Sam Sulik hit 2.31 million YouTube subscribers in one year posting daily 30-minute workout videos with basic thumbnails and lo-fi production. His videos average 700K views each. Eric Siu and Neil Patel break down his four tactics: daily uploads, long-form content, authentic low-budget production, and a distinctive personal brand.
We're going to give you the secret formula on how this YouTuber grew in 1 year from basically 0 to 2.31 million subscribers here. So Neil, have you heard of the name Sam Sulek before?
I have not.
Okay, this guy goes against the conventional wisdom of what you see on YouTube. And so here's the example that this guy over here— so if you can't see it on the YouTube video right now, let me describe what's going on here. So you can see 2.31 million subscribers. This guy's huge, right? He's massive. So he's posting every single day. Winter bulk day, day 28, home gym chest day. He's just like every single day he's posting like a workout video. Like he's working on legs, arms, back, chest. And it goes against everything that you see on YouTube.
His thumbnails are not even appealing, but this is great.
Yeah, the thumbnails suck. And it's like, look at this, 770K views, 679K views, right? There's a lot of views that's happening for this guy right now. So Neil, let's talk about this because he goes against all conventional wisdom on what you would do on YouTube.
Yeah, but when you look at him, he's like not just jacked, he's like super duper jacked. So it could be causing people to just click through because they're like, what the heck? This guy's just not like jacked. He's like Mr. Olympia kind of buff.
Well, let's call it the things that he's doing right, right? So we shouldn't say all conventional things, all conventional wisdom. So one is every single day it's a long-form video. So each of these videos is around 30+ minutes or so. That's one. Two, he has posted every single day. Three, there's something unique about him. Like, he looks unique, right? And then if we actually click on one of the videos over here, let's look at it. He's just like talking to the car, right? And so it's just like his story. I think it's something that you can go around, like you can follow this guy, and it's almost like you're watching a TV show. That's what this guy is. It's a TV show.
Yeah, it's really interesting. And what, Sam Sulik? S-U-L-I-K?
Sam Sulik.
Sulik. I'm actually going to go check out his view count too.
So, uh, look at it, 25 million views. Look at this, 520K additional subs here in the last 30 days right now.
So if you look at him on YouTube, um, I have it on my screen. I'm on Social Blade right now.
Yeah, but I have it on my screen.
Look. Oh, that's the monthly?
Yeah.
All right. So I'm looking at Social Blade. He's getting roughly 27,000 views per day.
27,000? Are you sure? I think it's more than that. Yeah, something's— look, look at mine. Look at my screen. This is pulling from vidIQ. I think this is more accurate.
Yeah.
25 million views and then 520K additional subscribers. So he's still, he's gone down a little bit, but still like the key thing here is you can see each and every day he's publishing a 30-minute video. And so I think people are liking the fact that this is a guy that is continually showing his progress. There's a story to tell. And he kind of seems relatable in the fact that it's not overproduced. There's no crazy thumbnails. It's not like a MrBeast spectacle or anything like that. Yeah.
No, it's a good amount of views. It's not bad. And the views are those— I can't see your screen, dude. Oh, it's a month range. All right. I'm getting old.
Anyway, so what are the key lessons that we can extrapolate from this? One, we've talked about the consistency. We've talked about the longer-form videos. We talked about the— if you just watch him, he's just talking about what he does every single day. If you watch one of his videos, right? And then you see some of his workouts and all that. And that's what it is. And it's like, you can just have this on in the background and people like watching TV. People like entertainment. This is like a, it's like a, what do you call it? It's like a feel-good entertainment type of thing.
So.
Yep.
Look, and he's also being authentic and real. That's the reason why reality TV does so well. People want to see the authentic and real. And everyone talks about like, oh, I need this crazy production studio and having all these cameras and lighting. A lot of times just doing stuff that's lo-fi. And I learned that really from watching Tai Lopez. You know, when Tai Lopez started blowing up years and years ago, the thing he did was his production quality sucked. He was just busting out his phone and recording, but it was realistic. People can relate more to it and it helped him grow rapidly.
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to do it. I think the key thing here is that if you're looking to get started, just go out there and start because There are YouTube channels out there, some that get millions of views per month and only publish one video. And then you have the MrBeasts who they're spending a lot of time and effort, millions of dollars per video, right? For production. Then you have people like Ryan Trahan where he will run a penny across the United States and then he'll give it to MrBeast at the end. And that's not a high-budget thing, but it's creative, right? And then you have guys like this that are just super consistent and he's kind of relatable, but he's also not relatable because he's got these big muscles, right? So, just Figure out what works for you. Like in this case, Neil and I, we love learning, we love teaching, so this is why we do this. And figure out what works for you and then just keep going. And it might take you 2, 3 years to get something going, but that's what it is. So anything else?
Nope, that's it. Make sure you rate, review this podcast, give us 5 stars. We really appreciate it.
