Ryan is the Co-Founder of Tru Earth

Purpose driven direct to  consumer brand builder.

Ryan has:

✅ Helped Grow Tru Earth to more than 160,000 active subscribing customers
✅ Together with Tru Earth's Changemakers, eliminated more than 165,000,000 plastic-containers from landfills..
✅ Donated more than 33,887,227 loads of laundry detergent to those in need.
✅ Grown multiple premium subscription boxes to multi-million dollar businesses.
✅ Written content has been read by more than 100,000,000 readers.

Connect: 
Facebook https://m.facebook.com/theryemckenzie/
Twitter: @RyeMcKenzie

About Tru Earth
Tru Earth® based in Vancouver, Canada is a leading eco-friendly household product company committed to eliminating plastic from landfills and oceans. At its core, you’ll discover that Tru Earth, is actually a movement (#TruEarthMovement™). The Tru Earth team joins more than a quarter million equally committed people in more than 50 countries to combat the 645 billion plastic household product containers dumped in landfills and oceans globally each year. 

Our customers are #TruChangeMakers™, disrupting the multi-billion-dollar household product industry, reducing carbon emissions by up to 94% and caring for the health of the planet and their families. 

Tru Earth’s suite of products and planned launches come with our pledge to provide #TruChangeMakers with laundry, bathroom and kitchen products they need to make a substantial impact on the health of our world. To do ourpart, we promise to match all first-time subscriptions by donating to families in need across the globe. Because at Tru Earth, we know many small hinges can swing very, very big doors.

Ryan Mckenzie

Every founder on this app is losing their minds over AI tools right now. ClaudeBot this. Moltbook that.

Half of it is slop. The other half you’ll never really use.

But every new drop makes you feel like you’re falling behind. The pace of AI right now is a shiny object machine. And it’s pulling operators away from the stuff that’s been working all along.

I run an eight-figure business. This is my entire AI stack: 

>Open ChatGPT in dictate mode
>Talk through 50 half-baked ideas
>Tell it to organize my brain
>Grab competitor copy, dump it in
>Ask what persona they’re targeting
>Hop on a call
>Let Granola take notes
>Pull action items 

That’s it. 

Free plan. No autonomous agents. No tools I don’t trust accessing all my stuff. 

Don’t let the timeline make you feel behind.

Everyone wants the sophisticated play. 

The sophisticated play is getting good at boring.

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Co-Founder Tru Earth | Saving the planet, one strip at a time.

Before Tru Earth I was running this outdoor adventure brand, and with it came a revenue glass ceiling I didn’t even realize was there.

I thought anything over a million dollars a year was incredible. Like, why would you need more than that?

Then I met Matthew Bertulli at a mastermind. Told him my goals. That it was gonna be a slide of the desk business. Just a nice little thing.

All he said: “Think bigger.”

Two words. And something clicked.

Most of what holds you back is your own self limiting beliefs about what’s reasonable. And you don’t even want to shed those beliefs sometimes.

Because your life is comfortable and you’re afraid that if you change those beliefs, something you really like about your life might change too.

Seven years later and I still think about that conversation.

CEO @ Lomi & Pela Case - Follow me as I talk about building my brands.

Everyone's calling Ads in Chat GPT the next Facebook Ads.

It's not.

The people using ChatGPT today are the same people who used to search on Google. Same audience. Different platform. 

The pie didn't get bigger. The searches migrated.

So if your Google Ads performance has been declining for 2 years and you can't figure out why: your audience is still out there, they just moved. And now there’s a way to follow them.

The data angle is real. Facebook had behavioral tracking. Google had intent. ChatGPT has both. 

People literally tell it their problems in plain English. Every conversation is a targeting signal.

If OpenAI builds their ad product even halfway well, the targeting should be strong. Early conversion data already looks solid.

Everyone is talking about this like a gold rush, but it’s a recovery play.

Most of what you’re seeing is demand that already left Google. Now there’s a channel to go get it back. 

