YouTube Millionaires: Jeffo Joined YouTube To Stay Busy During Lockdowns. Now His Channel Is His Career.

By 06/17/2021
YouTube Millionaires: Jeffo Joined YouTube To Stay Busy During Lockdowns. Now His Channel Is His Career.

Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each creator has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments here.

This week’s installment of YouTube Millionaires is brought to you by Bright – a learning platform focused on real conversations that level up your life. 


Jeffo said it best himself: “Life throws curveballs sometimes.”

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And over the past few years, those curveballs have been significant. Not so long ago, the North Carolina-based creator was a recent Georgetown grad who specialized in molecular cancer biology and planned to attend medical school to become a cancer researcher and surgeon.

Curveball No. 1 came in the form of brain surgery–not one Jeffo would perform, but one he needed. The procedure and recovery derailed his hopes of becoming a doctor, so he adjusted and began working toward a new career.

Then Curveball No. 2–COVID.

Like many people, Jeffo ended up sequestered in his home during much of 2020. He joined YouTube for two reasons: one, he wanted to stay productive while locked in his apartment; and two, he’d noticed the pandemic had caused a significant uptick in consumption of digital content across platforms. The viewership surge created an “opportunistic moment,” he says, for newbie creators to establish themselves.

Which is exactly what he did. Jeffo joined YouTube one year ago, and in that year has uploaded every single week for a total of nearly 230 videos about popular video games Roblox and Adopt Me.

Between filming and editing multiple uploads per week, setting premieres for each of those uploads, and interacting with fans while videos are premiering, Jeffo has made a full-time job of YouTube–and though he didn’t join the platform with expectations that his channel would turn into a newfound career, his growth and dedicated audience has convinced him to embrace his future as a content creator.

Check out our chat with him below.

Tubefilter: How does it feel to hit one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?

Jeffo: It’s more surreal than anything—the channel was conceived and grown entirely during the quarantine, so it’s a bit hard to wrap my head around what that many subscribers really MEANS when I’ve been more or less working from the seclusion of my apartment. It absolutely feels like an accomplishment and I’m beyond grateful!

That’s really what I’d tell my fans: this isn’t just some personal milestone for me, but more so for the community that we’ve fostered, and that’s something the Fruit Loops (my supporters) have built TOGETHER!

Tubefilter: Tell us a little about you! Where are you from? What did you do in ye olde days before YouTube?

Jeffo: I’m originally from North Carolina, and I was actually a student slated to attend medical school after undergrad at Georgetown. I was a huge nerd (and not ashamed of it) with my studies concentrated mostly in molecular cancer biology. I wanted to be a cancer researcher and surgeon, but life throws curveballs sometimes and I ended up radically pivoting my career prospects after having brain surgery the year following my graduation.

Tubefilter: When and why did you start a YouTube channel? Did you go into it knowing what content niche you wanted to focus on, or did you discover your zone along the way?

Jeffo: The YouTube channel started out of a need to stay productive during the lockdown. The lockdown also happened to create a higher demand for content consumption—I think this allowed for an opportunistic moment in which aspiring YouTube creators could get their foot in the door with an audience.

I had absolutely no clue what the focus of the channel was going to be, only that it would be centered around Roblox. Though I’ve settled now into Adopt Me, even now the nature of that content shifts depending on what my fans seem to engage with most!

Tubefilter: What made you fall in love with Roblox and Adopt Me? What appeals to you about these games personally, and as a content creator? Are there any other games on your roster, or games you’d like to expand to in the future?

Jeffo: I might as well confess now—before I started actually playing, I didn’t understand the allure of Roblox AT ALL. But as you experience the different games, you begin to immediately see the charm and peek into the massive underlying culture of Roblox. It’s a largely community-driven platform ranging from game design to accessory/clothing artistry to social media content creation, and the versatility of Roblox is actually insane. I won’t even pretend to be an expert on the subject—I’m truly just now seeing the underside of the iceberg and am genuinely amazed.

Adopt Me carries its own particular nuanced charm that I fell in love with! The game and its bigger updates are designed with so much care as to the personality of the different pets, and that creates a great environment for character-filled storytelling. It also relies heavily on interaction with other players given the pet-trading mechanic of the game, which I enjoy.

As far as other games are concerned, I’d love to branch out more into Brookhaven RP as well as assorted one-off Roblox games in general. I look forward to including a bit more variety in terms of games that I play in the future!

Tubefilter: We notice that your “IRL” videos–about Adopt Me potions, foods, and so on–seem to do really well. How did you come up with this idea?

JeffoEating Adopt Me foods IRL was a concept that I’d seen once or twice lightly touched on by creators, and I liked how radically it deviated from normal gameplay with more of that personal real-life touch to it. I figured it would be fun to take the concept a step further by exploring the effects of what the different potions in Adopt Me would look like IRL, and the creative and humorous real-world implications I could come up with to accompany drinking them with lighthearted editing magic. I have an absolute blast making that genre of content.

Tubefilter: Is YouTube your full-time job? How often do you film? What does the average day look like for you?

