Follow Paul:
Contact me. Ask Questions!
- Send me an email here: feedback@doug.show
- Leave a voicemail: (406) 813-0613
- Join My Email list
Meet Paul and the Pivot
Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to The Doug Show. I’m Doug Cunnington, and today catching up with my friend Paul Lipski. And if you’ve been paying attention to the last few episodes, I’ve talked about the AI backlash, sort of anti-AI kind of topics. And Paul is a local friend of mine here. We’ve hiked together a bunch of times.
We recorded a few times, and we actually have kind of a similar background. But Paul pivoted over to talking about essentially AI and new releases of different AI products and just all things AI. And here’s a quick sort of bio, the tagline on his website, pauljlipski.com. The Non-Coder’s Guide to AI. It says this: “Unlike a lot of YouTubers who talk about AI, I’m not a programmer or a coder.
I’m just a regular guy who uses AI in my personal life to streamline my business, then shares everything I learn.” Since 2017, he has published over 1,000 videos. He has over 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, And this is a two-part interview. So today, in this episode, we’re gonna talk about YouTube and his pivot, ’cause basically he was in a similar kind of situation as me, where he wanted to cover a different topic for various reasons, and he pivoted very effectively and his channel blew up.
When I interviewed him last time, he had about 130,000 subscribers or so. He has about 450,000 right now, which is pretty amazing. So the second part, which will come out next week, that will be more on the AI portion of it. There were so many things that I wanted to talk to him about. I was like, “All right, let’s segment this off.”
And there is a, a little bit of a blending of the topics because they do go hand in hand, but that is the idea. So today we talk YouTube. Next week, part two, we’ll talk more about the AI portion of it. And I didn’t, uh, take it easy on him. I asked him, I think, some tough questions, and I didn’t know the answer to those questions, and I’m glad that I, I knew Paul before because, um, it’s not like I was trying to sandbag him and, um, you know, get him in and ask him trick questions or anything like that.
But there were questions where I’m like, “Yeah, this is a tough question. I’m not gonna not ask this question because it might be difficult for us to answer.” But we talked through it and, uh, we had some laughs. We had a good time. Paul’s great. Always fun to have him in the studio. So I’ll send you to the interview now.
Please follow Paul, check out his stuff over on, uh, YouTube. And yeah, just subscribe to his channel.
Doug: Thanks for coming over. Today, we’re gonna talk about a couple topics, and we’re gonna kick it off with your YouTube pivot and growth. So as a quick little intro, like, kinda who are you, what do you do? And you can encapsulate this into a very, like, brief answer. You have, you have a professional history, um, but you can skip over a lot of details.
Mm-hmm. So yeah, what, what’s your deal?
Paul: Okay.
From Ecommerce to AI
Paul: So I, uh, started a YouTube channel in 2017 ’cause at the time I was selling on eBay. So I was just sort of documenting that and, like, teaching people how to sell on eBay. Pivoted that, like eBay, Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, all sort of e-commerce stuff. And then last year, I made a complete pivot away from that, and now I just make videos about, uh, AI tools, tutorials on how to use things like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, things like that.
So I’ve been doing that for about the past year now.
Doug: Got it. And quite the awesome pivot.
The Big YouTube Pivot
Doug: So we kind of had parallel paths in different areas, roughly the same time period, too, um, and ended up living in the same town, and we met each other, um, through the co-working space a few years ago. And we were like, “Oh, we have YouTube channels, online courses,” again, similar stuff.
You were on the channel before talking about, I think, TikTok, affiliate shop, drop shipping, something or other. And I was doing some research in the last couple weeks, which I rarely do. But I, I was doing some research on AI ’cause I was being fed all these anti sort of AI, um, videos, the backlash. And as I was doing research, your, uh, videos popped up.
Not w- as a negative AI thing- … but, like, I’m subscribed to your channel, so it, like, popped up naturally, and I was like, “Oh, wow, there’s quite a few views on this.” And then I was like, “Holy cow, your channel blew up.” Can you tell us, like, w- what growth you’ve seen over the last couple years from the pivot?
Paul: Yeah.
So, um, it took me from 2017 to, uh, early 2025, I had 130,000 subscribers or so, and in the past year, year and a half, I’ve gone up to 450,000. So it’s been, like, basically 4X.
