Ep. 3000: Alex Becker's Smart YouTube SaaS Strategy, What Is Spectacle Marketing?

You know what's interesting? I've been watching more YouTubers and I think this is a great strategy. So Alex Becker, you remember Alex Becker?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He used to run the ads on Instagram back in the day, right?

Very funny guy, right? And he sells like an ad tracking software called Hyros now and he has a crypto channel.

Hyros is his?

Yeah, Hyros is his. You didn't know that?

I didn't know that. It's a good software.

Yeah, it's a good software. So Hyros is a B2B, it's It's a SaaS software, right? And it's helping anybody, e-commerce or info people or even SaaS people just better track your Facebook ads, for example, right?

Yes, specifically Facebook. And typically people, because we know a lot of people who use it, we've seen it, you usually get a higher ROI.

Yeah. So that's what he promises you in the ads, right? He says, hey, if it doesn't work for you, we'll just give you your money back. And so it's like, it's good. It's a good offer. So his YouTube strategy, so he's got a crypto channel and every time he puts out a crypto video, it gets like hundreds of thousands of views, right? He created an Alex Becker business channel. I was like, oh, what is this? 'Cause he's very entertaining on the crypto channel. He'll like record with his shirt off, right? And it'll be like a Lamborghini in the background. So it's kind of like a spectacle, right? And he made this business channel and I think, so all his videos, they talk about Hyros. Like he'll just inject it in there. He's like, yeah, so that's why you gotta use Hyros. Like he'll find a way to like, it's like a Seinfeld email where you talk about whatever and you just inject, that's why you gotta use Hyros, right? And so each of his videos get like millions of views. know, 15,000, 20,000, sometimes 100,000 views or so. And that is better than a webinar, for example, right? You're getting wider tent, but it's not as targeted, I think, as a webinar. But I do think that channel—

Better for top of funnel.

Yeah. And it starts, that channel is starting to compound. And he does talk about, hey, like, I'll show you how, you know, I hit like a $200 million net worth or whatever, you know? And so I think that's a great YouTube strategy. And I think, look, the way you and I record, it's not exactly a spectacle. It's more of like we're lecturing and we're teaching. I do think like Like we're not gonna record with our shirts off or have a Lamborghini in the background. But I do think that drives more views 'cause it gets people to talk about it. And I think that's a— he carried over his strategy in a way that works for his software. 'Cause the other thing is he, the way he creates his ads, he uses like AI ads or he'll like make a version of him like with a girl with like, you know, like anyway, we'll just leave it at that, right? But he has a lot more leeway 'cause he doesn't have to bow down, I think, to a big list of investors or a board of directors.

I think it's self-funded, right?

I do, I do think he sold a piece of it, like a good chunk of it.

Did he?

You can look it up. Yeah. But I do think he sold a chunk of it and then he does have people that he works with now, but he still gets to call the shots.

Yeah. Let's see. Hyros raises. Did he raise money? Marketing requires— oh, Hyros sold for $110 million.

Yeah. But he's still, I'm sure he gets a second bite of the apple.

So.

Yeah.

Total fund. No, that's Hyros Health. Or is this Hyros Health?

Hyros with an S.

Yeah, I know I put Hyros, but Google AI overview says Hyros.

Yeah.

Let's see, IPOs, specializes in averaging marketing attribution. Yeah, he sold it for $110. Good for him.

Yeah. So I think it's an interesting strategy and I think we've talked about this. The reason you and I are spending more time on YouTube is because we see the power of compounding over a 5, 10-year period. And it's— how is it going for you so far with YouTube? Would you say it's above expectations, below expectations, or meets expectations for you in the last 12 months you've been pushing harder, or the last 6 months?

So the last 6 months it's been going below expectations, but I think that's because of the company that was helping me before. I think I mentioned to you, Candom.

Yeah. Yeah, we talked about this on the podcast.

I don't know what I was paying them. I think at the end I was paying—

$25,000?

