Her Viral Formula Breaks 100 Million Views On YouTube Shorts (ft. Jenny Hoyos)
Viral Shorts, Hooks, Storytelling, and Viewer Psychology - May 3, 2024 (11 months ago) • 44:50
Transcript:
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Shaan Puri | Alright, today we're going to get smarter about short form video. Short form video is something I am **mega, mega long** on. Why? Well, I don't know. Have you ever seen TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts? These things are taking over the world.
So, today's guest is **Jenny Hoyos**. She is a short form video genius, to be honest. I mean, every single short she does gets like **10,000,000 views**—every single one! And it's not because she was famous before or because she's doing crazy stuff. She has just figured out how to make viral short form videos.
I wanted to ask her every question I could. This is an episode of me learning from her the tricks. So, how does she come up with ideas? How do you figure out a good idea versus a bad idea? How does she structure the video? How does she script it? How does she film it? What are the elements and the hooks that make the video more viral versus medium viral versus low viral? What is that knob?
So, this interview is me talking to **Jenny Hoyos**, an 18-year-old short form genius who is going super viral, and she's going to teach us. In the next hour, we're going to get really smart about short form. Alright, let's do it!
What we're going to do is, in the next, I don't know, **45 minutes**, you are going to tell us the specifics—the tactical breakdown of how you've cracked the viral code. You know how to go viral on TikTok and YouTube.
Yeah, but you are 18 years old. You live at home in your parents' house. It's only been **2 years** since you started doing a lot of the content that you're doing. I went and scrolled all the way back, and it started off not so great, but now you're getting like **10,000,000 views** per video. You've had a **100,000,000 view** short—that's kind of incredible!
What is that? Is that what your life is like? Give people a sense of who you are.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, and you... I mean, you nailed it right on the head.
I'm Jenny Hoyos. I'm a YouTuber who makes videos around the life of a cheapskate, I guess you can say. I guess you can call me like, you know, the anti-Mister Beast. So... people call me **Mister Least**.
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Shaan Puri | Yes, which is amazing branding. I mean, we've had Mr. Beast on here, and he's like, "I spent $3,000,000 per video."
I'm curious, when you record, do you do anything to get yourself into a certain state of mind? You know, we talk about Hollywood. If you ever see an actor in their van or their truck before they're going to do a scene, they'll kind of get themselves into the character. They'll get themselves into the state of mind. Nobody can bother them; nobody should go talk to them. They are getting in the zone.
I'm curious, do you do anything to kind of get yourself into a certain state of mind? I remember there's a creator called Miss Excel that I love. This story I've told many times, but she creates content about Microsoft Excel—how to use it better. But she's super high energy; she's like dancing and doing other stuff. It's like dancing plus Excel—it's a weird combo, but it works.
She said something like, "Before I go record, I'm not thinking about what I'm going to say. I just get myself into a state where I feel magnetic. I just get my charisma, my energy up so high. When I feel like I'm there, I run to my camera, I turn it on, and I start recording."
She believes that all content is just energy transmission. It's her pushing her energy through the phone to you. The way she feels, she's going to push it through, and then you're going to feel that way too. I love the way she described that.
That's very much how I do this podcast. I'm just curious, not everybody does things that way. Is that similar to what you do, or how do you approach getting in the right state of mind before you create a piece of content?
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Jenny Hoyos | Oh my gosh, I love this question because I used to struggle with this so much. As, like, honestly an introvert, most people wouldn't like the CBS one, but like, yeah.
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Shaan Puri | The introvert with 1,000,000,000 views.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, like... I don't know. I used to do what MrBeast did, basically what you said. I used to try to bump up my energy so that when I film, I have like the highest energy. But now I try to have consistently high energy throughout my day, every day.
I actually built that muscle by doing this thing for like a month:
I would set up my camera for an hour and I would do a stand-up comedy show to myself. I'm... I'm like improvising.
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Shaan Puri | Or, yeah. | |
Jenny Hoyos | I've never done stand-up comedy. I don't know comedy.
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Shaan Puri | That's amazing.
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Jenny Hoyos |
And I did that just to learn to not be scared, to tell bad jokes and just be myself and natural. Then after that, I would record my entire day almost, and it wouldn't even go online.
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Shaan Puri |
That is fascinating. You actually did that? You would, in the morning, turn on the camera and just do a stand-up routine? Just to get yourself to feel confident, to be okay in the awkwardness, and to get your... kind of like charisma reps? Is that what you were doing? Like people go to the gym, you were doing that?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Actually, okay, here's what I would actually do. This sounds cringe because I've never said it before:
There's this YouTube channel called "Charisma on Command." So in the morning, I'd watch that. Then throughout the day, I would repeat the things I learned in my head. At night, I would do the stand-up comedy show.
Throughout the day, I would try to record as well, just to get my reps in. But that's essentially what I did. I tried to build up my charisma and personality just by recording videos that no one's going to see.
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Shaan Puri | I don't think that's cringe at all. I think that makes total sense. Whenever I see somebody who's good at something, I don't assume they're just good at it; I assume they've worked at this.