Doug: Okay. Are, are all of these, uh, videos, are they, like, long-form, or are they video shorts as well?
Paul: I only do long-form videos. Yeah.
Doug: Perfect.
Okay, so kind of the pur- ’cause I, I unfortunately watch a few, uh, YouTube shorts, but I try to stick to long-form video, which I think that’s a purer form of growth because, um, people are watching, you know, several minutes or, or longer videos, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s the whole deal. Okay.
Burnout and Finding AI
Doug: Before we dive deep into this overall pivot, you moved away for a specific reason.
Like, did the business model go away? I mean, I know on my end, I was telling you before we hit record, I retired my courses. I was just like, “You know what? I’m, I’m kind of bored with this stuff. I’m moving on.” It was SEO, affiliate marketing, make money online, and it’s… It was fine when I was doing it But it was time to move on, and I was like, “I’m, I’m out.”
Mm-hmm. “I’m, I’m shutting all this shit down.” I’ve seen some people try to pivot fairly unsuccessfully, so, um, yeah, what happened with the business model? Was it still viable?
Paul: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s funny. It’s, again, like very parallel journeys ’cause I was going through the same thing early 2025. I just felt really bored, burnt out.
There was nothing wrong with it, I’d just been doing it for so long and talking about it every day that over 2024, I just started to get bored with it. My passion wasn’t there for it anymore. And as a result of that, it wasn’t making as much money ’cause I just didn’t care to actually spend time on it- Yeah
or energy on it, on all parts of it. So early 2025, I really thought that I was gonna close everything down that year. I thought, like, this was it, and I kinda thought, like, “You know what? Like, I’m not quite ready to do that. Let me just, let me just… I have nothing to lose now, so let me just try some other stuff.”
So early 2025, I tried, uh, day trading crypto. It, it… I didn’t… I’m very lucky I didn’t lose money. I made a little bit, but not- Yeah … not compared to the amount of time I put into it, so that, I would not recommend that. Um, and then I s- was like, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to try some other things with my YouTube channel,” and I’ve always been afraid to do that because everyone says, “Stick with your niche.”
You know, the riches are in the niches, right?
Doug: Yeah.
Paul: So I’ve always been afraid to talk about other topics, and so I just started to expand a little bit. I wouldn’t call it a hard pivot because I started out making, uh, I was making content about dropshipping, so then I started making content about other ways you can make money online, and getting ideas from other people and making videos about it.
And some of those did really well, but I kinda got bored of those topics pretty quickly ’cause if you look at some of those videos, uh, some of the best ones, there are these apps you can download for, on your phone where you can make a few cents for playing games or things like that. Yeah. And people love those videos, but you don’t make money from that, and that’s what I say in those videos.
You’ll make a penny for an hour of work. And you can only make so many videos about that before you wanna like rip your eyes out. So I got bored of that, and some– And along the way, some of the videos I started to make were about how you can make money with AI, and I really liked that ’cause I was really getting into AI.
And so by the end of the year, I was thinking, “Why don’t I just go all in with AI and don’t focus on the money aspect, just how to use these tools that I’m using and that I think are really fun, and approach it from that angle?” And it, it, it worked, I think just because I sort of like pivoted slightly, and then slightly, and then slightly.
Doug: Okay. Got it. And it’s super interesting. I was just listening to a podcast today. It was Cal Newport’s podcast, but they mentioned something… I can’t cite anything specific, but the main idea was f- like kind of searching around, researching, like exploring different areas, and then once you find something that works, you– The word they used was you exploit it, which, I mean, it’s just like you double down in that area.
Exploitation has a bad connotation, so I think they were just making a point. But it’s exactly what you did. You’re like, “All right, I’m a little bored with this.” You have tons of interest, and then you arrived at something where it was like an audience fit along with your own personal interest.
Doug: Do you have an example of some of the early AI stuff where you were like, “Oh, this is actually really cool, and I am using this tool,” like actually you’re not just making the video?
Paul: Yeah. Yeah.
AI Aha and Tool Choices
Paul: So 2024, I actually don’t, I don’t remember when ChatGPT came out, but I remember trying it in 2024 and being really disappointed by it. I didn’t understand the hype at all, and so I was very dismissive of it. And then in 2025, someone told me about Claude, and I was like, “Okay,” like, “let me try this out.
