How Garry Tan turned YC’s YouTube into a 70M-view media machine in just 2 years.
i cannot believe every VC is sleeping on this:
The YC channel was launched 11 years ago with a video of Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School (yes, nothing less than that).
It took them 9 years to reach 40 million views.
Then Garry Tan took over. And in just 2-ish years, almost doubled that:
But crazier, the number of subscribers went from 400k to 1.6M after Garry took over.
He has his own channel that has 8.5M views over 186 videos.
During the pandemic he had a strategy session with Mr Beast who told him:
Your “thumbnails and titles are garbage, they effing suck”
He was right.
The thumbnails and titles before:
The thumbnails and titles after:
The difference is astonishing.
And no, you cannot compare views like-for-like because the back catalog will continue to grow linearly (sometimes exponentially) as the channel expands.
This video from 5 years ago got 30% of its views just in the past year.
With the level of guests they have, they had a clear moat from the get-go.
But they only started capitalizing on it under Garry.
Since he’s a creator himself, he understands the codes and, having done it previously on his own channel, knew how to launch YC into today’s era of information consumption by the new generation.
He came up with incredible formats with Lightcone for instance. Great studio, and editing.
Even doing something as simple as a “coming up” with some highlights made a significant difference.
they’re also adding new formats like “Decoded,” on top of classics like “Startup School” and “Dalton & Michael.”
Plus, there are documentary-style episodes, like the one with Tom Blomfield—which is exceptionally cool:
They’re now competing in an increasingly professionalized title-and-thumbnail discovery feed.
Thankfully, they’re getting more kids to click on their quality content—and fewer to click on Alex Hormozi’s and other (worthless) gurus’ overly crafted thumbnails.
YC could definitely do way better with Shorts.
With the content quality they already have, they could easily turn each long video into at least two higher-quality, more dynamic Shorts by hiring skilled clippers/editors.
I recently met an agency that’s doing this for large channels and absolutely minting views.
These Shorts are generating tons of subscribers for the main channel, and you can link them to a video to funnel traffic from Shorts to long-form content.
For the long-form formats, every VC fund should take inspiration and do the same.
Hire someone dedicated to Thumbnails and Titles, and invest in producing higher-quality editing.
Capitalize on your founders and guests to start driving insane awareness:
Let’s take a look at how terrible some of these competing VC channels are.
1. Antler:
650 videos for 500K views. Average view count is embarrassing, as well as the Thumbnails’ (those colors…).
2. Sequoia:
Guests are mind-blowing. Titles, thumbnails and edits (and views) will make you want to burn the channel.
3. Techstars:
835 videos only 1.5M views
Thumbnails are just powerpoint covers. I wouldn’t click any of them, even under influence.
4. 500 Capital:
I mean…
5. a16z:
The Ben & Marc show performs well.
But with the level of guests, partners, and startups they have, they could be pulling in immensely more views.
That said, it used to be way worse.
Still, 1,054 videos for only 8M views?
There’s so much untapped potential.
VCs are boomers, but they’re targeting founders who are Gen Z and Alpha.
You see the issue – a clear mismatch in how they communicate and advertise.
Even ChatGPT knows…
Let’s be real… I’m paying my YT thumbnail guy $5 a pop (he’s doing an excellent job). And for the titles? A modest copywriter could whip up something exciting or click-baity without breaking the bank.
I cannot believe VCs are sleeping on this.
Building a back catalog of extremely valuable content is essentially free passive awareness for years—awareness that might one day nudge a deal toward their fund instead of someone else’s.
And if that lost deal turns out to be the next Uber or Perplexity, what’s the opportunity cost of not investing a modest amount of cash into building these media channels?
The future generation of startup founders will emerge from listening to creators like @greg.isenberg, @garry.tan, @marc.lou, and other YouTubers.
For example, my extremely bright 20-year-old brother consumes 95% of his content there. Most of his references come from “influencer”-led channels on the platform.