If you're spending on paid search and watching returns erode, pay attention. This doesn’t “change everything.” But it does explain what already changed.

6 behaviors I see in founders who stay healthy while scaling:

1. They focus on fewer things 
Running 30 initiatives = zero progress 
Focus is doing less, better

2. They chase asymmetric opportunities 
One big swing beats 20 small tweaks
Incremental wins rarely change a business

3. They optimize for signal, not activity 
Busy feels productive 
Outcomes are what matter

4. They update their thinking at each stage 
What works at $1M breaks at $10M 
Every revenue stage needs new mental models

5. They hold contradictory ideas at once 
Scaling is complex 
Black-and-white thinking doesn’t survive it

6. They build teams that make decisions 
Approval loops kill momentum 
Great teams have agency

The pattern: healthy founders remove complexity

My ADHD brain has 40 tabs open at all times.

Here’s what I do to manage:

- One task at a time. Not “mostly one.” Literally one.
- Physical Pomodoro timer on the desk. Something I can see counting down.
- Dedicated workspace. If you work where you relax, your brain fights you all day.
- Clear the desk every morning. A cluttered desk is a chaotic brain.
- Every notification off. Shopify, Stripe, email, Slack. All of it.
- Phone on permanent sleep mode. Five people can reach me. Everyone else goes to voicemail.
- No email or Slack during a focused block. They can wait.
- No open tabs. I used to have dozens running at all times. MinBrowser fixed that.
- Facebook ads? Go straight to Ads Manager URL. Never through the feed. I've lost hundreds of hours to that scroll.
- Freedom app to block sites during Pomodoro sessions. Even when you get tempted, you can't access them.
- Physical notebook for random ideas. Write them down, close the loop, come back later. Otherwise your brain opens a hundred tabs internally and none of them close.
- Take breaks. Parkinson’s Law is real: work fills the time you give it. If you sit at your desk for 8 hours straight, the last 4 are garbage.

Your brain isn’t broken. 

It just needs a system that works with it instead of against it.

This is first world advice.

If you can’t pay your bills, “build a machine that produces value” won’t help you eat.

You need revenue. Fast.

Maslow’s hierarchy applies to business too.

At the bottom: survive. Solve a problem someone will pay for right now.

Once you’re stable: yes. Build the machine. Think in systems.

Applying $10M thinking to a $10K problem gets you neither.

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Building a durable company means stacking real pillars underneath it: DTC, third-party marketplaces, retail, international. 

Four years is enough time to get somewhere. Rarely enough time to build something.

When you’re growing that fast, you’re holding on by the skin of your teeth. The train goes wherever it wants. You’re just hoping not to fly off the caboose.

Every region needs localized packaging, localized payment gateways, localized language.

You can build fast. Just know the difference between building something fast and building something that lasts.

Two things changed the trajectory of my career.

1. Hitting rock bottom.

- Built a ringtone subscription business. It collapsed.
- Had just bought a house, a condo, and signed an expensive lease.
- Owed the government a pile in taxes.
- Put the tax money into a “regulated” forex opportunity.
- Forex collapsed too.
- Bailiff showed up to seize my SUV.
- I was driving around screaming from stress.

2. Choosing commitment.

- Standing in the shower one morning. Full messaging framework for Tru Earth just clicked.
- The product seemed too cheap to scale. But at that moment, the entire positioning downloaded.
- Voice-noted the whole thing before I dried off.
- That messaging carried Tru Earth for years.

If you can, choose #2.

But if you’ve already hit #1, the clarity that comes from survival mode is real.

The bottleneck isn’t taste, intelligence or creative systems.

Most people online are so vanilla. They don’t expose their interests or say anything controversial. 

They just share business stuff.

Look at Hormozi. Grows his hair, grows his beard, always wears a tank top, works out like a motherf*cker. Says a lot of controversial stuff. I bet you half of it he doesn’t even mean. But people align with it.

