How JackSucksAtLife Built A Career By Chasing YouTube’s Hidden Systems

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We talk with JackSucksAtLife about turning a Minecraft start into a long-running creator career by following audience signals and building formats that scale. Along the way we get the real stories behind rare YouTube play buttons, major creator collaborations, and why he now creates more for enjoyment than the chase. 
• starting on YouTube in 2011 and learning by shipping lots of early videos 
• choosing a memorable channel name and living with the brand long term 
• finding traction with Minecraft mod showcases and early monetisation realities 
• pivoting away from Minecraft using wedge content like Fiverr and community Reddit posts 
• uncovering hidden YouTube Creator Award options and building a play button collecting saga 
• running multiple channels and discovering breakout success with GeoGuessr and geography 
• getting MrBeast’s “Don’t Subscribe” channel to 1M subscribers with no uploads 
• meeting big creators through Guinness World Records and working with Sidemen 
• sending MrBeast’s 100M award into near space and handling the logistics 
• thinking about YouTube in 2026 and why travel and walking content feels next 
If you want to see more of his stuff like I said links in the description

Transcript

MrBeast’s No Video Challenge

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Uh I woke up and I had a DM from him and then he he reaches out and he says, I've made a channel called Don't Subscribe. If you can get in a million subscribers without any videos, I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, yeah, that sounds great, Mr. Beast. I'll get I'll get on that. Thank you very much. There was a uh basically a glitch within the YouTube award ordering process. Um where if you just typed in the diamond play button URL, you could actually access the order page without actually having 10 million subscribers. And I put KSI as the name because I needed a channel with 10 million subscribers and I thought that would be a funny one to go with.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that tells you how to be successful when you're already successful. I'm Travis, and I can't wait to talk to my special guest today. His name is Jack. Jack, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Hello, thank you very much for having me. Yep, I am best known for the Jack Sucks at Life YouTube channel, but I also have a few others which I'm sure we can discuss uh in this video.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Absolutely will. I'm super excited. And if you're new here, we're here to help you grow your YouTube channel either by answering your questions directly or in a case like this, we talk to creators about their journey and what they've learned along the way. If you're listening to the audio podcast, you'll have links in the show notes. And if you're watching on YouTube, of course, links in the description. Jack, thank you so much for joining me. I have um been watching your channel for a couple of years. I think it's hard to ever not at least seen one or two of your videos as a YouTube content creator because you're very meta. You're very meta. So for people who don't know, some of your biggest videos on your Jack Sucks at Life uh channel, um, are you getting like YouTube play buttons and stuff like that? I I want to dive into that later, but tell us what were you doing before YouTube and then how did you get into YouTube?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Right, okay. So, I mean I've I've been into YouTube uh as a viewer for so long. I think I made my first YouTube account in 2008, and obviously things were so different on YouTube back then. Um, and then I started uploading videos uh in 2011, and I think I've always just been interested in what other people are doing, and then trying to come up with my own versions of that. So I started on an another channel called Sam Smells of Apricots, uh, and the videos that I uploaded on that channel were sort of short films, action movie things, because that's what was really popular at that era of YouTube. I was inspired by creators called Freddie W who do videos called uh uh Mario Kart in real life, and then I decided, well, I'll do Temple Run in real life, and that was kind of what how how things got started. And then a couple of years later, 2013, Minecraft content was really, really popular. So I'd been playing Minecraft in my personal time and I decided let's have a go doing some Minecraft videos. So that's how Jack sucks at life got started because it was originally called Jack Sucks at Minecraft.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Oh, really? I didn't know that. That's funny. Um, what was the whole the whole concept behind like Jack sucks at certain things? Like I that's definitely your brand, which is kind of a hilarious brand if you really think about it. How did that come to be?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah, it's uh it's a bit of an annoying one now in 2026 because people refer to me, you know, I did I did a big collab the other day uh that had a lot of YouTubers involved, and just to be called Jack Sucks at Life feels like such a lame name every single time. I kind of cringe at it because it feels very 2013 as opposed to very 2026. I kind of wish my name was just my actual name, that would have been nice. But I think the original ethos or original kind of idea, I think I saw that a YouTuber called Tobuscus was doing Minecraft videos, and he had a series. He I think he called it Toby Sucks at Minecraft, and I'll be honest, I think I nabbed the the words, and I just thought that that sounds good because I I really didn't want to have numbers in my name, was kind of my logic back then. I I needed a unique username, and I thought maybe that would work. And it's also quite handy for the word at the end of the names interchangeable, so depending on what I'm doing, so I can be Draxuks at Minecraft, then you know it did move into Jack Sucks at life, and I have a few other channels that start with Jack Sucks at yeah, which is which is cool, and it's easy to remember.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I think one thing um that I do tell people whenever uh creators come to me talking about trying to channel come up with channel names, just something memorable. Uh, and it's very easy to remember that for as as awkward of a brand as it is now, it's very easy to remember, and it's something that you just never forget. So, like even the first couple videos of yours I saw, I just remembered the channel name. And there's videos that I've seen recently on channels and videos that I've loved that I couldn't tell you the channel name, and that just ended up being like a really good hook for you. And it's uh it's very interesting now, though. Is there has there been moments where you're like, I need to kind of change the brand on this, but you know you almost can't?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, I've thought about it a few times. I've thought, you know, could Jack sucks at life just be better as Jack Massey Welsh, which is just my real name. But I've made another channel called Jackmassey Welsh, which which is established because I I I just have a few different channels out there for different things. So sadly that that username's kind of been nabbed by myself for other content. So I know I've played around with the idea of maybe changing to JMW or something like that, but maybe I shouldn't fight it. Maybe I should just embrace that I'm Jack Sucks at life because I am known for that. And you know, it's it's a an honor really to have a recognizable brand name, even if I still cringe at it a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