I’ll pay the $20 for it.” And opened up Claude, gave it the s- transcripts from a lot of my old YouTube videos, kinda gave it all my business SOPs, and was really shocked in a positive way at how well it was suddenly helping me, and how it was able to find helpful video topics and help me sort through all that, even writing scripts and outlining them.
I was really blown away by it, and I was like, “Wow,” like, “there’s, there’s something here,” like it’s starting to actually get good. And so that was the first kind of aha moment for me with AI, and then, uh, just kind of exploring what it could do with image generation, v- sorry, video generation, uh, using different tools from there.
Doug: Okay. Yeah. A- and I think, um- It moved, e- everything seemed to move kind of slow, and then when things hit, we’re like: Oh, wow, that’s a really big difference. And now if… I mean, looking back, thinking back, it’s, like, hard to remember, like, what was fast or not. But it- do you remember that tool, uh, Jasper? Um, it was like an early, early AI writing tool.
Paul: Yes. Yeah.
Doug: And it was pretty bad. It was almost like a word substitution, like the word spinners from back in the day. And slowly, over, like, three or four years, it improved. And the thing is, I mean, we were, we’re both, uh, we came from the make money online area, so there’s, like, some people that just try to get affiliate commissions for kinda shitty software.
Mm. And they’re like: You could just, like, u- use Jasper, and it’ll write all these blog posts. And it was really pretty bad. And, um, things slowly and slowly improved. I did learn that Claude was, like, better with the, I guess, content creation in it. And of course, now Claude is, uh, in some ways exceeded ChatGPT.
So are you primary, uh, primarily a Claude user, or because of your channel, you kinda dabble in everything?
Paul: I kinda dabble. I, I definitely dabble in everything. I switch between all of them so I can be familiar with all of them, so I can talk about them. But I think At every moment, there’s one, there’s one tool that I think is probably the better value for most people.
Um, right now I would say that’s ChatGPT, but a month ago that was, that was Claude, and in a month now it could be Gemini. So yeah, it, it’s, it’s moving very fast.
Doug: Yeah. And so h- how big of an advantage would one have over the other? Is it just, like, kind of minor at this point, and then you know the other one’s gonna catch up pretty quickly after?
Paul: I would say for the average person, it, it’s, it doesn’t matter so much. Okay. It’s, it’s … Because all the tools have gotten so good, you just have to learn how to use one of them, and you, you’re gonna see a b- huge benefit for whatever work you’re doing. So it doesn’t really matter which one you use, as long as you pick one.
Doug: Okay. And I, I’m currently using Gemini ’cause it’s included with my Google- There you go … um, whatever. Um, but back in the day I actually, yeah, I paid for Claude and ChatGPT ’cause it was like 20 bucks and-
Paul: Mm-hmm …
Doug: well, back then we had courses. Money was just flowing in, right? So, um, it- talk ab- did you retire your courses by the way?
Did you shut them
Paul: all down or? I had it, um … I forget the word I use for it. You could, you can still go on my website and sign up for it, but … Oh, I call it … It’s a legacy course. Okay. So, like, um, I have put a disclaimer on there saying, “I don’t do this anymore. This isn’t gonna be updated.” I lowered the price, and it’s like if someone wants to join, they can.
And-
Doug: Okay …
Paul: sometimes people do. It’s pretty rare now though.
Doug: Got it. Okay.
Monetizing with YouTube
Doug: Um, currently what’s the, like, monetization strategy- Definitely a pivot from courses, ’cause those, those were high dollar courses. Mm-hmm. Um, which I don’t even know if there is common. But yeah, what’s the monetization strategy these days?
Paul: Um, it’s all YouTube driven, so there’s two prongs to that. There’s Google AdSense, so when you have a YouTube channel and people watch your videos, there’s ads on those videos, and you get a portion of that, that money that YouTube makes. So that’s the AdSense. And then the second one are sponsorships, where, uh, different companies will reach out for a ad placement, like a 90-second ad placement inside one of the videos.
Doug: Okay. And do you have a, like, a business manager or a advertising company, or, or they just c- the companies contact you directly?
Paul: They contact me directly. I had a, I had an assistant named Alyssa. If you’ve ever emailed me and got a email from Alyssa, that was just me, uh- … pretending I had someone, ’cause I thought it would make me seem more legit.
