Take
Going viral is a lottery ticket you have to keep buying
MrBallen frames content creation as a meritocratic lottery: most attempts go nowhere, but the right thing at the right time goes viral and earns you the chance to capitalize. His first hit came on a whim after a year of failed videos.
“If you create the right thing at the right time, it's like a lottery ticket and it goes viral, and then it's your chance at that point to capitalize in whatever way you want to. So I was obsessed with it. So despite the many failures over the course of probably, you know, 6 months or so, maybe a year of just like awful cringe videos that went nowhere, on a whim I was like, you know what, I'm just going to shoot a quick video and I leave my phone in the room for a couple hours, come back, and I couldn't even open my phone.”
Story
MrBallen almost quit at the top until a cold email from MrBeast's manager
Burned out spending 100+ hours a week making 3-5 videos (26 hours each) while neglecting his family, MrBallen was mass-deleting business emails and ready to quit. One email from a fellow combat vet (Nick, a day-to-day manager at MrBeast) caught his eye, and handing Nick the reins saved the company.
“And it was around that time that I'm like, maybe all those people that are emailing me, maybe they can offer something that will help me like grow. Cause I swear to God, I was, just mass deleting emails because it was so stressful. Like people that were like trying to pitch me and I saw an email come through that was like, you know, fellow combat veteran here to help. And I had like, I'm a military guy and I'm immediately like, okay, this guy I could talk to.”
Steal thisHand off everything that isn't your unique genius to an operator before burnout makes you quit at the top.
Story
MrBallen almost quit at the top until a cold email from MrBeast's manager
Burned out spending 100+ hours a week making 3-5 videos (26 hours each) while neglecting his family, MrBallen was mass-deleting business emails and ready to quit. One email from a fellow combat vet (Nick, a day-to-day manager at MrBeast) caught his eye, and handing Nick the reins saved the company.
“And it was around that time that I'm like, maybe all those people that are emailing me, maybe they can offer something that will help me like grow. Cause I swear to God, I was, just mass deleting emails because it was so stressful. Like people that were like trying to pitch me and I saw an email come through that was like, you know, fellow combat veteran here to help. And I had like, I'm a military guy and I'm immediately like, okay, this guy I could talk to.”
Steal thisHand off everything that isn't your unique genius to an operator before burnout makes you quit at the top.
Billy
Nick pestered WME until they let him push the mail cart
Nick did 90 combat missions as an open-turret gunner in Iraq, then law school, then relentlessly pestered top talent agency WME in his one raggedy suit until a partner let him work the mailroom. He quickly ascended to working with talent and later ran day-to-day for MrBeast.
“So he just begins pestering WME, one of the biggest talent agencies in the world, to like let him work for them. No one's taking his calls. They're like, he's showing up in his one raggedy suit that he's got, like trying to make an impression. He's this big yoked dude with tattoos all over him. No one wants him. He finally gets the attention of one of the partners. He's like, all right, dude, you come here all the time. Like you can work in the mailroom, pushing the mail cart. And the dude quickly ascended and was like working with, with with talent, like killing it.”
Story
The one-line doc that became MrBallen: 'Dyatlov Pass'
MrBallen had a 50-page doc of TikTok ideas that went nowhere and a second doc with a single bullet: 'Dyatlov Pass.' The lesson: his breakout came not from a brainstormed list but from the one creepy mystery he'd genuinely watch on his own lunch break.
“And on one document, it was like, I'm not kidding. Page, like 50 pages of single space, just bullets of ideas of types of content I could create. And then I had this other document that had a single word on it, or it was like a single bullet point, and it just said Dyatlov Pass.”
Steal thisMake the content you'd genuinely watch on your own lunch break, not the content from your brainstorm list.
Tactic
3 stories a day for 30 days to go from zero to 7M subscribers
After his first viral hit, MrBallen went into a feverish posting cadence of 3 TikToks a day for 30 days, reaching about 7 million subscribers before shifting to YouTube.
“And so I went into this feverish, like, constantly telling stories on TikTok, uh, 3 a day for 30 days, and then was up to like 7 million subscribers on TikTok and then shifted to YouTube.”
Steal thisWhen you hit a viral format, flood the channel (e.g. 3 posts a day for 30 days) to compound the momentum fast.
Tactic
3 stories a day for 30 days to go from zero to 7M subscribers
After his first viral hit, MrBallen went into a feverish posting cadence of 3 TikToks a day for 30 days, reaching about 7 million subscribers before shifting to YouTube.
“And so I went into this feverish, like, constantly telling stories on TikTok, uh, 3 a day for 30 days, and then was up to like 7 million subscribers on TikTok and then shifted to YouTube.”
Steal thisWhen you hit a viral format, flood the channel (e.g. 3 posts a day for 30 days) to compound the momentum fast.
Framework
MrBallen's 3-box filter: hard, recognized, enjoyable
MrBallen picks what to pursue using three criteria: it must be hard enough to feel proud of, it must come with some level of recognition that you accomplished it, and you must get some enjoyment from doing it. The SEAL teams and social media both passed this test.
“I want something to be hard enough that if I do it, I'll feel really proud of doing that thing. Like if it's easy, it's not going to make me excited at the end. Like it needs to be a challenge. So something that's hard, something that comes with some level of like, this is going to sound vain, but I think we're all pretty human here. Some level of recognition for doing the thing. It's not the reason you do it, but you do want people to be aware that you struggled and built this thing.”
Steal thisFilter your big bets through three boxes: is it hard, will it earn recognition, will you enjoy it.
Take
Be the Boston Red Sox of storytellers
MrBallen's ego-driven goal: make Ballen Studios the prestige destination for storytellers, the equivalent of the Red Sox or Yankees in baseball, so that being under the Ballen umbrella means 'you've made it', and then own a piece of the actual Red Sox.
“if you are under the Ballin' Studios umbrella, boom. You've made it. Like, that's the equivalent. I want us to be that. I want to be the Boston Red Sox equivalent for storytellers. And so I don't know how we're going to get there, but I want that level of prestige assigned to Ballen Studios relative to storytellers. And then with that, I want to own a fucking piece of the Red Sox.”
Framework
Inhabit the story: own it, don't regurgitate it
MrBallen's storytelling rule: don't just recite the facts, fully inhabit a story, voicing what people were thinking and acting out pieces of it, so it lands as if it were your own. Telling something that sounds like you merely heard it is regurgitation, not storytelling.
“If you're going to tell a story, own the fucking story, like enter the story and don't leave until it's done. People that like tell you a story and it sounds like they're just telling something they heard, that's not storytelling. That's just regurgitating something you heard. You want to be a fucking storyteller. Inhabit the story, full commitment to the point where you are literally acting out pieces of that story for your audience.”
Steal thisWhen telling a story, inhabit it fully, voice the characters and act out moments, instead of reciting facts.