The online business model that changed my life after hitting rock bottom.

It's early April 2020. The coronavirus is raging. I'm stuck in an apartment in the Swiss mountains. The whole world is locked up. AND My $ 70,000-a-month e-commerce business just collapsed. 

I'm trying to put down the fires and get things running again.

But the damage had been done...

I just moved back to Europe from Bali after living my ultimate dream life there for a couple of months.  

I moved away from my hometown. I finished my university studies. The online business I had been working on for years was finally making me good money.

After trying and failing at many side hustles, that I invested ridiculous time and money into it.

for a brief moment, I thought i had "finally made it" 

I didn't have to work for a boss, I didn't have to work a 9 to 5, and I had complete time and location freedom to a degree. 

All due to taking a leap, and putting in consistent effort into running an online business. 

i was living that dream life you often see people talking about online, 

an online business making you money while you sip coconuts on a Bali beach. 

it's something i had been working towards for over 4 years. 

And it finally became a reality. 

i could finally work on my own terms in a tropical place, go surfing whenever the waves allowed it, and was detached from the westernized 9 to 5 ratrace. 

untill it all collapsed a few months later and i had to start all over again (welcome to entrepreneurship lol!) 

So, here are the key lessons i learned and how i picked myself back up after falling

And the online business model i started AFTER this failure, that now is making me more than i ever made before. (and that is not just money).

The business i fell in love with and still do to this day (with less headaches than i ever had running dropshipping stores.) 

This is Youtube automation.

and a full step-by-step guide on how you can get started running your own faceless youtube channels.

Why I'm writing this letter

My goal today is to educate you on this online business model. what it is, how it works,

and how my story looks with all its ups and downs.

And why i think it's a very good starting place for anyone wanting to try achieve time and location freedom through running an online business. 

Or even make some more money on the side while working a job. 

im writing this because i know how it feels to be stuck.

having no online income or business running for you

And wanting to find that "one thing" to help you break free. 

I'm practically writing to my younger self, 

i wish there was a guide like this available when i started my entrepreneurship journey. 

I hope this inspires you to take action. Start your journey to self-actualization, earning money online, and freedom (whatever that means to you)

The potential of Youtube automation.

Now before we get into the juice of this letter i want to share some results of my own and of clients that i worked with.

As this is a "business opportunity" or so called make money online offer. 

i understand you first want to know what is possible, who i am and if this works. 

so just to summarize, 

i've been running automated youtube chanels for around 3 years now, 

and i've invested in nearly all other courses and programs out there teaching this model when I first got started (and still do). 

i've started testing, failed, and scaled multiple channels myself now earning over $20,000 a month from my youtube business alone. 

This allowed me to live my dream life, traveling the world and for most of the time Living in Bali near the beach where i can surf and practice yoga every day.

Besides that i have been running a free youtube and instagram page where i share daily value for over 2 years. 

through sharing this content, 

i have also helped hundreds of people start their faceless youtube journey. 

Through my free resources on Instagram and youtube,

But also through my group coaching community on skool,

And with my flagship 1:1 program, my students have seen great success too changing their lives. 

to name some: 

• Michael started and scaled his channel to $15,000 a month in 4 months. giving him more spending room and paying of most of his mortgage. 

• Lisa started and scaled her channel to $3,000 a month in 3 months. She quit her job at the time because she was pregnant. now she makes more from her youtube than she did from her job. 

• Maykol lives in Brazil and has a wife and 3 kids. it took him only 4 months to start earning $7,000 a month from his youtube business under my guidance. before he was barely making $1,000 a month working a full time job. 

• Sanjeet started out but was not making money and wasn't profitable, after some tweaks to his channel he started to make $2,000 after just 3 months. him being from India. this was around 3 times the average income there. truly life-changing too. 

If you want more proof on this, I actually have client testimonials up on my personal youtube channel. (and a lot of personal stories and value about this business model too).

You can watch them here.

The Rise, Fall, And rise again of my online business.

After the collapse of my e-commerce business i was on a very low point in life

I was unable to get things up and running again and i was just done with ecommerce after all the problems i faced.

