Welcome to Millionaires, where we profile creators who have recently crossed the one million follower mark on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. There are creators crossing this threshold every week, and each of them has a story to tell about their success. Read previous installments here.
Tristan Clausen has always been a hustler.
“When I was in sixth grade, I used to sell duct tape wallets. When I was in middle school, I was selling fidget spinners. When I was in high school, I was selling snacks, and I had my friends as my employees that would also sell snacks,” he says. “I sold Hot Cheetos. I was the chip guy who would walk around and give out chips.
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“Wherever I find myself,” he says, “I just feel naturally compelled to push myself to do something, just to have people surround me and do things with them and do cool shit like that.”
He was also naturally compelled by YouTube–especially by creators like Ryan Higa. He started filming his own YouTube videos in fifth grade, and spent an entire summer filming, with a friend editing for him. The videos never took off, and he moved on to other gigs. But during COVID, TikTok took off, and he saw it as an opportunity to get back into content. Before uploading on TikTok, he did a deep dive into what was working on the platform, determined to make his first video a success. All that studying paid off: his very first upload got over 300,000 views. Then he posted a “really weird video” (his description, not ours) of himself just walking in a parking lot, and that got him a million followers in a week.
“I was just like, ‘Whoa, what the–?'” he says. “It set me on this path of like, Well, why did I gain followers for this? What was it that achieved this? There had to be an A + B = C.”
Clausen, who’d known all his life that college wasn’t a fit for him and he was going to go into something creative and entrepreneurial, committed full-time to content. He started uploading regularly on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and even streamed on Twitch, fine-tuning his content for each individual platform. For example, on YouTube, he’s built a following with long-form videos made from interactions he had on Omegle. And over on TikTok, he does a lot of fast-paced vlogging.
All his work has pushed him to nearly 8 million followers across platforms–which, yes, we know, we’re a little behind in marking him as an official Millionaire, and a little ahead of marking him as an official Ten-Millionaire. But we’re getting in now because Clausen is growing quickly, and intends to ramp up that growth even more throughout 2024.
We’ll let him tell you all about it below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Very nice to meet you! I know you’re growing quickly on both TikTok and YouTube, so I’m looking forward to hearing your perspective. To start, imagine that somebody isn’t familiar with you, and they’re reading this. Give me a little bit of background about you, where you’re from, and what you did pre-pandemic and before you got online.
Tristan Clausen: Well, where I’m from, I’m from the Pomona area. If you want a general idea of what my trajectory looked like, I’ll say in elementary school, I’ve always been hustling since I was small. I would always be selling things. When I was in sixth grade, I used to sell duct tape wallets. When I was in middle school, I was selling fidget spinners. When I was in high school, I was selling snacks, and I had my friends as my employees that would also sell snacks. I sold Hot Cheetos. I was the chip guy who would walk around and give out chips. Ever since I was small, I was always hustling.
Wherever I find myself, I just feel naturally compelled to push myself to do something, just to have people surround me and do things with them and do cool shit like that. It’s always been in my inclination to do that. My social media career actually started when I was in fifth grade. I started doing YouTube. I would film skit videos because Ryan Higa was super popular. He was Asian. He was creative. Asian little dudes always looked at Ryan Higa. That was our hero growing up.
Tubefilter: He’s so great. He’s one of the first YouTubers I watched when I was growing up, too.
Tristan Clausen: He’s so good. I started doing it, and then I quit. I was doing it for an entire summer with my friend. My friend would film and edit the videos, and I would be in front of the camera. It’s very similar to my situation now, so I guess like everything came full circle. It’s pretty cool.
I started doing social media very seriously when it was around the pandemic. I started posting on TikTok. My first TikTok I posted, it got 300,000 views, and I was like, Whoa, this is really something. I feel like that proof of concept was so important to me because I don’t know if I would have been able to see it as a possibility if that hadn’t happened, and thank god it did.
Tubefilter: That’s huge for right off the bat.
Tristan Clausen: Yes, I know. It was pretty cool. That was my short-form. I just gradually started doing that. I did it with the intention of being a streamer and doing gaming content. I got up to 100k followers doing streaming and using short-form content to convert to Twitch viewers and stuff, because you don’t grow within a Twitch stream. You grow outside of a Twitch stream. A Twitch stream lasts for maybe about however long you’re streaming and then it goes away. Content as short-form or long-form, it stays forever. That’s why so many streamers you see do long-form content. They purposely do streams that make it so they can repurpose it into long-form.
