Jimmy Donaldson has become the most-subscribed creator on YouTube by taking an analytical approach to his big-budget videos. The man known as MrBeast is famous for his detail-oriented personality and his ability to maximize every second of his viewer’s attention.
The data that informs MrBeast’s decisions is now available through ViewStats, a new platform dedicated to YouTube channel analytics. Donaldson co-founded ViewStats alongside Chucky Appleby, a content creator and businessman who works at MrBeast HQ in North Carolina.
Appleby has a clear goal in mind for his new platform: He wants it to become so valuable that YouTube creators check it every single day.
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ViewStats is a database that lets users apply MrBeast-style analysis to their videos. The metrics available on the site include simple data points like views and subscribers, as well as more advanced “channelytics” like estimated revenue and projected growth. The entire experience is presented through a simple layout that prioritizes clarity and ease of use.
The new hub is the result of a long-term collaboration between its two Co-Founders. Appleby has spent the past decade running YouTube channels, including some notable gaming hubs. In 2019, he moved to Greenville, North Carolina to work alongside Donaldson at the MrBeast HQ. In regular “mastermind calls,” Appleby and Donaldson indulged their shared data wonkiness and figured out strategies they could use to improve videos through statistical analysis. Equipped with those findings, Appleby helped Donaldson create thumbnails and “the best videos ever” — first for his main channel and then for his gaming and reaction hubs.
As he continued to analyze videos alongside Donaldson, Appleby looked to share his findings with the YouTube masses. “We realized that we should create a data site to help people understand their analytics, to make it easier to make better video ideas,” Appleby told Tubefilter. “[Jimmy and I] are obsessed with content. And our approach was to say, ‘We are only going to add features that we know actually affect the performance of a YouTube video.'”
Appleby’s interest in thumbnail design informed his approach to ViewStats in both direct and indirect ways. One of the platform’s most interesting features is a page that shows the results of A/B tests involving a video’s thumbnails. Users can see which types of thumbnails performed the best, view any title changes, see rankings of each channel’s best-performing videos, and break down view counts among long-form and short-form uploads. Appleby’s witnessed firsthand how analyzing small details to make incremental increases in clicks and retention can “make a difference” and add up to a lot of views. So he made sure to emphasize them – and make them easy to analyze – within ViewStats.
On the design side of things, Appleby is looking to build a platform that entices creators to explore — just as a well-engineered thumbnail convinces viewers to click on a video. “Your title and your thumbnail are like a combination. And if you package that combination correctly, you might incentivize a click. Whereas if you didn’t package it properly, you might incentivize someone to keep scrolling,” Appleby told Tubefilter. “My goal is to always make stuff easy to understand because we’re trying to reach the largest audience possible with our videos.”
The subscription-free and ad-free nature of ViewStats will increase its accessibility, too. Though Appleby mentioned that ViewStats might launch a paid subscription tier, and he didn’t rule out the possibility of in-platform ads in the future.
ViewStats is operating as an independent entity from MrBeast, LLC, with Appleby serving as CEO. The platform has received direct funding from its two Co-Founders.
I’m happy we could finally release Viewstats! It will be the #1 place to learn how to better your YouTube channel 🙂
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) December 5, 2023
Appleby believes that Donaldson’s involvement will make ViewStats an indispensable hub for YouTubers, many of whom look up to the North Carolina native. Donaldson has become the most-subscribed individual on YouTube and has reached the #1 spot in our U.S. Top 50 chart. Now, he’s sharing his approach with the creator community.
“Jimmy has been the person that a lot of people look up to,” Appleby said. “In the content creation space they’re like, ‘oh, what’s he doing with his titles? Or, oh, he closed his mouth in thumbnails, we’re gonna close our mouth.’ And so we always see these creators that are just looking for us to, what’s the next thing, what can we implement to improve our videos?”
Ultimately, Appleby thinks that creators who eschew ViewStats will be “at a disadvantage,” while those who rely on the platform will find ways to “enhance and optimize their content.” He also cited a rising class of content strategists as another group that can benefit from regular ViewStats analysis.
The breadth of YouTube content could become homogenous should creators heed Appleby’s advice and adopt MrBeast’s best practices. But Appleby isn’t worried about the Beastification of YouTube or the MrBeast channel losing its luster. “It’s not ideal to copy what we’re doing,” he told Tubefilter. “There’s a certain reason why certain niches perform, and you want to understand why certain niches are performing.”
Over “the next few months,” Appleby and co. will introduce tools that will help with ideation and thumbnail design, too. Some of those features will resemble the internal tools used by the MrBeast team. “There’s so much more that we’re going to be building,” Appleby told Tubefilter. More details about those coming additions to ViewStats will be revealed in about a month.