When you see somebody who's good on camera or has a personality that's really charismatic, I assume it's because they practiced being charismatic. Maybe they did it informally, just in school, cracking jokes at the lunch table and whatnot. That's where they got their 10,000 reps.
But if you don't have that, or you're starting as an introvert or somebody who's bad at it, there is a deliberate way to get better. Just like any skill, just like building muscles, just like becoming good at tennis or whatever else it is.
I actually look for things that are really valuable to have, but nobody wants to practice. Even worse, people would find it cringe or lame if you said, "I'm practicing this."
That's a gold mine! We agree it's valuable, but nobody really works on it. So, I don't even have to work that hard to get great at it, to become better than most people at it, because most people are not practicing.
Even worse, even if people wanted to practice, they'd feel so lame or it's taboo, or it sounds cringe or awkward to do it. That's a barrier to entry most people are not willing to overcome. I hunt down those skills and I develop them.
It's really great to hear you, at age 18, doing that same thing. That's really amazing!
So, you've said before there are four criteria for an idea: novelty, uncertainty, knowledge gaps, and complexity. Can you explain what this means?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Knowledge gaps is basically telling the viewer, "I know something that you don't," which is why you have to watch. It's similar to what we were talking about before, how it's like "I did X so you don't have to."
Uncertainty is basically telling the viewer that you're doing something crazy that you don't know what the outcome could possibly be. For example, I recently made a video where I sold everything my family owns. There's so much uncertainty in how my family is going to react. We need to see their reaction to me selling everything.
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Shaan Puri | You know, I'm not so much of a TikToker or YouTuber just yet, but I will be soon. When I write, even a blog post or a Twitter thread or something like that, I often put the central curiosity gap up front. This is basically about what the person is curious about that will make them want to read to the end to see the payoff.
Exactly! Mr. Beast does this in his videos too. He did a video recently where he said, "I have people aged 1 to 100 trapped in these rooms, and the last person out is going to win." The curiosity is, "Who's going to win? Is it going to be the old person or the young kid?" | |
Jenny Hoyos |
That actually is something that comes down to the video idea itself. When I'm brainstorming an idea, we want the idea itself to have so many questions that need answered. Because at the end of the day, content creation on YouTube is about what piques people's curiosity. It's about:
1. A problem that needs to be resolved at the end of the video
2. A question that's going to get answered at the end of the video
That's what I try to do in all of my videos.
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Shaan Puri | So, let's look at one of them.
23,000,000 views. You have, "What does $1 get you at Starbucks?" Like, literally, the title is the question—the unresolved question.
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes.
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Shaan Puri | I don't know. What can you get? I guess it's more like, what's the most you can get for the buck, right?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes.
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Shaan Puri | How do you get the most bang for your buck? That's kind of brilliant.
Okay, who has the best dollar menu? 3,100,000 views. Also unresolved, which place is it going to be? You can see literally the first frame is you holding a dollar bill with Burger King behind you. It's kind of like, you know, you can see what you're going to do. You're about to test, visually, what can I buy with this dollar at this place.
So the unresolved question is kind of interesting. The other thing I like that you do, and I don't know if you have any thoughts on this, but it seems like you weave in your personal life or your personal stories. So it's not just like, "I'm going to do this crazy thing." It's like, "It's my mom's birthday, and I want to get her a gift." Then you do the crazy thing, but at least the video is more relatable. I kind of connect with you more. I see your mom, and I like that you're buying your mom a gift. You're kind of earnest about it.
Is that a tactic that you think about? You know, kind of a personal story versus just a generic stunt?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Totally. I think that's what makes the videos... quite frankly, there's so many people who can do the same idea, and it just doesn't go as viral because they're not telling a story. That's why I try to weave in my personal life, because it's more relatable. More people comment about it, and that's how we get that returning viewership.
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Shaan Puri | Hey, real quick. You know, one of the cool parts about what we're doing is that people have reached out and told me that they've built actual $1,000,000 businesses. They made their first million off an idea they heard on the show. That is crazy! That's wild! That's why we want to do the show, and we want to see more of that.
One of the questions we get asked over and over again is, "Is there some kind of idea database or spreadsheet where we list out all the different business ideas that we've talked about?" Well, the answer is finally yes! The fine folks at HubSpot have dug through the archive and pulled out 50+ business ideas and put them into a business idea database. It's totally free! You can click the link in the description below to get the database for you.
Alright, now back to the show. So, what's an example of a video you did with a story that you could have done without?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Okay, the best example I have was a video where I made a garden on a budget. You know, if you search up other people's videos about making a garden, they were averaging like 20,000 views. People who make gardening videos don't typically average high views.
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Shaan Puri | So, what was the difference? How did you get, if a normal garden video gets 20,000 views, your garden video got 20,000,000 views? What did you do to juice that video up?
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Jenny Hoyos |
I told the story of how ratatouille is my favorite food, but it's so expensive to buy. Technically speaking, I could just make a garden to have infinite ratatouille for life. It's my favorite food, so it just works out. Also, my mom and my grandma were helping me for a portion of the garden. It interweaves so many things that people can insert themselves into.
