Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:16:19 · Hector Serrano
[01:16:19] S1: Yeah. YouTube is generally one of the hardest platforms, which is why when you said Instagram or YouTube, I backtracked, and I was like, actually, YouTube is very important, and that's actually where I started as well. And I saw how much goes into making YouTube videos. Like, it's not just, oh, you make a video, you post it, and you put a thumbnail on some sort of picture, and then you're good. It's like, at the end of the day, the way I like to think about it is you could have a masterpiece of a video. You can make a Hollywood production movie, but if you put a bad thumbnail and a bad title that doesn't intrigue people to click on it, no one's actually gonna know how good your video is. So you might have invested all this time, all this money, all this energy, and effort into making this masterpiece of a video, but if you don't understand how YouTube works and how it's actually in a rank the highest, you're not going to get the results you want. And that's why I think the YouTube side is so important because it's not only a thumbnail. It's not only the click through rate. It's not only the title, the the watch, or the average view duration. It's also like the storytelling, the pacing, how you package it, the intro, how, like, the thumbnail needs to tie into the video, and there actually needs some... Needs to be some sort of payoff because if you don't, then you're gonna have more of a drop off rate, people aren't gonna stick along to actually watch a video. And, like, the better your YouTube team is, the easier it makes it for the short form side because, typically, the people that you're using for short form maybe aren't as... I guess, they're not as committed because they typically have a lot of clients and they're overseas as well. Like, a lot of our short form editors are from Germany. We have one as well in Romania, I think, and then one in Australia. And they're really good short form editors, but they, again, wanna get a lot of clips out, so they're not gonna pay as much of attention to the actual storytelling, and they're not gonna be that good with the clip selection. So if I send them forty hours of footage, I might not get back the best clips.
01:17:58 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
Whereas if my YouTube team is really good in the post production, they put a super good fifteen minute video, then I can send that to my editors in, like, a clean slate with no titles, no music, etcetera, and they can just click the best moments and then they get into, like, really good short form pieces. And that's that's kind of the reason why I say the long form team is the most important part. And it's also the one that has the most likes. Like, YouTube videos can write... Can run on for ages and ages. Like, even on my own personal channel, I've had a video that's been up now for, like, five years. And I think, like, a year ago, it was at, like, what, 40,000 views, and now it's, 600,000 views. And it's like, YouTube videos have so... Like, the longest half life out of any platform, and it's truly insane. Like, some of the videos we post on Tanay's channel might be, like, five, 6,000,000 views in a few years. And that's what's cool about YouTube. It's like a long term investment. [01:18:44] S0: I've discovered very similar things with YouTube. It's a wondrous platform. It's maybe the only platform where you can discover... Where new people discover you at scale.
01:18:44 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[01:18:44] S0: I've discovered very similar things with YouTube. It's a wondrous platform. It's maybe the only platform where you can discover... Where new people discover you at scale. [01:18:53] S1: Yeah. It's insane. And it's like a lot of these platforms, I like... Trust me, I enjoy making content, but sometimes it's like a bit demotivating when it's like, oh, you filmed one piece of content, you posted it, you gotta make the new one. And so obviously with YouTube you have to as well, but you reap those rewards as well long term. It's not like on Instagram where you post a video and in forty eight hours, it's dead. It's like a YouTube video, you put a lot of effort into it, and we look at some of the charts on today's videos and, like, we're still getting 10,000 views in, like, the last forty eight hours even though it's been, like, three months since it's been posted. Like, it's still working for us. It's still getting new eyeballs and new customers. So, yeah, YouTube is YouTube is amazing. I I I assume also with how many podcasts you have as well, like, amount of views you're getting from, like, years and years back or whatever is is pretty insane. [01:19:36] S0: Yeah. It's fun to watch videos that kind of climb the ranks over time. I had Elizabeth Stone on the podcast. She's CPTO at Netflix, and she slowly has climbed the charts to... She's right behind number one now. She's like climbing on... She's approaching number one. And so Yeah. Like, you think these are like stuck at that number, but they just keep going going.
01:19:36 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[01:19:36] S0: Yeah. It's fun to watch videos that kind of climb the ranks over time. I had Elizabeth Stone on the podcast. She's CPTO at Netflix, and she slowly has climbed the charts to... She's right behind number one now. She's like climbing on... She's approaching number one. And so Yeah. Like, you think these are like stuck at that number, but they just keep going going. [01:19:55] S1: Yeah, it's like this and all of sudden it just goes like this, you're like, oh, I did not expect that. [01:19:58] S0: I don't know, I don't know, I don't get a lot of those, or it's just in flex, but it does grow, and it's like wow, I didn't know that was still growing. Anyway, this was incredible. Before we get to a very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanna share or anything else you wanna kinda double down on and leave listeners with?
01:19:58 · Lenny Rachitsky, Hector Serrano
[01:19:58] S0: I don't know, I don't know, I don't get a lot of those, or it's just in flex, but it does grow, and it's like wow, I didn't know that was still growing. Anyway, this was incredible. Before we get to a very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanna share or anything else you wanna kinda double down on and leave listeners with? [01:20:19] S1: I guess my last point, which I have mentioned a lot is, like, I would just urge other founders out there to, like, give a chance, like, talent. And, yeah, just just find those people, believe in them, trust in them, give them opportunities. And, yeah, like, not only will they turn into some of your best a players, but also the amount of loyalty they will have to is quite incredible. And whether they stay at your company or they go go on to do other things, like, they will always be there to help you or help you bring in other young talent or guide you in the right direction when things... When new alpha is out there. And, yeah, I'm super grateful to Tanay and Daniel and the whole Wispr team for, like, taking a shot on me. And there's no better place I think I I could've I could've landed, and I'm, like, forever in debt or however you could say that, but I'm just super grateful for the for the opportunity I was given. [01:21:08] S0: That's beautiful. Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. [01:21:15] S1: I've seen these. I've seen these in the in the in the podcast.
01:21:15 · Hector Serrano, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:21:15] S1: I've seen these. I've seen these in the in the in the podcast. [01:21:18] S0: It won't be a surprise. Okay. Here we go. First question. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?