And it just got so confusing trying to answer as Alyssa or me. Um, so it’s, it’s just me. And, and-
Doug: That’s pretty funny. Yeah …
Paul: and my AI agent-
Doug: Okay. Yeah …
Paul: helps too.
Doug: Gotcha. That’s pretty funny. Can you talk a little bit about the revenue? O- and let us know about, like, the number of views and all this stuff comes into play.
Um, but yeah, just kind of the full picture. Um, people are probably pretty familiar with the two business models. So the AdSense side, usually, like, over the years I’ve, um, I, I turned it off just ’cause I hate ads personally, and then at the time, selling your own products was far more, um, profitable than me having someone else’s ad where they may potentially buy their course.
So I always turned ads off, and now just as a, as a matter of course, like- Mm-hmm … I don’t have ads on. So yeah, ta- talk about the overall picture.
Paul: Um, I think what’s, what’s, what most people don’t understand, which I think is kinda interesting, is that, like- Each video can perform so differently in terms of how much you can make.
So it really depends on… What it really comes down to is how much an advertiser is willing to pay to get in front of the audience for that video, multiplied by the number of views. So views always matter. Views will always help. But I’ll have some videos that have, you know, two videos, they each have 50,000 views, and one’s making double the other one because of the topic.
And other times, two videos with 50,000 views, they’re both about the same topic, and one’s making double, and I have no idea why. So Y- you know, you can’t really optimize for revenue on YouTube. It’s… I think you’ll just, you’ll just drive yourself nuts doing that.
Doug: Mm-hmm.
Paul: So my, my focus is always I wanna make great content.
I wanna make good videos that people enjoy watching, that… And I do care about views. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. And, and then I don’t worry about the, the AdSense. It just, it just comes, which is pretty cool, I think. I’m pretty happy with that. I don’t feel like I’m selling anything. I don’t feel like I have to pitch a course.
I don’t feel like my attention’s divided between a course and YouTube. I just make my best stuff on YouTube and try to make stuff people wanna watch.
Doug: I like the simplicity too with, uh, ’cause back in the day, you know, the different core software, the different funnels that you’re trying to set up, I’m sure you went down those rabbit holes as well.
Yeah. And, uh, certainly fun at the time, and I’m not sorry that I learned how to do that kind of stuff, but like just producing the best content, publishing it where the most people are gonna watch it, like that’s a great route.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: So I suspect you have a look at the analytics mentioning like some videos earn a lot more.
Um, I take it it’s very difficult to pin it down, like, or are there a few topics where you’re like, “I know that certain advertisers always go after like these type of keyword title,” uh, sit- situation? Or are you able to tease that info out?
Paul: Yeah. I’ve looked before, and I’ve tried to– Again, I’ve tried to optimize for it, and it just, it’s just not the way I wanna, wanna do it.
And so like I just stopped looking at that kind of stuff. I mean, some, some– There are some clear patterns that are obvious. Um, like I found that videos about Claude or ChatGPT tend to have a higher what’s called an RPM.
Doug: Mm-hmm.
Paul: That’s, uh, revenue per mil, which mil is a thousand. So it’s basically like how much you get paid for every thousand views.
And so I, I’ve seen that Claude videos in particular have a higher RPM. Um, that could be because ch- OpenAI’s ChatGPT is trying to advertise against those videos, or it could be Anthropic trying to advertise on where, where their audience already is. Um, so y- yeah, there are some patterns like that.
Doug: Okay.
Trends Titles and Workflow
Doug: And on a grander sense, how do you select your topics?
Paul: It’s really, it’s driven a lot by what’s, what’s trending and new. I’ve, I’ve learned that what I like to make videos about and that my audience wants to see are, is, is what’s… They wanna, they want trending, trending topics and tools. I, I really focus on showing how, how people how to use these new, how to use these tools, like how to use ChatGPT and Claude.
So it’s, it’s, it’s very tutorial based. But there’s so much coming out all the time that there’s always stuff to make videos about usually.
Doug: Yeah.
Paul: And so I’m always looking, “Okay, what new features have they released? And how can I now make a video about that showing people how to use that, how to frame it so people are interested in that subject?”
So I spend a lot of time on, on Twitter these days because that’s where everything breaks first.
Doug: Mm-hmm.
