Zach Kornfeld and Keith Habersberger of Try Guys
JD RENES
The Try Guysone of YouTube’s most established creator groups, successfully abandoned their reliance on Google algorithms and ad revenue by launching a standalone streaming service called 2nd Try. And it’s already starting to pay off.
Brand partnerships, sponsored content and advertising have long been key revenue channels for creators, but some are turning away from the unpredictable world of algorithm-driven platforms to subscription services for more steady income.
“Having an ad-based business is very volatile and very unpredictable,” Try Guys co-founder Zach Kornfeld told CNBC. “There’s so much that’s out of your control, and we’ve certainly experienced the worst of it. It’s debilitating at best. Corrosive and explosive at worst. And it also creatively forces you to constantly optimize for things that aren’t always in your best interest .”
With a possible ban on TikTok threatening to almost disappear $15 billion in annual revenue for small and medium-sized businesses, and YouTube’s ad revenue growth is slowing, creators are looking for more reliable sources of income in an increasingly volatile advertising market.
The Try Guys now have over 8 million subscribers and 2.7 billion views on YouTube. They announced in May the launch of their streaming service, 2nd Attemptwhere most of their new videos are behind a paywall and subscribers can access exclusive content for around $5 a month without ads. Three months into 2nd Try’s launch, the company says it’s well on its way to profitability.
And other creators are trying to recreate the Netflix subscription model. Watcher Entertainment and Abandonment are two other popular YouTube channels that launched subscription-based streaming services to avoid the volatility of social media algorithms.
Social media platforms rely on algorithms to decide what content users see, based on their past interactions and preferences. Algorithms analyze user behavior to create personalized content streams, which often prioritize posts that are likely to generate engagement, such as likes or shares. As a result, many creators feel pressured to create content that responds to the algorithm, even if they believe it lowers the quality of their work, just to stay visible.
“We’re really happy with how it’s going so far. It’s more than we thought we’d have at this point,” said co-founder Keith Habersberger. “We have a long way to go. The goal is not to get to that number. The goal is to keep growing and also keep learning, and we’re going to make mistakes.”
Subscription platforms like Patreon allow creators to bypass the algorithm entirely, connecting directly with their most loyal fans who are willing to pay for exclusive content.
“It’s just not a reliable source of income for creative people, and so I think over the years, creators have learned that and are looking for something more stable,” Patreon founder and CEO Jack Coyne said in an interview with CNBC.
The Try Guys found early success with BuzzFeed before launching their independent creative venture in 2018. However, they faced a career-defining internet scandal in 2022 when one of their co-founders and main talent was caught having an affair with another employee. It destroyed brand relationships and the company was hemorrhaging money creating new YouTube videos.
“Our company had been operating at a loss essentially for two years. We got to a point where it was costing us more money to make the shows our audience loved than we were getting from YouTube,” said Kornfeld.
The revenue from the 2nd trial is about 20% of the company’s total sales. The Try Guys will continue to post content on YouTube. The platform’s ad payments remain an important part of its business model. However, Kornfeld and Habersberger emphasize that their main goal is to grow 2nd Try to be their biggest income stream, alongside merchandise sales and live tour.