The meta of Twitch streaming right now is actually centered around clips and not having YouTube channels that you necessarily own. It’s more your audience posting clips. But anyway, I’m going to on a tangent here if I start talking about it.
Tubefilter: I actually am really interested in this, because we do another series, Streamers on the Rise, that’s focused entirely on Twitch streamers, and I hear from a lot of them that growing on Twitch is hard, and they rely on short/long-form content posted to other platforms. Just like you’re saying.
Tristan Clausen: I honestly haven’t streamed for years. I just always am paying attention to how social media algorithms work. I just find a really big interest in doing that. It’s almost like a growth mindset. I developed a growth mindset from, it sounds silly, but from playing League of Legends when I was younger, because it’s a game where you’re forced to learn how to play better. Anyhow, I started doing that and then I posted a video of me walking in a parking lot. It was a really weird video, but it gained me a million followers in one week. I was just like, “Whoa, what the–?”
It set me on this path of like, Well, why did I gain followers for this? What was it that achieved this? There had to be an A + B = C. I feel like a lot of short-form creators get stuck in this thing where it’s like, they do one thing and they don’t necessarily understand why that thing did well and they’re not able to replicate it. I feel like that’s where my strong suit is, is trying to understand what A + B is. Most people focus on C. I’m focusing on A + B, because if you’re focusing on A + B, it can be redone over and over and over again. That’s just been my truth, I guess, in a sense. It’s like, I’m just focusing on what are the things that create this outcome. I feel like that’s why I’ve been able to gradually go into YouTube.
My YouTube journey, I stopped doing it after I was in fifth grade. Before I started doing YouTube, I’m not even exaggerating. I spent over 100 hours studying the grades, seeing what they do, what they do well, what makes a video do well, what is it that makes a great video great.
I did all my due diligence. Then before even posting a video, I had hundreds of hours studied. Then I posted my first video that I was very very very intentional about. I was very intentional about how this video was going to come out, what the thumbnail was going to be, what is going to retain the audience, what is their incentive to stay. Is it a clickable video? I made sure I was getting all those checkmarks. Then my first video I ever posted after a year or two, we just turned over 3 million views right now. That was my first time posting in super, super long. Not a lot of short-form creators are able to do long-form, but back to your point, it’s the A + B that I focus on.
Tubefilter: I know you haven’t posted one in a while, but I’ve seen you do Omegle videos on YouTube. It’s really interesting to me to see how you’ve diversified your content across different platforms to optimize for what does well on all the platforms.
Tristan Clausen: I actually really appreciate that. Omegle content, I really enjoyed how much you can get out of an Omegle video, because you can just turn a lot of the clips into short-form. It’s very easily repurposed, but the thing that I didn’t necessarily enjoy about an Omegle video is that it’s heavily reliant on who you’re talking to, not you as yourself. I never really was able to develop a narrative within an Omegle video because I can’t make a three-act structure, so I just was like, Okay, well, how do I make some new videos that are centered around me?
I traveled to Iceland. I tried experimenting with IRL videos. We had a video that did all right. It got 800,000 views. It was me going to Icelandic knockoff food chain videos. Then we were like, there’s the proof of concept.
That’s what I needed. I can do these types of videos. What me and my team–when I say “me and my team,” I’m really just meaning me and my editor–we’re making a backlog of these videos and we’re going to get back to posting pretty soon. We got delayed, unfortunately, because I got into a little bit of a… [holds up his arm in a cast]
Tubefilter: I was just going to say, yes. You had a motorcycle accident a week ago, right?
Tristan Clausen: I had a motorcycle accident about a month and two weeks ago. I started posting about it a week ago. I didn’t post about it during. I was actually in the ambulance, and they basically rate you on a bunch of things–if you’re taking instruction well, if your eyes are darting, if your heart rate is too high. They’re basically trying to see if you’re going crazy or not. The only thing that they said that I wasn’t completely normal on was my auditory. They thought that I was going a little crazy because I was asking for my camera.
Five minutes after I got into my motorcycle accident, I was asking for my camera and back to repurposing content. I filmed horizontal and vertical while I was in that ambulance. I’m super dedicated to doing this. It’s just the beginning for my YouTube journey, and I’m super excited to be building up a team. My editor lives with me right now, and we’re just building this backlog of videos so we can start posting consistently.
Tubefilter: Well, I’m glad you survived. That’s great. That’s good news.
Tristan Clausen: Thanks! [laughs]
Tubefilter: What happened? Was your bike just totaled?
Tristan Clausen: Bike is totaled. I’m going to try to rebuild it.
