Nate Curtiss

my girlfriend costs me thousands of dollars per month, but she's one of the best investments I've made in my business.

the dinners are expensive. the weekends are expensive. and she comes on every business trip i take.

but there's a few reasons she nets the business a positive ROI, regardless.

first, it only works with boundaries. when i have to work, i tell her i have to work, and she respects it. in fact, she supports it.

when i do not have to work, i just have to be fully with her. this makes me so much more efficient. work that used to take me hours now takes me minutes because she tells me to lock in and get my shit done.

a relationship becomes a problem the moment it starts slowing the business down, so we set the right dynamic on day one.

second, she handles the things i would never make time for. i ask her to plan company dinners, edit the occasional tiktok, all the fun stuff. it allows me to focus more on the most important things in the biz.

third, the halo effect is real. when you walk into a dinner or an event with a 10/10, your perceived status goes up before you say a word, and every conversation after that gets easier.

not to be corny. the halo effect is very real, though. it's much easier for someone to believe you're about it if you have a good looking woman by your side. "if you can't piff a woman, you can't piff a deal" is the classic saying.

but the last reason matters the most. building a company is stressful, and having someone i can find peace in makes the hard weeks easier. it feels good to have someone to provide for. i work harder because of her.

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3 weeks ago |[YT] | 80

Nate Curtiss

our client just fired us.

he's a roofer who films himself giving free roofs to struggling families. we started on his channel in june at about 100,000 subscribers. three months later he has 300,000.

then he told us he's hiring a full-time team.

that is the best outcome an agency can get. our job was never to run his channel forever. our job was to help them build the foundations they needed to scale and build a format he can repeat every single week. he has both now, so he doesn't need us.

it all started with a cold dm on x, and now we've had the pleasure of helping SodaCity impact the lives of dozens of struggling families, and touch the hearts of millions with their content.

we got "fired" because they got what they needed to accomplish their goals, and i would take that every time.

3 weeks ago |[YT] | 109

Nate Curtiss

thumbnail designers are pretty much useless in 2026.

the final thumbnail this guy made isn't good, but the reality is 99% of thumbnail designers use AI anyway.

thumbnail designers are replaced, but the value of someone who understands youtube packaging and can switch your titles and thumbnails for you is unmatched.

if i were a thumbnail designer in 2026, I would:
1. learn youtube strategy
2. make multiple thumbnails for my clients (and charge the same, it takes 10 minutes with AI)
3. tell my clients what titles to use
4. set up the A/B tests and switch titles and thumbnails constantly to milk the performance of my client videos

designers who can't do this are genuinely cooked.

designers who CAN do this are going to get ahead of all their peers and make a ton of money.

1 month ago |[YT] | 52

Nate Curtiss

how to write viral youtube hooks in 4 steps (save this).

this is one of the easiest ways to make your youtube videos perform better, instantly.

1. payoff.

your first line repeats the title so the viewer instantly knows they clicked the right video. make it as broad and as extreme as you can get it without lying.

2. social proof.

pick credentials that prove you know what you're talking about. e.g. how much your business makes, how many hours you spent on something, etc.

3. context. this is where you raise what the video is worth. the price you paid, the months it took, the thing nobody has seen before.

4. setup.

name what the viewer walks out with after the video, e.g. "here are the 10 lessons I learned, and how you can apply them yourself".

more viewers retained in the first 30s means more viewers watching your content. this is super high leverage.

1 month ago |[YT] | 122

Nate Curtiss

i just shared everything i know about growing on youtube in 90 minutes.

here are the biggest takeaways:

1. titles hold 60 to 70% of the click decision, not thumbnails. keep them under 65 characters so they read fast and don't cut off on the homepage, and cut the jargon.

words like "bottleneck", "waterfall" and "entrepreneur "shrink how many people can click. the one exception is a 55+ audience, they click longer titles at higher rates because the extra context helps them.

2. you are not optimizing for ctr and you are not optimizing for retention. you are optimizing for viewer satisfaction.

watch time, rewatches, comments, whether they click a second video...all of it answers one question: did the viewer enjoy this?

3. concept first, execution second. a perfect title, thumbnail and edit on a bad idea gets 1,000 views. find good ideas, and figure out how to make them later.

4. there are two kinds of clicks, intent and emotion. a full course video gets clicked with intent, less reach and a much better viewer. how to make a million dollars in 2026 gets clicked with emotion, far more reach and a worse viewer. decide which one the video is before you write a line of it. all videos fall on a spectrum of these two.

5. almost all of youtube is copying in 2026. top channels copy each other, small channels copy them, and the data on what works is already public. innovate inside guardrails. e.g. we took a format that was working in faceless youtube, twisted it for a dating coach client, and it got over 1M views this month.

