and owning piece of them. The other reaction I have to this is the idea of reengagement makes so much sense, but I had never thought about it. When he writes in here when he talks about reengagement, I just think that that concept, it's smart, and he's a smart guy, he gets it.

And he defines it over here. We also want to do something around the three-minute mark called a three-minute re-engagement. A re-engagement can be described as content that is highly interested that fits the story and makes people genuinely impressed. Another way to look at this is if it's a segment that only Mr. Bees can do this.

It's important to re-engage the viewer around this time because they could get bored of the story, and clicked off. These re-engagement are usually spectacles and sometimes needs lots of time and money to perfect, which, by the way, is a bit of his moat. Not a bit of his own, it's his moat. So it's interesting that he calls us out.

A good example of a re-engagement is when Carl was put in charge watching Josh in the $10,000 every day you survive prison video. Page 8. You know, I'm reading this, and especially now that I'm eight pages deep, I'm like, I love that this guy,

Mr. Beast defines his own language. You've got re-engagement. You've got Lull, etc. This is really a hallmark of someone who is exceptional, a founder who's exceptional. And I actually had an opportunity when I was about 21 or two to be in a room with a founder of a billion dollar e-commerce startup. He was the one who told me that I was in this brainstorm and I was like the young person there, you know, supposed to, you know, giving advice on social media at the time. And we, we, well, I just wanted to get right into it. And he was like, like, kids, stop, stop because we needed to find what, you know, so we're all on the same page, these five or six different words so that we can get to,

we can get, we can get to our goal. And so here you are, Mr. B is doing the same thing. And I do really like it. So in your life, too, by the way. define these things. Number nine, page nine. So look at this. This is literally like the product requirements for a software product. So I'll read a little bit. The shape of the audience retention graph can tell you which part of your video are most and least engaging to viewers. When the line is flat, it means viewers are watching that part of your video from start to finish. Gradual declines

made viewers are losing interest over time. All videos on YouTube generally take paper off during the playback period. Spikes appear when more viewers are watching, rewatching, or sharing those parts of your videos and dips when viewers are abandoning or skipping. Point is, someone should build software that looks at data like this and gives you insights and says you should do the following things. And maybe that's view stats, which is Mr. B's software creator analytics company. maybe that's where he's going with it, but I think that opportunity is a billion-dollar opportunity.

There's no question about it. Page 10. So he keeps talking about this. He keeps talking about being obsessed with YouTube, basically no matter what department you're in, is a pre-requisite to work here. And I don't think he's wrong. I just want to put that out there.

I don't think he's wrong at all. I think it's really interesting. Gets me thinking of my own companies. What does someone need to be obsessed with? What is the one thing that they need to be obsessed with in order for us to be exceptional at our work? That's my reaction to this page. I also have big points for him using ha-ha in the dock. Keeping it casual, my guy, keeping it casual.

Page 12, we're about a third of the way through. We're almost through. When I read something like this, this is a man of excellence. The word late is not in his dictionary. And this whole page really is about, you know, don't be late. And it's your fault. And, you know, it's important to have bias for action, meaning it's important to actually go and do things that you said you were going to do. And you can't blame people.

And he just has zero tolerance for it. Which makes me just believe it. I'm not surprised how he's able to pull off, what he's able to pull off. And you can tell how seriously, just by reading this, you can really tell how seriously he takes this. Page 13, I mean, this is a massive block of text. Seems stressful, but I get it. I like that he said he wasn't perfect here. You know, we see some humanity here.