Tubefilter: Oh, I’m so sorry. What did you drive?
Tristan Clausen: Ninja 400.
Tubefilter: What a bike. I’m sorry. I hope you can rebuild it, and that you heal up well. You mentioned a little bit of your production schedule–you’re full-time on this, correct?
Tristan Clausen: Yes, I’m full-time on this.
Tubefilter: Did you go to college or think about college? I know you were interrupted by COVID.
Tristan Clausen: I always knew I was never going to go to college. I always knew because I just thought college wasn’t necessarily my path. I thought it was a great way to incur debt. I would have rather incurred debt making my own business or doing something my own way. I’m not the best working for somebody, I guess. I had a job when I was 16. I was the social media lead for a real estate company. I was there for a week, and I just couldn’t stand it because I thought that the person that was bossing me around wasn’t even giving me the most optimal orders. I was just like, what is the point of working for somebody if I think that I could do their job better?
Ever since then, I was like, Shit, I guess I just need to own my own thing. I guess that would align with my whole hustling thing. I’ve always been selling stuff and being my own boss.
Tubefilter: I get you. It’s bold for somebody to be like, Yes, I know I’m not going to college, especially when you’re young. The pressure is definitely there.
Tristan Clausen: The pressure is definitely there. It’s especially, at least from my experience and a lot of other Asian men’s experience, this is this pressure to go into some medical field or go into some field of college. My uncle’s a lawyer. My whole mom side of family is Master’s, PhDs only. I was the only dude that was like, “I want to do YouTube.”
Tubefilter: It’s working out for you, clearly.
Tristan Clausen: It’s doing good. It’s doing good so far.
Tubefilter: What are you up to in terms of building yourself as a creator and as a business in the average week?
Tristan Clausen: We have a weekly schedule where on a Monday we’ll spitball ideas and we’ll have about five, six different ideas. We’ll usually have five ideas on a board. I will come up with, okay, this is going to be good, this is going to be good, this is going to be good, this is going to be good, this is going to be good. All right, which one is going to be the most clickable, and which one is going to be able to retain the audience the best? I usually go with that one. Then for the next two days, we’ll film that video and then we’ll edit that video for the next four days.
Realistically, it’s more like two or three times that timeline because me and my editor, we’re perfectionists. We can’t stand even the smallest part being out of line of what we want for our vision. We will spend way longer than what we think or the time that we allocate for that video and try to perfect it. That’s what it looks like right now.
Tubefilter: How did you meet your editor?
Tristan Clausen: I met my editor through another content creator. I feel like a lot of YouTubers experience this. It’s very difficult to find an editor that will align with your vision and will work hard with you. It’s all about aligning your incentives. I found my editor through one of my friends. My friend said, “I have this editor, his name is also Tristan. He’s not great, but he’s not bad. Maybe you can use him for a little bit.”
Tubefilter: That’s such a sales pitch. My god.
Tristan Clausen: Two years later, he is my full-time and living with me. It turns out I think he was a diamond in the rough. He had this inclination to learn. It’s not about having the greatest skillset. It’s about wanting to do great things, because if you have a great skillset, that’s all good and dandy, but you’re not going to be coming up with great ideas. That’s what I’m more looking for. Me and him are able to bounce off each other like I’ve never seen before. He’s an incredible cornerstone of my foundation that I’m trying to build.
Tubefilter: That’s very cool. You said you’re looking to build out your team a little bit more. Are you trying to bring on somebody else?
Tristan Clausen: Yes. Right now, we’re having issues with freelancers. It’s very difficult because if we had two editors, that would probably be ideal, because me and Tristan will kind of– It sounds so weird because I say “me and myself” almost, but me and Tristan will work on a video, we’ll outline it, we’ll structure it, we’ll do our raws and smooths.
Then it would be really helpful if we had VFX/sound effects, someone to do that because that’s more work that we can offer to somebody else. I was thinking about possibly hiring a PA to help with scheduling, putting in all the things that we need to do on our Trello, and figuring things out for us so we can have a better schedule and make sure that we’re hitting the deadlines that we’re setting.
Me and Tristan, we’re going to be too busy like, “Oh, we’ve got to do this, and then we could do this.” We both almost are making the video take so much longer than it really should be because we’re just trying to get the small, nitty-gritty details perfect when really time doesn’t need to be allocated to that. We need someone being like, “Guys, come on, let’s focus up here.”
Tubefilter: What other plans and goals do you have for the next year or so?