It's cool that, and we'll we'll talk about like out of your journey, especially starting on, but I just kind of want to touch base what you're talking about now. You do have multiple channels, which is great. And I want to talk about how you got there a little bit later on, but I love that you've diversified uh into multiple channels. I always encourage channels that have had some sort of success to diversify into something else. What has that been like now? We'll we'll talk about how you got there later, but like what has that been like now to have multiple channels? Because that's a lot of content now you have to do. Does that take is it harder to keep up with all of them?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Well, I think I think part of my longevity is that I've had like a lot of different eras and I've been able to pursue one thing while it's popular on one channel, and then I could maybe slow it down a little bit and move back to the original channel when I've I'm feeling more inspired there. It's it's kind of just uh yeah, I'm spreading myself a little bit thinner, but it's it is also a really good idea on YouTube to to follow what's popular and what you're maybe feeling passionate about, depending on the you know the time period that you're at. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

All right, so let's rewind. Let's go way back. So you just started uh you decided to do like Minecraft content, which was smart. I mean, I how many YouTube creators who don't cover Minecraft now started in Minecraft is like astronomical. I mean, it's just yeah, it seems like it really makes YouTubers into what they eventually want to be. But you're starting to do Minecraft content. Tell me about what that journey was like. And again, YouTube was different back then than it is now. So we'll we'll talk about now later, but back then, what was it like uploading content? How long did it take before you started getting a little bit of traction? And tell it, take us through that.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, so this was 2013 was when I made the Minecraft channel, Jack sucks at Minecraft, and this was an era where Minecraft was having a huge rise from sort of 2012 onwards. It was the game itself was exploding, um, Minecraft YouTubers were absolutely exploding. This was um probably just around the time that uh PewDiePie had that huge rise of tens of millions of subscribers because it seemed like 20-minute long gaming videos were kind of the the in thing at that point in time. That's what people that's what the algorithm seemed to really, really be into. So the videos that I made, I mean, there were the the first few, or you know, the first 40 probably at least were boring monotone Minecraft gameplay that nobody was interested in, and I I kept kind of pushing them, but I had to go through that in order to learn how to speak to uh to a microphone by myself because it was just me in the videos, and when you haven't done it's one thing bouncing off another person in a video, but learning to kind of just talk as yourself takes a bit of practice, so you have to really release those videos where you're just learning how to talk to the microphone and how to talk to the camera or the the YouTube video. Uh, but I I can remember it, it was it was a real push to try and get reach on those videos. Um, something that I saw a little bit of success with to begin with was I was doing reviews of kind of uh user-made mods on the game, and I started sharing those videos with the people that created the mods, so they'd then share my videos on their download pages. So I can remember that's how I got my first thousand views back in 2013, which was something I was really excited about, and it's just about building that momentum, so just kept doing the videos that people were responding to and did less of the videos that people weren't as interested in.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

How long would you say it took before you got like monetized or to a point where you felt like something was actually happening?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, I'm trying to remember because it's such a it was 13 years ago that. So I'm trying to I can remember earning my first penny. Because I remember really yeah, I remember I was at um a bowling alley and I I checked my phone to see that monetization had been enabled, and it literally said that I'd earned one penny on on my channel. It was it was literally the the very bare minimum. So that was that that was very exciting at that point in time. And that was back when YouTube would send you like physical checks as well, once once you hit a payment threshold, which is just so crazy to think about now. I can remember being so excited when I saw my little envelope that said Google on the front of it. Um But yeah, I I honestly don't remember what the thresholds were back then. I feel like potentially anyone could get monetized once you went through the process. I don't think you had to reach a certain number of watch time hours or anything like that. But I think it it took I think it took at least a year before I was earning any kind of revenue that felt like it could be something, anything that could have the potential to maybe become a job. So were you working at the same time or no? So I was 16, so I I had just finished my first year at college and sort of put a lot of effort over the summer holidays. Um and I think I think I got to a few thousand subscribers by the time second year started. So I was doing a bit of both. I was doing my college work and then releasing the the Minecraft content. Uh and basically by the end of second year, it was at a place where I could maybe try and keep going with this channel um over the summer holidays, and basically just took the decision to maybe have a gap year where I could focus on the channel once it felt like it was established enough, and then if it didn't quite work out, I'd then be able to go to university or or get a job or whatever after that. But fortunately it just kept paying off, so I was able to just keep going still to this day.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

So, what um what did you go to college for? What were you trying to learn to be?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

So I was doing there are all things that are relate to what I'm doing now. I I did media, film studies, uh, ICT and computing. So they're all very much in that field. I feel like I perhaps should have diversified a little bit more because they're all very much in that one space, but I I suppose it worked out anyway.

Learning Traction And Early Monetization

SPEAKER_00 10:54

What were you going to college to be then, specifically?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

I don't know. In in the UK, you just have to either go into employment or go to college for two years once you turn 16. So from that 17 to 18 years old. So I was just following the next process of education. Um, I mean I during college I applied for a film degree at university. So I did get accepted for that, but I just didn't need to actually go to it because I ended up doing the the YouTube stuff for a year instead.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And what was do you remember the first couple of videos or whatever that really took off that made it to the point where your channel could be sustainable? Or do you remember the series even or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

It was the Minecraft mod showcases were the first thing that actually had success. So as I said, I I started with the um sort of Minecraft survival let's plays, which were the the long videos that just were quite boring for for what I was doing. I just wasn't doing a good job at them. Um so I I stopped putting any effort into those and started working on the the mod reviews because those are the kind of things that were people seemed to be more interested in clicking on. You know, it makes a lot more sense to click on a a video promoting um a portal gun in Minecraft compared to episode 15 of a solo Minecraft survival series that millions of other people by that point in time had already done.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