Even though I had seen some success with it, I did not know how. to build it out and scale it up properly.

That is where I learned about the importance of a mentor in business.

it was a good, but very expensive lesson.

i thought I could do everything myself and never needed anyone’s help,

this was probably the point in my life where i experienced the most stress ever, 

 I also got blocked from paypal,shopify,meta ads and lost a lot of money because my supplier screwed me over,

i was receiving death threats in my mailbox and email weekly from angry customers who didn't receive their products. (that is a story for another letter!)

I needed something "new". 

After dealing with: 

• physical products

• high upfront cost 

• selling shitty products from China

• dealing with angry customers all the time 

• having super long shipping times. 

• low margins

I wanted to run an online business model that actually added value to the people buying or consuming my products. 

I wanted to feel fulfilled from the products i put out. 

I wanted to have high margins and few unnecessary headaches. 

Now of course, i don't say ALL e-commerce or dropshipping stores are like this.

and i only blame myself for my failures because i know enough people who are still successful with e-commerce. 

I was just "not good enough" at that time.

And I was too stuborn to learn from people ahead of me.

But, I personally needed something else, something that gave me less headaches and made me feel more fulfilled. 

And that is when i came across Youtube automation. 

Also called "faceless youtube channels."

The idea of earning with youtube channels is simple. 

You start a channel. you create videos. you earn money from showing advertisements on these videos. 

Now all we need is views on those videos, 

A lot of them! 

Luckily, my timing in finding out about this side hustle was great. Because the lockdowns during corona were still going strong. 

And everyone was sitting at home watching Netflix and Youtube. 

So how do these so-called YouTube automation channels work?

And why would i recommend anyone thinking of starting an online business to give this a shot 

Youtube automation compared to other online business models.

First of all, 

Every business model has its pros and its cons. 

i truly believe that most of the online business models out there "work" 

but you have to make them work. 

and making something like this work 

takes a lot of time, energy, and skill. 

you need to pass a learning curve. 

my first 3 channels flopped too, 

over 4 other businesses flopped too,

And if you do not have the willpower and iron mind to keep going when adversity hits you, 

then you might want to stay working your safe 9 to 5 job (which is totally fine). 

but if you don't take the risk, you won't be able to reap the exponential reward this can give. 

" if it was easy, anyone would do it". 

Now here are some reasons why i love this business model: 

• build lucrative valuable channels without ever showing your face.

• provides value to viewers for free

• can start with low capital (higher time commitment) 

• can outsource the work if you do have capital (low time commitment)

• you do not deal with physical products

• you do not deal with shipping times 

• you do not deal with customer service

• once a video is upload it's online forever, can get views for years and earn money for years. 

• its a model that when done right grows bigger and bigger over time in revenue

• profit margins can be extremely high once you are established 

• you can make a channel about anything (yes even things you already love)

These are some of the benefits of youtube automation. 

i mainly love it because it is semi-passive when you have a team that does the work for you.

the profit margins are high.

 and you build a brand over time that grows bigger and bigger.

Also not having to deal with physical products, suppliers, shipping times and customer service is a true blessing.

Do with this as you please, 

i know it's not for everyone. 

different models fit different people better

but i am here to explain to you what it is and why I like it. 

this is what i went all in on. 

i think my main tip is to just pick one model that you seem to like and enjoy, 

and just go for that. 

it all works, you just have to make it work. 

Faceless Youtube simplified into 5 steps. 

1. The business model.

What makes this business model so great? 

the way Youtube works is simple, you start a channel (which is free by the way). you upload videos to that channel for a specific audience (like people who love surfing).

then hopefully, when done right. your videos and channel get more and more views.

those video views can turn into dollars once you join the youtube partner program. 

So in simple terms; 

You start a channel, upload videos, get views, and earn money from those views. 

(!) quick example: 

let's say you earned 1,000,000 views from your channel videos in a month. Youtube pays you $5 per 1000 views you generate (very average number). Now you would use this calculation to find your revenue from ads: (1,000,000 : 1,000 * 5 = $5,000) 

so one million views could earn you $5,000. 