Because when everything starts looking the same, nobody’s attracted to you because they don’t feel like they have anything in common with you outside of “I'm this hard working, grinding” guy.

My kids already say everything’s AI this, AI that.

We're heading back to a place where people follow and listen to people who are clearly real. You’ll get verified by being authentic.

Founders sand off every edge that would make someone actually give a sh*t about them.

You've got maybe 1000 days before AI levels this whole playing field.

A friend of mine runs a supplement brand doing solid numbers in the US.

About six months ago he started noticing something unusual in his analytics. Consistent traffic from Canada. Not paid. Organic. People were finding him through social media and word of mouth across the border.

He was excited for about ten minutes.

Then reality set in. His US-based 3PL wouldn't ship north without brutal surcharges. The few orders he managed to fulfill took two to three weeks and arrived with surprise customs fees that destroyed the customer experience on delivery.

So he watched the traffic. Every week. Canadian visitors showing up, bouncing at checkout, leaving.

He described it as watching revenue walk out the door through a window he couldn't open.
We connected him with Breakthrough Fulfillment. 

They had him fully operational in Canada within two weeks. Freight forwarding to local warehouses, next-day delivery to Toronto, Vancouver, and other major cities. No surprise duty at the customer's door.

Within 90 days he had added a revenue stream he had been accidentally ignoring for over a year.

The part that stands out is how common this pattern is. Brands generating organic Canadian demand without realizing it, then losing those customers to a logistics problem they assume is too complicated to solve.

If you are doing real volume in the US, check your geographic analytics. If Canadian traffic is showing up and not converting, the demand already exists. The infrastructure is the only thing missing.

https://lnkd.in/eGUqzqCe+M+LinkedIn&utm_campaign=3pl+feb+wk2

If this sounds familiar, comment below or send me a DM. I will connect you with the team.

www.breakthrough.studio

Breakthrough Studio - Premier 3PL Services | Streamlined Logistics Solutions

Every upgrade feels like a flex for about two weeks.

The office, the car, the lease on a bigger warehouse.

Then it just becomes another bill. Another thing you have to feed every month whether the business is up or down.

The best thing I ever did was start asking "does this make my life easier or does this just make me look like I'm winning?"

Most of the time it was the second one.

Social proof is NOT dead. Stop listening to your timeline.

That’s just bad advice from brands who don’t understand the difference between a 1.5 and a 4x ROAS.

I spend $50K+/month on static ads. And it comes down to one thing: 

Matching the right trust signal to the right stage of awareness.

This changes everything about how you allocate ad spend. 

The same testimonial converts at 4x in one ad and barely breaks even in another. Because nobody asked: does this buyer even need convincing yet?

I broke down exactly which signals belong where here:

Social Proof Isnt Dead Youre Just Using It Wrong 

Landing pages are basically first dates.

You can say all the right things, look great, check every box.

Then you make one claim that's slightly too big and the whole thing falls apart.

Believability is more important than impressiveness. Always has been.

Entrepreneurs don’t like to admit this:

The janitor probably has a better life than you do.

For a few months after I stepped away from the day to day at Tru Earth, I'd be at the gym in the morning and my brain would start screaming at me:

You gotta get to your desk. You gotta get to your desk. You gotta get to your desk.

And I'd be standing there mid-set going... What desk? I don't have a desk to get to anymore.

That voice wasn't rational. 
It was just years of training. 
Years of being always on. 
Years of every morning being about the next fire, the next hire problem, the next thing that needed me specifically to figure it out.

You don't realize how much that costs you psychologically until you stop paying it.

When you're in the middle of it, you think everybody operates like this. You think this is just what it takes. 

- Managing people who won't be in the same room anymore because they don't like each other.
- Solving problems with no clean answer.
- Carrying decisions home every single night and pretending you're present with your family when your head is still at the office.

And then there's the janitor.

The janitor:
- Shows up
- Checks every box on the list
- Walks out at 5 o'clock
- Doesn't think about it again until tomorrow

No mental load. 
No 2am problem solving. 
No Slack notifications at dinner.