You know, he says he's not perfect. I think that's an important thing to say. And I think I'm sure some people work for him and probably most. most people who work for him. They look at Mr. B says almost like a god, you know, and it's, it's great that he said that he's not perfect. He gets stressed. And I think that when he lays it out like this, it's just going to make his company run so much smoother because they're just going to, you know, you're reading this and you're like, okay, I kind of get this guy, you know, here I am working three, you know, he says, here I am, basically three, doing three full-time

jobs all by myself, little things like sending videos to people for birthdays. It's attending events, networking, all, et cetera, all add up because I'm the face of the channel. On top of that, on top of being the main talent, I have to work with each channel to make sure the creatives are basically evolving and not getting stale and in general be a visionary for them, basically running four channels at a high level, better than anyone else in the world can run one. We also have Beesburger, Feastables. Now he has his luncheables thing. and I still have to set the vision and be the lead and creative. So he's got all these things, you know, it's a lot going on, and it's tough.

I get it. I'm sure there's people listening to this that are like boohoo, Mr. Beast, what a tough life you live. But, I mean, listen, he's playing the, he's in the Olympics, right? He's doing it. And it's important that founders communicate. what's going through their mind. And here he is doing that. So I do commend him for that.

This whole page 15, I would have titled it, creativity, constraints fuel creativity. He basically just talks about how, you know, don't go over budget. You know, here, I'll, I'll say a little bit of it.

I don't think it comes to a surprise when I say we don't have unlimited money here. Actually, by the way, I think some people think that there is unlimited money. So it's good that he said that. We can't have every video constantly going over budget because the money has to come from somewhere, but you're in a tough spot because I constantly want better and better videos. By the way, this is kind of like there's like a Venn diagram, which is like the worst client,

which is I want things like cheap, fast and good, good cheap and fast. He wants Jimmy, Mr. Beast wants things good, cheap, and fast. fast. Well, that's tough. That's a tough client. So, sorry. Um, you know, employees. People always assume money is the answer and we just spend more money. We can give what Jimmy wants, which is wrong. Creativity is the answer. Here is an example. I use all the time about our gaming team. Basically, they'd love to give away money every video. But which sounds cooler to you as a prize for a gaming video, $20,000 or a year supply of Doritos. To me, do you? Doritos is much funnier.

So, Contraim feels creativity. He wants people to come up with great ideas. Totally get it. That's my little edit to this slide. That's what I would have said. And I agree with him. I mean, if I'm trying to create creative ideas,

I want the most creative ideas. Page 16. Backup Day. No one will ever have 100% success rate when it comes to filming our videos on time and on budget. It's impossible. but you can still do certain things that increase the probability of success.

And one of those is having a backup day, which is something I had never heard of, but it makes a lot of sense. Basically, the idea is have some buffer room. If you need to deliver on a Tuesday, you want to make sure that you can extend to a Wednesday if something were to go wrong, and you can make up for it.

So where is the idea of backup day been my whole life? Love it, smart move. When you're reading this, you know that Mr. Beas has gone into some tight situations where things got crazy. He probably spent a million dollars on a set and all these people and they weren't able to finish it.

And the owner of the chateau says, sorry, you've got to be out at 8 a.m. tomorrow. So he's talking from experience. I think that was a good slide. This could be one of the more interesting pages of the entire document. And basically he talks about how to communicate with other people. And most people don't understand communication. And most companies are pretty bad at communication.

They don't define what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it. So I love how he breaks it down, when to do in-person communication, when to do email, how to think about text, no excuses, move on, simple. I love it. I think that every company needs something like this. And it felt very human and, you know, reading it. So I thought this was really cool. This was surprising. This is probably one of the more surprising pages in the entire document.

He talks about consultants. consultants are literally cheat codes. Need to make the world's largest slice of cake. Start off by calling the person who made the previous world's largest slice of the cake. Lull. Love how he puts Lull there. He's already done countless tests and can save you weeks of work. I really want to drill this point home because I'm a massive believer in consultants. Because I spent a decade of my life hyper obsessing over YouTube,

I can show a brand new creator and how to go from 100 subscribers to 10,000 in a month. On their own, it would take them years to do it. consultants are a gift from God said no one ever, I don't think. Please take advantage of them and every single freaking task assigned to you. Always, always ask yourself if you can find a consultant to help you. I thought this is interesting. I also tend to use, you know, I don't call them really consultants. They're experts, right?