$25,000 for 8 videos. I think it was $25,800 exactly For 8 videos a month, plus some Shorts. And we're doing it for a lot less and we're using some internal resources. But when I look at the numbers now, my videos that I'm recording, when I was recording a video before, call it, they were 10 to 20-minute record times, closer to 20. Now my record times are closer to 40.

Per video.

Per video.

And each one's like 25 minutes or so, 20, 25 minutes after editing.

Call it 10 to 20 minutes still.

Okay.

Somewhere around there.

Okay.

A little bit of why it's taking longer is I'm not fully developing the script myself. So someone is helping me do probably 60% of the script while before 100% of the script was for me.

Because you were making a Loom before.

I still am.

Okay.

But I'm spending way less time.

Yeah.

So in theory, if I actually did 100% of the script, it would actually be more efficient just thinking about it right now because my record time would go down. So I should probably go back to doing 100% of the script, but my topics are like super technical. And I believe I just saw my first video 2 days ago while I was at Disney. I was like literally watching it on the phone while in the park, waiting for my kids to finish up a ride.

You didn't tell your wife?

No, I told my wife, I'm like, I got to watch this video.

I got to watch this video.

Wow. And I'm like, I got to give feedback because I wanted it out and they were going to post it this week. And I was like, dude, it's too close to July 4th. Let's just save it for next week.

Yeah.

The editing isn't as good, but I'm like, no one cares if that script is better. That's all that matters. And I think people put way too much time on the video production. And I do think video production is important. You need like a minimum quality, but people want to include all the bells and whistles. And this is like, All those little things for educational B2B content in most cases does not make a difference. And I would say for most educational pieces of content, including B2C, you need decent editing or good editing, but you don't need amazing editing where it's best in class and a mediocre script. I'd rather have amazing script and average editing, and I believe your videos would get way more views.

Yeah. What I'll say is, I would say mine is going, According to expectations, I think it'll compound a lot more probably in the next 6 to 12 months or so. It's interesting because I look at this graph over here. So you look at it a year ago, I might have like an outlier here that goes up crazy, but like it's starting to grow again, right? You can see—

Is that long form or shorts?

This is long form.

Okay.

So it's starting to move up, right? And I think again, if we just keep doing this, I think the thing I tweeted this last week, but if there's anything And I've mentioned this before, I won't say we're necessarily the best marketers in the world, but I would say we're the most consistent, right? There's a lot of people right now, I look at them on YouTube, I think they're going to flame out over a period of time because they're just chasing trends.

Yes.

And I think if we stay consistent to who we are, then overall, over a long period of time, you're going to win. Now, let me give you some examples. There are some people that just record this stuff on N8N workflows, for example, or the newest AI tools, right? The way I try to straddle it right now is whatever AI stuff I'm testing, but then tie it to business. That's my angle with it. And then you, you for the most part, your technical topics, what are they now?

My technical topics, some of them are AI, AI related to marketing. But yeah, I would say overall, I'm trying to get more specific towards enterprises versus just anyone who's interested in content. But if you look at my long-form views, dude, they're down 300 to 390,000. 98,000 views on a monthly basis. Keep in mind, I haven't posted a video in a month.

Yeah.

Um, so I'll start posting again.

Hit Shorts.

Uh, my Shorts is through the roof, but they've also changed how they calculate that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, stats for Shorts.

Yeah.

So it's skewed in my opinion. But if you also look here, I haven't been publishing Shorts either.

Yeah.

So I'll go back to publishing Shorts and long-form content. Um, when I look at like last 90 days, Like, check this out. Shorts, it was way better.

Yeah.

And when I go to long-form videos, it was way better as well.

Yeah.

But the problem I'm facing right now is I haven't published content in a month, at least on YouTube.

Yeah.

But that'll change literally this coming up week.

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That was the one where they raised quite a bit of money.

They raised from Andreessen Horowitz, right? So I watched an interview with this guy, and he's a kid, literally, he's 21 years old.

