Sep 15, 2022 · 1h 5m · startup-ideas
How To Monetize On YouTube With Harley Morenstein
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Epic Meal Time co-creator Harley Morenstein joins Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg to discuss the evolution of digital content monetization, the psychological traps of algorithmic audience capture, and key business lessons from pioneering viral digital media.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Greg holds 4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 1.3 Greg pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:03:30 Harley dismantles dropout creator culture
Harley forcefully dismisses the romanticized idea of quitting school for YouTube, stating that aspiring creators who cannot manage both simultaneously lack the chops to survive.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 54:06 Greg challenges the negative bias assumption of reviewsGreg interrupts Sahil's claim that Yelp reviews only skew negative, countering that users also write overly enthusiastic five-star essays, leading to structural bifurcation.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:30 Harley on the harsh reality of starting businesses with friendsHarley provides a transparent, cautionary breakdown of how sudden virality shattered his partnership and ended in years of litigation because expectations weren't defined early.
Greg holds their own ▶ 8:41 Sahil contextualizes social shifts via the Overton windowSahil steps in to give a structured conceptual explanation of why online comedy norms contracted so sharply over the previous decade.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The High Value of Live Streaming Audiences | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Harley explains why live stream retention and dedicated viewers outweigh raw YouTube view counts. The hosts and Harley then chat amiably about their history and early Twitter interactions. | |
| Mid-Roll Sponsor: Athletic Greens AG1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Includes an ad break and a lighthearted recounting of an old one-way Twitter dispute involving Greg and Harley's mutual acquaintances. | |
| Shifting Internet Comedy and the Overton Window | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sahil introduces the concept of the Overton window to explain how acceptable social media comedy has shifted since 2010, which Harley and Greg agree with. | |
| The Genesis and Viral Rise of Epic Meal Time | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Harley provides a detailed look at how YouTube worked in 2010, contrasting desktop consumption with modern mobile habits while sharing the origin story of Epic Meal Time. | |
| Navigating Friendships, Ownership, and Growing Pains | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Harley candidly educates the hosts on the perils of doing business with friends, managing equity disputes, and surviving legal battles during sudden viral fame. | |
| Early YouTube Monetization and DIY Merchandise | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Harley details early monetization hurdles, volatile MCN CPM rates, and manually packing 60,000 t-shirts from his house before modern e-commerce infrastructure existed. | |
| Evolution of Creator Commercialization and Cultural Stigmas | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Harley contrasts the old 'sellout' stigma of 2011 YouTube with modern creator merchandise culture, highlighting an early high-paying Netflix sponsorship. | |
| The Trap of Audience Capture and Creator Personas | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Sahil frames the concept of 'audience capture' using Nikocado Avocado as a case study, while Harley blunt-talks the stark financial incentive behind extreme creator transformations. | |
| Mid-Roll Sponsor: Athletic Greens AG1 (Replay) | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Following a sponsor read, Harley outlines his resistance to chasing fleeting algorithmic metas and breaks down the business of creator boxing. | |
| Transitioning to Twitch and Streaming on Facebook Gaming | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Harley breaks down platform dynamics between Twitch and Facebook Gaming, explaining why guaranteed platform contracts made sense despite potential audience fragmentation. | |
| Scathing Reviews and Audience vs Critic Divides | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Sahil shares an anecdote about a scathing book review from a friend's mother, leading into a discussion on critic vs audience review score disparities. | |
| The Polarization of Online Review and Fandom Culture | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Greg and Sahil debate review site biases, while Harley offers counter-observations on geographic rating differences and toxic fandom echo chambers. | |
| Bar Mitzvah Reflections and Advice to 2010 Self | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Harley reflects on old bar mitzvah footage and delivers pragmatic advice about fully committing to Plan A instead of letting Plan B take over. | |
| The Reality of Pursuing YouTube and Staying in School | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | Harley strongly rejects the idea of young people dropping out of school to do YouTube full-time, arguing that anyone unable to juggle both lacks the stamina for the creator industry. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Morenstein: Epic Meal Time was Canada's top YouTube channel within 18 months
“Within like a year and a half, it was the number one most subscribed channel on in Canada, and within two years for a period of time, it was in the top five most subscribed in all of YouTube.”
Morenstein: Epic Meal Time reached 1.5B views and 7M YouTube subscribers
“We have like 1.5 billion views and seven million subscribers on YouTube.”
Morenstein: Epic Meal Time co-creators spent two years in court before settling
“At the end of the day, I ended up going to court, and we ended up settling this as co-creators of the brand, and he's a guy I talk to now. He's just an old friend of mine, and his name's Sterling. We had a falling out back then. We went to court for like two y…”
Morenstein: Founders must clarify business relationships with friends before finding success
“You better figure out your relationship before success, though, because the problem with Sterling and I was before we figured out what our business relationship was, success came in.”
Morenstein: Early YouTube MCNs guaranteed $4 CPMs while independent rates fluctuated
“Other people that I knew would sign to these MCNs that existed, these multi-channel networks, and they would guarantee people like four dollars CPM no matter what. And us, it could be sometimes 60 cents CPM to like six dollars CPM.”
Morenstein: Epic Meal Time sold 60,000 'bacon strips' t-shirts
“We made this shirt said bacon strips and bacon strips, and we sold 60,000 of that t-shirt, like of that design.”
Morenstein: Netflix Paid Epic Meal Time $60 Per Free-Trial Signup in 2011
“Netflix gave us 60 dollars us per person.”
Sahil Bloom: Content Creators Progressively Become Slaves to Their Audiences
“In a world of audience and in a world of these algorithms, we are progressively falling victim to what our audience wants. And effectively we are slaves of our audiences or of these algorithms, if that's what you believe in.”
Morenstein: Turned down $150,000 offer to fight on KSI boxing card
“Then I got offered to box on the KSI card, which is on the 27th of this month and I was offered 150,000 dollars to box one match in that card, and I was like, nah,”
Morenstein: 300 live stream viewers are worth more than 300,000 YouTube views
“300 viewers that will watch you when you go live. Every time that 300 viewers is literally worth more than 300,000 views on YouTube. 100,000 percent. Because these 300 people are like, they're all ambassadors. They're sitting here for hours, dude. They didn't …”
Morenstein: Facebook Gaming offered an exclusive 3-year deal dwarfing Twitch income
“They offered me a contract that per month dwarfed The biggest, best month I ever had on Twitch, because it's like Facebook money, and so they gave me this deal to stream exclusively on Facebook for three years and I did that. I streamed on Facebook for three y…”
Morenstein: Strongly critical responses signal top fan behavior
“It took me a long time to realize it, but like, that's like one of your top fans. That is the behavior of literally a top fan.”
Isenberg: Yelp-Style Reviews Are Inherently Broken Due to Rating Bifurcation
“Basically you have, the problem with it is you have a bunch of people who are so, you know, you go to a Italian restaurant, Nico's Italian restaurant. It's amazing. You love it. You get to know Nico five stars. He like was really nice to my mom. You write a wh…”
Morenstein: Negative Game Discourse Dominates Because Satisfied Gamers Are Playing
“The people that like the game are literally playing it. So the people that don't like it don't have a competing force on Twitter to be like, no, it's great. Cause they're literally playing it.”
Morenstein: Creators who drop out of school lack the chops to succeed
“Anyone who leaves school or quit school to become a YouTuber, you don't have it, buddy. I'll tell you right now, if you cannot be in school and do your YouTube, you're definitely not built for it because you're not going to compete with the type of people that…”