Second Channel, Double the Income šŸ’ø

How a side quest helped Thomas Frank grow his business

Good morning. Design creator Soren Iverson, known for posting imaginative (and sometimes extremely funny) product design renderingsā€”like our favorites, an Instagram unfollow notification and a tool to dispute someoneā€™s skills on LinkedInā€”just celebrated 300 consecutive days of posting new ideas daily. Iverson says heā€™s not finishedā€¦maybe with 300 more days of his ideas, weā€™ll actually get something as genius as a ChatGPT summarizer for unnecessarily long texts.

How This Creatorā€™s Second Channel Doubled His Revenue

Productivity creator Thomas Frank goes in-depth on his Notion set-ups on his second channel, Thomas Frank Explains / Thomas Frank Explains

Productivity creator Thomas Frank launched his second channel, Thomas Frank Explains, as a ā€œside questā€ in 2020, sharing video tutorials for task management app Notion and exploring product ideas he wanted to build. It was a departure from his original academic and productivity contentā€¦but it worked.

The details: Though Frankā€™s second channel has less than 15% the number of subscribers his main channel has, he said that heā€™s doubled his income and grown his team to 11 employees in the nearly two years since he stopped posting to his main channelā€”a hiatus he finally ended last month.

ā€œI didnā€™t intend to step back from the main channel for that longā€¦I just happened to make this extra business that took up all my time,ā€ Frank told us.

So why return now? We talked with the creator to better understand how his business has evolved:

  • 3 million subscribers and a decade in on YouTube, Frank felt like heā€™d run out of content topics and didnā€™t want to rely on grinding out sponsor-backed videos forever.

  • So he launched a more creatively-driven second channel focused on ā€œdiscovery and building things,ā€ including a month-long project to develop an ā€œall-in-oneā€ productivity template within Notion called Ultimate Brain.

  • That template instantly clicked with Frankā€™s newer, more niche audienceā€”and a productized version he sold on his website quickly grew to six figures in monthly revenue. 

Since creating that first template, Frank has assembled a team of product developers and even launched a new startup called Flylighter. Hereā€™s the high-level look at his business:

Looking ahead: By focusing on a specific type of content, Frank effectively built a revenue-generating content side hustle that took the pressure off of his main channel and enabled it to serve as a space to update his audience on his journey.

ā€œI liken it to Tony Stark: He gets to go into a cave and tinker with a box of scrapsā€¦and every once in a while, stand on stage in a tuxedo to show his creations off to the world,ā€ Frank told us. ā€œThatā€™s a method of working that really resonates with me.ā€

Keith Lee Rocks the ATL

Keith Leeā€™s frank food review saga takes over Atlanta / Illustration by Moy Zhong with photography by Keith Lee

TikTok food reviewer Keith Lee went to Atlanta this week as part of a multi-city food tourā€”and the fiery response to his constructive criticism of some ATL hotspots illustrates the double-edged nature of an audience as large as his.

Backstory: Nevada-based Leeā€™s visits to lesser-known establishments have been known to cause significant traffic spikes with the so-called ā€œKeith Lee Effect.ā€  

  • Lee brought the same business rush to four restaurants in Atlanta this week.

  • While there, Lee posted critical videos about two restaurants that had long wait times or strange takeout rules. A range of commenters, from Cardi B to local news, suggested Leeā€™s reviews were an accurate reflection of Atlanta restaurant culture. 

  • But some of his audience took Leeā€™s POV to the extreme, lobbing death threats at the restaurants (Lee extensively condemned that behavior).

Zoom out: Lee is currently one of the most-followed food review accounts on TikTok with an audience of over 14 million. With that reach comes influenceā€”which can quickly turn sour. As Kai Cenat, MrBeast, and plenty of other mega-popular creators have proven before Lee, sometimes influence comes with unintended consequences.  

The Gap Between Hollywood and Creators Continues to Shrink

Creators are catching up with Hollywood / Illustration by Moy Zhong

Video creators could soon easily outpace Hollywood in terms of high-quality output, according to a new essay by former Warner Media strategist Doug Shaprio. 

Shapiroā€™s reasoning:

  • Hollywood made 15,000 hours of new TV episodes and films last year. 

  • But 30,000 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube per hour

  • If consumers consider just .01% of YouTube videos to be on par with Hollywood productions, that would mean creators can double Hollywoodā€™s annual output.

Zoom out: Nielsen says YouTube is the most-streamed service in the U.S. on televisions, which means that many consumers are watching content from Hollywood and creators in the same place: their TV. 

ā€œThe question is not whether the production values of independent content will be comparable to Hollywood,ā€ Shapiro wrote. ā€œIt is whether consumers will consider it competitive for similar use cases based on their own definitions of quality.ā€

šŸ”„ Press Worthy

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  • Instagrammer Natalie Grace moves to Brand Army, making 5X her previous earnings in her first month with their new platform monetization features.*

  • Streamer NICKMERCS confirms heā€™ll be hosting gambling streams on Kick.

  • Emmy-Nominated publication What's Trending has a newsletter delivering the latest video news and viral moments in pop culture.

  • BeardMeetsFood crosses 1 billion views on his YouTube channel.

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