That's that's crazy. How long were you doing Minecraft before you decided to shift into something else?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Ooh, so if it was 2013 when I started, I started mixing it up a couple of years later, um, but didn't have too much success with that. So I think it was uh so then I went back into doing more Minecraft related things for for a long time. So I think four years in was when it was 2018 when I started, well, I guess five years in actually, when I started trying a few other things that were actually maybe on occasion starting to perform better than the Minecraft content. So that was definitely the beginning of the shift.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Were you were you um strategic about it, or were you just like, okay, I've been playing Minecraft for a long time, I need to do something else. Uh let me just try this. Uh or were you actually thinking about what you wanted to do next?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, it was always I never have had kind of a long-term plan with things. It was just developing ideas and concepts that work. So once something has been responded to well, I would then come up with other things that relate to that concept and go from there. So things ended up just kind of going off in different directions. Um, but I did also feel like you know, I'd done easily a thousand Minecraft videos at that point in time, so I was ready to try and do something a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

So when you were like, okay, I'm doing Minecraft, I want to do something different, how did you just what did you decide on? And how did how did you come to that conclusion?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, there was a few different series. So one that was um popular was uh videos about the website Fiverr, which is where you would pay people, you know, five dollars to make you a custom video or um create a a logo for you, those kind of things. So there was a lot of content there, but the way that I merged it from my Minecraft content was I did the first Fiverr video I did was I paid people on Fiverr to promote my Minecraft server. So it made sense to my existing Minecraft audience, but because the Fiverr stuff did so well, after four or five videos, I was able to sort of remove the Minecraft aspect of that completely, and then people were just watching me for the Fiverr stuff, so that showed that there was potential there for uh Jack sucks at life to exist without the Minecraft content, so there was a lot of those sort of things. I also started my uh weekly Reddit series, which was just me s looking at posts that my community had made about videos I'd recently released, and that was a really good way to just be constantly engaged with my subscribers.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

That's really interesting. So that's a concept that I've been talking about for years called wedging, where you take your existing type of content and where you want to go, and first do a couple of pieces of content that are very similar to both, and then start to slowly wean your audience off the old stuff, especially when you're trying to move to the next thing. Because I think it's super important for any channel that's uh growing to understand that for the most part, a lot of topics will dry up, especially in the gaming niche. Like in gaming, you you as soon as you start hitting it off on games. What I tell every single creator is okay, what's the next game gonna be? Or how are you gonna get out of this? Because at some point you're going to need to, uh or want to, or want to. So doing what you just uh described is really uh an awesome way to do that. So now you're doing like more real life things. You're doing the Reddit stuff, you're doing the uh Fiverr stuff. Um when did you get to the point where you were it's very meta where you kind of start talking about play buttons and stuff because that's kind of what you're really well known for on the Jack Sex at Life channel.

Pivoting From Minecraft Without Losing Fans

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, so it was either late 2018 or early 2019. Um I I basically was just chatting with some of the YouTubers and found out that you could purchase replacement play buttons. So uh when YouTube uh when you surpass 100,000 subscribers, YouTube says you're eligible to get a silver play button, um, which you get for free, you just have to place the order. But I just discovered that you could basically just contact the manufacturers and say, Can I spend$150 to purchase a second one of these? So the the logic being that maybe you want to have one in your home office and your office office, or maybe you want your editor to have one of the awards. So it makes sense that you can purchase additional ones. But taking us back to this point in 2018, 2019, literally nobody knew this was a thing, even though in 2026 everybody is just kind of aware of this as a YouTuber, but it was kind of something that only large corporations knew about because they're the only ones that were purchasing multiple awards for different office spaces and those sort of things. So I just did a video um where I talked about this because it just felt very unusual. Um and it was it was a just a very big deal. It was it was so unusual that it ended up being featured on Keemstar's drama alert. He it was actually a story that he thought was worth sharing to the masses, and it was very, very surreal to see myself in a drama alert video. But it just shows how big that that news was, even though it feels very silly that that was apparently news now.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I will say that's actually how I first came across you because um somehow that had come up on my, I think I just passed 100,000 or something like that. And I was like, wait a minute, I can get another one? How do I do that? So I actually watched your video and I I ordered another one. And I'm like, because I want one in my living room and I have one here in my office. Yeah and um it was because of your video, but there's something else. And I told you before we went live uh the other day that I had another story about uh you, which is you did another video later on about something else. So when you're a content creator and you get to like 100,000 or so and you you get this plaque, they also send you a letter in the mail that's from the CEO of YouTube. Well, Jack had figured out, so I don't again don't know how you figured all this stuff out that you could get a silver or gold version of that. So I got one of those. If you're looking for actually got one, it's because of your video that I have this, and I even told um Rob Wilson, who's like the face of the VidIQ channel about it, and he ordered one too, because none of us knew about this. So it's these little weird things that you can get, and then now they do like these things. These like I've got mine here, let me grow it. Yeah, those are so cool. And if you're watching the YouTube channel, you can see if you listen to audio podcast, yeah, they're like the just the play button itself, it's a new kind of thing. Um, and I love those, those are great. So they're cool as a content creator when you've when you've done something to be able to get these extra little trainings. I think we all kind of want these things, yeah. And you just found these weird little things that have existed, and probably no one on YouTube thought it was a big deal, but because they don't tell anyone about it, like it's it's this really cool thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, it is really strange, isn't it, to think that these items were just sat technically available, but yeah, that no codes, no redemption codes were being distributed to anybody. So it's it's it's such a strange process to think back to. And uh yeah, because of my videos these days, for as YouTubers have you know watched my videos and then discussed things with other YouTubers, these these kind of additional awards are really kind of just uh common knowledge at this point. But yeah, you go back five years and they they were just such an unusual thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

