When Facebook cut off his income, Chris Koerner documented his response in a video. He framed Facebook as Goliath and launched a product (a Google Drive link) directly to his newsletter, turning the negative event into a profitable, story-driven launch.
Koerner shares how YouTubers launched a successful haircare brand by using Instagram Stories to poll their audience on everything from fonts to shampoo ingredients. They effectively co-created the product with their future customers, guaranteeing market demand before launch.
Koerner's system for shorts is hyper-efficient. He scrolls for ideas, records one-take reactions, and bulk-uploads raw footage to a shared drive. An editing team then pairs the videos and handles all post-production and publishing, decoupling his time from the final output.
While delivering for DoorDash, Chris Koerner tested the impact of communication on tips. By sending funny pictures and messages, he boosted the rate of secondary, post-delivery tips from a 10% baseline to 50%, raising his effective hourly wage from $20 to $35.
Chris Koerner's team members who find content ideas get a base salary, but if they source a story from outside normal channels, they earn 10% of that video's YouTube revenue forever. This directly ties their compensation to finding evergreen, viral hits.
Chris Koerner was making $25-35k a month from Facebook Reels. He explains that since most creators focus on Instagram and TikTok, Facebook has a shortage of quality content for its billion-plus users, forcing them to pay premium rates to attract creators back.
Chris Koerner considers audio his most important channel. Unlike with YouTube, where users are easily distracted, audio becomes part of a listener's routine (mowing, driving, chores). This creates a captive, habit-driven audience that he believes is the most engaged and loyal.
Chris Koerner treats his millions of short-form views as top-of-funnel lead generation. The goal is to convert a 22-second viewer into a 9-minute long-form viewer, which he calculates builds 20 times more trust and creates a more valuable audience member.
Koerner's long-form channel stagnated because the YouTube algorithm was confused by his mix of standalone shorts and long-form videos. Creating a new, separate channel for shorts allowed the algorithm to properly categorize and promote his long-form content to the right audience, sparking massive growth.
Instead of scaling his headcount, media entrepreneur Chris Koerner intentionally limits his entire company to a size that could be fed by two pizzas (around 10 people). He prioritizes a small, core team and uses AI to scale operations, avoiding organizational bloat.
Media founder Chris Koerner has found that hiring expensive, experienced executives has "never worked out." His strategy is to hire young, adaptable people, train them in his specific system, and proactively give them aggressive raises as they develop, creating a highly effective and loyal team.