The guy who like tried to do something during the Y Combinator party or something like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he threw like a Y Combinator, he threw a party, like a legit party, right? Where it's like 50/50 ratio invite only. And then he was getting interviewed by this guy, Brett Malinowski. And so I should talk to Brett about this at some point. But basically he's like, okay, YC, everyone throws these networking events. He's like, that's freaking boring, right? I want to do a party where it's a legit like 50/50 ratio guy-girl and it wants to be— it has to be invite only because this is going to be exclusive, right? But when they first released Clue.ly, he had a video that was super high production where he was like on a date with a girl and then you could see him wearing glasses and then it was telling him what to say, right? And that's how Clue.ly works. It tells you what to say or tells you what to do on like a sales call. For example, like the person saying this, okay, you should know this about this person, right? It's like a heads-up display, basically.

Hardware?

No, it's not even hardware. That video seemed like it's hardware. It's actually just software right now. And then he was getting asked, are you going to get into hardware? He's like, oh, maybe, right? Who knows what's going to happen? But his whole thing is he always tries to do outlandish stuff. And so they made a launch video on how they're hiring 50 interns, or how they're paying, like, they want an army of these creator interns that they'll pay $50 an hour. And then if they hit a million views on a video, they'll bonus them $1,000, right? And then he'll hire these engineering interns and pay $200 an hour or whatever. But his whole thing is like, you have to like stand out. And I do think that's a nice way to get press in the beginning. I think that's a big reason why Andreessen backed them. I do think though, if you keep doing this for the long term, you're going to burn out and you're going to— it's actually not going to compound in a positive way for you in the long term.

Yeah.

Now, don't get me wrong. Who else does a good job of spectacle marketing? Trump does a good job of spectacle marketing.

Yeah.

Elon does a good job too, right? But there's a price to pay with that is my point. There's always trade-offs to this. So I think you can grow a big audience certainly, but there's trade-offs to it versus like Gary Vee. He's always been consistent about positivity. So it's really hard to like burn him or try to go after him for something. So trade-offs.

No matter what kind of content you create, people still do go after you. If you look at Gary Vee, a lot of people go after him. I wouldn't say as many as—

Not as many though. Yes.

As the ones who do spectacle marketing. And you just have to get good at ignoring the haters because like, generally speaking, if you watch Gary's content, someone could try to hate, but there really isn't anything to hate.

There's nothing to hate.

Yeah. And when people hate on him, it's of silly things. But if you actually look at what Gary's done as a career, he's done extremely well in multiple industries, multiple exits. He's a great entrepreneur. But I think a lot of people just hate because of jealousy more than anything else.

Yeah, it's usually an internal thing. It has nothing to do with them. And so, but I do think when you do spectacle things, you do increase a surface area of people that are watching you. And like, by the way, you know, it's not like, I mean, you've tested in the past, right? In certain situations. And so like you've seen what the trade-offs are.

And I think you can do spectacle marketing in many different ways. You can do like the MrBeast running with different amounts of money in a backpack and not saying anything because that helps you get more reach globally, at least on some of the platforms.

forms.

Um, you can do stuff like Alex Becker. I think he used to do a lot of Lamborghini stuff. I could be wrong on the car type.

Yeah, there's a lot of make money online stuff. Yeah.

Um, you can do stuff like Alex Hormozi where I would say he does it. He has content without his shirt on, at least in some of his videos.

Yeah.

Uh, or showing that he's buff or jacked.

Yeah. Right.

There's different ways of it, but what I found is nothing beats just creating a really good product. Like look at Lovable, you know, Lovable is getting a ton of press. What kind of marketing is Lovable Not much.

It's a great product.

And I think they're at, in 6 months or something like that—

$70 million?

I think it was $60 million in ARR in like 6 months or $50 million in ARR. It was one of those figures, but it was fast growth, a lot of revenue in a low period of time. And when you look at the publicly traded stocks, the biggest companies don't do any form of this kind of marketing, spectacle marketing. They just have a really good product or service in a big TAM.