No one knew. And no, I mean the second play button thing was mind-bending when it came out. It's so interesting for people to I bet you're a hundred people, uh tons of people listening right now that don't know that you actually can get a second one. Now you do have to pay for the second one. You get the one first one free. You have to pay for the second one. But when it's something that's such a big uh big thing, uh I it was 100% worth the money, and I would do it again. Uh definitely. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit about like once that takes off, um, you then become again very meta. Like that's a thing now. You got you got this this gold play button, or your silver play button, and you're like, you can buy an extra one, but there's more to the story because I mean you can't, I guess, and some people would be like, what kind of a niche is that? You get the play button and you tell them that's it, that's the end of the niche. Not really. Like, what did you do? Because it just got weird, it got crazier and crazier, but it was always interesting. How did you take that and make it into its own niche?

The Play Button Rabbit Hole

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Oh, yeah. I mean, I've made every possible play button video that you could think of over a four-year period. I don't know how I managed to make as many videos as I did, but um, I suppose that first video talking about ordering second awards did well, and then I think I split it up, so I then did a follow-up video of actually unboxing the award that turned up. So those two videos in themselves did much better than my average sort of view count would be at that point in time. So I knew that I had potential here, so I kept doing things, and um I I had the original silver play button, which you you can just see. Uh there, that little dinky fella. So that's my Jack Sucks at Minecraft play button that I got in 2014. But obviously, that looks a lot different to the other silver play buttons. Um so because I had that earlier version, I was really interested in the ideas of the the other earlier versions that I've missed out because there was this huge OG gold play button that stopped being a thing in 2014 that I didn't have because I didn't have a million subscribers in 2014. So I started doing videos pursuing collecting the awards that I'd missed out on, which obviously meant that I'd need to purchase them from other YouTubers that had surpassed those milestones of 100k and uh 1 million, you know, a few years ago. And and obviously it there's not many YouTubers that are gonna want to sell their prized possession. So you have to find that from really obscure channels that have perhaps retired or just given up on their channels completely, or they've ended up just randomly being awards that belong to companies that have closed down, all those kind of things. So it just became a really interesting saga of how many different variations of play buttons can I actually collect.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Okay, talk to us about the first couple of people you wrote. They're like, listen, I want to buy your play button. This is the most ridiculous thing. Uh ridiculous. And I have to imagine as a content creator, you're probably like, this guy isn't real. Like, what is going on? So, how did you pitch it? How did that whole situation go? And what was it like getting the first one?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Uh, so let's think. So there was there was basically, I think, five or six different types of silver play button between uh 2014 and 2018 when they were released, because they they had ones that were different sizes, they had ones that were black frames, ones that had the old logo, ones that had the new logo. So there was there was honestly so many. So on occasion, I was able to just purchase some that had been put on eBay by people that were just no longer interested in YouTube and just wanted some extra cash. So I got a few like that. Um, I also had a viewer of mine was the nephew of a YouTuber called What the Book, who was a massive channel in probably as early as 2007. Um he was actually the person that first said like, comment, and subscribe within a YouTube video. So it was that just shows kind of how OG he was. So his because his nephew watched my videos, um, they basically talked to each other and they got in touch about me potentially buying his play button because he'd just not been involved in YouTube for 14 or so years at that point in time, because he was just such an OG. So uh we we d agreed on a price and had a lot of back and forth, and then at the last moment he did back out, he decided he wanted to keep hold of it for sentimental reasons, which obviously completely makes sense. But there was just lots of different occasions like that where I was able to get things. This is a really interesting little fella right there. That is uh do you know what I'll go grab him? Wait there.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

No, go ahead. I would love this. So for if you're listening to the audio podcast, you gotta watch the YouTube channel for this because he's pulling out all these different awards that are behind him. They're from YouTube. This one looks crazy. This one goes wild. I love the look of it. Do you recognize this one or not? I don't, that's crazy. What is that?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

So this was this is the technically the first type of YouTube play button that was there's only about 25 of them in the world. Um, it was created in 2007 to celebrate uh a YouTube awards show that they did. So instead of it being you've got 100,000 subscribers, here's an award, they instead did awards for cutest video, best animation, best music video. So it just shows how early this was in YouTube history that they were able to narrow those kind of things down to just one thing. Um, but this is actually the best instructional video, so it was how to solve a Rubik's Cube. And it's just it's a beautiful little fella. Gorgeous! Yeah, it's so retro looking. So I was very, very excited when I managed to purchase that.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

And it were they just weren't interested in it anymore, and they were more interested in the money, or how did you get that? Because that was great.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

It's a bit of a s a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy because as you do more play button videos, all of these play button owners come out of the woodwork and start contacting you. So that's kind of what ended up happening is people that saw that I was after this thing reached out to let me know that they had this thing. So that's that's kind of what happens. And because this was from 2007, the the guy that won that in 2007 was now, you know, 20 years older. He he's changed a lot, he's less interested in his Rubik's Acube Rubik's Cube Award, whereas I'm very interested in it. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah. How many how many uh play buttons do you have that are not your channel? Have nothing to do with your channels? Yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I I don't really have a account. I think I've probably got maybe 30 awards, and I would I would guess maybe nine of them don't belong to me. They're the ones that are or I didn't earn, you know, in the traditional sense.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

So how many um so that still gives you a lot of a lot of awards for stuff that you've done. How many channels do you have right now? Oh, I I think I've I think I've got like 15 technically. It's a bit ridiculous, yeah. Let's talk okay. So let's talk about uh so I actually I just saw one of your videos from a year ago. It says uh every YouTube award I own worth over 1.5 million. Um that might be slightly generous, to be fair. It might be, it might be, but it's pretty amazing. Um, because at some point I want to talk about how you start talking, how you started uh connecting with large YouTubers, because that's part of your journey as well. But you have all these um so after you had the the ones you got from other creators and you had your own, when did you start figuring out that you wanted to do other channels so that you could have more of your own uh uh play buttons? Because, and by the way, that's not necessarily easy, especially back when you were doing it, there were no YouTube Shorts. So it wasn't like you just spun up a bunch of YouTube Shorts channels to get all these play buttons. What were you doing and how were you doing it?