A lot of entrepreneurs look down on that. 

I think that's wrong.

Not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Not everybody values the same things. And the person who doesn't take work home with them? They're arguably wealthier in the one thing every founder eventually realizes matters most...

Time. 

And the ability to actually be present inside of it.

If you’re building something right now and you feel this weight every single day, I’m not telling you to quit. I’m telling you to notice this.

Because the cost is real.

My kids are only young once. It's been really nice to just be there. Not thinking about tomorrow's fire. Just hanging out with them and soaking it in.

This is what life is all about.

Nobody tells you the weird part about stepping back from the business you built.

You go from "I'm the CMO of [brand]" to "I'm... working on some stuff."

Your identity was the company. Now you have to figure out who you are without it.

It's a better problem to have than most. But it's still a problem.

I’ve built businesses that did $100K months and ones that did $0 months.

The operator who walks out of the $0 month is someone you couldn’t have built on purpose. 

That only comes from surviving it.

Most operators are optimizing against themselves.

Your open rate went from 18% to 23%. You called it a win.

But 23% against brands your size, in your category, on your platform could be bottom quartile.

You don’t know. And that’s the real problem.

Omnisend’s Benchmark Calculator pulls real data from 150,000+ ecommerce brands and shows you where your email and SMS actually stands, not just whether the numbers are trending in the right direction.

Open rates. Click rates. Revenue per email. Benchmarked against brands running similar send volume and similar categories.

This is the difference between “our emails are improving” and “our emails are beating the top 20% of brands in our space.”

Q1 just ended. Before you commit to a Q2 plan, you should know where you actually stand.

If your benchmarks are coming up short, sending more isn’t usually the fix. Getting on a platform with the flows, segmentation, and automation infrastructure to actually convert is.

Omnisend’s US merchants average $79 in revenue for every $1 spent. The Benchmark Calculator is free.

If your current ESP can’t even show you how you stack up, that’s already your answer.

Run your numbers here: https://lnkd.in/dddMBgx8

Use code RYAN30 for 30% off your first 3 months.

Already on a paid plan elsewhere? Omnisend handles the migration for free. Automations, templates and flows. All done in 5 days.

And yes, I’m a proud Omnisend partner.

Open article: Recommended by Ryan McKenzie by omnisend.com

A friend of mine owns this little café I like to visit from time to time. 

And man, this guy’s got it figured out...

A couple real estate investments. His future is set. He runs the café because he wants to, not because he needs it to work perfectly.

And something clicked for me sitting there.

That’s the actual goal.

Not the flashy milestones. Not scaling to 9 figures for the sake of saying it. Not even the massive paydays.

The goal is having enough resources working for you that you can take risks and fail without everything coming apart.

I think most founders get into this game thinking about success. But they forget that things change.

Products lose steam. Business models stop working. Algorithms evolve.

It’s easy to feel untouchable when things are good. But what happens when it all stops?

That’s when you need to be okay starting over.

The café owner had it right. He built enough outside the business that he could operate without any desperation. No panic. No survival mode.

And it made me realize: I need enough resources outside of my main thing to keep going on my terms. Because everything ends eventually.

But if you’re prepared for that?

That’s freedom.

🔥 "I made $100K in the last 15 days mostly from the high-ticket YouTube funnel. Very glad you convinced me to do it this way." - Sean, YouTuber & Course Creator

When he first came to us, Sean was making $30K from his YouTube channel. But he was stuck creating videos that got views but weren't driving real revenue.

So we built a system where his content solved specific, high-value problems that connected directly to his premium offers.

Within 2 months of working with us, he scaled up to $180K/month. 💰

Now he's pulling in 7 figures annually and is on track to hit 8 figures this year.

He didn't need millions of views or subscribers to do it. What mattered was delivering the right content at the right time to the right audience.