6. everything passes through brand. going as viral as possible outside your brand converts nothing. a view on its own is vanity.

1 month ago |[YT] | 33

Nate Curtiss

the director of the youtube algorithm just revealed exactly how the algorithm works in 2026:

here are my biggest takeaways:

1. nothing gets "pushed". the system activates when a viewer opens the app, looks at what they have watched, what time it is, what device they are on, then pulls candidate videos and ranks them for that one person. it is not looking at your video and hunting for an audience. it is looking at a person and picking videos.

2. the "if my subscribers do not like it the video is dead" belief is wrong. the system learns per audience. it can decide your subscribers are not into this one and non subscribers are, and serve it accordingly. one audience does not get to vote for everyone.

3. non subscribers are in there from the first hour. he said on plenty of channels the majority of the audience in hour one has never watched the channel before.

4. do not turn off notify subscribers. you are removing an entire audience the system would otherwise learn from.

5. no single metric is the important one. and the weighting is not even the same across viewers or devices. time watched might matter more on tv, likes might matter more on mobile because they are easier to hit there. there is no number to game.

6. time spent is not automatically counted as good. they run surveys to separate time from satisfaction, because you can sit through 20 minutes waiting for a payoff that never comes and that is a bad experience, not a good one.

7. youtube is not pushing longer videos. people are watching on tvs and choosing longer videos, so the system recommends more of them. same with the bigger desktop thumbnails. fewer options on screen grew long form, because too much choice makes people pick nothing.

8. suggested traffic from unrelated topics is not the algorithm misunderstanding your channel. the watch page sidebar is personalized now, not just related videos. people change the channel. and the number one place people watch videos from channels they subscribe to is that sidebar, not the subscriptions feed.

9. the one actually useful thing in your analytics: open browse features and pull out the subscriptions traffic source on its own. the audience there never changes, so it is the only slice where the algorithm is not a variable. if click through rate drops there, it is your title and thumbnail, not your targeting.

10. even your best videos get around 10% click through rate or less in the subscriptions feed. 90% of the people who deliberately subscribed do not click. that is normal, it is expected, and the system is already built around it.

which of these is most interesting to you?

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1 month ago |[YT] | 122

Nate Curtiss

good content doesn't go viral on youtube.

this channel is a peak example. the content itself is banger. i have several friends who consume this channel and learn a ton every time they watch.

this should be at least 50k view content with how useful and broad the videos are.

clearly though, the videos are unoptimized for youtube and don't get as much reach as they should.

you're not doing yourself a service by only focusing on the quality of your content. more reach with good content = greater impact and more business from youtube.

it's always advantageous, with the same content, to try to go viral (without losing your brand or quality).

1 month ago |[YT] | 81

Nate Curtiss

new youtube update 🚨

youtube has changed the “impressions” metric in youtube studio to “thumbnail impressions”

nice way to clarify “impressions” are only on the youtube platform.

1 month ago |[YT] | 72

Nate Curtiss

i split my editor into two people.

one cuts the hook. one cuts the body. they work at the same time.

here's why:

most of our feedback to editors was on hooks.

at the same time, we're making long videos for our clients. this means one changes in the hook -> 60 minute video has to fully re-export to change 10 seconds of it.

so one small note cost us a full day, and would lead to significantly more renderer errors, etc.

now:

the hook editor gets the first 60 seconds only. it's a small file, so exports are fast and i get 3 revisions in an afternoon instead of 3 days.

once the hook is locked, the body editor assembles the rest. it's mostly assembly by then, so it goes to the cheapest competent person.

both tasks fire off one toggle so nobody has to remember to split it.

it doesn't cost more to do this. in fact, it costs me less per week in review time. videos also get done faster.

1 month ago |[YT] | 63

Nate Curtiss

4 people younger (and more successful) than me that i look up to, and what they taught me:

1. BabyChiefWillDoIt

this kid is 18 years old, making millions living his dream rapping in front of sold out crowds, yet remains humble and owns ALL his own stuff.

he doesn't sell out, and doesn't flex or brag like many of his peers in similar situations.

2. Zach Yadegari

he built an app called cal ai and did millions in revenue before he was out of high school, then got rejected from most of the colleges he applied to.

i dropped out of college, and not one person has asked me about my college applications since lol.

watching him get rejected and keep going is admirable and something i've moved on as well.

3. IShowSpeed

he posts more than anyone i've ever seen and does not care even a little bit about looking dumb on camera.

i now opt to "just post" instead of worrying about what other people think. great lesson for anyone that wants to do something grea.t

4. Chase Fisher

client of mine who runs an 8-figure tiktok shop business and does numbers most people wouldn't believe.

he's given me tactical business advice i wouldn't be able to get in any online course. has honestly been a major contributor to the growth of Viewz in the last 7 months.

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1 month ago |[YT] | 42