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Shaan Puri |
Right, so you took a normal thing with medium to low stakes, you added your "why" - why I care about this. And the "why" doesn't have to be life or death. I think that's kind of important. I think, you know, a lot of the YouTubers did it as life or death. It's like, "This is the craziest stunt you've ever seen!" And I think Ryan Trahan and you... I think you guys are very, very likable because it's almost like low-stakes stakes.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Oh, 1000% especially like now on YouTube. People are so used to these high stakes, like seeing "$10,000" in a title. Anymore, people don't even know what that means because they're seeing people like MrBeast spend $1,000,000. So it's like... people are just so numb to these numbers or these stakes, where almost these low stakes are [becoming] high stakes.
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Shaan Puri |
Right, okay. So let's take an example and try to make it better using some of the techniques we've discussed. We'll just riff on this and see where it goes... live improv here.
Let's say I want to make a video about me making dinner. On a scale of 1 to 10, this video concept is... not going to be the most exciting. Let's use some techniques to show how you would make it better.
We can use either:
- Novelty
- Complexity
- Knowledge gaps
- Uncertainty
How would you make that idea more interesting?
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Jenny Hoyos |
I love this! So for me, if I was to make that idea - making dinner - intrinsically not intriguing at all, but what's relevant to me is how much of a struggle it is as someone who has a health condition. That's one angle, right?
Then there's also the angle of doing it on a budget, which is what I usually do. So now that's even more of an intriguing angle: trying to make a healthy meal on a budget, because healthy is supposed to be expensive.
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Shaan Puri | Right. Or it could be, "I'm trying to make a fancy dinner, but I don't know how to cook."
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Jenny Hoyos | That too.
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Shaan Puri | I'm a total beginner, but I'm going for gourmet.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yes, exactly! And then there are so many different layers. I also love to do juxtaposition where it's like, "Okay, I want to make a gourmet dinner with leftovers from last night."
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Shaan Puri | Or, or like a Lunchable or something like that.
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Jenny Hoyos | Right, exactly. Turning a Lunchable into gourmet... then, you know, all of these are great ideas. At the end of the day, it's like, which one makes you most excited?
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Shaan Puri |
Gotcha, okay cool. And then the personal story part would be:
1. Why am I making the dinner in the first place?
2. Why does this matter to me?
3. What are the stakes?
So, we made the idea more interesting by adding the contrast, the juxtaposition, the complexity, and the novelty. But then the personal story might be:
> I invited my mom over for dinner. She's cooked for me my whole life, and I told her I was going to cook her an amazing meal. Only problem is... I've never... you know, I'm an adult now, I moved out of the house, but I've never cooked dinner for anybody. I've never hosted guests. I gotta do it.
This adds the personal stakes and emotional context to the situation, making it more relatable and engaging.
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Jenny Hoyos | The story is even better now because there's an angle where the video is something along the lines of turning Lunchables into Dinnerables.
Lunchables don't have a dinner option; it's just Lunchables, right?
What's even better is that your mom would never cook for you, but she would always give you Lunchables for lunch. So now, for dinner, you're going to give her Lunchables.
I mean, it sounds a bit complex, but as you script it, remember that with complexity, the goal is to add layers to give people more reasons to watch. However, you don't want to actually confuse the viewer.
That kind of comes back to the way you copywrite it because you want to say it in a way that's easy to digest and drip-feed that context.
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Shaan Puri | Right, yeah. When we were hanging out with Mr. Beast, he was telling us about some of his video ideas. What I realized was, I was like, "Man, the reason his videos can get 100 million, 200 million views is because it's a concept so simple you could literally just draw it with a stick figure drawing and people would get it."
For example, two people who don't know each other trapped in a room for 100 days. If they make it the whole way, they get $1,000,000. These are like simple, universal, easy-to-understand ideas.
What you just did with the Lunchables Dinnerables thing is kind of like that. It's that amusement factor—I'm doing this just for my own amusement. I'm not doing this to impress you; I'm doing this to scratch my own itch. Can I do this? I think that's very likable and also very simple to understand.
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Jenny Hoyos | That's a... I turned Lunchables into dinnerables. Visually, you can imagine that.
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Shaan Puri |
Yeah, okay, that's great. Alright, I'm excited for you to go make that video someday.
Alright, so we got ideas on how to basically brainstorm to turn any kind of mundane idea into a better idea using those techniques. Now, actually pulling it off... so delivering on it.
What is the most important part? What's the first thing you do when you have the idea? What's the first thing you gotta get right in order for a video to pop off?
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Jenny Hoyos |
The hook is so important that sometimes I figure out the most viral hook isn't the most viral idea. So then I have to come back to the idea and change the idea based on the hook.
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Shaan Puri | When you think about hooks, I guess the question is: what is the big picture advice when it comes to hooks? And then, what is the tactical process you take?
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Jenny Hoyos | Power words should be the first thing that starts the video.
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Shaan Puri | What's a power word? What do you mean?
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Jenny Hoyos | Power words are things that will instantly hook people. These are very strong words, such as "free," "$0," "stole," or any other crazy word. The reason I say this is because I see a lot of people—way too many people—start their videos with phrases like, "This is..." or "I'm out..." This doesn't tell me anything about the video. In fact, I actually scroll past because it's just bad.