Paul: And seeing, you know, what, what has Google released this week? What has ChatGPT released? And then- There is a lot of, of benefit in getting your video out first on YouTube.
Doug: Yeah.
Paul: So it always seems like a race.
It’s not completely necessary, but it certainly helps.
Doug: And it, you know, at that point, are you looking at the, um, you know, it’s kind of the press releases and stuff because you’re doing, like, your own research. You’re not looking at someone else’s video and then doing one off of that. Mm-hmm. Like, you’re doing, like, firsthand investigation kinda.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Avoiding AI Hype
Paul: Yeah, so again, it’s, it’s all Twitter. Like, everyone will, will announce everything first on Twitter.
Doug: Okay.
Paul: So I just have a bunch of alerts set up on my phone. I’ll get a notification about it. Um, my AI double-checks every hour for anything and lets me know if I missed anything, and that’s, that’s the primary place to look.
Doug: Okay. And we’ll, uh, um, uh, w- we have the two different topics, so the, the other topic we’re gonna cover more AI. So it’s, like, some blending together. Yeah. I’ll do my best. Um, but one thing, c- ’cause I was quite interested in a lot of the AI stuff, and I, I’m, uh, I watch YouTube. I consume… Like, that’s my number one, like, entertainment, basically.
And I was ev- eventually, I got a little tired of the AI YouTube channels, no offense. Um, but it’s like, “This changes everything,” and it’s, like, every fucking week there’s a new release, and it’s, “This changes everything again.” Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, all right, not everything changes- … fucking everything. So eventually I got burned out and I was like, eh, if something crazy happens, my, uh, fucking uncle will tell me about it.
Right? So I kinda, I tapped out. I got overloaded, and it, it’s partially, um, a, a flaw and benefi- benefit of my personality. Like, I’ll burn out on something and then- Mm-hmm … I’m like, eh. Mm. Maybe I’ll come back a little bit, like, when something piques my interest. But, um, how do you, how do you deal with that, the this changes everything phenomena?
Paul: That’s, first of all, that’s totally fair because- … most YouTubers, like, that’s their, the title of all their videos. This changes everything- … or nothing will be the same, or this is insane. That’s a popular one. Um, and, you know, and to a certain extent, you have to play the YouTube game, and you have to do the funny thumbnail faces and- Yeah
make the titles. I, I, I really try to be careful. I, I, I really try to be, uh, proportionate in my titles and thumbnails. I’ve, I’ve done it in the past. You’ll certainly find those sensational titles and thumbnails of mine in the past. I’m trying to get better at it, and even if that means less views, ’cause then hopefully my audience will trust my thumbnail and title more, um, which I think does work.
I try to be, like, the anti-hype AI guy.
Doug: Yeah.
Paul: Um, but- I guess because I’m at the sort of forefront of it and I’m catching it on Twitter and, like, the, the news releases where those companies, they, they don’t put the hype into it. They’re more, maybe legal tells them they can’t or whatever. It’s just, like, the information, and then it’s, I’m part of the group that translates that for YouTube, and I’m choosing to translate it differently than them.
So I’m catching it before people are saying this changes everything. Right. Yeah. Um, and sometimes it does. Sometimes it does change everything and- Yeah … then I can use that title.
Doug: Right. That’s fair. Mm-hmm. It’s all fair. A- and the thing is, like, if you’re creating on YouTube, it’s like you have to kind of make a decision on a per video basis really where it’s just like, okay Am I gonna go for, like, growth and, like, ex- extra, um, you know, algorithmic push or play it cool?
So, uh, it sounds like you’re trying, like you’ve found a balance that kind of works for you. Do you have an actual ratio where you’re like, “Okay,” like, ”
Paul: We’ll just see how
Doug: it is”?
Paul: No, it’s, it’s, it’s case by case. Okay. It’s like, honest, it’s whatever it is, you know? Yeah.
ChatGPT Voice Workflow
Paul: If it’s super cool, like I may have one a couple weeks ago, like ChatGPT…
Well, well, ChatGPT just kind of introduced this new feature for, for their voice mode that was… It’s, it’s insane. It, it really is insane. So I think I used that word for the first time in a while even though everyone else uses it ’cause I really thought it was insane. So-
Doug: Yeah. What, what was the change?
