1of10 Founder Explains How to Properly Use 1of10

I don't know if you're willing to share this or not, but what does the retention look like on stuff like that? A lot of beginners, they'll have a viral video and then they'll just stop doing it for some reason. Do you remember any like specific standards that surprised you from that data set? More views, more money, so it's like a win-win-win for a liquidity, everybody. Hey, what's up everyone? My name's Richard, the YouTube's strategist online. I found it oneof10.com. I've worked with over 100 YouTubers out there from Aliyab Dal to Calloway and all kinds of niches. Richard, I want to frame you as the ideation specialist. You have one of 10, which is an incredible tool. If you are the creative director for a team, let's say, what's the best way to conduct ideation meetings? How often should people be having them? I mean, without ideas, you don't have a banger video, right? So it should be the most important thing for a team behind the creator. So I mean, at least once a week, right? If you're a creative director, you should always be thinking about what ideas, but also what's working out there. How many people, like, who should come to that meeting? What role should be involved in that meeting? The creator should be part of it, but it depends, depending on the size, right? But let's say before the creator, then it should be the ideation team. Then it should be the creative director. Then after I guess the producer, so they're all aligned. Let's try and put some numbers into it. So how many big picture ideas and how many, like, really detailed ideas do you want to go through on a weekly basis? Yeah, so let's say my team of strategists, right? How they work with other creators is they'll have probably 50 to 100 ideas that they just go through, and then they'll funnel it down to five to 10 for a creator that uploads on a weekly basis, and then they'll pitch it. So on a weekly basis, you should see at least like five new ideas, let's say. The thing is that's something that always needs to be ideated because things are moving. There's new formats that are popping every week, every month. So you're always going to be in the know of what's working, you know, inside your niche, outside your niche. How do you know if an idea is good enough to pitch? Like, how much detailed research should you do before you say? I think this is in a good position. We have a checklist, right? Like, is the title and thumbnail for that idea good enough? Will the intrigue be high enough for a person to click on that idea based on the title thumbnail? What is the data behind it, both positive and negative? Like a negative data, meaning let's say you check the last 30 days, and that idea format has been tried by many smaller subscribers, and they have led to videos not being outliers, and that's negative data. But if you see just a few creators that have led to a blow up, or even smaller creators where it has that to blow up, then maybe it's a good time to go all in on that format. But also if it makes sense with the audience you're targeting, that's always one thing that people, I think, miss the mark, is they're going to create an idea that's maybe too broad, just goes outside the time that they should be targeting. Let's say for one of 10 we're targeting intermediate to advanced YouTuber, let's say. If we did a video around editing for beginners, that would attract way too broad of an audience, basically. Do you have like a set criteria of each idea must come with? Five proven titles, five thumbnails, is that the number five? Five, no, but I'd say a three, for sure. Okay, three. Three, and also like at least five outliers that backs the format that you're pitching. And what is the best type of outlier to look for? Like what is the criteria of a good outlier video? What I like to do is, for example, see what a 50,000 subscriber, what's happening in that range? Because if a 50k subs got a 100k views, or event let's say a 7k subs got 100k views, it's impressive. And basically that format is interesting for us to use. And if it has not been overdone with bigger channels, then maybe that's where there's a gap in the market, either inside your niche or outside your niche. When I'm looking at two things, one is the format, and one is the interest topic. For example, one dollar versus one million dollar car. So car is the interest topic, and one dollar versus a million is the format. Combining both means you have a high time for the cars, and then the one versus X is a format that just works really well across the board. And so you're looking at those two and see, okay, maybe we can change the interest topic for something larger, or for something that makes sense for your niche. So, okay, diving into the tool now. This is something that everybody who watches or listens to this show already uses. How do you get the most out of your 1 of 10 search query, so that it filters out stuff that's irrelevant to you? I find what I'm doing searches. A lot of it is noise. Is there a way to hone in specifically on what you're looking for, your niche-like kind of stuff? Yeah, for sure. We can go through it. Like gaming is the one that I try to avoid, and it's all over the place. Just before that, though, I just want to make clear that how to ideate on YouTube. There's really four ways ideating inside your channel. So, you're looking at outliers that have done well in the past for you, and you try to see if you can remix those with a higher interest topic. Like, yeah, a lot of beginners, they'll have a viral video, and then they'll just stop doing it for some reason. They say, "Oh, I've already made this. I can't make this again." Because I can't, I see. Whereas, you know, by talking and working with a lot of YouTubers, those that have gone to the next level is by doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on a format that's work, and just playing around with the interest topic. Number two is inside your niche, see if you can remix in