Kyle | Creative Strategist & YouTube Scriptwriter

I took two winning thumbnails and smashed them together… and the video became an outlier. The other week, my mentor @thesamocean asked me to repackage an old video for Dave Asprey. We wanted to see what would happen if we reuploaded the exact same video with different packaging. He gave me full creative freedom to choose the video I wanted and let me test my theories. So here are my exact notes from the strategy write-up I sent him. “Testing two theories, one being the shared schemas through celebrities for a wider TAM. And two thumbnail merging to combine two winning thumbnails together to try and pioneer a new format.” We took the rainbow image with the celebrity faces and ages from the original video. And formatted them like the 4 boxes thumbnail we’d seen with a celebrity and their age in each box and corner. The reupload video ended up being a solid 1/10 and is chilling at 64K views. But here’s the thing about theories… One test run does NOT prove they work. They need to be battle-tested over and over again. This is the beauty of the YouTube game… test, learn, iterate, TEST.

@thedanielfazio @paulsaladinomd Their YouTube short ad is quality for them

For everybody throwing a fit about these the other day: They’re amazing

@AlexHormozi has a little-known channel where he’s pumping out as many as 18 videos EVERY DAY. But is volume really the way to win on YouTube? Well, from being in the YouTube trenches with some of the biggest education brands in the space… no. Now, cranking out videos can be a great way to test, find winners, and help a channel grow. But in the long-term, the YouTube algorithm always rewards viewer experience over volume. If you knock out 20 videos a day of low-quality slop, there is no guarantee your channel will grow. However, Hormozi isn’t pumping out slop, he’s doing something genius… These videos are high-quality repurposed clips from shows, long-form videos, and everything else he produces. This channel is like his sandbox for testing ideas that he could use to grow the main channel. He’s treating every piece of content as an asset. And at the scale they’re posting and testing ideas, the margin for people to even try and catch him is only going to get wider. People like Hormozi, who see organic as the main growth driver and videos as assets, will own their market. What do you think about Hormozi’s volume approach?

@theisaacmed You’re smashing it over there the videos have been class as well

I finally have game on LinkedIn. I had to completely change my style of writing. I have a simple flow where I rework all my videos and posts on x into LinkedIn-speak. Works gold.

100,000 views in 10 days on YouTube 🔥 This video makes me proud for three reasons: 1. Our baseline views are increasing. We aim to get ~30% of a channel’s subscribers in views at a minimum. This is a sign of a healthy, recurring audience. We’re hitting this for the videos we fully produce. 2. We have to raise our standards soon. 100,000 organic views has always been our checkpoint for “going viral.” It’s time to think bigger and raise the bar for this one. 3. My strategist @KyleAM15 created this thumbnail concept. He used our concept splicing theory and created something original. It’s paying off. He’s just an unhinged kid from Scotland who plays with sheep… and now I’d argue he’s becoming one of the industry’s best strategists that nobody knows about yet. But that’s starting to change (story for another day). I love writing these because it reminds me of how far we’ve come… Just me, Tim, and Asim fumbling our way through getting this off the ground… We had TONS of embarrassing screw ups that dare not ever become public. But we managed to pull through and get results, one by one… Now, we’ve got a fully functioning creative team… AND THEY’RE GETTING REALLY GOOD. Nothing makes me happier than this.

@thesamocean The sheep gave me the idea I thought they said wool but it was really legal white powder

@thesamocean @garyvee He’s on our side 💪

@KyleAM15 @garyvee I'm on team Vee with this one 🔥

“I could not recommend more people to produce content for YouTube and YouTube Shorts.” This is exactly what @garyvee said the other day. He has over 4.8M subs and dominates pretty much every social media platform. Yet still, he claims YouTube is the best place to be right now. Why? Because he thinks Gemini is going to have 30-60% of the AI market share, and YouTube is going to feed those results. While this could be true… Working with some of the biggest creators in the education space has shown me that AI predictions aren’t the reason to jump on the YouTube train… It’s the quality of the audience. (Emphasis on “quality,” which is declining across every platform with AI slop). No other platform gives you the space to build a brand with loyal followers using long-form content. AI predictions are cool, but from what I’m seeing the market zeitgeist always shapes the future of media. Do you think YouTube is the best platform to build a brand on right now?

@thesamocean “My biology says I’m 33, but my team says I look 23… here’s my secret”

I just turned 33. I started a YouTube growth agency just 20 months ago… But we already have 45m views and 3.6m watch time hours for clients. Ask me anything about YouTube strategy for education brands in 2026.

@thesamocean 100K please 💀 comments are super interesting on this one

@KyleAM15 the man is crushing it so much he's using outdated view screenshots 😅 you crushed it on this one Kyle

Same video, 71K+ views, and 2 thumbnails smashed together (one from a completely different niche). Thumbnail merging is becoming one of my favorite ways to create new formats. AKA: Taking multiple thumbnails that are proven outliers and combining them in a unique way. This is the exact strategy notes I gave to my mentor @thesamocean : We’ll take the mounds of white powder surrounding Dave like the first thumbnail. But the visual perspective of the second, and of course, Dave shirtless in the middle, looking up at the camera, because he’s the perfect market symbol… A ripped dude in his 50s. Finally, the text “ACTUALLY GENIUS” for some extra curiosity and unique positioning. But this is only test 2 for the thumbnail merging theory… I need way, way more data before I can say “yup, this works.” So it’s back to testing like a madman for me.

@StefanGeorgi The OG Star Wars legends books are masterpieces

Looking for a good SciFi/Fantasy book serious to binge. Leaning towards SciFi and thinking about the Red Rising series. Anyone read those books? Or have additional recommendations?