On the other hand, if someone says, "Free chicken sandwiches all weekend," I'm in! Where are these free chicken sandwiches? I was hooked the moment you said "free." So, the number one thing you want is for your hooks to start with power words.
The second thing is that you want the video to progress. The reason why starting with a bland statement is bad is that it doesn't do anything. For example, saying "This is blank" doesn't tell me what you're going to do; it's just a statement. In contrast, saying "Free chicken sandwiches this weekend" already tells me the whole story. Or if you say, "I'm building a secret room," you're already telling me the action. Even though the power word doesn't come until three words in, "secret," it still works because it starts with the action: "I'm doing blank" or "I'm going to do blank." The story is progressing instead of being stale.
The third thing, which is very crucial for hooks or in your general introduction of your video, is to foreshadow the end. Your hook has to be very clear about what the video is going to be about. You're not only setting up the video, but you're also indicating what the conflict is and what’s going to happen at the end of the video—all in one sentence. This is very hard, but that's what a really good hook has. | |
Shaan Puri | So, I have an example here of one of yours. You have one that says, "Movie theaters are overpriced," and you said that's the hook.
Then the foreshadow is, "So I'm gonna make a movie theater at home on a budget of only $5."
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly! Yep, exactly. You nailed it. You want your hooks to have the setup, conflict, and what the resolution is going to be, all in one.
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Shaan Puri |
What metrics in a video map to that? For example, on YouTube in a normal video, the thumbnail and the title matter, and you know that because you can see the click-through rate - how many people actually choose to try to watch your video. When it comes to short-form video, what metrics are the top two that are related to idea and hook?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, so the idea or hook metric would be the view versus swipe away percentage.
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Shaan Puri | View versus swipe away. What is like good, and then what's like amazing for that percentage, that number?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, so I've heard the average is 70%, where pretty good for me is 80%+ and excellent would be 85%+. But for my channel, we average around 80-85%, which is very uncommon. I think MrBeast is like at 75%, so I've heard.
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Shaan Puri | And then the second one is like the view versus swipe away.
And then what's the next most important metric? Retention.
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Jenny Hoyos | **Retention overall?** Yes, retention. I'd say because that just shows how much the viewer enjoyed the video.
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Shaan Puri | What do you shoot for with retention?
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Jenny Hoyos | It depends on the video length, but generally, you want to be at least 90%. My team usually goes for 95% or higher. | |
Shaan Puri |
Wow, and again, I think for most people it's like 15% or something crazy.
Oh no, okay. So, the hook and the first frame... What about the visual? What works in the actual visual? Because with short-form content, there's no thumbnail and people aren't really reading the title, I don't think.
So, what's your philosophy on what to put on screen? What should that first frame look like?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, I try to keep it as simple as possible. It's a very similar philosophy to like a title and thumbnail; the same psychology in a way. I try to keep it with little to no focus points, high brightness, and high saturation.
We go through so many lengths and measures in After Effects and VFX just to make it pop out that much more. For example, sometimes we'll add artificial fire just to make it look crazier.
In one of our shorts, I went to Hell's Kitchen, but you don't really get that message across unless you actually add the restaurant on fire, you know? It's something as little as that.
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Shaan Puri | Is that not real? Up at the logo of the restaurant, it looks like there's a fire.
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Jenny Hoyos | There’s not.
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Shaan Puri | Fire either.
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Jenny Hoyos | That's not real. People think it's real.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah. | |
Jenny Hoyos |
So we try to make things really stand out. Even with the secret room, when I first hit the wall, I just dented it. I didn't even break a hole. We actually had to make VFX where it would look like I made this giant hole, like I broke a giant hole. In reality, it wasn't a giant hole that broke; it was like a little teeny tiny hole because I have a small hammer.
It's little stuff like that we try to enhance. We try to make things look even crazier in post-production.
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Shaan Puri | Interesting. So, what was the first thing you said? "No little to no focus points." What did that mean?
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Jenny Hoyos | So, what I mean by that is we don't want any busyness to go on. I think a really good example is if you can show who has the best dollar menu.
In the first frame, just pause it and notice that this is not a real environment. We actually took myself, we rotoscoped myself, and then we found an image of McDonald's on Google that was so much cleaner. It had no cars, the logo was clean, and there were no trees.
We did this so it could look perfect for the viewer, if that makes sense. That's what we try to do. We want the environment to look as clean as possible, so there are no busy points. | |
Shaan Puri |
So, alright, great. We've done:
1. Idea: How to go from meh to good to great
2. Hook: How to grab them by the throat, get that 80%+ view rate
Now you said foreshadowing is the next part. What is foreshadowing and how do you do it? Because this is one that I've heard of obviously. I've thought about the ideas, I've thought about hooks. This is not something that I do in my process. What is foreshadowing?
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Jenny Hoyos | Foreshadowing is when you give a viewer the expectation of the end of the video. The way I've coined it is that you basically want to tell the viewer that there's an Amazon gift card at the end of the video. Essentially, they need to watch until the end.