You, of course, you're trying to accelerate whatever it is you're doing as fast as possible. get the person that's done the thing that you're trying to do. I don't think what he means here is hire McKinsey or hire BCG. I think what he means is higher experts. And I think he's right. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called Boringmarketing.com.

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They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com. Page 19. So this was a weird one. It's a weird page. So no does not mean no.

So what he's saying here is basically you have to do everything you can to do the best possible thing for the experience. for the business and just push through things. So if you get a no, let's say, you know, you can't film here, you have to keep going. And you have to say, of course, you know, what can I do to film here? You know, don't take no for an answer is basically what he's saying. I agree with him. Like, you want that startup mentality. At the same time, you don't want to hurt other people, of course.

So I would say I agree with the spirit. of it. And I just think I would have put a little asterisk. It could get a bit hairy there and make people feel uncomfortable. So I wonder if you, you know, let me know if you agree with me there. Page 20. This is a short page. But the takeaway, he leads his company in a very meritocratic way. Do you get him a one on 10 on YouTube studio, which means, you know, your video is really outperforming? he'll love you. So he just, he wants the best and he's data driven. So if you're number one and you're helping, this is a guy who's going to go up to bat for you. It's my lesson learned there. Page 21. So I, this is his, it's cool actually that you can see this. So these are his top 10

videos in the first 45 days. The fact that like 44 days, the fact that he's getting like a hundred 98 million on his first one and 39 million on 10 is really interesting to see the variety. And like the lesson here is that and I've actually been learning this myself as I'm spending more time on YouTube is, you know, it's very, YouTube is like a hits driven social app. So you can see here that this is like the squid game in real life outperforming so much. you know, we're talking five times, basically. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. So I, you know, for him, this is like the difference between making a lot of money and probably losing money.

And then like when I look at my own, like these are my recent videos. I know, I'm a small, small YouTuber. Subscribe if you want to make, you know, if you're enjoying stuff like this. But you want more of it. It's interesting. I have like a similar hits driven model. I got a few at the top and then these are underperforming.

So it's interesting that the reason why I bring this up is if you're a small YouTube creator, this is relevant. This whole document is relevant because he's having the same problems that we are all having. And he's got big numbers, man. I just, you know, what clicked for me

after reading this starting, you know, this page and the last page is the difference between a title and a thumbnail is different between millions of views. And so he talked about like titling something catch up before. And just these little changes in title make a really big difference. And these little changes on thumbnail make a big difference. And it just makes sense that he's just, he's like an A-B testing God. That's what he does. I also, when I saw this together, all these together. It was interesting because they're like basically all the same

thumbnail. It's like all the same thumbnail with like a different image here related to the video. So this is kind of interesting if you're creating thumbnails like maybe I think most of my thumbnails have like right. I'm on the right side. Like they're not on the left side. Like maybe you should copy Mr. Bees because this is probably working. Okay. 23. Random things that you should know. There was one thing that bothered me about this page that I think could be worded in a better way. So he says, I'd rather you be honest with each other than nice to each other.

And he's talking about people on set. I think you can be honest and nice. And I think that you could create a more productive working environment in a happier world if you do that. So I think it's, I like Mr. Beast. I like that you want people to be direct. You want people to be clear. You want people to be honest.

at the same time, I think the way, you know, you want to do that in a pleasant, positive way. Or else, that's not a fun work environment and that, yeah, it just kind of sucks. So I'm going to assume that you mean that on this one. Because I do think that people can be honest and nice. I do think that, you know, I really like here, he says, me like simple, the simpler the better, the better. apply with the grain of salt in caps. But he keeps driving this point around simplicity home. And I really, really like that.