Now how is this different from "normal" youtube channels you probably watch allready? 

With youtube automation we create so called "faceless youtube channels" 

Those are channels in which you never have to show your own face on camera. 

so you do not have to record your own face EVER! 

you probably think "how is it possible to run a channel like this while not showing myself?" 

Think about any recent documentary, news channel, or "Top 10" style channel. 

You can create youtube video's with existing content or even stock material and still get paid for it. 

and the REALL leverage comes in, when you hire freelancers to make these videos for you. 

Once you do this the true "time and location freedom" can start to kick in. 

One last quick reason i LOVE youtube automation. 

Once you post a video online. it can generate views for months or even years to come. and you never have to look back at those videos or edit them. you post a video once and it can generate views forever. 

Think about a garden. 

You plant seeds in your garden daily. (videos)

These seeds grow over time. (views)

every day, week, month you plant more of those seeds, (consistency) 

and as your garden grows bigger, 

these seeds will start bearing fruits. (revenue)

you harvest these fruits. ($$$)

"patience is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet" 

2. The channel idea

Sorry for the rant just now, i got a little excited talking about the power and beauty of this model. 

Now that you understand the basics, 

we need to actually get started. 

once you have a fundamental understanding of how this works and how to earn money with it. 

we need to start thinking about our first "niche" 

A niche is basically the topic of your channel. 

The topic of the videos you will be creating. 

it's important to find a specific niche because we want to build a long-term channel (brand) and have viewers who follow and subscribe to us because they love the content we put out. 

Think about your hobby's, topics you cannot get enough off and that you can talk about all day. 

Maybe you allready follow some youtube channels? 

Why do you watch them? 

what do you like about them? 

Why don't you start a channel yourself if you allready consume information about a certain topic? 

who knows you can monetize your passion! 

Once you found your niche, it's time to build a channel, and start producing videos. 

3. video production

Now that we know how youtube works and we have an idea for a channel to launch. 

the REALL fun begins. 

it's time to start creating our videos. 

and hopefuly, those vidoes will get views. 

Because views = money when it comes to youtube. 

Video production is simple: 

• you come up with an idea 

• you write a script about it 

• your record a voice over for this script 

• you then add images and videos that match the voice over. 

• you then create a Thumbnail that matches your video title. 

this is a simle process but definitely not easy, 

all 5 steps mentioned here are skills themselves you have to develop over time (or hire others to do for you). we will dive deeper into these in later letters. 

but this is just to get an idea of how it actually works.

Once you have a completed video, it's time to upload it to youtube! 

4. uploading to youtube 

The uploading process is easy, you just add the completed video file on your computer to youtube.

once it is uploaded you can either put it live immediately or you can schedule it ahead for a later time to go live. 

i always like having around 5-10 videos completed and then just scheduling them ahead for the coming 15-30 days. 

this way you create a batch of videos at a time, plan them ahead, and not worry about it for a while. 

During this waiting time, you can start creating new videos. 

Now hopefully those videos will be liked by your audience and youtube also knows who to show the videos to! 

our main focus now is being consistent with video uploads, 

and getting more and more views on our videos.

The goal is to gather data and then pivot into the righ direction. 

the cool part about youtube is that you can do the creation process yourself for free, but can also hire freelancers to create videos for you (more on this on a future letter). 

5. Earning money 

Of course, our ultimate goal is to earn money from running these channels. 

We earn money by showing ads on our videos. 

How do we show ads on our videos? 

by joining the "youtube partner program" 

this program is an agreement between You (creator) and youtube. 

i will go more in-depth on this later but, 

all you need to know for now is that: 

you need 4000 hours of public video watch time to join the program

you need 1000 subscribers on your channel to join the program. 

you need to follow the youtube policies regarding fair use to join the program. 

so once you acheived these, you can apply to join the program. 

youtube will review your channel, and once you joined the program, 

you can manually put ads on your videos that you uploaded. 

from that moment on, all views your channel earns, will earn you money. 

Now it's just a game of rinse and repeat. 

dial in video production and upload videos to earn more and more money (the more videos you post the most plants you seed). 

and sooner or later those videos will compound to a point where you start making very good income from them. 

