What makes content stick ft. 3Blue1Brown Channel’s creator Grant Sanderson (4.93 million subscribers on YT)

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This week will be about Grant Sanderson, the creator of the 3Blue1Brown Channel on Youtube (4.93 million subscribers).

Grant Sanderson is the creator of 3Blue1Brown, a popular YouTube channel that uses visuals to teach math. He previously worked at Khan Academy and studied math and CS at Stanford.

Fun Fact: At a cocktail party our friends referred to him as the “Taylor Swift of the nerd world”.

Math + Entertainment = 3Blue1Brown

The channel every one of us would have needed when we were in high-school collecting bad grades in math as if it were Pokémon in a Pokédex, wasn’t something that grew day to night in an instant. It took passion and a lot of understanding of the subject.

The look of our teachers when we didn’t do homework.

“What does it do with entrepreneurship?” you may ask. Well, everything. Focusing on a project, getting good at it, improving it until it reaches its full potential… does it sound familiar?

But how do you build a channel like that?

Let’s dive into our interview with Grant and find it out!

Parts of this newsletter are freely taken from our interview with Grant and adjusted for reading. 

GG: When it comes to skills, what would you say is one skill that you're constantly trying to improve? Is it soft skills like sales or technical skills like coding?

GS: I don't think of learning math as a specific skill, but I'm always trying to learn more. Sometimes my lack of expertise in certain areas limits my ability to create new content. My main focus is finding interesting topics and presenting them in a unique way. I don't know how to improve that, but I'm always working on it. Sales isn't a big part of what I do, I believe if you create something people want, they will find it through the internet. Instead of focusing on sales, creators should focus on making a product people want.

GG: Your teaching style is unique and captivating. Math can be dry for some people, but you make it beautiful, like a piece of art. How did you come up with it?

GS: It comes from the way I use visuals. The fact that it's generated by a program makes it an authentic reflection of math. This also helps me identify and improve any parts that lack visual appeal. If the animation is not visually compelling, it means I need to restructure the explanation.

GG: How do you balance the creative and analytical sides of your brain when creating math-based content to make it so beautiful?

GS: I aim to show people that math can be beautiful, even if they don't typically think of it that way. There is a high likelihood that Ph.D. students in math or physics play an instrument, especially among physics students. This connection between music, math, and technical subjects is evident because they are all about patterns at their core. Practicing and spending a lot of time with them helps one to abstract away the patterns, and focus on larger concepts. Both math and music have these qualities, but music serves as a more artistic outlet while math is the application of it. When I was in high school, my motivation was driven by competition and wanting to be the best. But as I spent more time with it, I found that it had a lot more to offer than just getting good scores. Younger generations do not fully appreciate it and I wanted to change that. In the beginning, it was a bit challenging to find my audience and product market fit, but through trial and error, I was able to build a community of people who appreciate my approach.

One grade at a time.

GG: What’s your advice for someone that wants to build a community like that?

GS: My audience is diverse and it can be challenging to create content that appeals to everyone. My advice is to focus on creating something authentic that can be enjoyed by a wider audience, even if it isn't specifically tailored to them. People often appreciate authenticity and enthusiasm in individual creations.

GG: How have you been able to maintain high-quality content on your YouTube channel, even as you've grown your audience and monetized your channel?

GS: Creating quality content on YouTube is a balancing act. It's tempting to use attention-grabbing headlines and topics to grow your audience, but it can lead to shallow engagement. As a content creator, it's important to consider the impact of your choices on the audience and strive for authenticity in your work. This can be challenging as the pressure to grow an audience can sometimes lead to less genuine content. The key is to find a balance between creating content that resonates with the audience and staying true to yourself as a creator.

Balance your math with your art you should.

GG: Do you write a script for the animation and narration in your videos or is it all done through code?

GS: It’s a combination of scripting the narration, writing code for the animation, and editing. For the narration, I do write a script as a guide for what I intend to say, but I don't stick to it exactly. Instead, I use it as a loose guide and then make adjustments after seeing the animation. For the visuals, I use a programmatic approach to build a little world with some abstractions, which allows me to focus on the overall animation rather than specific details. However, I still make adjustments at the pixel level to ensure that the animation is authentically reflecting the math.

GG: How much time does it take?

GS: Creating an episode can take a lot of time, it depends on many factors, however, it shouldn't take more than a week to animate every 10 minutes of content.

As for monetization, I believe that monetizing through Patreon is a good choice for my math-based content because it highlights the positive impact that math can have on people's lives and merchandise as a creator. In terms of other ways to monetize, merchandise and sponsorships are big, and I also run pre-roll ads on my videos. However, I don't use mid-roll ads because I personally don't like the viewing experience with them. Many viewers have had negative experiences with math in school, but my content offers a contrasting, enjoyable way to learn. This appreciation often leads viewers to support the channel.

Building community goes a long way.

GG: Is your Chinese channel run by you or by fans? I noticed that you have over a million followers on that channel. 

GS: It was started by fans who were translating and sharing my videos without permission, but with good intentions. It's now a community-run channel that has my blessing but is managed by the community. The translations are very well done and have a lot of artistry in them. It's a great example of how an audience can take something and make it even better than I could have imagined.

“Grace Weekly - insider tips to be #1s”

So what do we take out from this? That every project starts from a profound passion for the subject you are focusing on. Whatever the field, you can only reach your full potential if you love what you do. Looking back and smiling, while looking at what you built, will be the best grade you’ll ever get.

Top takeaways from our newsletter this week:

Always improve your knowledge, even if you are an expert. Learning never stops. (A good way to do this? Following our newsletter)

Find a balance between appealing to your audience and staying true to yourself.

Sales will come. Don’t focus on them right away.

Running a Youtube channel? Be sure that your content reflects you and your vision.

A good community is the best investment a creator can make.

If you have high-school-related nightmares don’t blame us.

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