👉 We work best with:

- Agency Owners & Service providers ready to leverage video content for lead generation
- Coaches & consultants looking to scale through YouTube
- Course creators seeking to build sustainable audience systems
- Established creators wanting to optimize their monetization

👉 If you're an agency owner, business owner, personal brand, coach, or consultant who wants to turn your YouTube channel into a lead and sales machine...


Message me here on LinkedIn.

Shane Hummus

I’ve met probably hundreds of YouTubers doing 6-8 figures a year, and have coached many of them

The ones scaling fastest all do these 8 things:

1. Pick Your Niche First

Use the "I help X with Y" framework. "I help accountants become financial controllers." "I help stay-at-home moms use AI to create passive income." "I help trades workers negotiate higher salaries." Run it through ChatGPT or a niche validator. Get a score of 8+ out of 10. Move forward once validated.

2. Just Start

You validated your niche. Now open the doors. You won't know which specific topics resonate, what angle people prefer, or what sub-topics get the most engagement until you actually upload. I started with "college and career advice." Posted videos and watched engagement. Noticed YouTube growth content exploded. Naturally refined to "helping people grow on YouTube." 

3. Find Winning Video Ideas

Look for videos with a small channel under 50K subs, massive views at 10X+ their subscriber count, and terrible quality like bad audio and poor editing. Then recreate that video for your own niche but in high quality.

4. Upload Consistently

A ceramics teacher split his class into two groups. Group A made as many pots as possible. Group B made one perfect pot. The best pots came from Group A. While Group B theorized, Group A made 100 pots and learned from each one. Post every week. Videos 1-5 you're learning. Videos 10-15 you're getting better. Video 20+ you know your audience. Video 50+ you're crushing it.

5. Optimize Titles and Thumbnails

Keep your title structure similar to the proven video you found. Don't reinvent it, just improve it slightly. Their title was "Most Worthless College Majors." My title was "Most Useless Degrees." Same structure, slightly cleaner. For thumbnails, cover the title and ask if someone can understand your video from just the thumbnail. If not, fix it.

6. Ignore Everything Else

Don't waste time on fancy cameras, perfect lighting, complex editing, SEO optimization, posting shorts, or studio setups. 

7. Batch Your Videos

Making videos one at a time means you pay the setup cost every single time. Pick one day. Set up everything once at 9 AM. Record 4 videos back to back. Clean up once at 11:30 AM. 4 videos in 2.5 hours. Content for a month. You're just grouping them so you don't waste time on setup and cleanup 4 separate times.

8. Monetize Simply

Skool community, elaborate funnel, or 17-module program. My brother's monetization is AdSense plus an affiliate link to a "learn trades skills" course. What feels elementary to you is completely unknown to your audience. That thing you figured out 5 years ago that feels obvious now? Someone is desperately Googling it right now. Write it down and sell a simple PDF. Or offer coaching calls. Or drop an affiliate link..

♻️ Repost this if you found value in it.

I Teach YouTube For Busy Business Owners | Creator of The 'Hybrid Personal Brand' Method™ | YouTube Growth Expert | The "Monetization" Guy

How to build a life you'll regret:

> Chase sexy businesses instead of boring ones that print money
> Stay at your job making $30K/month because you're scared the good times will end
> Keep your pharmacy license as a backup instead of burning the boats
> Spend 6 years building something and never let your safety net go
> Follow every guru who tells you to turn on settings that tank your revenue
> Obsess over fancy editing instead of strong ideas
> Wait until you feel ready to start
> Let your fear of losing what you have stop you from getting what you want

(this is actually my past life)

When I was broke, I was obsessed with money. 

That's all I could think about because I didn't have any. 

I wanted the watches, the cars, the stuff that would prove I made it.

Then I started making good money and I was still obsessed with it, but for a different reason. 

I was afraid the good times would end. I wanted to secure the bag while it was hot.

I was making over $10,000/month from my business and I still kept working as a pharmacist for two more years. 

There were months I made $20-30K from the business. Still didn't quit. I was that risk-averse.