Jeffo: Yes it is! I generally film on a daily basis, but am working hard to set a filming schedule that I adhere to that entails more bulk filming. I’d love to be able to reel back the pace a bit on weekends and to allocate larger chunks of time to different processes (planning, filming, posting, data analytics, etc) to better mechanize my work schedule, really just for my own sanity.

An average day generally involves preparing a YouTube video (uploading, creating thumbnail, etc), premiering and engaging with my fans during the premiere, doing a bit of video follow-up in terms of reviewing video performance, then on to planning and filming as time permits.

These past couple of months, meetings have become a staple of my work schedule as well, since there are so many exciting opportunities during this process of expansion!

Tubefilter: Do you have any strategies for growing your audience? Have you noticed any particular kind of content getting more traction than others?

JeffoI’ve focused pretty heavily on community-centered branding and content in which I work very hard to make videos more nontraditionally interactive (premiering videos and interacting in the live chat, conversing and addressing Fruit Loops directly in my videos, engaging regularly with them in gameplay and incorporating their organic involvement in my videos…). I think this has allowed me to build a relationship with my following and helped to accelerate its growth.

This might be a lame answer, but I’ve found that a variety of content (roleplays, updates, trading videos, IRL videos, reactions, pranks) seems to keep things fresh, and a dearth in any one of those subgenres will create more demand for it. For example, for a while I thought that trading videos were the most desirable content, but if you inundate your audience too much with one thing, it becomes oversaturated and less special. I’m grateful that I can produce content variation without being too typecast into one specific corner of the Adopt Me creator universe, and it allows me to be as creative as I’d like!

I do evaluate audience engagement and interest and try to tweak and fine-tune the weekly ratio of different types of content I provide, but my underlying strategy is to always employ a healthy mix to keep things from getting stale (both for them and for me).

Tubefilter: Gaming is, of course, a huge sector on YouTube. How do you make your videos stand out amidst all the noise?

Jeffo: I’ve worked to create likeable and relatable characters, set up recurring situations that turn into ongoing inside jokes with the Fruit Loops, and aim for very heavy interactivity with my fans both within the video and during the posting process. At the end of the day, a subscriber count is just a number, and if you’re not able to personally relate, joke, and bond with your fans, then that following is more or less transient. So from a social perspective, I strive to keep my fans engaged. I also focus heavily on strong, fast-paced editing tactics, which I think helps to increase viewer retention for individual videos.

Tubefilter: What’s your favorite part of making content on YouTube?

Jeffo: I love seeing my followers’ reactions to new content that I’m proud of. It’s why I still premiere and live-chat in every video even though it becomes pretty time-consuming—I honestly just can’t resist seeing the effect that certain jokes or storytelling twists or even cool edits have on my audience. To see that it’s creating a genuinely entertaining experience for my fans that always ends in good vibes and tomfoolery makes me feel like I’ve done my job to transport them into my own little world for a bit. It’s really gratifying.

Tubefilter: Have you expanded your content and personal brand off YouTube at all? Launched any merch, a related business, a presence on another social platform…? Do you want to?

Jeffo: I’m currently exploring multiple modes of expansion, including the launch of a CHIMKEN plushie this summer, which is my first foray into merch and something we’re extremely proud of! For context, Chimken is my grumpy, Pop-Tart-obsessed chicken sidekick with more than a bit of an attitude—I’m pretty sure he’s more popular than I am at this point. I’d been holding back on any merch until I could ensure that it would be high-quality and true to brand, and we’re finally there!

I have big plans to expand the Jeffo brand into more of a multichannel enterprise and also have a budding interest in Roblox game development, but I’m being careful to pace myself because I don’t want to compromise on content quality or engagement/personability with my audience. But there are tons of growth developments going on behind the scenes so that when we’re ready to expand into new channels and domains, it’ll be directed with goals and purpose.

Tubefilter: What’s next for you? Any plans looking to the future?

Jeffo: Right now, my goal is to get a great team of people together to tackle expansion into other channel types and to establish the Jeffo brand as a lasting entity. I feel like I’m in the “growing pains” stage right now as I transition from independent creator into more of a small enterprise, but it is beyond exciting and a great problem to have! I plan to stick with Adopt Me-centric content for a long time on my main channel, but am excited to explore other Roblox experiences with my fans while maybe even pushing into the non-gaming sector of YouTube.

Jeffo is represented by Matt Barker at Studio71.


This week’s installment of YouTube Millionaires is brought to you by Bright – a learning platform focused on real conversations that level up your life. 

On Bright, participants receive unprecedented access to learn from their favorite creators, icons and experts within an intimate, live video chat setting. More than 1500 talent are on the waitlist to lead Bright Sessions for audiences looking to improve their lives. Fans come face-to-face with their favorite talent, ask questions and are able to make requests from the VIP area while joining talent on the Bright Stage for direct exchanges and personal learning among other Bright interactive features. 

For more info and to experience conversations that level up your life, head over to Brightlive.com.

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