Building Many Channels And Geography Success

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, so um if if we go back to 2019, I had just Jack Sucks at Life and my original channel, Samsung Zabrequads, which was just deeply inactive, so that didn't really count. But I decided I I did have a little bit of a long-term plan that I wanted to stop doing Minecraft content completely on 29 on Jack Sucks at Life. So I created Jack Sucks at stuff, and at the time it was all of my Minecraft videos are gonna be over there. You can go watch watch the Minecraft content there. So it meant that nobody's missing out. It means I can pursue the videos I want to, but I'm still doing the videos that that portion of my audience are interested in. Uh so that's what Jack Sucks' stuff originally became. Uh, you fast forward another few years, and now I'm not doing any Minecraft content on there, it's mainly sort of um my my Reddit series and those sort of extra traditional second channel videos. But basically, just anytime I was interested in another niche, I would just make a channel for it. So I ended up creating Jack Sucks at Geography because I was getting really interested in GeoGuessM. Um, and that channel actually ended up becoming my most successful channel in terms of sort of views and revenue and all of those kind of things. So something that I originally created on a whim ended up actually being like the main thing that I'm currently known for. So it's it's just really strange how things just work out. You never know kind of what you're gonna have success with.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

How do you make a successful geography channel?

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Uh you've got Geoguess, which is a game where you basically have to locate where you are in the world based on Google Maps footage. So that's really interesting because there's just so much you can do and so much you can learn. So, for example, the car that recorded the footage in Ukraine is always red. So if you see that the car is red, you know it's Ukraine. So there's like a thousand different little tricks like that to try and learn, which is a really interesting thing to be able to do. But I also had a series where I I tried to learn all of the countries and flags of the world, and because I didn't know many at all at the start of the series, a lot of people ended up learning along with me. So that was quite a ri uh really interesting and quite rewarding little series because I've had so many people message and say that they've like learnt all of the countries thanks to these videos, which was just a really nice thing to end up happening. So yeah, there's actually a surprising amount of geography content that you can do.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

That's crazy. So what it seems like at that point, when you when did you start that channel?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

So that was 2020, I think. 2020 is the year where I was just like whacking out channels left and right.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Well, I mean, also there was an explosive growth on YouTube, obviously, around that time because the locks, but actually was a perfect time to do that. Um I mean, you're you're essentially in a lot of ways an OG just because of how long you've been content creating. I think it's super important to talk about before we even get more into what you've been doing lately, and even the last couple of years, at this point, what had you learned about content creation from when you first started to around 2020-ish? Because it the fact that even though like the to have a perfect storm of like people watching a lot of YouTube in 2020 and then starting up channels that took off is one thing, but a lot of people started channels in 2020 and didn't go anywhere. But you must have learned things over those years on how to create a successful channel. What were the things you were learning and maybe even know today uh to start a successful channel?

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Ooh, I mean, there's so many different things, isn't there? But I I suppose it's always being able to adapt and follow what the um what the audience is wanting, really, is kind of the main thing. So there was a time where people enjoyed short videos, and then there was a time where uh 10-minute videos were what everybody was doing, and now these days it feels like people are really interested in those sort of 25-minute plus videos, so I'm definitely doing a lot more of those kind of things. So it is just so many different things like that, where you just have to see what other people are doing and and see how you can apply that to your content. Um, and you just I think without even really thinking about it, subconsciously, you just end up knowing how to make a YouTube video better once you've been making YouTube videos nearly every day for you know a decade. You you just kind of are picking up tricks without realizing that you you aren't doing things that are you know benefiting you in a certain way.

MrBeast Deal And Getting To 1M

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So the grind was going uh pretty strong here in 2019-2020. Uh was it around this time where you started uh getting into contact with larger YouTubers? Was it even before that? Because I know you've done some Mr. Beast stuff, uh, you've done some um uh stuff with the Sidemen. Like a lot of how how did these large creators how did you get into that ecosphere? That's a really cool thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah, so Mr. Beast uh reached out to me. I I woke up and I had a DM from him, which I didn't know he had any idea of my existence prior to that message, but he basically just reached out on Twitter um because I'd obviously just been following me following him already. He followed me in the in the middle of the night because I'm in the UK message saying, I've got an idea if you're interested. I was like, Oh yeah, sure, I'm interested.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

I mean anything you say, yes, I can say anything you are, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

And then he he reaches out and he says, I've made a channel um called Don't Subscribe. If you can get at a million subscribers without any videos, I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars. So I was like, Okay, yeah, that sounds great, Mr. Beast. I'll get I'll get on that. Thank you very much. So I guess he was just interested in giving uh still to this day, I don't know if he'd watched my stuff prior to that. I think obviously he's very interested in YouTube, and I was doing videos about YouTube, so he perhaps just saw this as a as a fun opportunity to collab. Um so that that was how Mr. Beast reached out, and I did end up getting the channel to a million subscribers without there being any videos on there, which I was unbelievably happy with.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