Paul: It’s, it’s…
There’s a desktop app for ChatGPT and you can do quite a bit with it but, but they just added the ability to use your, uh, the live voice, I don’t know if you’ve ever used that with ChatGPT, uh, into the desktop app. So you can just start talking to it and be like, “Okay, um, check my email from Bob, respond this way and then open up the video I have tomorrow.
I want you to make these edits to it. Do research for that new Claude topic and create a file for that.” And it’ll create four different tasks as separate chats and then you’re talking to this voice and it’s kind of like an assistant who’s now delegating those, that out for you to the other tasks. And you’re only talking to the one voice chat.
So once you understand it and, and kind of get how to use it, it’s pretty insane.
Doug: Interesting. I… Oh, I g- I’m trying to think the contract that I signed but the, um, I have enough, um, subscribers that sometimes companies contact me and a company with a competing product to s- what, it’s like a desktop assistant kind of thing.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Um, they signed me on and it, their admin is horrendous. Okay. So like, uh, they’re like, “Hey, can you send over a script today?” And I’m like, “No, it’s like Saturday.” There’s like so many things wrong. I’m like, “Well, I could put it in my schedule, I could work on it.” They’re like, “Can you send it today?” Um, but it, it seems like the tools are pretty cool and, and their script demands, this is my own issue here.
Mm-hmm. But if, I, I don’t think I’m gonna end up doing any videos as kind of an opt-in on a per campaign basis. Mm-hmm. And uh, like I said, their admin’s horrible so they’re like, “Can you send it today?” And then a few da- I’m like, “I c- I can’t do that, no.” Um, and then a few days later they’re like, “Oh, have you worked on this script?”
And I’m like, “I thought the deadline was like four days ago.” Like, “What are you even talking about?” Like, I don’t work like that. So- Yeah … um, anyway The tools sound pretty cool if you can use them effectively. Okay.
Publishing Rhythm
Doug: So, it, what about format? So you, you mentioned the topics. So talk about formats and schedule and like how often you publish on YouTube.
Paul: Oh, good, good question. Yeah, so, um, this is one area of struggle a little bit. Like, there was probably during my growth peak, which was a few months ago, I was posting a video nearly every day. Um, and I’ve tried to cut back, ’cause it is like burnout from that, um, to three or four videos a week, usually four because, because- It’s more
well, ’cause there’s so much to talk about. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s fun. I enjoy it. Um, and so it’s usually a video like Sunday. Every Friday I do a, a r- news recap video, so I can just cover like everything that’s happened that week, and then I try to do like one or two in between. And the topics, again, just like whatever’s popping up and, and trending.
Yeah.
Doug: Okay. And then if there’s less going on, you’re like, “Ah, maybe it’s a three video a week kinda deal”?
Paul: Yeah, I struggle with that because I always feel like I should be producing. So when there’s slow, not much going on, I feel a little lost, and sometimes I, I’ll force a video out, and then it doesn’t do well and it gets in my head.
So there, there’s… I should probably see a therapist about it. I think I have some addiction to success or something.
Doug: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s a real, that’s a real thing. I’ve, I didn’t, um I’ve pushed it down. Uh, luckily I was never very successful so, so y- it’s hard to get addicted in that way, but, um- Well,
Paul: productivity or-
Doug: Y- yeah
you know what I mean. Yeah, I do. I, I’m with you. Um, if I have a chance to put, put myself down, I’ll always do it. So basically, I think at one point I was like, if these, if the views go away, ’cause it’s in your face if you go to YouTube Studio, it’s just like, “Your last video, how did it perform?” You know, it’s just like- Yeah
analytics right in your face constantly. Um, when things were going well, I was like, “This could go away. I wanna make sure that when they do go away, it’s not gonna kill me.” Mm-hmm. So, um, or hurt my feelings is a str- strong way to put it, but it’s just not… I’m like, “It’s not gonna bother me.” So I was like, “If it goes well, I don’t give a shit.
If it goes down…” Very, uh, stoic kind of approach, I think. And, um, it served well, uh, in that the views went down and I was like, “Oh, it… I knew that it was gonna happen sometime. You’ll be fine, though.” You know? You, you’ll be fine. Um, okay, so the schedule’s kind of open. You have a few formats. Um, sounds like most of it’s freeform now.