Now that it is clear how this business model actually works. 

i want to show you why starting a youtube channel is so Valuable and

The "triple win triangle" of youtube automation. (how it adds value and earns money)

There are 3 components that make youtube automation work, 

and these 3 components work together in perfect harmony. 

you create value for viewers, and they get access to this value for free. 

what i am saying is that you create videos to educate and entertain your viewers. 

viewers can watch your videos for free. 

you earn money,

youtube earns money,

and advertisers (hopefully) earn money based on the quality of their ads and products. 

this is why i call it the triple win triangle. 

Everyone (can) win. 

Let me explain how these 3 components work together and how the money flows from one into another. (important KPI"s you need to understand running this business). 

1. Advertisers

This is where the money flow starts. 

Advertisers want to sell products through youtube. 

you are probably familiar with those youtube ads you get to see before a video and during a video (annoying right?) 

well, this is our ticket to heaven running this model. 

Advertisers pay youtube to show their ads on videos. 

CPM: this is the amount per thousand views advertisers have to pay youtube. 

so for example: 

if the cpm in a market is $10. 

then advertisers pay youtube $10 to get their ads shown 1000 times. 

2. Youtube 

Now youtube is the platform that we post videos on right? 

youtube itself does not necessarily make content. 

so how can youtube ask advertisers to pay them? 

they need content. 

and that is where content creators = Channels = we 

come in, 

remember the youtube partner program i told you about? 

well, this is an agreement between youtube and content creators. 

youtube pays content creators a part of the CPM

all content creators have to do is to show some ads on their videos and they will earn money from it. 

3. content creators 

so the money youtube pays content creators is called the RPM. 

RPM is basically a percentage cut from the CPM. 

so: 

advertisers pay youtube to show ads (and sell products) 

youtube receives that money and matches ads with content fitting the product. 

youtube pays content creators part of the money advertisers pay them. 

content creators earn RPM based on the CPM. 

Content creators produce videos and viewers watch those videos. (at least that is the goal) 

now content creators get paid based on the amount of views they earn (and in turn amount of ads they show. 

in simple terms: 

if the CPM is $10 per thousand views 

and the RPM is 55% of that, 

you will earn $4,5 per thousand views on views from your channel. 

So RPM is the amount of dollars you earn per thousand views. 

and the views you can acquire are basically infinite, depending on the quality of your content and the market you are in. 

And because of this reason, i like this model. 

you give viewers something for free to watch, entertain, and educate them with. 

AND you can earn money while doing so. 

Now how do we create videos viewers want to watch?

and in turn, earn money from them. 

The YouTube automation video production framework.

Let's break down how to actually make videos now. 

There is a bunch of different ways to create videos.

And depending on your own situation (more money or more time) you have to see which one suits you best. 

You either: 

2. make videos yourself for free 

3. make videos yourself with A.I (software cost) 

4. do parts yourself and parts outsourced 

5. outsource the whole production to freelancers. 

In another letter, I will dive deep into the process of creating videos. But now, I will give you an outline of how the process looks. This is true no matter how you make them. 

And just know from the 4 ways above that anyone can start this. 

I worked with clients having no money to invest to clients with $10,000+ to invest, 

there is a way for everyone here and that is why this business model is so strong too. 

You do NOT NEED to invest upfront if you do not want to

So here are the 5 Steps to creating a faceless youtube video. 

1. scripts

let's assume you have the idea for your video ready 

my example title idea is: 

"the top 10 biggest waves ever surfed in history" 

now all you have to do is open a Google Drive folder for your channel. 

create a new word file for your specific script

and literally JUST START WRITING, 

just like i am writing this blog. 

now, maybe you do not know how to find these 10 biggest surfed waves right? 

well, our friend google and chatgpt will work wonders for that. 

do some digging and most information you can process in your script in your own style. 

just make sure to make a captivating intro with a big burning question so people keep watching

and an outro with a call to action for people to like, subscribe and watch more videos on your channels. 

These are the basics of scriptwriting. 

