How to Make Money on YouTube Beyond AdSense: B2B, B2C & SaaS

Right so… first step: Broaden the brand reach.

Start streaming on Twitch and create a feedback loop. Simple enough.

Worked for a while but never really got the numbers.

Go to an industry event! Yes. Hell yes. Immediately run into Mobalytics… they tell me "Damn, Virkayu, we love your content. We want to collaborate"

Me: "Leaving the house works!"

Also it's true. Events can be amazing and I hope to bring Frame 117 to some in the future and grow with you all.

However, despite me making videos for Mobalytics YouTube channel, and making their most viewed videos all time with my voice, script, and explanations (Yes, it's true… a lot of those are my voice and concepts contained in their packaging), this didn't really… help expand my brand beyond those who knew me and didn't give me more verticals.

Second step: We gotta coach, man. I hit an apex/high rank for this reason. BUT how do you get enough clients without paid ads?

Volume. Everyone knows this. But QUALITY VOLUME is the most important thing. And as we'll learn in Case Study 4, quality doesn't mean 100 hours of editing. In this case, because my content was high quality as I was the solo creator (editor, VO, sound, FX, everything), I didn't have time for anything more.

So, my idea was:

Twitch Stream 3 x a week, coach only, no playing as that has low ROI for my time and is not a good business model

Make my regular 2 x a week content on the main channel

And then start a NEW YouTube channel to upload really good coaching VoDs. Just take the VoD, cut it, render it… upload it. Simple thumbnail.

But, you have no clients so what do you do? Yeah… free shit.

"Who wants coaching? It's free."

Now here's where I was ahead of the game: I went hyper targeted in 2020. I asked for specific ranks and only accepted if there were rooms in that rank.

So not only can I spend the first, say 15 streams, getting a full variety of coaching practice AND giving everyone value, I could then upload hyper targeted coaching VoDs to the new channel for EACH RANK. Views? Who cares?

A Gold ranked player will watch the Gold videos, but… if you understand the psychology of your market… you'd also know the Gold ranked player is gonna watch some ranks above him because his ego tells him it's not his fault he's being held back and he wants to compare himself as well. Play into that. FEED into that as a YouTube channel and creator.

I won't spill all the beans here as this is already getting long but fast forward to much farther brand reach, better sponsors, a recognizable name all meant I could have B2B relationships with companies and other creators to run Bootcamps (NEACE allowed me to run one within his hyper successful business model which was similar but x10 in reach thanks to TikToks which is 100% my failure here) and also running at another company, GOSU Academy, later.

Their business model was not so good which is why they don't exist anymore.

BUT my brand presence and name also meant connections to a Venture Capital (VC) backed startup called "Zar.gg". A software that took guides and put them INTO the game thanks to timer triggers, situational triggers, game states etc etc. The point is: it was a LOT of software.

They paid me a fat fee to develop the initial guides for my role (Jungle in the game) which were like… 13-20k words of knowledge…. And we converted that into a digital guide which people could pay for monthly while I took 70% of each subscription. So not quite SaaS but nonetheless a developed software, with monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and large flat/base fees for marketing initially.

Meanwhile my coaching business went from google docs to Patreon to December 2022 when sponsors were backing out of gaming, ZAR went under due to gross mismanagement and negligence on their part plus VC pulling out due to the gaming investor crash, and adsense also had gone down thanks to the global economy.

So, now what?

You do it again. Because now you have the skills.

Except this time I did it properly… made a THIRD channel with HYPER focused targeting. The second YouTube channel had long become a "Pro player/High ranked player game analysis" channel while my Coaching VoDs were now something you had to pay for as part of my coaching. So, what's the third channel for then?

Well, a Shopify site I made myself in 2 weeks with a 42 page free lead magnet they'd get by giving me their email (for which I gathered 20,000 and had a frequent newsletter giving insane value… much like how I'll do for Frame 117).

The ONLY gaming educational creator with a massive free lead magnet, an automated marketing funnel using Zapier and Shopify, and selling not only coaching this time but COURSES which I presold into 5 figures just off my brand equity alone.

And then when League was clearly going into the toilet as a market for which to gain viewers and money, I pulled out early. (There's a joke there but just… let's move on).

And since then I've now launched FOUR more monetized with either the 1st or 3rd video.

So, if you have an offer, if you are an educator and you use Youtube for your business. I've just about seen every way to back end funnel and monetize a channel from either myself or other channels I've studied in order to figure out my own offers.

Let's do something together. Join Frame 117.