Do you script everything out, just some bullet points? Um, you’re a pro YouTuber and have been for, like, almost a decade, and you’re a great speaker as well, so it seems like you could probably, you know, you know how to present. So how do you actually do this?
Paul: It depends on the video. I, I do prefer to script out.
That’s, that’s relatively new. I used to not do that, but I learned that it’s a really good idea to script out videos. It, they are just, turn out better for me and for the audience. It’s less of me screaming and throwing stuff at the wall ’cause I can’t get a take right. Um, but, um, yeah, so it’s u- it’s always better if I can script it out, but some videos, it’s just not necessary, um, ’cause of the topic I know so well.
And I can never script out 100% because, especially with tutorials, I’m doing screen recordings, and I can’t script that out ’cause then how am I gonna look at the screen and talk about what I’m doing while looking at a script? It just doesn’t work, and it’s not really necessary. So it’s maybe, like, the intro, the outro, and some key points throughout, and then just, like, a block that says, “Screen recording.”
Doug: Yep. ”
Paul: This is what I wanna show,” and, like, bullet points. So that’s usually what I do, um, and that works pretty well. And, and then if it’s something like a breaking news thing, I just, like, hit record and try to get it done as quickly as possible.
Doug: Mm-hmm.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: I like, uh, the overall approach because it gives variety, and, like, your personality can come out more.
Uh, obviously you could script it so that your personality is there, but, like, if you’re- Giving your honest reaction, there’s more authentic, um, feelings behind it and-
Paul: Yeah …
Doug: I think that’s … A- and it’s, like, variety for the audience instead of, like, the same beat every single video- Right … where it’s like they’re all eight minutes long or something like that.
Right. So for comments and feedback, what’s that like for you? I mean, you, again, you’ve been on YouTube for a long time, so what is it like these days?
Paul: If anyone questions me, I block them. No. No, I, uh, I still read and respond to every comment myself. Um, I love doing it. I think it’s important ’cause it helps me understand what my audience likes, and they’re taking the time to leave me a comment, so I wanna take the time to respond.
And so I do all that manually myself, and, uh, I, I will delete comments if you’re gross or racist or s- something along those lines. But I ac- I, y- I, I used to take the, uh, criticism a lot more personal, and I’ve gotten better about not doing that. Still s- you know, I’m a person, so it still affects me sometimes, especially if I’m already feeling down about a video for some reason or don’t like it for whatever reason and someone points it, points out the exact thing that was bothering me about the video.
It’s like, “Oh, gosh.”
Doug: Oh, yeah.
Paul: But-
Doug: I know the feeling of that, yeah …
Paul: I try to, I try to let every negative comment improve what I do somehow.
Doug: Yeah. Yeah, great, great approach, and, you know, the y- years on YouTube will help you create the thick skin, and it’s just like, okay, you gotta do something with the feedback ’cause some, even though it’s negative, some, there’s a kernel of truth.
Like- Yeah … you said the thing you know that you were like, “Uh-” “I, I’m a little insecure about that one.” Yeah. So, okay.
Courses Communities and Lean Ops
Doug: And anything else sort of on the, on the pivot side? Um, I guess we could talk a little bit about the consideration of, like, cr- maybe creating a course or other monetization aside from, you know, what you mentioned before with AdSense and then brand deals.
Paul: Yeah, I think, like, when, like early 2025 when I started to get burnt out, I also got just burnt out of, of selling the course and keeping up with it. And I remember thinking to myself, like, “Man, if I could just make money from YouTube, like I would love that.” And so now that I’m, I’m here and I’m just making money from YouTube, it’s pretty awesome, and I’d considered making a course.
‘Cause if you look at every other creator in my space, they all have, well, they all have communities now. Um, so recurring rev- uh, recurring, like $100 a month, $60 a month, something like that, and includes a course and the community. And for a little bit, I was like, “I have to do that ’cause that’s what everyone else is doing.”
And like I did the math, and I was like, “Whoa, that is a lot of money that these people are making based on the number of people in their communities.” And I was like, “I gotta do this.” Like, it’s like I’m wasting, like I’m leaving money on the table. And then I just really, like, spent time thinking about it, and I’m like, “Well, first of all, I’m doing this for, I’m thinking about doing this for completely the wrong reason.”