How do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

That's just yeah, it was a lot of just promotion on Jack Sucks at life, so I I set kind of challenges that would be unlocked at every milestone. So uh it was like 500,000 subscribers, I'd be dyeing my hair pink, 700,000 subscribers, I'd wrap my car pink. It was just random things like that that people wanted to see. I mean, if I tried to get a channel to a million subscribers with no videos now, I don't I don't think I'd even get to 100k. It just feels like the the growth that was possible in 2020 just isn't quite as explosive as it perhaps was, um, which is just really interesting to think about. So I think it was just a perfect storm in terms of timing, which is excellent. So he gave you the 100,000 after you did that? He did. It was converted into Great Rush Pounds, but I did get a payment from Mr. Beast Incorporated of like£79,000, which was obviously just telling about that.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

I mean, what was that? So you got the you get into the million. Did was there any moment you're like, okay, I think I'm gonna be able to do this, but is he actually gonna do it? Were you in constant contact, or was there just you just doing it and hoping for the best?

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, there was the I I think there was very little contact. We've we've never spoken out loud, it's just been a few Twitter DMs basically. Wow. Um, so I I mean I I did I never had any doubt that he wouldn't hand over the hundred thousand dollars because why would he not? Right. Um, but I I made sure nice and early to double check that there was no time limit, so it took me 12 months to do. So I I took my time with it, and I'm I'm glad that I found out and confirmed there was no time limit because it meant that I could focus on pushing this channel really hard, but not neglect my other things. So it meant that I was constantly doing both. Because if I just turned Jack Sucks at life into three months of just non-stop promotion for don't subscribe, not everyone in my audience would appreciate that, and I'd perhaps lose some some viewers that were into the things that aren't related to don't subscribe and aren't related to Mr. Beast. So because I had that 12-month period, it meant that I could just come back and forth and and juggle that challenge without neglecting anything else.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

That's such a cr I mean that's crazy. Uh so what was it like when um when you hit a million and I assume you just DMed him saying, I did it? Uh what was what was the whole what happened after that? Like was it all of a sudden that check showed up or that's exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

He just um I think he just passed on very casually just passed on an email address to his like accounting team. Um and it was quite cute actually, because at the I I had some back and forth emails with his accountant at the time, and um it was actually it said like I can't remember the name, but it was like Sylvia, um, and then in brackets Jimmy's mom smiley face, which is just which is obviously just adorable.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Yeah. That's so funny. Um cool, all right. So you get that done, which is a crazy accomplishment in and of itself. How did the the whole Simon KSI uh before I'm and I'm not talking about like buying their their stuff yet because I do or how you got their play buttons? I'll talk about it later, but like Simon and KSI are really interesting because especially in the UK, they're super huge. Um over here, some people know uh Simon, they probably know KSI more because of his music. How did that how did you get connected with um uh I don't know which one you got connected with first, but how did that uh connection happen?

KSI Glitch And Sidemen World Records

SPEAKER_01 35:45

So I think the first interaction that I would have had with uh any Sideman member was when I ended up getting KSI's Diamond Play Button. How did you do that? Well, that was kind of forced on him. This was a little bit cheeky. 2026 Jack wouldn't be doing such a thing as this, but 2020 Jack noticed that there was a basically a glitch within the YouTube award ordering process, um, where if you just typed in the Diamond Play Button URL, you could actually access the order page without actually having 10 million subscribers. So providing you had the$3,000 that it cost to order a play button, you could actually order it. It was basically just uh something that was uh that that something that Society Awards just made a mistake on, and I totally capitalised on on this. And I put KSI as the name because I needed a channel with 10 million subscribers and I thought that would be a funny one to go with. So my first interaction was uh him reacting to that. Unfortunately, he did react positively to it because you know I suppose it could have gone either way. Um but I guess the connections with S the Sidemen happened after my Guinness World Records series, because I did a series where I got my own Guinness World Record, but then that allowed me to kind of understand the application process. So I started a series where I would help other YouTubers get Guinness World Records for things that they'd already done and perhaps hadn't realized were actually record worthy. So I'd I got Dream a record for the biggest Minecraft channel, I got Tommy in it a record for the most viewed Minecraft stream, I got George not found a record for the most viewed cooking stream, which was just a because he's not a cooking YouTuber, he'd just done a cooking stream that happened to get loads of views, so I was able to get him a record. So then um I think I think it was maybe Simon from uh from the Sidemen that happened that followed me on Instagram first. So I just reached out to him saying I could maybe get you a world record for the Sidemen charity match being the um biggest charity live stream, I think it was, because they had well over two million viewers. Uh and he was he said he was like well up for that, invited me to the studio, so I was able I hadn't met any of them prior to this, but I presented the world records to them with a official Guinness World Records representative like in front of them all, and that that was a really big video for me at the time. So obviously I was really grateful to uh sort of get that initial connection, and that then put me in front of people's minds. So these days uh me and Josh do geo guesser content together, uh featuring quite a few of their Among Us videos, so it's it's really nice to kind of be involved with a community that's as big as the Sidemen.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Which is really big. Again, for people who are uh outside of that niche or don't know, Sidemen is is a group of um creators uh based mainly in the UK that are explosively uh popular, kind of headlined by KSI, but also each one of them uh are pretty big at this point. And it's uh it's like a super group in a lot of ways, I guess would be the one way to kind of uh describe them. And uh really, really intense stuff. Like you could uh just kind of be an associate with them can make you kind of successful. So did you see anything, any kind of um I don't know, shrapnel's the wrong word, but any kind of uh uh boost to your channel just by kind of being in some of those videos, like overall, not just for the one, but like kind of overall.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Yeah, so I've I've always throughout my entire kind of YouTube career, I've always seen that it's rare that you will collab with someone and then instantly see a load of growth, which I think a lot of people, including me when I was a small channel, thought that that's what would happen. You you would just instantly gain half of the viewers that watch the the collab, which just isn't the case at all. That that really is never never has been. But I do think that um my sort of relevancy, if you would if you're to use that word, that's probably increased because um frequently these days when I get recognized, it's not always for my own videos, it's as the guy that is sometimes insidemen among us, which is a really interesting thing because those videos average five million views, so whereas my videos these days average, I don't know, a hundred thousand views or something. So it it makes total sense when when you're out that you're gonna have that. And I don't think people are gonna watch that video and then search me up, or at least not thousands and thousands of people, but it might be that people will watch a video like that, enjoy my feature in it, and then later they might see one of my videos in the recommended, and perhaps it might increase the chances of them clicking on that video because they recognize the face. So I think that's probably maybe how it works.