your own style format, and just maybe changing the interest topic, that makes more sense for your channel. Number three is looking at adjacent niches. It's a niche that has the same characteristics as yours, but you're just a bit more broad. For example, you can think of video editing and music production. Being too niche with same characteristics, right? You have a timeline, you're changing raw assets into a finished product, so a format that works on one works on the other. And then number four is you're going super far from your niche, and you're trying to see what's working completely out there. You can technically $1 versus a million dollar car. It can be $1 versus $10,000 razor, and that works in the hairdresser niche. Any questions? Yeah, I'm wondering if my search queries in one of 10 are too thin, because for example, the World Cup is coming up, and so all of the clients that I work with, we're trying to find ways to leverage that trending topic, and I work with journalists, and so I just type in World Cup. And what I see is a lot of FIFA that's not super relevant. Let me see. I mean, soccer, that's what comes out. If we were to hone in on that, the art of football by Lionel Messi as an example, we know Messi is probably a very clickable packaging, and we could build an entire video around his elite athleticism. If you were to look at that as an outlier, does that speak to you? Yeah, so it speaks to me in the sense that it's an intriguing composition of the thumbnail. Something to keep in mind when you're ideating is, I see it as a few phase. And phase one is always audience. What is the audience you're trying to target? And how big is that time? Number two is researching outliers, few phases. And then number three is remixing. And then number four is validating. You mentioned that there were specific ideators as a role within a team. At what point is that an important role to bring in? I mean, technically from the start, if you have the money, because I mean, that's how you'll blow up as fast as possible, is with the right ideas, and the right ideas are through long research. But most people, what they'll do is, I know my niche, I'll just script it out and film it, and use a nice camera, a nice editing. And that's it. But it's really with the right ideas that you can grow fast to get those tens of thousands of views. But then as soon as you have some money, I guess the first thing is, well, I'd say the first thing normally is to delegate to an editor, which is always two-time consuming for a creator, and then after bringing an ideator. But maybe what's possible is just do a one-hour consultation with an ideator out there just to get your brain going with someone who's doing it full-time. Because that's the reason why you would hire an editor full-time, is because that person is 40 hours per week, 50, 60, just editing. So he's for sure better at you. Same for ideators. They'll be better at you. Because your job as a creator is to create good content. But the right idea should be taken care of with someone focused on that. Are ideators full-time positions? Or are they contractors that you just buy an hour of their time every week? Yeah, it's both, depending on the levels, right? It can get expensive. So any big YouTuber should have, like, if you have a team of 10, should have at least one ideator in there. That's just doing the idea of title thumbnails. Are you willing to disclose what your team looks like in terms of what roles exist? It's now four or five strategists. And their job is, yeah, idea of title thumbnails. What we offer is basically, now it's changed, but like, two to four calls per week, chat support Monday, Friday. You have ideas, title thumbnails. Yeah, like I said, five to 10. And then on the software side, it's developers and marketing head of strategy stuff. How far should you get ahead before it's too far in content creation? I'd say one month is good. Is that because things change too quickly and if you're too far, okay? Yeah, yeah, one, let's say two months, max. And then yeah, you'll have a bunch of ideas that you put up placeholders for month three, month four. But they should always be interchangeable by the new ideas that you're going to come up on a weekly basis. Because the goal is always to up the previous ideas. And you always think, oh, I cannot find better ideas. But then, And if you just force and try to get new ideas, you will find better ideas in the end. Can you find ideas on other platforms like Instagram and leverage those? How would you spin that into a YouTube video? Yeah, for sure. I always say outside of YouTube, then you can expire from books, TV shows, movies, even mobile apps, Tinder, and that being a format that is really popular. And so same for Instagram, you see what has blown up as a hook, and maybe that hook becomes a title/idea for a video for you. So you put out a report, I think it was 110 pages, you scanned like 300,000 viral videos, and then you put it out and it kind of shook up the industry, everyone kind of learned something, which was cool. I learned a lot. It changed my perspective of putting people's faces on thumbnails versus when not to, because some of the data was marginally better for educators if you don't put their face on the thumbnail, which was interesting. Do you remember any specific standards that surprised you from that data set? So number one, I don't think it was a surprise. More of something everywhere on thought, but was not sure, it was that longer videos tend to get more views. Like, it's what we kept seeing in the past years, and more recent days, just because we see YouTube pushing TV a lot, and that data just really showed it across niches that longer videos lead to more views. So might as well do longer videos. Well, of course, don't put long and just fluff it out, like make sure it's all optimized, of course. Well, I guess another thing was title characters, we always aim for 50 characters or less, and that did it. I'd say the number of face is what you