How To Monetize On YouTube With Harley Morenstein

September 15, 2022

AI Summary

5 min read

How To Monetize On YouTube With Harley Morenstein

Harley Morenstein started Epic Meal Time in 2010 when YouTube was a completely different animal. You uploaded one three-minute video per week, people watched it on their laptop, and there was no YouTube app. He was a high school teacher at the time, filming rap videos with his phone number in the description, hoping someone would call to hire him. He kept himself off camera because he thought the teaching degree required it. Then a group of friends from different circles came together, and Epic Meal Time was born — within two years it was one of the top five most subscribed channels on all of YouTube, with 1.5 billion views and seven million subscribers.

The Economics of Early YouTube

The monetization landscape in 2010 was primitive. YouTube required a certain number of videos and views before you could earn anything. The fourth Epic Meal Time video — where they sewed five birds into a pig — cost $800 to produce. Harley was terrified. He invited strangers to his house and charged $20 a head just to recoup costs. That video made $750 in its first week from ad revenue. CPMs fluctuated wildly, from 60 cents to $6, depending on the time of year and advertiser demand. Some creators signed with multi-channel networks that guaranteed $4 CPM regardless, but Harley never did.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **300 Loyal Viewers > 300k Views** - Harley explains why a small, dedicated Twitch audience is more valuable than massive YouTube viewership
2 (10:55) **The Genesis of Epic Meal Time** - Harley recounts how a desperate high school teacher and his friends accidentally created a YouTube phenomenon
3 (14:12) **What Epic Meal Time Was** - The channel's scale and the core concept
4 (15:36) **The Co-Founder Trap: Friends, Egos, and Court** - Harley's raw account of going 50/50 with his best friend and the fallout
5 (20:55) **The Turbacon Epic Episode: First Real Monetization** - The $800 gamble that paid off
6 (22:57) **Merch Before Drop-Shipping Existed** - How they built a t-shirt empire from scratch
7 (27:58) **The Netflix Deal That Changed Everything** - A landmark brand partnership in early YouTube

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Are you watching your window of opportunity pass by? Today we share why you need to start now to create success, explore the lessons you will learn the hard way, and unpack how YouTube continues to disrupt industries. Hosts Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg are joined by Harley Morenstein, another member of the “Montreal Mafia,” who created the YouTube sensation Epic Meal Time. Together they discuss how the internet has shrunk the window of acceptability, offer advice on why content creators must check their egos, and share how false starts lead to future success.

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LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

Harley Morenstein: https://twitter.com/HarleyPlays

Epic Meal Time: https://www.youtube.com/epicmealtime

Production & Marketing Team: https://penname.co/

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