I thought maybe it was just a pandemic thing. Maybe after COVID the income would disappear. 

I had all these thoughts in my head telling me to play it safe.

One of the biggest things I ever did was quit my job. Then I let my pharmacy license expire. 

That's a huge deal for a medical practitioner. If I wanted it back, it would take a year to get it reinstated.

Even after that, I was still living abroad in cheap countries. My cost of living was maybe $1,000-1,500/month. 

I was making $30K, $40K, $50K, then $100K, then $300K a month. Still living on almost nothing.

I got to a point where I realized I could go back to a $10K/month lifestyle and live happily for the rest of my life. 

Probably $20-30K/month and still be comfortable forever with what I saved.

That's when I actually secured the bag.

And that's also when I lost motivation around money.

I had to do some real soul searching to figure out what still drives me. 

Mastery. 

Just getting better at the game. 

Leveling up all the skills like Runescape. 

That's what's actually fun for me now.

Your breakthrough might be video 5, 50, or 200.

My brother's first video hit 812K views. 

A guy made Pickle Pepsi with a flip phone and got 1.8M views.

Quality comes from quantity first.

Perfecting video 3 < Shipping video 30

If I was stuck in YouTube Hell and wanted to break free, this is the first set of things I’d do.

5 hidden YouTube settings destroying your channel right now.

1. Auto-Dubbing (The Audience Splitter)

YouTube automatically translates your videos into different languages. 

Sounds helpful until you realize what happens. 

Your English content gets pushed to viewers in Brazil and India. 

They click, watch 30 seconds, and leave. Your retention tanks. Algorithm punishes you. 

One creator said every video tanked after YouTube turned this on in April. 

US viewers watched 4 minutes 33 seconds. Brazilian viewers watched 1 minute 10 seconds. 

Turn it off in YouTube Studio → Settings → Upload Defaults → Advanced Settings → Language Settings.

2. Restricted Mode (The Invisible Video Filter)

YouTube hides your videos from schools, libraries, and families without telling you. 

One creator was struggling with views since August. 

They tested their own channel with restricted mode on and a huge amount of their videos just disappeared. 

Thousands of potential viewers couldn't see their content. 

Check YouTube Studio → Settings → General → make sure Restricted Mode says Off.

3. Player for Education (The Silent View Killer)

My brother Zach turned this on because a guru said it would help his channel grow. 

His views immediately tanked. 

When videos are in education mode, watch time doesn't fully count, comments are disabled, likes are disabled, and subscriptions are disabled. 

The algorithm thinks your video is dead. 

Go to YouTube Studio → Content → Edit Video → Advanced Settings → Change Category from Education to something else.

4. Wrong Language Detection (The Wrong Language Trap)

YouTube uses AI to detect what language you're speaking. 

Sometimes it gets it wrong. 

One creator posted a video in English but auto-generated captions defaulted to Vietnamese. 

YouTube showed their video to Vietnamese speakers who clicked, realized it was English, and left. 

Check YouTube Studio → Content → Edit Video → Subtitles → make sure the language is correct.

5. Made for Kids (The Engagement Assassin)

If you check this box when your content isn't actually made for toddlers, YouTube disables comments, limits recommendations, and removes personalized ads. 

One creator's daughter was checking this on every video. 

Channel wasn't growing at all. 

She stopped checking the box. 

Views went up immediately.

Kid-friendly does not mean Made for Kids. 

Only check this if you're making content for 4-year-olds. 

YouTube Studio → Settings → Channel → Advanced Settings → Audience → select "No, my content isn't made for kids."

My brother's views tanked because of one setting a guru told him to turn on. I help creators fix these mistakes and build channels that actually grow.

♻️ Repost this if you found value in it.

If I had a 9-5 again, here's how I would break out of it:

> Stop listening to gurus who overcomplicate everything
> Upload 3 videos a week minimum and let YouTube learn my audience
> Turn my struggles into content instead of hiding them
> Find videos with millions of views and make my own version
> Monetize before 1,000 subscribers with sponsorships and affiliates
> Push through ugly reps instead of perfecting one video for months
> Stay consistent until my breakout video finally hits

My brother Zach did this while working full time.