said, it doesn't change much from educational or entertainment, and I think two, three or four faces, all lead to about the same views. When it comes to longer videos, I think you're talking about videos that are like over and hour in length. Yeah, even like 20 minutes, 25 minutes is much better than a 5 to 10 minute video or even 10 to 15 minute video. So 20, 25 will hit, but yeah, then yes, then you have the one hour plus that also leads to a peak, just because people watch on TV, leave it out there, and then or it's compilations, a type of stuff. So it's like more views, more money, so it's like a win-win-win for a literally everybody. Have you made those kinds of videos, like have some of your clients made over one hour videos? Yeah, yeah, definitely. What does the retention look like on stuff like that? Like it feels really challenging to make an hour long video and have it full of value. Honestly, I've seen a lot of retention graphs there and they all look pretty flat. Just because again, they'll just leave it on TV like that there and just run the whole hour. Of course, a lot of them fall asleep on those as well, but that's what it is. Is that something you like gradually build yourself up to if you're making 15 to 20 minute videos? Do you like work your way up or can you just like really jump into it? No, I'd say you do a mix. Like most people, what they do is they'll do those 30 to 40 minute videos and then once in a while put in three hour video and it's a compilation of a bunch of stuff. Okay. When I worked with Mark, he had a podcast that was like four hours long and we intercut it with talking head videos and it skewed all of our data because it said every single talking head video was below the average view duration for these massive podcasts. Like our average channel view duration was like 25 minutes, but we were only putting out videos that were like 15 minutes and so we just felt like it was weird to mix up durations like that. Do you think it was the good move to put it all in the same channel or do you think it would have been better on two channels? Yeah. I'm curious to hear your take on this too because Mark and I fought about it for a year and we were both at one point on either side, you know, YouTube was suggesting to put all your content on the same place and I was adamant that it was a different value prop compared to the talking head content and so as a result, it should go on a separate channel. We saw people like Brian Johnson and Rameet said he at the time putting it on the same channel and having success. So that was Mark's counterargument and as the channel owner, he decided to put it on the main channel. Yeah, it's tough. I normally would say on the second channel would have been the move, but again, both can work and both cannot work as well. So it's a matter of trying, but I would have said yeah, it's probably two different types of audience. I don't know if you're willing to share this or not, but you know, one of the most important tools in any creator's tool book now is the L.I.R. scorecard thing that you've created as like a Chrome extension. How exactly does that calculate? Because I've seen it, like you have some competitors that put out something and it creates different scores. I find yours the most trustworthy, but how the heck do you actually calculate that? Yeah, it's a crazy formula, but basically, I don't know, it's really nothing crazy. It's really just like the 10 videos around it and the median views and you just see what how it compares versus recent videos, basically. And if it's the most recent video, is it the 10 before it or is it just the five behind a kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. Why do your competitors have different numbers? I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. We're the OGs, so that's it. So yeah, I mean, we did it because that's what we did manually with tons of creators. Yeah. So we just knew what made sense. What are some of the other tools available on one of 10? That's probably the most underrated tool. Yeah. It's the thumbnail generator, I'd say. Why is it underrated? I think most people don't know about it. First, you can sketch out something, it'll recreate exactly what you're thinking. For example, Mark Walberg uses us. That's so cool. Which I think is pretty cool. Our thumbnail gen, they told us they've tried many and ours was always the best. I can even put it here, thumbnail was created using one of them, which is pretty cool. They're using it for the actual finished product, it's not even just like a concept. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of them do that basically because what's important to know is changing your title thumbnails actually works. For example, Dantic here uses us a lot. So this shows title and thumbnail changes that have led to a blow up in views, one of 10. So it's cool to study how YouTube thinks. And for example, you basically see that here using the one of 10 Chrome extension. By the way, it was stuck at like, yeah, 800 views per hour, 9 million views. Changes the thumbnails and goes to like thousands of views per hour is up to 14 million. Just with like that thumbnail change. If the thumbnail generator is as strong as it is, then you can probably just use it. It won't take that much time to repackage something from months ago. Because the question that I always have when it comes to repackaging older content is should you be putting, you know, everybody has limited amount of energy. Do you put your energy into creating better new ideas? Or do you put it into repackaging stuff that has done well for you in the past? Exactly. Which is why the thumbnail generator exists. So now you love careers, basically, they're just revamping their whole back catalog because instead of taking literally weeks to change, I don't know, 20 videos, it'll take them a few hours. Yeah. And it'll be done. I like it. What are some other tools that are valuable in the one of 10 catalog? The title generator is the