Welcome to Creators on the Rise, where—in partnership with global creator company Jellysmack—we find and profile breakout creators who are in the midst of extraordinary growth.
In eight months, 17-year-old David Ilesanmi has taken his YouTube channel from one million views a month and 20,000 subscribers to, at its height, more than 520 million views per month and nearly 2 million subscribers.
How?
Consistency.
If you scroll Ilesanmi’s channel, you’ll notice a pattern. Each of his videos–the vast majority of which rack up at least 500,000 views within their first 24 hours of being posted–begins with one word: When. When your mom says “No, son, we have it at home” (15 million views to date). When your friend gets a new expensive mic (12 million). When you play video games at night (10 million).
Ilesanmi has uploaded more than 1,000 videos, and hundreds of them are “When” videos that present comedic dramatizations of relatable situations.
But consistency in theme isn’t the only component in Ilesanmi’s strategy.
Ilesanmi, who’s from Maryland, started his channel in November 2020. At first, he only uploaded a handful of videos (fewer than 10) each month, and was mostly making them because he had nothing else to do, he says.
Then, this past May, with no school and summer boredom hitting hard, Ilesanmi decided to 10x his efforts. He committed to uploading at least five videos each and every single day. That month, he uploaded 95 videos total, and almost immediately, he saw results. His channel jumped from 740,000 views in April to 19 million in May. In June, when he uploaded 152 videos, it brought a whopping 286 million. In July, he uploaded 153 videos and netted 323 million views. August, 152 uploads and 387 million views. September, 148 uploads and 526 million views total.
Ilesanmi says he hasn’t missed a single day since committing to 5+ daily uploads in May, and doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon.
Check out our chat with him below.
David Ilesanmi: My name is David Ilesanmi and I grew up in Maryland, USA. My parents are Nigerian. I am five foot eight inches. Before I started making content, I was at home bored, so I picked up a camera and recorded my first video and I enjoyed it.
DI: I started making content back in July of 2020. I made content because I enjoyed doing it and I had nothing better to do.
DI: I found out “When…” is good for me because people can relate to the video and I think that is the best word to start with in a video for my channel.
DI: I was posting five to ten videos every day. The month after, my channel blew up overnight, and I gained over 300k subscribers in one month. So it blew up across a bunch of videos simultaneously.
DI: I was uploading videos on YouTube before Shorts came out and it was doing a good amounts of views–getting 1-2K views per video. Yes, Shorts played a big role in the growth of my channel. It favored me a lot!
DI: It takes me 45 minutes to make and edit a 15-second video. I upload five times every single day. I haven’t missed one day.
DI: Yes, I am not stopping making content because it is something that takes me away from depression, and my goal is to inspire others! My engagement spike just made me proud, because I see how hard I’ve worked and I see the result.
DI: No, I edit myself.
DI: I like posting a video and reading the comments because it makes me know what I’m doing wrong and fixing what I did.
DI: I see myself at 10 million subscribers! I see myself improving in content.
Currently home to over 150 influential Creators including PewDiePie, MrBeast, Brad Mondo, and Bailey Sarian, Jellysmack optimizes, operates, and distributes creator-made video content to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. Jellysmack-managed content boasts 10 billion global monthly video views and a cross-platform reach of 125 million unique U.S. users, making it the largest U.S. digital-first company in monthly social media viewers.
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