Sending A 100M Award To Space

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Yeah, I think I think you're pretty accurate there. If you think about all the videos you've done, which is a lot, like just on the Jack Sucks channel, there's almost 2,000 videos there, then all the other ones you've ever done. Uh two videos I want to know about. The one you're most proud of, and second one, maybe the one that surprised you the most, like how well it did.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Hmm. So one I'm most proud of. The easy answer would be the sending Mr. Beast's 100 million subscriber award into space.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Because that was just that was talk talk to us about how that happened. Like what was what was that process?

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Okay, so just like the other time, I got a message from Mr. Beast when he surpassed 100 million and he said, Do you want to borrow my award? Because you could make some videos out of it. So obviously he's just giving me opportunities again, which is uh something I'm really grateful for. Um, and I knew this was a really big opportunity, so I wanted to really make the most of it. Now I'd been in talks with a company that sends things up to space, so they basically they they attach them to a big weather balloon, it goes to kind of as high as the where you can see the curvature of the earth, and then the balloon pops and you it just slowly falls back down. Um, so I was planning on using the diamond the KSI diamond play button that I had and sending that up to space. But when I had that message from Mr. Beast, I I knew that I should switch to the 100mm one. Um and that which logistically was far more difficult because it's probably twice as heavy as the 10 million subscriber diamond play button. So that was where a lot more planning and cost was required uh in order to send it up, and there was also stress in terms of this award isn't really mine, I I have to give it back afterwards. There's like they're over in the US, so it was quite a difficult thing to pull off, but we did manage to do it, and my my girlfriend Becky did a really good job editing the video together. So I think that's sitting at 10 million views now, which was kind of the goal that I had for that video. So that's definitely like a really easy answer in terms of being proud. But to be honest, I'm kind of just I I don't feel proud of specific videos, I just feel proud of what's been accomplished in general. I I kind of I'm never really homing in on one thing, it's more just really exciting that you know I got don't subscribe to a million subscribers, I have a successful geography niche. That's kind of where where kind of my mind is. And is there a video you've done that's kind of surprised you how well it did? There's there's a lot. There's I've got a video, I've got a channel called Jackmasse Welsh, um, which is all about electric cars, specifically Tesla. So I I launched that channel as a way of justifying purchasing a Tesla Model 3 back in 2019, because I thought that I could just make videos about uh Tesla Model 3 because it was very up and coming at that point in time. Um so we've done a few videos on there that have just gotten a ridiculous amount of views without me expecting it. I think ones that come to mind are there was people making Tesla-related TikToks, and then I would discuss and show whether these TikToks were actually real or fake, because a lot of people were just over-exaggerating what autopilot and those kind of things were capable of. And I I think some of those videos have like 4.5 million views, which for something that we filmed on an iPhone in an afternoon is just a a really ridiculous amount of views.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Uh, one more thing before we move on to the last couple of things. I'm just imagining you getting Mr. B's 100 million subscriber button. At the time, I I don't think there was any other ones, right? This is the only one at the time.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

No, there was there was PewDiePie's 100 million awards. That's right, PewDiePie got it. Which I did already, I I have that behind me still, which is crazy. How did you get that? So that that was purchased from a subscriber. A subscriber gave a uh PewDiePie gave his award to one of his subscribers and then his subscriber just a few months later obviously for the financial incentive of uh being able to get a home and stuff sold sold the award to me which was a very exciting thing to to happen as well.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

But I mean it is one of like not many. There's not many 100 million subscribers.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I mean now there's 11 I think so back. But even now that's I mean one out of 11.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yeah but back then like three or four. So you have Mr Beast 100 million subscriber play button. You're about to send it into space of all places. Were you not absolutely nervous that this was going to go wrong and it was going to end up in the ocean somewhere or something and you know we're going to be able to get it back?

SPEAKER_01 45:03

I was I mean I was I was assured by the the the amazing team at Sent into Space that it would be completely fine. I if you give me one second I will grab this. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

He's grabbing something from the back shelf.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

So for audio listeners this is basically um the the award was inside of a carbon fibre shell yeah uh and there was loads of form and everything inside of it so it was very very it was very very secure. I've dropped my phone and there was literally no damage to it at all which is amazing to think considering it was 3000 meters in the air at one point the fact that it came down really safely I mean it was such a cool thing because when it landed as it's so cold in space there was sort of a frost glaze over the the red crystal it's just so interesting to think. But yeah I was still nervous I was more nervous about shipping it with uh UPS back to the USA than I was about it going into space because I I put so much padding around it I put an air tag in it and it ended up getting like held up at customs for like three weeks so I was I was feeling very nervous about that but fortunately it got returned to me and Mr Beast's team actually just sent someone in a plane to the UK I got the train down to London handed it to them in a coffee shop and then they got a plane back to the US and I got a train back up north again uh which was actually far safer than my original attempt of posting it.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Then UPS um that's crazy. And also for a video like that you have to shoot it differently than probably anything else you'd really ever shot before so how do you prepare for that?