29 days after his first video, he got monetized.

Now he makes $520/day from YouTube.

Your 9-5 is the safety net and YouTube is the exit plan.

I've helped hundreds of creators build YouTube channels from scratch.

The ones who blow up fastest all avoid the same 7 mistakes.

1. Treating YouTube Like Social Media

YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, not a social media platform. Google owns YouTube. Videos that are clear and searchable get recommended. Think like a publisher. Every video needs a clear purpose before you film it. Ask yourself who this video is for, why they would click, and why they would stay until the end.

2. Thinking You Need Fancy Gear First

A channel called Retirement Survival films simple videos on a balcony with a phone. Started a few months ago. One video hit 1.2M views in 9 days. Now earns $8K-$25K/month from AdSense alone. You need the right idea, not the right camera.

3. Thinking Perfect Editing Is What You Need

"Just exist bro" got 2.8M views. Simple vlog filmed outside a home. A video about making every day fun without scrolling got 1.6M views. Basic outdoor vlog with minimal cuts. "When You Just Ain't Got it All Together" got 7.6M views. Filmed in nature with simple cuts. Strong ideas and titles that hook people in 3 seconds matter more than fancy transitions.

4. Following Random Gurus

One creator on Reddit admitted they panicked after a dip in views. They started making constant changes based on different gurus online. Each change made things worse. They almost quit YouTube altogether. My brother Zach turned on the "Player for Education" setting because a guru said it would help. His revenue tanked immediately. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Test things carefully before making big changes.

5. Trying to Reinvent the Wheel

A creator made a video titled "You've consumed enough. It's time to start creating." 484K views with only 12.6K subscribers. Multiple creators took the same idea format, added their unique voice, and all got success. Copy the homework first. Find video ideas already working in your niche. Add your unique perspective. Innovate after you build an audience.

6. Having the Wrong Mindset

Dad Mode In Dark Mode posts raw, simple talking head content. He kept uploading knowing each video builds his catalog. Now his videos hit thousands of views and he makes $2K-$7K/month. One video about being 40 and wasting his life made $2,200. If you quit early, you'll never know which video could break through.

7. Not Having Clear Titles and Thumbnails

YouTube viewers make a decision in under 3 seconds. If your title says one thing and your thumbnail says another, nobody clicks. Your title and thumbnail must work together as one unit. Be clear, be direct, be congruent with your message. Don't be mysterious or overly clever. Clarity beats creativity every time.

My brother lost AdSense revenue because he followed random guru advice without testing it first. I help creators avoid these mistakes and build YouTube channels that grow.

Book a call:

thecontentgrowthengine.com

Content Growth Engine Business

Beginner YouTubers do this after uploading:

> Stuff 10 links in the description
> Publish immediately after upload
> Enable Player for Education because a guru said so
> A/B test thumbnails with no impressions
> Ignore the community tab
> Never watch their video on phone or TV
> Let comments sit unanswered for days

Smart YouTubers do this instead:

> One link at the top of the description with a clear CTA
> Wait 24-48 hours before publishing so YouTube's AI can crawl the video
> Turn off Player for Education unless making classroom content
> Focus on making better thumbnails instead of testing with no data
> Post to community tab right after upload to drive initial traffic
> Watch on phone and TV to check viewing experience on both screens
> Respond to comments in the first hour to create engagement and notifications

My brother turned on Player for Education because a guru told him to.

His AdSense revenue dropped immediately.

These small things compound into massive differences over time.

9 small business ideas that are printing money right now.

1. Remote-Controlled Butterflies for Weddings

Buy RC butterflies for around $500. Fly them at wedding venues. Reach out to wedding planners so you don't have to find clients yourself. Average weddings cost $33K. RC butterflies are a fraction of that budget and make the event unforgettable. No feeding, no cages, no cleanup like real doves.

