How a 4m-Subscriber Creator Rebuilds After Burnout  🔗 **Source:** [How a 4m-Subscriber Creator Rebuilds After Burnout](https://share.snipd.com/episode/4984c06c-2156-4ba5-8bed-686b87437a6b) ## Highlights - **Learning To Upload Took Two Years As A Kid** - Matt learned editing in childhood, struggled uploading WMV vs MP4, and took two years (ages 7–9) to figure it out. - Early content included LEGO stop motion, lightsaber fights, and backyard call-of-duty skits. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis Okay, wow. So before I ever hit upload on YouTube, I was trying to learn how. So I was seven years old. And my friends and I, my brother and I, we lived in dayton ohio i don't know why all these youtubers come from ohio by the way no clue but uh i'm another one of those guys and uh we would just Be filming these videos in our backyard uh just having a blast love star wars we'd be just doing lightsaber fights our friends would play call of duty so we try to make it in real life with Airsoft guns um and we just film it. And I knew how to put it together on Windows Movie Maker. But I didn't know that when you hit save as, it turned into a WMV file, and not an MP4 file. And so I tried to upload the WMV file. And I did not know how and it took me two years until I was nine to figure out how to do that. ([Time 0:03:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/abc499e9-93b4-4eea-9353-fead115bdd01)) - **Childhood Uploads Deleted Before Teen Vlog Pivot** - Matthew started uploading at nine, made ~130 early videos, then deleted them in 2017 as a teen pivot to vlogging. - Early influences included Film Riot, Freddie Wong, Corridor Digital and daily practice advice. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis Yeah you know youtube was like a wild west it still is um in a way because just still so much opportunity and there's so much just opportunity to have an edge by doing something differently And new and just not really having fear when you make videos, just making out of a pure like creative instinct and the joy of the game. But really back then, I actually, I have about 130 videos. This might be the biggest regret of my life, Travis, um, that I deleted in 2017. Um, so I'd upload about 130 videos and these aren't crazy. Like it would be me at nine years old, giving my, my 100 subscribers an update about the fact that I just, you know, it's like, it's like, what is he doing? You know? Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I started uploading at about nine years old. Uh, cause I figured out how, and that was a lot of like Lego stop motion and stuff like that. Uh, and then I, I really got into film riot. I loved Freddie Wong. He's a VFX YouTuber, you know, and he made this, uh, YouTube channel called rocket jump eventually. And I just want to copy everything he did. Corridor Digital was another one. And so I would just try and like, you know, I took Film Riot's advice and what they said was just make, try to make something every day. And I was like, well, I can, I can do that. Like, no matter how bad it is, I can just try to make something small every day. And I think when you do that, you know, I think you can really bend the curve a lot better than I did, because it took me a lot longer than maybe most. ([Time 0:05:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b8ed193c-a19f-4869-9aff-4055e7cf77cc)) - **Use A Simple Checklist And Repeat Proven Formats** - Use a short checklist and qualifying question to pick ideas: ask if a video can reach 5–10M views in 30 days (or adjust threshold for your niche). - Repeat formats that work like modular 'ice trays' and swap details, not structure. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis Ask ourselves questions like does this video have the potential and and you can switch this view count around and it's a really helpful clarifying question. But we asked the question, does this video have the potential to gain five to 10 million views in 30 days? And, you know, sometimes we hit it and sometimes we miss. But that's a really good qualifying question, at least for our niche to say, like, because we have a very broad niche. If you're like, you know, I was just with my friends who run a, like a family couples, like kind of a Chip and Joanna Gaines, HGTV style channel. And like, dude, of course, that's a little bit of a, it's a more specific niche. So they might say, does this video have the potential to get a hundred thousand to a million views in 30 days? But we, we, we have checklists that like narrow things down. And then when a video works, like we just repeat the format in the same format, but in a slightly different way. So you can almost think about it, like putting ([Time 0:11:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9045bd68-e947-4c35-a3d7-c8f5c67af35f)) - **Close A Team With Recommendations And Financial Runway** - When pausing or closing a team, give recommendations, help them find new roles, and provide severance for runway. - Matthew reached out to his team, recommended them, and helped editors land new jobs within days. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis And you know, that involves like good severance, like, so they actually have financial stability to be able to, if they don't know what they want to do next to figure that out. But that's, that's kind of how we went about it. ([Time 0:17:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ecc0190e-98b0-4af4-b2bb-4460a963c074)) - **Inner Work And Faith Replaced Self-Reliance** - Personal struggles and piled-up stress/unforgiveness undermined Matthew's emotional control and trust in himself. - His recovery centered on faith and surrendering self-fixation to regain purposeful creative motivation. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis And I realized over time that I couldn't trust, excuse me, I couldn't trust myself. Um, really. And, uh, over time I was like, okay, well, I want to fix myself. And I was just trying so hard by my own strength to fix myself. And what I realized is that, you know, when I first started YouTube, I never even really thought something was wrong with me. And there was nothing really to fix. Um, now I don't think I had like a full understanding, but, uh, really I was relying on the Lord. I was relying on God. And I think really there's so many examples. If you, whether you look at, um, you know, self-improvement, mental health, even like when you look at a, at a organization, like, and not to get too deep, but like Alcoholics Anonymous, One of the biggest parts of healing and just like getting into a really a place where you're good to go. And you're like, you're a high functioning human being again, is having a higher power to believe in. And so for me, that's Jesus Christ. And what I realized is, I can't sanctify myself on my own. I can't do all the things in my inner reality that I need to do on my own. But what I can do is believe that God has already completed it. And in that faith, it says in the Bible that, you know, like, we are saved by grace through faith. ([Time 0:20:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6b20ec91-3c14-40eb-8d9c-1fc5a399ee1a)) - **Expensive Zombie Prison Shoot That Flopped** - Matthew wasted $25,000 on a failed 100-actor zombie prison shoot that they never uploaded. - The shoot failed because it aimed for impressing friends with high-cost spectacle rather than a proven format or audience value. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis Craziest video there was a time we didn't even upload uh where we went to new mexico we rented out a 50,000 square foot prison. We filled it up with 100 people and we put makeup on them to look like zombies. And then I had my three friends try and escape it. We didn't upload the video because it failed. The shoot failed and we wasted 25 grand. So you see like coming from this place, it's like I needed that. I needed to make a video so that my friends would be impressed. And that's not their fault. ([Time 0:24:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ca096b4e-c53f-4d85-b6b3-bc0c56f41a76)) - **Prioritize Lean Production Over Big Spends** - Keep production lean: complexity kills execution and many high-cost shoots flop. - Matthew's big winners often cost only a few thousand dollars and had high gross margins versus expensive experiments. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis Um, so yeah, pretty lean operation. If you just simplify things and complexity is the enemy of execution. So you want to keep things super simple. Travis It sure is. It sure is. Um, it's funny. You said something earlier and I, I'm, I didn't want to forget talking about this. I think it's really interesting. I was talking to a friend, I think, maybe six or seven months ago, I was ([Time 0:30:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/116fb846-9773-47da-9856-baedac56fef3)) - **Design Win Win Win Content That Helps Real People** - Win-win-win formats scale impact: helping someone (SB mowing, Jimmy Darts) creates emotional resonance, audience growth, and measurable support like GoFundMe donations. - Leverage attention to fund real-world help and restore viewers' faith in humanity. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis But I love the channels that it's such a symbiotic relationship. It's such a triple, I call them win, win, win situations. It's almost like you could make a triangle and every point of the triangle is a win. And it's the case with these channels are like, I think SB mowing is one of them. I don't know if you know that, but essentially he'll go to, you know, maybe it's like a 90 year old woman who just cannot take care of her grass. And it's just so overgrown. And he goes, cuts the grass. And it's such an incredible business model because he doesn't have to charge her anything. Cause you know, the older you get, more you realize like there really is nothing in this life like like it went from a transactional point that's free you know like like he has gas for his Mower his gas for his trucks he has maintenance on his mower like every single thing that he does is actually costing him money but the most amazing thing about the format is that he gets 22 million views on a long form video of him cutting this lady's grass. People are super inspired and their faith is restored in humanity. He gets paid through the video and she doesn't have to do anything. All she has to do is just say thank you. And it's incredible. There's other channels like Jimmy Darts. I think he does an amazing job. He'll find, I don't know exactly the behind the scenes of how it works, but they'll find someone who's really in need, like genuinely in need. And then they'll make a video. And who knows? He might know that they're in need. Maybe they have some friends that say, hey, this person really needs it. And he goes there and he encounters them and he does this thing where he says he asks for money and they're kind to him. And he says, well, why are you kind to me? I'm going to give you 500 bucks. It's an amazing viral format that then you get to hear the story of this person. They get benefited in the process and it goes viral because of the format. And guess what he does then? He adds a GoFundMe link. And the next video on shorts is usually $150,000, $500,000. Because 500,000 out of these 22 million people that saw this short donated a dollar. Like it's incredible what impact you can create. The leverage of content is insane. It's hard to even imagine. We got 250 years of watch time at one time. It was either in a day or a month. ([Time 0:32:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/34738bb4-2254-4836-b059-1a0790ac11aa)) - **Plan Multiple Comeback Touches Not A Single Big Return** - Use multiple re-entry tactics: upload compilations, publish shorts, and livestream behind-the-scenes to rebuild momentum. - Treat the first comeback uploads as experiments and follow with more content rather than hinging on one big return. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis And that's, that's really by, um, you know, humbling yourself under the principles saying, okay, Hey, this is, this is what I know is true. Um, even if this is uncomfortable, even if I think I could do it a better way, like, let's, let's do this to the best of my ability and, uh, let's, let's make it the best it can be. And then if it doesn't, if it doesn't hit, you just move on to the next one, you know? Um, but there's strategy involved, right? Like we, we could upload a compilation of, of like our last three, uh, extreme camouflage videos to get the momentum back going. We could upload shorts to get the momentum back going. ([Time 0:42:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dbb3fae0-7e08-49bf-a379-f2693a70a0b4)) - **Shift From Viral Views To Reaching Hearts** - Matthew realized his channel excelled at viral eyeballs but lacked reaching hearts and building community. - His comeback focus is intentionally shifting from pure virality toward emotional impact regardless of view count. Transcript: Matthew (Matt) Ellis We could upload shorts to get the momentum back going. We could live stream, you know, like the behind the scenes of our next video and, and that could get things going. But I think the biggest, the biggest thing is, you know, we've been really good at viral. We've been really good at getting a lot of eyeballs, but we've not really been good at getting a lot of hearts and building community. So I think that's going to be the main focus of coming back, whether it's 100,000 views, 10,000 views, or 10 million views. ([Time 0:42:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1ad10518-9f1f-467a-9af6-11beb85221bd))