Yeah. And you know, by the way, you talked about Lovable. So I read this post from this person that works at growth there. Her name's Elena, and she talks about how she's worked at all these high-growth startups before, right? But at Lovable, literally everything is built through AI. Like if like prototypes are AI, like everything's done through AI, everyone's AI first, right? And they're just moving a lot faster. And she wrote out this post about the, The AI-native employee, and that's kind of where we want our employees to be, right? But they actually are living it, and then when she wrote about the experience, I'm like, this is where things are going, and I think this is what all founders complain about right now because they want their companies to become that.

Yeah, so I showed you before we started recording the new version of AnswerThePublic, right? It's quite a bit different than the existing one, has more features. Guess how long— and the existing one's built on Ruby on Rails. I haven't heard that in a while. Yeah, so they're getting rid of all of that existing technology rebuilding it. Guess how long it's taking them to launch a whole new version of a product with more features?

A month?

I wish. 2 months.

2 months.

That's still pretty fast. We have existing users, so you got to port, right? So there's some extra work, but 2 months is pretty good.

That would've taken you like a multiple of 3 to 4x before, maybe longer.

Dude, the existing person who was running that company was just like, yeah, it'll take a year. And I was like, huh, how do we end up fixing and changing all this stuff?

1/12 the time. Oh, no, no, no. 1/6. 1/6.

1/6.

1/6. Yeah.

The existing person was—

I kept thinking a month.

The existing person was really good. We just wanted to go a different direction with the product. And I was like, all right, let's just run this lean.

Yeah.

AI is here. We're going to adapt our products. Everyone is used to traditional search. We're going to revamp it all for AI.

Yeah.

We're going to revamp it eventually. Like I was even talking to the team. I was like, when you look at marketing products, You know, and you even have care for ABM.

Yeah.

But what I was telling people, I'm like, we're thinking about products wrong. And they're like, why? And I actually had a call with them this morning, and today being July 4th, uh, they're not celebrating July 4th, are they? Uh, these team members were in Brazil, so for them they're working.

Yeah.

Um, and I wouldn't force anyone to work during a big holiday.

Yeah.

Um, but when you look at the app, Forget just our app, when you look at most marketing apps, they tend to all give you tons of data. Would you agree with this?

Yeah.

And I was like, this is wrong. And they're like, why? I'm like, we're moving in a world where people aren't really paying for the data. Even before, they weren't really paying for the data. They were using the data to get a specific outcome.

Mm-hmm.

And, or they were hoping to get a specific outcome from it.

Yeah.

Like, oh, you gimme keywords, I'm going to use this data to go create content, get more traffic. The traffic generates more sales or leads and I generate more revenue. And I was like, why don't we just tie in the whole funnel or workflow and just do it for people?

Yep.

So it's like you do the research. Okay, you got the research. Ask them where they want to create content, what, for what platforms, recommend the type of format of the content. They can select which versions they prefer, create it, have them sync to their platforms, post it, collect the data, and then Figure out what's working and what's not.

And continue.

And then continue.

Yeah.

And then revise what you recommend and saying, these are the topics recommended. Here are other popular ones, but these ones have not done well on your platform, so we recommend these. Can you please approve us to go create content for you automatically? Yes. Here are the outlines. Looks good. Cool. We will create it. Can we post it on these times? Yes. Approved. Automatically done. Once it starts going, then you start asking, hey, can we just create the content without sending you the outlines and without your approval? And you start eliminating steps. They may say, no, we want you to, we still want to see the outlines. Or they say, we don't need to see the outlines, but we want to see the final product before it's posted. So then you start going through this and like, cool, you can start automating a lot of marketing for corporations. It's not going to be perfect. I don't think it would be as good as having a team combined with AI, but for SMBs that barely have money, they would gladly pay $100, $200 a month for something like that instead of hiring people because they can't afford the people.

All right, that's it for today, guys.

We will see you tomorrow.