Ep 108: How To Build a 4.4 million YouTube following in Asia | Gerald Sebastian (co-founder, Kok Bisa)

It’s cool to be a YouTuber these days. But how do you go pro? What’s your life like? And how much do you earn?! To answer this over the Chinese New Year (hope everyone is feasting well!), we’ve got Gerald Sebastian - co-founder of Kok Bisa, which with 4.4 million subscribers makes them one of the biggest YouTubers in Asia! In this episode, we learn how Gerald ended up being a full-time YouTuber, how they’ve built Kok Bisa, the kind of content that goes viral, their monetisation strategy & so much more. So if you wanna be a YouTuber, or just want to understand what it takes to produce the videos we binge on (don’t lie, I know you use YouTube 😝), then this is the STIMY episode for you! Highlights: 2:30 Being a superhero 5:00 Asking questions nonstop 7:54 Finding his YouTube co-founder, Ketut Yoga Yudistira 9:54 Creating a different kind of content 11:19 What it takes to produce YouTube content 12:25 Going from 14 to 25,000 subscribers with 1 video! 13:35 Making videos to answer questions from the Kok Bisa audience 18:18 The reiteration process 19:21 The secret to going viral on YouTube 21:00 Humour 21:42 Indonesian meatballs 24:24 The importance of YouTube Shorts 25:25 How do you grab attention? 29:20 Becoming a full-time YouTuber 31:48 Deciding on the equity split 32:42 Questions to ask a potential co-founder 33:51 Navigating burnout & mental health issues 34:55 The different monetary streams they’ve created 36:23 How do you get sponsorship? 43:20 What’s next? 48:16 When do you use the “talking head”? Descript: https://www.descript.com/?lmref=sjT9JA 📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/108 💌 Weekly Newsletter that deconstructs how you can find success & purpose on your own terms: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/acd5bd1062 ✍🏻 Leave a review on STIMY: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/so-this-is-my-why/id1521191442