Um- It shouldn’t be about the money. And second, that’s not what I want. Like I’ve, I said it January 2025 and nothing’s changed. Like I still feel the same way. It’s, it’s communities are great. There’s a lot of value to them, but I, I love making YouTube videos and that’s what I wanna do. And I’m fortunate enough that I don’t need to, that I can make enough from that, that I don’t need to, um, make a course just for the money.
Doug: Mm-hmm.
Paul: Um, so I’m really comfortable with that right now. That, that may change. Like I said, I, I see value in communities and it may be something I wanna do in the future, but right now I’m pretty happy with just making YouTube videos.
Doug: That makes sense. And it’s, um, I mean that has to be a lot of work. Like you have to manage the community or have Alyssa manage it for you.
Paul: Yeah. She’s got enough to do.
Doug: Um, y- yeah, and it makes… Yeah, you’ve done it before. And, and I feel like, um Maybe. A- and I don’t know the people that you’re talking about, but, like, if you’re just coming up and you’re like, you’ve seen people create communities and, and courses and stuff like that, you’re like, “I wanna do that too.
I have to do it.” But you have some experience under your belt and you’re like, “I’ve conquered some things, and I’ve whittled it down to, like, creating…” Like you just said.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Doug: You like to do YouTube videos, and you like to create them, and then the interaction in the, in the comments is, it’s enough community for you.
Maybe, are you in any of the paid communities out there?
Paul: No. No, I’m not. Okay. So…
Doug: Gotcha.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Who knows what you’re missing.
Paul: I know. It could be
Doug: really
Paul: awesome. I know, I know, I know. Afraid to know. But the other thing I’ve noticed is that even when I was… had a course, um, my business always– That part of my business always did the best when my YouTube channel was doing well.
And I think, you know, makes sense. You know, YouTube views drive traffic to your course. And so I think it’s like why… Well, let me just simplify it. But then, but then you have to divide your attention, right? You put focus on YouTube, and now your course is out of date or they don’t feel like you’re paying attention to them.
So it’s always, like, this really hard balancing act, so that’s when… That’s another reason, just, just focus on the, the most important thing- Yeah … which is YouTube.
Doug: Do you have an email list? Should you do that or no?
Paul: So the part I f- I forgot to, that I left out was in addition to trading crypto, the other thing I tried to do was just whittle down the cost of my business to as close to zero on a monthly operating cost as possible so that I’m like, “Hey, even if I’m only making a little bit every month, if it costs me nothing to run my business, then I can keep it in business,” right?
So that was what I was doing when I was also trading crypto. And so one of the things I did was pretty much delete almost my entire email list, ’cause it’s- Okay … kind of expensive to have a big email list.
Doug: Right.
Paul: Um, and it wasn’t producing anything, so-
Doug: Yeah …
Paul: I do have one, but it’s smaller.
Doug: Okay. Yep. Uh, again, parallel.
I, I think maybe we were talking, um, right around that time, and I’m like, “Yeah, it’s a annual cost for, like, email list and blah, Kajabi and other things,” and I’m like, “It’s a lot.” And I’m, like, basically gonna shut all this down, so I was like, “Yeah, if I can make this really lean,” so.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Doug: Yeah, it’s interesting from, you know, you were making money dropshipping, selling stuff on the courses, and, like, the cash flow was good.
Mm-hmm. Same for me, and then as times changed, it was like, “All right. Let’s tighten the belts here.” Yeah. And then we could, we could… It takes the pressure off in a lot of ways.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. So… And I think that’s part of the reason I was able to experiment, because I was like, “Well, don’t have much to lose right now.”
Doug: Yeah. All right.
And that’s where we left it. So next time we’ll pick right back up where we’re leaving off here. If you have any questions or comments, you can shoot me an email, feedback@doug.show, or leave a comment over on the YouTube side. Paul’s a great guy. Like I said, we had, we had a fun time chatting and, and talked for a while afterwards.
There’s also something really nice about having someone in the studio. You pick up on the body language immediately. Depending on who you’re talking to on a, on a video call, you might be able to, you know, make a little bit more of a connection, but it takes a lot longer, and there’s always, like, a micro delay no matter what.
So just being able to record in person is super cool. Anyway, we’ll catch you next week. Have a good rest of your day or morning or evening or whatever it is. Some of you listen as you’re falling asleep, and that’s cool, too. So good night