Tristan Clausen: What we’re focusing on right now is building out that network, because we need a network of people that we’re able to send our work off to. Thumbnail artists, editors, all types of people that make it so we can focus on what we’re good at. Me and Tristan, we’re filling out five or six different people’s jobs. When we’re able to finally offload that to the people who are better than us at those said things, I’m going to be able to focus on the thing that I’m best at. He’s able to focus on the thing he’s best at.
Tubefilter: What’s been your favorite part of this whole being online experience?
Tristan Clausen: What I’ve actually really enjoyed is being able to tell a story better. I just enjoy the process of getting better at something. I’ve always enjoyed that since I was younger. Before doing YouTube, I wanted to be a competitive gamer. I would go to tournaments for video games. I was on the varsity esports team for League of Legends and Smash Bros. It’s so funny that I said that. I was so happy that that was a thing for my junior year. I was doing that. I think I got lost in the question. Can you ask me it one more time so I could give you a conclusion?
Tubefilter: Sure. What has been your favorite part of this whole being online experience?
Tristan Clausen: It is just getting better at something. That’s just been my entire life, is trying to develop my skill and hone it. It’s like sharpening my blade. That’s where I had a lot of fun, because I could see the progress. I look at the video that we’re posting in like a week, and I’m like, the difference is night and day. That’s just going to continue to happen more and more and more. That’s how greats like MrBeast got so good, is because they kept at it. They kept doing it. They’ve been doing it for so long and have had so much time to sharpen their sword. I’m just trying to get there.
Tubefilter: How serious are you? After you post a video, are you sitting in your YouTube analytics looking at things, or how do you judge the performance of a video?
Tristan Clausen: I can normally tell. The thing with YouTube that’s way different than short-form is a video can just blow up months later, but you can usually tell if a video’s going to be good depending on the views per hour that you’re getting consistently and if it’s starting to ramp.
We don’t really necessarily pay attention to the first three hours, but we’ll pay attention to the next 50. We’re usually able to gauge it, but it’s very difficult because sometimes a video will take a long time to take off. I don’t really like sitting.
Although I will say it, I definitely do it, but it’s not good for me to be sitting and looking at the numbers because it’s a metric that’s very toxic for you to pay attention to, but it’s part of our job. I just find myself looking at it and judging like, “Am I a good creator based on that number?” which is a bad habit to be in, but sometimes I find myself getting into that. I think every creator can resonate with that.
Tubefilter: How does it differ on TikTok?
Tristan Clausen: From what I’ve noticed with TikTok is you’re able to tell if a video’s going to do well in the first hour.
Tubefilter: Really? That quickly?
Tristan Clausen: Yes. Normally you will know, if we’re talking about a 10- to 15-second video. Now, if it’s a minute video, then it’s a little bit different. It’s put to a different audience. A minute video versus an 8- to 12-second video, it’s going to be obvious.
Especially if it’s different, if you’re doing something like trend-hopping or using a specific audio that is doing well, that is really engaged. There’s a whole thing I could spurt off into about TikTok, but usually, if you could tell by the views, it’s within the first hour, and you’ll see if the video’s going to do well or bad. It used to be the first 16 minutes you could tell, but now it’s the first hour.
Tubefilter: I’m curious, because I know TikTok is really pushing longer content now. It’s switched the creator funds so that it’s only paying out to videos over 60 seconds, and it really wants people to upload longer videos.
Tristan Clausen: Yes, their whole goal is to get you to stay as long as possible on the platform. Of course, they’re going to want to do one-minute videos. They have that Creativity Program beta that actually pays out. The payments that you used to receive as a TikToker wasn’t as good as it is now if you’re doing one-minute video. I actually really appreciate what they’re doing. It rewards me for my creativity, because if you’re able to hook in an audience within the first five seconds, and then retain them for a bit of the video, they’ll push it out. It’s because they’re starting to put ads and stuff too.
Tubefilter: Really ramping up their ads, yeah. To wrap up, you said earlier that when you were younger, you looked up to Ryan Higa. What if somebody is looking up to you and they want to be like you? What’s your biggest piece of advice for an aspiring creator?
Tristan Clausen: You’re not even going to know what to think about if you haven’t started. If you don’t start, you’re not going to know how to get better. The most important thing is starting. If you’re a track runner, you’re not even going to know what you’re supposed to be thinking about until you’re at that starting line.
Once you’re at that starting line and running, you’re going to know exactly what you’re going to need to do. If you don’t, you’ll figure it out as you keep running. My main advice is, just start doing it and have a mind that you’re probably not doing it right, and that’s okay. You need to figure out what is it that you’re not doing right.