2. Selling Dehydrated Fruits

Buy fruit from Walmart, cut it up, dehydrate it, pack it, sell it to bars and cafes. David Blake on Instagram makes $12K/month doing this. A dehydrator costs $191 on Amazon. The machines do most of the work.

3. Pickleball Content

Building a pickleball court costs $33K-$36K. Or you could just make content about it. ThatPickleballGuy uploads 1 video a week and makes $2K-$5K/month from AdSense alone. He also has a course with 1.3K members at $39/month. That's roughly $25K/month total.

4. Floating Golf Hole-In-One Challenge

Amateur golfers have a 1 in 12,500 chance of hitting a hole-in-one. They keep trying anyway. Charge $50 for 50 balls. One guy with an iPad runs the whole operation. Estimated earnings: $300K-$500K/year net. It's basically an outdoor casino where math guarantees profit.

5. Miniature "Guy Dollhouse" Construction Kits

Hyper-realistic miniature houses built like real construction with framing, drywall, and nail guns. Kits sell for $500-$1,000+. The content sells the product because each build becomes an ad. StudsonStudio uploads every few months and still makes $1K-$4K/month from AdSense plus $3K/month from Patreon.

6. Porch Pumpkin Decorating Service

Started as a simple Instagram post that blew up. Customers pay $500-$1,500 per porch setup. Each setup takes about 1 hour. Runs only during fall but still hits 7 figures in 3 months. Pumpkins are reused and removal is an upsell. Net margins around 40-50%.

7. Luxury Picnic Planning

Picnic 'n Chill in San Francisco brings in $9K-$12K/month setting up decorated picnics at parks and beaches. No storefront, no lease, no employees. Just equipment you reuse over and over. Marketing is almost entirely TikTok and Instagram. Viral content leads to bookings.

8. Automatic Bicycle Washing

Velobrush is a fully automated bike washing station. Riders push their bike in, the system cleans it in 2 minutes. No staff needed. Charge $5-$12 per wash. If a station handles 20-40 bikes a day, that's $3K-$10K/month in mostly passive revenue. Machines in Germany reportedly paid themselves off within months.

9. Trash Company Without Spending a Dollar

Spencer Scott pre-sold 3 months of trash pickup in his neighborhood Facebook group. Raised $15K upfront before owning anything. Used a $40K Amex personal loan for a used truck. Payment was $700/month, covered by the subscriptions. Built routes of 400 homes per day. Churn is almost zero because customers only leave when they move.

♻️ Repost this if you found value in it.

People often misunderstand TRUE ownership

They think ownership means acquiring - like

Cars
Watches
Properties
Status symbols

True ownership is having options.

It's being able to lose everything external and still be fine. 
It's having systems that run without you. 
It's having savings that let you walk away from anything that doesn't serve you.

I'm not super plugged into the info product and agency world. 
I know some heavy hitters and talk to them. But I don't go to their parties. I don't do the scene.

I haven't gotten the bug to collect watches and cars and flaunt stuff.

Maybe that changes someday. But right now, ownership to me means I could stop everything tomorrow and my life would still be good.

Quick banger YouTube content strategy below.

Focus on Formats That Work:

1. Listicles: Easy to make, high CTR
2. Explainers: Great for complex topics
3. Commentary/News: Good for timely content
4. Hybrid approaches combining multiple formats

Keep 80% of content in your main format. Example: If you do listicles, stick to them most of the time. Think of it like TV shows - people watch Breaking Bad expecting drama, The Office expecting comedy. Meet their expectations.

Production Focus:

- Entertainment vs Education ratio depends on your audience
- Sophisticated/B2B audience: 90-100% education
- Mass market: 70-80% education, 20-30% entertainment
- Quality threshold is more important than fancy production

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The Battle

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taplio

The Battle

Ryan Mckenzie

Shane Hummus

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ryan Mckenzie's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreShane Hummus's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRyan Mckenzie's LinkedIn Performance