- Marc Hustvedt is the president of YouTube’s most popular channel, MrBeast.
- An entertainment vet, he now spends his days guiding the YouTube star.
- Insider spoke with Hustvedt who shared his insights from working for a YouTuber-led business.
Marc Hustvedt, president of the YouTube empire MrBeast, likens Jimmy Donaldson’s stardom and impact to that of a professional athlete.
“This is a sport to some degree,” Hustvedt said. “The same way you obsess over the body mechanics of throwing a baseball is the same sort of mindset you need to win at YouTube.”
Hustvedt, an entertainment industry veteran and serial entrepreneur, took over in 2021 as the president of Donaldson’s digital operation. Prior to relocating to Greenville, North Carolina, to work for Donaldson full-time, Hustvedt was the CEO of React Media, the company behind YouTube channels like React and Kids React. He also cofounded the creator blog Tubefilter, as well as the Streamy Awards.
Meeting early-day YouTubers like iJustine and Philip DeFranco helped him understand the value and importance of content creation, he said.
“To me, creators, particularly YouTube creators, always stood out,” Hustvedt said.
In his role, Hustvedt has guided 25-year-old Donaldson, who has one of the most popular channels on YouTube with 169 million subscribers, on expanding his business beyond the platform into launching products and developing a global strategy.
Insider sat down with Hustvedt in June at VidCon, the annual conference for creators, fans, and industry professionals, and spoke about what he’s learned from working alongside Donaldson.
Here are his five takeaways from working with YouTube’s most-successful creator:
1. Blockbuster content defines a successful YouTube career
MrBeast doesn’t just have viral videos — his most-popular content has set a new standard for content on YouTube. His main channel has 18 videos that have all raked in more than 200 million views.
“A 100-million-view video is exponentially more valuable than 20 5-million-view videos,” Hustvedt said. “Understanding the value of a hit and the sort of theory of the blockbuster is really key to what we’re doing.”
Hustvedt referenced the book, “Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment,” by Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse.
“Get really, really good at making the content,” he said. “Obsess over making the best content and understanding how algorithm discovery of content works.”
2. Creators can only master so much
From podcasts to short-video to YouTube, there are more platforms — and content formats — than ever before.
“For some, that works,” Hustvedt said. “But you’re leaning towards burnout if you do too many things.”
He advises creators not to get too carried away with jumping onto every new platform. First, focus on becoming an expert in one thing.
To avoid burnout, creators should also consider expanding their teams by hiring in roles like editing, to offload work and have more time to focus on what they are best at.
“Right now, there are so many specialists who have emerged from non-traditional backgrounds,” he said, referring to editors and thumbnail artists. “They’re right there, and you can work with them, and find them on places like Twitter.”
3. Creators should remain in charge of their businesses and IP
“At a healthy, good creator company, the creator is in charge,” he said. “They’re your owner, they’re your CEO, they’re your star, they’re everything. You have to figure out: How do you support them? And build the right structure that doesn’t break that.”
There are many examples where creators took investment or got acquired, and it didn’t work out, he said.
For instance, in 2018, Defy Media, the parent company of several top YouTube channels including Smosh and Clevver, shut down. YouTubers Rhett & Link ultimately saved Smosh, acquiring the comedy collective, and selling it back to Smosh cofounders Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox this year.
“The really scalable creator businesses or content businesses have to be creator-led and creative first,” he said. “It sounds so basic, but in practice, it’s really, really hard.”
He added: “A lot of businesses at a certain point, will get caught in the spreadsheet mindset — focusing on labor, CPMs, number of videos, and what’s most optimal. But you really can’t lead from the spreadsheets. I had to relearn that.”
4. YouTube is king
Big trends like short-form videos and TikTok have caused big consumer shifts. But YouTube has stood by its mission that the three pillars of the platform are users, advertisers, and creators.
“That wasn’t just lip service,” he said. “They leaned in on the product, building the tools to make creators successful, investing in so many different initiatives for all kinds of creators and niches, small or big, and the consistency of that ad product.”
Other platforms have come in like “shiny bikes,” he said, but for creators, it’s a long game and so far YouTube has played that well.
“YouTube ran away with it a long time ago, and they won and have continued to,” he said.
5. It’s time to go global
While MrBeast himself only records his videos in English, he has audiences all over the world, from India to Brazil, thanks to dubbing his content in native languages and using tools like YouTube’s audio track feature, which lets creators add multiple audio tracks in different languages to their video.
MrBeast’s most popular video, a recreation of Netflix’s “Squid Game” that has 464 million views, can be played in 12 different languages including Russian, Arabic, and Thai.
“If you’re going to really win global, that means that you need to make sure that your content is in many languages, particularly the languages where the growth is,” he said. “Take a global mindset and learn from these other countries.”
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