Sometimes, you'll have to explicitly tell the viewer, "Oh, you'll get blank at the end of the video." Usually, a lot of my foreshadowing is implied. For example, "Who has the best dollar menu?" It's very implied that by the end of the video, I'm going to tell you who has the best dollar menu. Right, right, right? That's usually the best foreshadowing—one that's so obvious because it's within the hook and it's implied.
But an even better, even stronger foreshadowing hook is when you have a mechanism. An example of that is, "What does $10 get you in Miami?" Now, not only do you know by the end of the video what $10 gets you in Miami, but you also know how I spent the $10.
The mechanism is actually seeing the money being spent. Because in the first second, you see, "Oh, she spent $2. We're at an $8 budget." Then, a couple of seconds later, "Oh, now she's at $5." We have a sense of progression of where the video is going.
Because otherwise, if the viewer does not feel like the video is constantly progressing, then they are going to leave. Even though you said that there's something at the end, they don't know where the end is. So, it's also very important to make it clear. | |
Shaan Puri | Let's talk about storytelling. You have a great quote: "What is storytelling? Storytelling in one word is change."
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes.
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Shaan Puri | Unpack that. What does that mean? | |
Jenny Hoyos | I think the biggest thing is **progression**. I guess when I say change, I mean progression.
Similar to what I was just saying, the viewer wants to feel like they're constantly either learning or laughing even more, or they are building towards something. They don't want to feel like they're just watching something stagnant, like they're just watching paint dry.
The best storytelling is when there's **character development**—change in the actual character. At the beginning of the video, the character starts at one point and is now at a new point at the end.
I suddenly did that in my short that hit **100 million views**. Basically, I built a secret room with $0, and my goal was to have a secret spot to watch YouTube. In the beginning of the video, my mom was yelling at me for destroying the house and saying there’s nothing under there, like I’m crazy—what am I doing?
Then, at the end of the video, she ended up having the secret room and pretending like it was hers. Now, it was very subtle, but change like that is what actually made viewers not only watch till the end to see how that gets resolved, but also rewatch the video again knowing that.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, that's interesting. Rewatching... that's a big part of your strategy, right?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, it's... it's number 3. Number 1 is the hook, and number 2 is overall retention, which is video progression. Number 3 is rewatchability.
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Shaan Puri | What gets somebody to rewatch?
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Jenny Hoyos |
There's not that many things I get people to rewatch, so it's probably the toughest thing to do. So there, you could do **easter eggs**, which is essentially like hiding little things in the video that people are going to comment about and potentially watch again to see, "Did that actually happen?"
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, I do that all the time. I like a video, I open the comments, and then they reference something that I didn't see the first time. So, I end up watching it again. | |
Jenny Hoyos | Yes.
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Shaan Puri | And then I go back to the comments, and it's still looping in the background. I probably end up watching the video three times.
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly. So that's one way. Another very easy way to do it is through tutorial views. Tutorials are rewatchable because people, especially if it's on shorts, are not going to watch a tutorial once and automatically know all the steps.
Usually, when you have specific steps or lists—what's called listicles—it makes it very easy to rewatch.
My favorite method, however, is actually having twists in your videos. When you have a twist, the viewer is going to want to rewatch the video with that new knowledge, knowing what the twist is.
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Shaan Puri |
That's interesting. I like that. What about storytelling mechanically? So, you know, what are some techniques? I know you've talked about this. I think the "but, therefore" method, which I don't know... did you get that from the South Park guys?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, I did. Yes, I did. | |
Shaan Puri | Explain... explain what that is. | |
Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, so storytelling is basically adding conflict throughout the video so that it makes it more intriguing as the video continues.
An easy example is if I made a video going on a walk. Let's say that's a very bad idea, but you know, I went on a walk and then it started raining. I kept walking, but then there's nothing new really happening because it's just, "You just keep doing things." It's like, "And then this, and then that." That's such a boring story.
As opposed to constant conflict being created when you say "but" or "so." For example, I was walking, but then it started raining, so I had to find an umbrella. But I'm in the middle of nowhere and don't know where I am. So I went to pull out my phone, but my phone is dead. Then I started running.
You see what I mean? The story feels more intriguing because you're instantly adding more conflict, and you're finding that conflict much easier by simply saying "but" or "so."
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, there's a great clip of the South Park guys doing this where they have a story written on a whiteboard. They just cross out all of the "ands." They're like, "This is how toddlers tell stories when they're, you know, they came from school." It's like, "And then this happened, and then this happened, and then..."
Then, Miss gave me this, and then this, and then I got candy, and then this. He's like, "Just cross out all the 'ands' and just try to replace them with 'but' and 'you know,' 'but,' 'so,' right?"
So, "But this, I wanted this," or "I was doing this, but then this happened." So then I was forced to do this, but then I encountered another obstacle. So then I tried this other technique, and all of a sudden, like, any story can become interesting just using that.
That's probably one of the highest leveraged techniques that just changes the interestingness of a story. Another one is stakes. Do you use stakes in your story? I know, like, you know, basically what's on the line. Why does it matter that you do this?