@stockxsucks Complete diabetes

it’s insane how many gyms/health stores carry these as if they’re healthy. 440 calories for 16g of protein is absurd

@AndrewWriteCopy If anyone starts replying with open loops we know exactly where they’ve be came from…

Since posting here I’ve: • Got and given referrals. • Met some great people. • Been invited on podcasts. • And asked to teach workshops. • Gained free access to paid communities. And much more. Chances are none of that would’ve happened if I used AI to write and reply for me. So be yourself. Show what you know. Don’t just regurgitate whatever Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok tell you. You’re not impressing anyone.

@KyleAM15 Just learned early on to ask "does this make sense?" And if the answer is no but it still looks kinda good then LAUNCH IT

If you want to make viral thumbnails… do it right. :-) I give this advice to my thumbnail team and it’s produced millions of views for us. Have you seen this thumbnail style on YouTube? We didn’t invent it, but definitely mastered it. We have clients who would only get 1,000-2,000 views before us, and paired with this thumbnail, we get them 100k-300k views in a single video. We’ve done this multiple times… So here’s how. Let’s assume you have a strong idea and title. Your thumbnail needs to match it now. The mistake people do with their thumbnails is by making them too logical. This is a video about seven peptides, so it makes sense to put seven peptide bottles in the background, right? Yes! It DOES make sense. It IS logical. But human nature is NOT logical. And that’s the difference… Your thumbnails need to build emotional and intellectual intrigue so the viewer clicks. Which means they must do these three things: 1. Break the visual pattern. 2. Deepen curiosity. 3. Build desire. Logic won't help you do this. While most people show “the thing” that the video is about, we show something 1-2 steps removed. We show outcomes of using the thing, or high-status associations of the thing. This is why we always take our thumbnails a step further and ask… Which faces can we associate our thumbnail with? Faces that are either famous or represent the outcome the average viewer wants? Plus faces are scientifically proven to be clickable. In this thumbnail, we put celebrity faces of anybody who’s been associated with a peptide conversation online. Whether they use it, or are rumored to use it, doesn’t matter. In other thumbnails, we literally put faces on it with no association to the topic at all… Viewers still click… still watch… and video goes viral. I train my creative team to think this way, to think different. Because differentiation is the skill of the future, especially when it becomes easier and easier to make content. This is just one example of what it looks like.

If someone had a loaded gun to my head and asked me what the only thing I would focus on to go viral is? THIS is exactly what I'd tell them. It's a philosophy my mentor Sam Ocean has hammered into my dome, yet most people don't understand what it really means... You could have the best title and thumbnail in the world, but the video will flop if you don't understand this. Because getting the click is only half the battle... Keeping it? Now that's where the real fun begins. And it all comes down to this: Value is the hook. Not the open loops... not dangling the bloody donut... giving them exactly what they came for. They've given you their trust by clicking. So the sooner you deliver on it with value, the more chance you have of keeping them. You see, your packaging has its own baked-in claim. The bigger the claim, the more pressure it puts on you to overdeliver. Which is great if it pushes you to write the best scripts possible. But it can also be the thing that leads to a video drowning. This is why every single beat in your script must be relevant to that initial promise you've made in the packaging. Mentioning the thing in the intro might validate the click, but the promise being delivered on in each beat is what keeps it. Let's say your title is: "Russia's Barely Legal Secret That Reverses Aging (Use THIS)" Here's the beat structure you DON'T want: Beat 1: Aging starts in your mind Beat 2: Supplements never fix the root cause Beat 3: The Russian Secret Beat 4: Fix Your Foundations Beat 1 doesn't deliver on the promise. Where's the Russia story? Beat 2, we're still nowhere near. Only beat 3 has a strong connection to the packaging. Now a structure that delivers on each promise: Beat 1: The Russian Problem Beat 2: The Science Discovery Beat 3: The Modern Life Aging Problem Beat 4: The Sourcing Quality Problem You could even risk revealing exactly what the secret is in the first 30 to 50 seconds. You can absolutely use a blind mechanism format where you reveal the thing halfway through. But when the entire weight of the video is placed upon one thing being revealed... every minute they don't find out is trust and retention lost. Unless the beats are 110% relevant and you're taking them on a story arc journey? Amazing. That's what the best scriptwriters in the world can pull off. However, we can’t ever forget that the best way to keep a viewer’s attention is to give them the information they came for. It's always thinking WHAT does the viewer want, not what do I THINK they want. The answer is always the value they clicked for. This is week 35 of "Leaving My Legend". Till the end of the line, Kyle

@Seanfrank Buzz cut = brain freeze

Broke? BUZZCUT. BUILD STUFF. BECOME A BILLIONAIRE

@Seanfrank Are you even fibermaxxing?

Fiber is the new protein

We got 116,000 views in 3 weeks… and it’s a banger thumbnail. 🔥 Everybody says you need to “add psychology” in your thumbnails. But not many people show you what it looks like. So let me do the honors: 1. We used a viral visual format. 7 images in the background to match 7 core lessons in the video, with bold colors that pop. 2. We used clickable and visceral images. Close-up images of eyes. Perfectly matches a video about vision. 3. We demonstrated the pain point. The numbers are blurry, and that’s what the viewer likely sees. 4. We used a visual pattern interrupt. The blurry numbers, bold colors, and eyes aren’t something you see on YouTube a lot. It stands out. That last one is important... People are forgetting the lost art of differentiation. YouTube is the only platform where people have to consciously CHOOSE to watch your long videos among a ton of others. They have to see your video, say "yes, I want to watch that," then click. This little extra step is just ONE of the reasons YouTube is a lot harder... Unless you make your thumbnails stand out. Master this art and YouTube is yours. P.S. - Can guess the CTR on 116,000 organic views?