Page 24, when he goes in bold, he's basically like writing out things, almost like tweetable things and just like bangers. But yeah, you know, the biggest like takeaway for me is when I'm reading something like this is what would be the difference in the quality of Mr. B's videos, if people work 40 to 60 hours a week, just, you know, 60 hours a week is still working like really hard instead of 100 hours. You know, I'm not an all-nighter guy. I work hard,

but I do not believe in all-nighters. My, I started and sold three companies before the age of 30, and I don't think I've worked more than, you know, 40 to 50 hours a week. I just don't believe in it. I think that I'm not even talking about, you know, I just, yeah, I think that I need like reset time in order to be creative. So I don't know. I think great work can be done in a standard work week if you work hard. And if not, something is broken. So biggest takeaway for page 25 is, is he says, what is the goal of our content? And Mr. Beast responds to excite me. The goal of our content is to excite me.

I just didn't expect him to say that. I thought he would talk about like, there's all these people and we want to make them happy and people love our content. I did not expect for him to just talk about himself on page 25. So page 27, you know, he's talking about one video is 120 million views. The other has 45 million views. Look at these retention numbers and see if you can pick which one got triple the views. The point is he's back to data.

And I love it. I love that he's so data driven. That was a huge surprise for me. But I was wondering why there's no talk, you know, there's no talk around a metric, around comments and positivity around the comments. I know for myself, when I create a piece of content, yes, I look at, you know, views. Yes, I look at, you know, views. Yes, I look at subscribers. But the first thing I honestly look at is to see who's commenting. What are they saying? are they enjoying it and I don't know I didn't get any of that from

so what am I missing? This was really interesting so he in page 32 adds his content he basically says if you watch a lot of YouTube you'll probably notice that when someone does a brand deal

it's boring and sounds like they're reading a script we take a different approach to brand deals we like to integrate them and then he shows what happens with the brand deal So I just think that we all know that people skip advertisements. But if you can make it really exciting and make it a part of the content and just have no creator, that's when you're winning.

So that's what everyone should be focused on. So we got a few more pages. This is where I guess a bit unhinged. So HR definitely did not review this doc. And I'll give you an example. If talent wants to draw a dick on the whiteboard in the video or do something stupid, let them, assuming they know all the risks and aren't missing context on why it's not safe. Help them be idiots.

I don't know. Being stupid and having fun, definitely I get that part of the schick, but I can imagine that could offend people or go the wrong way. Understand his point and why it's important to the content. but I don't think it lays out a culture that most people would want. So I don't know if this scales and this seems like this can go bad. This is my gut reaction. And then the last page, your career, last but not least, he talks about people,

you know, the people who work for him. And he basically says that he's going to make you rich. If you do well and you create your, you're a. exceptional at what you do. You will be rich if you work for Mr. Beast, basically, is what he's saying. And you'll make more money than you could ever dream of making it any other company. So he puts that in words. He puts that in writing. And my reaction to that is I hear, like the sentiment I get. I think sentiment I get is just, I don't know, when I hear people saying stuff like that, I'm kind of like, okay, what does that mean for me? Does that mean I'm going to own 0.1% or 0.1, you know, 1, 2%. But I mean,

he can fire me at any time. Like, I don't know what it really means. But the sentiment around this is a big opportunity. If you do your job well, you know, this is going to be big. I totally get. And and he isn't, he isn't wrong on that. You know, if you stay there and I'm sure if you do a good job, you probably, you probably will be able to crush it for him. And that's the document. And I enjoyed reading it. Of course, I didn't agree with everything. That'd be foolish. But it definitely got me thinking about how to build a how to build a, how to build a, how to build a content driven business, how to think about, you know, getting your employees, your team on the same page. And it got me thinking I want to create a, I know it's not a rulebook, a not a, not. rulebook, rulebook, a culture document for my team. So I hope you got something out of this.

Hope that got your creative juices flowing. And if it did and you've retained and you've made it here, avid few durations long, hit us up with a like and a comment and a subscribe and I'll see you next time. It's been real.