I know a short is so, so small in length, so you can't build it up in the same way you can build up a movie or a documentary. But have you used that, or do you play with that idea?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, I love using stakes, and the way I see stakes is also like including a "why," right? And usually with stakes, it's either like artificial or just like a personal why. But for the most part, I usually try to make like *real* stakes.
I kid you not, we always default to what's actually happening in my real life that we can actually include as real stakes.
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Shaan Puri |
So, for example, in that "Secret Room" video, it's like the initial "why" and the initial stakes are:
You want to watch YouTube, but your mom's yelling at you saying you're watching too much YouTube. So, you're trying to build a secret room.
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly.
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Shaan Puri |
But then, by the time you take the sledgehammer to the wall, the stakes have actually elevated. It's like, "Oh my God, she's breaking down her house!" She better pull this off, or else... you know, now you thought YouTube was a problem? Breaking the wall is gonna make her mom even more manic, right?
So, you know, the best stories actually increase the stakes over time.
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, and we want the viewers to be at the edge of their seats all the time. I know this conversation is primarily on shorts, but even in my recent long form, the stakes were incredibly high.
I sold everything my family owns, and the stakes were basically what kept the viewer at the edge of their seat. I'm selling everything without my family knowing, and I'm going to keep selling bigger and bigger items until they notice. But when they do, I'm going to give them all the money I make to prove that cash is better than trash, essentially.
So now, it's a crazy idea. The stakes are high because she can get in big trouble with her parents. It's like, when is she going to get caught? How far is she going to get?
While I'm saying all this, I'm showing clips of me taking the microwave, a bunch of decor, and moving furniture out of the house. It's like, oh my gosh, this is legit! This is crazy.
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Shaan Puri | Things are getting messy now.
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Jenny Hoyos | Right.
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Shaan Puri | Exactly! Yeah, like, you know, even great TV shows, *Breaking Bad*, for example. So what's the change? He's a high school teacher, kind of a pushover, living a pretty boring life. Then he gets diagnosed with cancer. He knows he's going to die and that his family's going to be left with no money. So, big stakes all of a sudden.
Okay, but he's a high school teacher, so where is he going to get money? He decides to, you know, deal drugs—basically, to sell drugs in order to get money. But he doesn't know anything about making drugs, so he goes and meets his former high school student. But that guy's a druggie, so he doesn't know anything either. This guy takes over and actually creates a proper lab out of it.
But the cops come after him, right? That's the story. Along the way, the stakes get bigger and bigger. At first, he needs a little bit of money. Then it's, oh, the dealer that he's working with tries to rob them. Then the DEA is after him, but then the DEA is his brother-in-law. It just goes on and on, and eventually, he's running this empire. The stakes have gotten even bigger—now it's life or death.
You know, he's sitting on a million dollars. So the stakes escalated, which is why a lot of people consider *Breaking Bad* one of the greatest shows because it did that so well.
Yeah, I want to recap. We started off saying, "Let's build the perfect short." We did the idea and how you could tag the idea to take a meh idea and make it more interesting. Then we have the hook—the first frame. How do you grab their attention and get, you know, 80% of people to actually watch versus just swipe away?
You have foreshadowing, which is hinting at what's to come, the payoff—the promise of what might come at the end. Then you have retention—the storytelling. What keeps you hooked? What keeps you engaged? That sense of progress as the video is going on.
The last thing is the ending. So, what's the end of this perfect short that we're creating? How do you think about an ending, and what do you do in your ending? I noticed some of them are kind of abrupt. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, so a lot of people on short-form content will sometimes not even give a payoff because their retention will be like crazy high; they would have no drop-offs. But at the end of the day, there is no viewer satisfaction if you just don't give a proper payoff.
So my intention with endings is to keep it as short as possible while giving some sort of payoff, even if we have some sort of retention drop. Our goal is to ensure viewer satisfaction, so the next time the viewer knows, "Oh, she's at least gonna complete the story."
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Shaan Puri | End of the video... so, not frustrating.
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly. So, we want the payoff to feel so good. The way it's called is **peak-end theory**. Essentially, you dictate your emotions, feelings, or opinions towards something based on the ending.
Just like you would watch a movie, you can be bored for the whole thing, and then the last 30 minutes are really good. Those 30 minutes will dictate your feelings throughout the entire movie. You would say, "That was the best movie I've ever watched," even if you hated the first half, right? Just because the ending is the last thing that you remember.
So, that's why we want the endings to feel intense emotion. We should close it off with either strong wholesomeness or just the funniest moment in the entire video. A lot of the time, we like to do twists because that'll have great rewatchability, essentially. | |
Shaan Puri |
Interesting, interesting. So that's the perfect short. Now let's talk about the process.
You've done some interesting things. I've heard you talk about getting ideas. You're like, "I got thousands of ideas for shorts." You know, *steal like an artist*. What does it mean to steal like an artist? And what have you done to kind of steal like an artist to generate lots of great ideas?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, "Stealing Like an Artist" is essentially about taking inspiration rather than actually recreating video ideas. For the most part, what I mean by that is I usually steal from topics or different movie techniques, as opposed to taking actual ideas. I don't know, I feel a little icky doing that.
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Shaan Puri | Well, it's "Steal Like an Artist," not "Still Like."
