The 'Yoga with Adrian' live tours grew to venues with thousands of attendees, such as Red Rocks. A key component of this success was the organic meetups happening before the events, where fans who connected in the online community would arrange to meet in real life for the first time, amplifying the event's energy.
Filmmaker Chris Sharp leveraged the relationships with actors from his unfinished horror movie to launch two new ventures: the 'Hyla Cooking' and 'Yoga with Adrian' YouTube channels. The shared experience and a sense of obligation to his collaborators from the failed project served as the direct catalyst for these successful partnerships.
Chris Sharp's first step in launching the 'Hyla Cooking' show was to generate a list of 100 recipe ideas based on keyword research and SEO. This data-driven approach to content planning created a reliable funnel for new viewers, who would then stay for the host's personality-driven, authentic presentation.
Before YouTube's AdSense was a viable revenue source, the 'Hyla Cooking' channel's primary income came from selling a digital cookbook as a simple PDF. This off-platform product was promoted in videos and sold consistently, demonstrating the importance of owning the monetization strategy on nascent platforms.
The team found that non-yoga content like vlogs hurt algorithm performance on their main YouTube channel. By moving this content exclusively to their paid membership app, it became the most engaged-with premium feature, driving subscriptions from their most loyal fans who craved a deeper connection.
The team migrated their community from Facebook to a private forum on their own app after noticing a disturbing trend: members discussing sensitive health topics in the group were subsequently being targeted with predatory ads. This move prioritized user safety and privacy over the convenience of a third-party platform.
Despite its massive viewership, the 'Yoga with Adrian' channel doesn't use mid-roll ads, as they would interrupt the flow of a practice. This decision to intentionally under-monetize the free channel creates a cleaner, more authentic user experience, which in turn makes the invitation to their paid app more effective.