Top YouTube and Instagram Exec Jon Youshaei Joins TubeBuddy

At TubeBuddy, we are ALL about the creator. Not only have we developed a suite of unique tools designed to streamline and elevate your YouTube journey, but we’re also at the very center of a community of 10M+ YouTube channels.

As the largest platform for YouTube channel management, optimization, and audience growth, we’re thrilled to announce Jon Youshaei is joining our outstanding team at TubeBuddy as Head Creator Advisor. From Head of Creator Product Marketing at YouTube to Product Marketing Manager at Instagram, Jon has a well-deserved reputation for supporting the creator community through innovative features on various platforms.

A long-time TubeBuddy user, Jon is joining our team of experts to serve as a connector between creators and the technology that can help them grow their platforms.

He will also create content in partnership with TubeBuddy to share best-in-class insights, educational product content, and how to best leverage TubeBuddy’s suite of tools, helping even more creators turn their passions into professions. Take a look at Jon’s first video for us:

“As a pioneer in the industry, Jon has worked at the intersection of the Creator Economy and Silicon Valley for nearly a decade. He’ll support our goal by bringing his unique perspective on creators and platforms to this first-of-its-kind role. He has a wealth of knowledge to advise us on new opportunities for content creators, and we’re thrilled to help foster his leadership in the industry” says Ricky Ray Butler, CEO. “We feel that Jon will play a significant role in helping TubeBuddy empower content creators like yourselves to be data-driven in growing audiences as well as new avenues to grow revenues.” 

We sat down with Jon to ask him a few questions about his new role at TubeBuddy, and what experience has taught him about the possibilities of online video:

What excites you the most about your new role at TubeBuddy?

(Jon Youshaei) I love analytics and working with creators, so to advise a company like TubeBuddy that brings those two worlds together feels like a perfect match. 

Plus, as someone who uses TubeBuddy, it feels full circle to now be able to help even more creators use the product to grow and turn their passions into professions.

How did you get into the creator space?

In 2010, I uploaded my first video to YouTube. Don’t laugh, but it was a music video I made with my buddy Wesley Skold to get elected class president at Penn. I even got Larry King to make an appearance! 

I still remember hitting the upload button and starting to hear from friends and family from near and far who watched the video. It was the first time I realized online video could be a thing, and it helped me land an internship at YouTube in 2012. I secured a full-time gig at YouTube and worked there for five years. I met so many wonderful creators and started making more videos myself.

What did your time at Instagram and YouTube teach you about being a creator?

When a platform launches a new feature, figure out how to adapt with the platform instead of fighting against it. 

Reels and Shorts are great examples of this. Both are departures from their platforms’ initial focus (photos and long-form video, respectively), but if you went all-in on producing Reels and Shorts when they started rolling out, you could grow much faster before it gets saturated with competition. 

At YouTube, how did you help big-name creators grow and monetize their content?

One of my favorite memories was launching products like YouTube’s Subscriptions and the Merch shelf. They helped create new sources of revenue for creators to monetize beyond just ads and brand deals. 

Back then, “monetization” was almost synonymous with AdSense Revenue, whereas today, it’s much more diversified between fan funding, merch, affiliate links, Super Chats, and more.

What is your best advice for YouTube creators just getting started? 

Surround yourself with friends who are honest enough to give you real feedback. It may not be what you want to hear when you start your creator journey, but it’s definitely what’s needed. 

Most times, your friends will pat you on the bank and cheer you on regardless. But be proactive about asking friends to roast you. Have them rip apart your thumbnails, your intro, your format. Everything and anything. That way, you can experiment and iterate much more quickly than just relying on data.  

What is your secret for cracking the code and going viral?

Quantity leads to quality. Consistency gives you more attempts to experiment. Determine what your audience defines as “quality”, and double down on that.

How do you think the creator economy will evolve over the next three years?

In the next three years, ownership will become a bigger deal in the creator economy. Think about it. Today if you discover a new YouTube channel, you don’t really get much beyond the bragging rights of saying you “knew them before they were mainstream.” 

What if you could “invest” in them like a stock? What if you could be rewarded for discovering them early? And what if the creator could use those investments to improve and scale their content even faster? 

The advancements of NFTs and Web3 help pave the way for this, but we’re not even in the first inning of the game. We’re stretching during warm-ups, so it should be exciting to see how it unfolds.

As a creator, what TubeBuddy tools have helped you grow your channel?

There are many, but my favorite has to be A/B testing thumbnails. Thumbnails are so critical to a video’s success, so knowing which one drives more clicks and views is a game-changer.

Jon has worked with some of YouTube’s top influencers, and celebrities to successfully grow their audience and reach. We’re thrilled to have him come on board as we know he’ll do the same for creators in the TubeBuddy community. 

We’re very excited to see the impact that Jon’s knowledge and expertise will have on your YouTube journey.