1 Thing 33x'd This Creator's Income

How Sarby 33x’d His Revenue in 3 Months

Background: Benjamin Sarbacker—known as Sarby on social media—creates Reddit AITA (am I the a$$hole) thread reaction content on YouTube and Spotify.

For 18 months, Sarby had been putting out content without gaining the traction he wanted. He was making $0 from his channels.

Then he joined Creator Studio (our private Discord community) in October.

Now, making content is his full-time job.

Sarby’s Creator Studio Journey

Sarby needed 10,000 consumption hours per month to monetize on Spotify. But he wasn’t sure how to get there.

Then he joined Creator Studio in October.

Hopped on one of the creator calls and connected with Meds (400k subscribers)—who just so happened to be openly sharing his analytics and revenue on the call.

Meds took one look at Sarby’s analytics and identified the major mistake preventing his videos from going viral.

The Key Mistake Sarby Made

“My thumbnails were very guy-coded, but my content is very girl-coded.”

Sarby’s analytics revealed his audience was 70%+ female, yet his thumbnails were designed to appeal to male viewers.

Just 3 videos after making this change, he had his first viral video.

His old 2% CTR became a thing of the past—and to this day, he still hovers around a steady 5-6% CTR.

Old Content Generated New Revenue

Here’s what Sarby’s revenue from YT Adsense looked like last fall:

• October: $62

• November: $147

• December: $4,915

Beginning of December was when he figured out the thumbnail issue.

This unlocked a new norm—bringing in 8-10k views per day.

So how did his revenue jump so quickly?

The key: “The reason why my revenue went from zero to a hundred real quick was because I had been uploading content that is all the same—it’s very bingeable.”

The takeaway: Don’t delete your old content.

One video in particular took a year and 88 days to skyrocket to 37k views and make him $371. Had he deleted that content, viewers brought in by the viral video might not have stuck around.

Bonus pro tip: On a creator call, Sarby got this important advice: Once you’ve cracked the code on your thumbnails, go update the thumbnails on your other similar content.

You can apply this to content on Instagram as well (add a pinned comment with your offer) and on TikTok (add similar videos to a playlist so people can easily scroll).

The Numbers Behind Sarby’s Success

Sarby’s analytics reveal why his content resonates so strongly with viewers:

• 26-minute average view duration (49.8% retention)

• 79-84% audience retention in the first 30 seconds

• 44% of viewers are subscribers (compared to the typical 10%)

• Consistent upload schedule of long-form content (20+ minutes)

“I have a formula now for how I do my intros because I know it works,” Sarby explained. “Those first 30 seconds are absolutely insanely important.”

Find Your Mentors

For Sarby, joining Creator Studio allowed him to find T+1 mentors—people who are just one stage ahead of where you are now. These people can offer valuable feedback about the exact challenges you’re facing.

“The creator journey can be so lonely if you let it be lonely. But if you’re in Discords like Creator Studio, it’s like, ‘Oh cool, these people are here to tell me, hey, this is normal. Hey, this is above normal. This is maybe a little less.”

Regardless of where you find them, find your T+1 mentors.

Focus on Community

Now, Sarby’s focused on nurturing the community he has.

While he’s focused on growth, he said, “I’m not rushing it, and I’m really trying to spend a lot of time with my audience, especially my livestream audience.”

Quick Links

🎥 Dubai launching a paid “influencer academy.”

🎵 Is the IG Edits app replacing CapCut?

👀 Kevin O’Leary offers TikTok sale update.

This Week in Creator Studio

This Thursday, May 1st at 1 PM PST (4 PM EST) in Creator Studio we’re interviewing Hassan Khadair— a creator comedian who’s scaled to 10M followers across platforms.

Since then, he’s launched a physical product—a puppet.

He’ll be joining us for a conversation on growth, what it takes to launch a physical product, and letting us in on the BTS of his creator business.

See ya next week,

Karat