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Jenny Hoyos | A thief.
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Shaan Puri | Right, so like a thief is when you take the exact idea from something directly in your lane and you just copy it. Yeah, exactly.
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Jenny Hoyos | You copy it.
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Shaan Puri |
Word for word, frame for frame, there are people that are still doing that. Like an artist, I think, is you find inspiration from things directly but also indirectly... adjacent spaces, right? And then you put your remix on it. You have to find a way to add your twist to that same base idea.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, I think the easiest example where I "stole like an artist" is I'm very inspired by what MrBeast does. He genuinely is changing people's lives, he's philanthropic, you know? He's making people happy. And it's like, "How could I do that with the Jenny Hoyos twist?"
It's quite literally doing what he does but on a budget. I think that's like the best example. Just... whenever I want to take inspiration from someone, I try to find what's my unique perspective that I can add to it.
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Shaan Puri |
That's great. You've also done... like built some tools, I think. You scrape data off these platforms so that you're able to analyze a bunch of videos, and you're looking for some kind of outlier, I would assume. Or you're looking for something in that data. Can you describe what you did and what you look for?
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Jenny Hoyos | Know, like you said, my team has built a bunch of tools, and the goal for that is to understand our viewer psychology.
Recently, our number one goal is to increase subscriber conversions. We have over **1,000,000,000** views and **2,000,000** subscribers, where the average person would have like **10,000,000** subscribers. So, we're like, "Okay, let's increase our subscriber conversions."
Essentially, what we did was create a tool where I took all my videos and manually labeled what I did in each of those videos. Some of them were labeled as having my family in them, while other videos were labeled as malicious content. Some were labeled as wholesome, and so on. I labeled every video with any possible thing the video could be about, including a bunch of different factors. For example, if I mentioned YouTube, if I said "subscribe," or literally anything that could have happened, I labeled them manually.
Then, we put them in a graph and a chart to see the subscriber conversions on that specific video to find out how I can maximize subscriber conversions. Doing something like that, we found that I doubled my conversions when I have my family in the videos, specifically when I'm making wholesome content where I surprise them, such as giving my mom a birthday present. For example, we have twice the amount of subscriber conversions.
However, what's interesting is that if you don't have this tool, the average person might see, "Oh, my YouTube studio shows I got double the amount of subscribers, so you should do that." That's not necessarily the case. What we found was that I got double the subscriber conversion but **10x** fewer views when I do that. I actually get my regular conversions when I do malicious content but **10x** the views, which means I'm getting **5x** more subscribers.
In theory, that means that's actually what's going to get me more subscribers. It's basically little things like this that we're building tools for to find out how we can maximize views, retention, viewer satisfaction, and so on.
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Shaan Puri |
One of the other things that I really liked was when you described how you were studying the platform. You said:
> "I will go look at a channel and I look at a short, and you know, if I see a short that has 10 million views, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best concept if the person on average gets 10 million views."
This approach shows a nuanced understanding of content performance analysis. It's not just about raw numbers, but about context and relative performance.
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly.
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Shaan Puri |
But if they on average get 10 [views/likes], and this video gets 30, it's an outlier concept for their baseline. And then you looked at all those outliers to figure out the differences between great ideas versus just normal ideas. Was that right?
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Jenny Hoyos | Correct. Yeah, it's all relative.
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Shaan Puri | Well, how did you do that? What did you do? Is that manual? Did you just go channel by channel and try to look at their view counts? What did you do? Yeah.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Unfortunately, that was all manual. Usually, the way I find these outliers is by going to trending every single morning. Every morning I will go onto the trending page and I will watch every single trending short.
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Shaan Puri | That's like your morning routine.
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, and my nighttime routine... because it’s like they change it.
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Shaan Puri | And my lunch routine, I'm always doing that.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Exactly! What's crazy is that once you get used to it, you actually don't have to just rely on trending. Now my shorts feed is just a bunch of trending shorts because I watch trending every morning and night. Now when I go on the shorts feed, I find trending-like content as well.
And then I have a swipe file, which is what I actually learned from the book "Steal Like an Artist". I'll put all these things in the swipe file if I want to... steal like an artist.
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Shaan Puri |
I want to ask you a couple more tactical questions. First, audience. You know, there are different theories in marketing:
1. You need to have a persona or a target avatar
2. There are other people who say, "I'm just making for me"
3. Others say you should do a market analysis and find the biggest market possible, then a psychographic analysis of what they care about, blah blah blah
Alright, that's... you know, what do you do? You're actually winning. What do you do when it comes to audience?
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Jenny Hoyos |
Yeah, so I used to have my younger self as my avatar, and you know, I think you can go pretty far doing that. But I realized if I want to get to 100,000,000 subscribers, I need to have multiple avatars. And now at this point... I don't necessarily talk to one specific person. I'm just trying to cater to every audience.
Which is like... I guess long story short, I used to do all that market analysis, but now I don't. So yeah.
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Shaan Puri | So, what do you use as the guiding principle now? Just like, kind of what would anybody... what would everybody be in? Is that a different question?