next big thing that everyone uses, but basically video around World Cup. And let's see what comes out. So basically the title are based on your channel titles and top outliers. So here, let's just say just around that, made it, yeah, why the World Cup makes a success or the strength power behind the World Cup or like, maybe this is not the exact title you're thinking, but the goal is to keep changing angles to it. And maybe there's one that you're like, okay, this will lead to the highest intrigue for a person to click on my video because there's really three reason why a person clicks, right? Based on desire, based on fear, and based on curiosity. So whatever your title you're doing, you're trying to aim for the highest level of intensity of either of these three core drivers of human attention. Do you think that this is something that could be automated? Like, could you send us to cloud and then every week it comes up with 10 data backed ideas that are actually good? Well, yeah, the thing about cloud is it doesn't has context of your channel. You always got to prompt it whereas here, let's say you want 10 ideas while you just come here. You do this. Boom. So it makes it just so much easier. So you talked about automating. You just come here, click generate, and you'll get like 12 new ideas. Our goal with one of 10 is to make it as easy as possible for everyone to just come in, get things done from the idea to execution. I was thinking maybe put cloud, like let cloud use your Google Chrome and then navigate the whole thing and do it like brute forces way in there. I mean, maybe, but what's cool here also is you have like the, what I call the Bloomberg of YouTube or the Google trends of YouTube where you see what is trending. Let's say in the past few weeks and then you see, oh, okay, hidden secrets you missed in. So what you can then do is just remix that title format and then in just five seconds, you'll have that format. And so when you're ideating, it's good to see like here clearly you're seeing cloud like crushing using how to use X better than Y percent of people. So maybe in the educational niche and whatever niche, this format can work. There's a good newsletter called creator hooks. It's very similar to that and it's, it's like a manual learning process. This kind of takes it and shows you what's actually working in the moment, which I think is sick. Indeed. Indeed. You know, we've talked a lot about ideation and coming up with good packaging. How involved are you with the actual content itself? Is that how important? important as that as well? - Depends on the creators I have worked in the past, some I would deep dive more. But over time, me and the team just focus on idea-style thumbnails and the hook, I would say. Just doing that and let the creator do its thing. Yeah, of course you can talk about like, okay, what could be interesting inside the video? But then after that, as long as they follow the right principles of good editing and just normal editing, basically, you're good and normal storytelling. Like, of course, you have to improve that over time. But without the right idea-style thumbnail, there's no point. - What's your assessment of YouTube in the year 2026? Like, I feel like shorts is increasingly important. I think long form is getting less exposure. What's your perspective? - I take the biggest problem with 2026 is the AI content that's just getting pushed everywhere. So that's an issue that's gonna keep growing. So in the end, what will win is if you're able to create good authenticity, good relationship with your audience and super high quality content. So actually, what I've been talking idea-style thumbnail is the main thing. But I guess in 2026 with the rise of AI, high production quality is what will help you stand out. - Interesting. - I think so. 'Cause technically AI content can use good ideas, but no one can beat like good content. That's why we have one of 10 is to make sure that everything around content is taken care of. And so you just focus on creating good content. - Do you see a trend with thumbnails becoming like more authentic, more raw? Is there any background to it? - Authentic type thumbnails have always existed and will still exist in a subset niche. Like our thumbnail gen will do great thumbnails. I also still think like, basically what we've done with the thumbnail gen is all the bad thumbnail designers that take seven days or to reply and that type of stuff are gone. But still, the ones that are like top 1% thumbnail designers will still be able to create the best thumbnail designs. And actually a lot of them are using thumbnail gen to get inspiration for composition or like to get 50% done, but they can for sure still bring it to the next level. - Right. Is there a trend where it's becoming more realistic looking? - So there's a trend maybe right now in entertainment for hyper realism, I guess. - I'd say yeah, hyper realism is trending up. - My last question is who is somebody that is on your radar that's doing an excellent job on YouTube that people should know more about? - I'd say Tonyo Guajardo is crushing in the entertainment niche, in the educational niche. Caleb Ralston is a type of content that has gone way high quality, which have led to, and of course, good idea of thumbnails. He's crushed in a very saturated niche and was still able to grow his personal brand to that level. - Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your expertise with packaging. - I mean, you're the God of it. Everyone here should listen to Devon and subscribe. - Okay, that's the episode. Thank you so much for watching or listening if you're new here, please consider subscribing or leaving us a review on the audio platforms. And if you are a producer, creative director, head of content for a YouTube channel that has over a million subscribers, I'm sure you have tons of knowledge to share. So please reach out, we would love to have you on the show. Thank you so much, and we'll see you in the next episode.