Of course this is a whole skill in itself that can go very deep, 

but this is just to get the point across. 

my main tip is; just start writing, 

imperfect action is always better than no action, 

be willing to suck at something new. 

perfectionism is not going to help you here, 

it won't be perfect the first time anyway, 

so just start doing and taking massive action. 

i would lastly recommend your scripts to be 1600 words+ 

this way your videos will turn out to be 8 minutes or longer. 

we need this to place midroll ads (which basically just means you make more money from views) 

so try to make them atleast that. 

2. voice over

Now that we have our scripts done, 

we will record a voice-over of that script. 

We want voice-overs on all our videos. This will almost guarantee our acceptance into the YouTube partner program. (will dive deeper into youtube policies in another letter).

there is 3 ways to record scripts: 

6. you record a voice over yourself using a USB microphone and the free software audacity.

7. you us A.I software like 11labs to make A.I generated voiceovers (yes this is allowed) 

8. You hire a freelancer to record the voiceover for you (can be pretty expensive) 

Now that we have a script and a voiceover of that script we can move on to the editing. 

3. video edit 

video is by far the hardest, longest and most expensive part of the video production process. 

if you are not experienced editing videos i would highly recommend you to outsource this part, 

or to make a low-content channel where you use image slideshows or only stock material to cover the video footage. 

the most important part of video editing is to match the video footage with the voice-over. 

so when im talking about the biggest wave surfed in Nazare, 

i show someone surfing a wave in Nazare, 

when im talking about the hot yoga class i attended yesterday evening, 

i show someone doing yoga. 

i think you get the point, 

Make sure your video matches your voice over. It must make sense to the viewer what they are hearing and seeing. 

there is a multitude of ways to actually edit videos, 

something for a future letter. 

4. Thumbnail.

The Thumbnail is the placeholder image that you see when scrolling on youtube. 

it's basically the welcome sign to your video, 

the Thumbnail and title are Crucial parts to your whole video. 

because if they do not catch attention and provoke curiosity. 

no one is going to click them. 

so you can have the BEST most awesome video in the world,

if no one clicks the Thumbnail, no one will see the video. 

again you can create these yourself for free using tools like canva, 

i recommend learning this skill and getting photoshop. 

you can also hire graphic designers to make them for you. 

Once the this is complete. 

Congrats!

you got yourself a full video. 

5. upload

Al that is left is uploading the video to your youtube channel, 

Adding a fitting title that provokes curiosity and a reason to click. This makes viewers want to know more. 

and then posting your video. 

This process,

will now be a rinse and repeat as long as you run your channel. 

again, you can make videos in batches and then schedule them ahead. 

you can also just make them piece by piece and upload them once done. 

i think it's a good idea to get a video posted as soon as you have one finished. 

just to see how it performs. 

You have now officially launched your first youtube automation video and so your channel :) 

Congrats! 

And also please know this. 

when i started this, 

i was NOT a scriptwriter

i was NOT a voice actor

i was NOT a video editor

i was NOT a graphic designer. 

i was NOT a "youtuber"

These are all acquired SKILLS you learn over time as you get better, 

You will have to dedicate time into learning these skills, 

Even if you outsource these parts to freelancers. 

YOU HAVE to understand the basics of what works and why it works. 

the process is simple, but not easy.

but i do believe that with time, anyone can learn this and make this work (as i myself, my friends, and my students have proven). 

That’s it.

That’s the big picture.

This is the system i used to achieve time and location freedom. 

it's a pretty simple straightforward business model. 

but actually finding the right niche and building high-quality videos that go viral isn't as easy as it seems. 

but when you do dedicate time and energy towards it. 

it might just change your life, 

just like it did mine! 

You have direction now, it’s up to you to learn the technical details through experience and failure.

Thank you for reading.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

– Casper

Here are your action steps on how to proceed now

 (i would hate you to read this 5,000 words article and not do anything with it LOL)

1. decide if you want to give this business model a fair chance and can dedicate the coming 6-12 months to making it work

2. Follow my YouTube channel and Instagram page to learn the basics of YouTube automation

3. be brave enough to take imperfect action and get started with your first channel.