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Jenny Hoyos | The guiding principle is making content that's intriguing for kids because, at the end of the day, that's the biggest audience on YouTube. While making it mature enough for adults to also watch, you know, there's a lot of kids' content where people are screaming. It's like, how do I make kid-centered content that isn't screaming and is a little more natural?
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, like, you know, Pixar did this amazingly, right?
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Jenny Hoyos | **Like Pixar.**
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Shaan Puri |
Disney made movies that an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old can both go and enjoy, maybe for different reasons. But it's one product, it's one piece of content that just appealed to such totally different age groups.
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Jenny Hoyos |
Exactly! That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I think it helps having my mom in the videos too. Like, I try to have her as much as possible because people can relate to me coming from a young perspective. Or people also watch us because they see my mom and they're like, "Oh, you know, I watch the videos because it kind of reminds me of me and my daughter." You know, it's like it gives the viewers multiple reasons [to watch].
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Shaan Puri | Give me your take on where you think this all is going.
It's amazing that every platform is now focused on short-form video. It's incredible that people are getting millions and millions of views. You can even have a video with 100 million views; that number is bananas!
However, I think people are trying to figure out how to switch to long-form content. A lot of creators are using their shorts to try to transition to that because they may sense that shorts are not building as much loyalty or trust. You know, the algorithm picks what you see, rather than you going and seeing the people you've chosen to follow necessarily.
So, where do you think this all goes? Five years from now, what does this look like? Where do you think the puck is heading? What are your predictions for the value in this space, or what misconceptions do you think others may have? I'm just curious to hear your thoughts.
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Jenny Hoyos |
I feel like it's going to be the extremes that do well, in the sense that either:
1. Short-form content is going to continue to grow, or
2. Really long-form content (20 minutes+) is going to continue to grow.
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Shaan Puri | Deep or really quick value.
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, really deep or really quick... quick value.
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Shaan Puri | I don't want to be in between.
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Jenny Hoyos | Exactly that. That's genuinely where I think it's gonna go. Yeah, I think social media is gonna kill Hollywood, honestly. | |
Shaan Puri | So, let me ask you about you now. You're obsessed, is that fair to say?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yes, I have a very obsessive personality. It's scary.
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Shaan Puri | Do you get obsessed about other things? Is this the first thing you've become obsessive about, or did you get obsessed with some video game before that?
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Jenny Hoyos | I'm obsessed with... I get obsessed with everything. It's a problem.
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Shaan Puri | It's a problem or it's a benefit.
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Jenny Hoyos | It's both.
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Shaan Puri |
And what is your goal with this? I guess, you know, people ask me this all the time. They're like, "So when people get like a million views or 10 million views, do they get money from that? Is that the... are you getting rich off this? Is that the goal with this?"
You're 18, what do you want out of this? What's your goal?
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, so I'm basically living to fulfill my childhood dreams. As funny as it sounds, I started my YouTube channel when I was 8 years old. I am literally living the dream, and I just want to keep achieving my childhood goals.
It's kind of cringe, probably, to say, but quite frankly, that is the goal. Ideally, I really do want to inspire people to understand the value of money and to not be so spoiled. You know, when I was a kid, I didn't understand the value of money. I would always ask my family for things, and my parents, being nice, would give me these things.
It wasn't until I got older that I realized, "Oh my gosh, they're working so hard to make money," and I would be asking for these things. That's not right. I don't know... you wouldn't even need it. I want to inspire people to live a happy, fun life without needing that much money, which is why my content is centered around having fun on a low budget.
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Shaan Puri |
See, that's interesting because I thought you were saying, "I want to inspire people because I want to be the biggest YouTuber, and I want to inspire people that you could make it as a YouTuber," and blah blah blah. What you said was very different though. You were like, your thing that you do in these videos is about having great experiences. Either you're:
- Giving a great gift
- Creating a fun project
- Eating your favorite food
But without having to spend a ton of money, being more resourceful.
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Jenny Hoyos | Being. | |
Shaan Puri | More handy, being more self-reliant versus, you know, money reliant. And that's kind of cool. I didn't realize that that was your goal. I mean, I'm glad you told me that. That makes me think about what you're doing from a different perspective. I think it could be a lot bigger if that's the perspective, versus "I want to be the biggest star I can be." | |
Jenny Hoyos |
Totally, and it's kind of tough though because I'm going to be completely transparent: I genuinely want to be the next MrBeast. Like, I want to be the female MrBeast with over 100,000,000 subscribers. But I still want to stay true to that message, which is going to be kind of tough. It's like, you know, MrBeast spends a lot of money to be where he is. Can I do that without... I don't know.
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Shaan Puri | Right, well that's the whole premise. That's your whole thing. So, alright, that's kind of amazing, Jenny. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for coming on.
Where should people find you? What's the shout out? What do you want people to do from here?
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Jenny Hoyos | If you want to work directly with me, feel free to email **[email protected]**. We can have a one-hour consultation call together, and I will review your videos and your business. You know, let's blow up on social media!
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Shaan Puri | **Love it! Thank you, Jenny. Thanks for doing this.**
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Jenny Hoyos | Yeah, no, this is so much fun! I love this. Thank you so much for having me. |