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Definitely yeah it was it was um it it took a bit of getting my head round what was the best way of doing it. And I think that's the first and probably still the only video on my channel where some of the filming hasn't been done by either like me or my partner Becky because we actually had the sent into space team were capturing a lot of content on the day they were operating a drone which was obviously necessary for that kind of shoot. So it was really interesting to do that kind of process. Actually that's a lie because we the Sidemen world record video that was also filmed by the sidemen team because it just made far more sense for them to have the seven cameras seven microphones set up and then send me the footage but it's it's something that we've really enjoyed getting when when you know it's been filmed by a professional team it's really exciting when you get all this beautiful footage back that you then get to edit and cut down however you want so that's something me and Becky really enjoyed.

Creating In 2026 Without AI Hype

SPEAKER_00 47:39

That's amazing I mean it sounds like you've just had a lot of fun content creating I guess um for the last couple questions number one where do you see YouTube because things are strange now with AI and everything what do you see content creation being in 2026 and maybe going into 2027? What are you preparing for? And what are you how are you doing your content uh moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I don't know. So obviously I'm 13 years into doing stuff so I it's not like I'm retired from making content because I'm I'm still releasing you know maybe five videos a week but I I do I do almost feel like I'm retired from racing and chasing views compared to what I used to. I'm quite happy with where I got to and I'm I'm kind of just enjoying doing niche Geo guesser videos on a brand new channel that potentially isn't really getting that many views compared to stuff that I used to do. So I'm I'm not I'm just kind of thinking about my own bubble and I'm not really thinking about YouTube's bubble I have no real interest in AI and I'm quite happy to not really need to dip into that because I haven't dipped into it so far. So I don't know I I'm just kind of pottering along doing the the stuff that I enjoy and not thinking too much about the website as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

That's so nice to just be able to do what you want to do not because you have to do it. And I would assume now you're kind of set for life ish, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Like if you were to just live like if I if I lived moderately I I would be yeah I I still I'm not in a position where I could just turn down huge sums of money. But I'm I'm I'm doing better than the average person which is obviously really lucky to be amazing.

Starting Fresh With Travel And Walking

SPEAKER_00 49:13

All right so finally uh I have this question I ask all creators and this is going to be probably harder for you than maybe a lot of other creators because you have so many channels so it's almost unfair to ask you this but I'm gonna do it anyway. With the knowledge that you have today of everything that you've done for from content creation let's say that you had to start a new channel today not doing any of the niches that you currently have channels on um but you have the content you have the information that you've learned you can't use any of your resources either what would be your channel you would start what would it be about and what would be like your first two or three videos um I think it would probably it would have to be travel related uh because I've been really enjoying travel content.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

It's not something I've really done ever. So it's a it's a new niche that I think I'm definitely going to try like in real life I'm gonna I'm gonna do that kind of thing. I've been watching a creator called Mike OK who who goes to obscure countries and just they're very raw legitimate vlogs with not huge amounts of cutting and editing and I I've just really enjoyed those kind of videos and it's the sort of thing that I would love to to dip myself into and even just from a business standpoint there is a lot of financial sense to traveling within content because of the way the expenses and everything that surrounds that all work. So I think it's something you know traveling's important whether you're doing videos or not doing videos so it's something that I feel I've neglected slightly and want to get get into so strategically what would be like your first couple videos?

SPEAKER_00 50:44

Like what would that look like?

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Well I had some success with making walking content on Jack Sucks at life a year or two ago so I I did a hundred thousand steps in a day I did two hundred and fifty thousand steps in a week and and audiences were really interested in that um so you could basically just take that international so I I've I've got thoughts about trying to walk across some of the small smallest countries in the world because they they've got some really incredible landscapes and very varied you know the the landscape in Malta is so different to the landscape in Liechtenstein. So it would just be really interesting to see all of the differences and if you're literally walking from one end of the country to the other you're you're seeing not just the touristy bits but you're seeing all of the the real bits in between so I I think that those could be some really interesting videos.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

That'd be painfully interesting and it's funny because one of the uh earlier guests we had uh Nomad push uh skateboarded across both Japan but also across Korea so he's he's he's been there about the the walking is funny because I was actually going to talk to him and tell him that maybe walking is one of the things you want to do because yeah skateboarding is interesting it's very close to walking but it's not the same there is this other thing of like having to walk and then having to figure out like the logistics of everything because you at some point you're gonna be walking into areas that are maybe not near a town and like what happens then that's so compelling.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

And there is I mean when when we're talking about videos that surprised me the 2000 steps in a week I think has four million views which is something I just never expected. It was just a challenge that I wanted to do for myself. I didn't realize I hoped the audience would watch it but I didn't realize how many people would actually end up watching it. I think it's the most successful video I've done in a couple of years. So there's definitely potential for walking content on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Amazing stuff Jack I don't think you suck at anything I think you're great at it all I don't think you should do Jack sucks at vacationing or traveling. I think you should be jack is great at vacationing or traveling whatever it is but whatever it is we're definitely going to be following you. There'll be links in the description uh on the YouTube channel and on the show notes you of course you can find everything you need down there. Jack thank you so much for joining us I know you're a busy guy but you made time for us and we really greatly appreciate that. Yeah no problem at all it's been it's been really fun chatting about stuff. Thank you very much for inviting me. And if you want to see more of his stuff like I said links in the description and if you're watching on the YouTube channel I got a new video for you right here. We'll see y'all in the next one