How did The Stokes Twins go from living out of their car and sneaking into Costco for free samples to running a 70-person production company with more than 30 billion views?
Welcome to the Forbes Top Creator Show! This week, host Steven Bertoni sits down with the masterminds of YouTube retention, Alan and Alex, The Stokes Twins.
In this episode, the brothers open up about dropping out of medical school and moving to LA with no plan, facing homelessness, and relying on a scuffed Costco card just to eat. They share how a single viral video (“What It’s Like to Be a Twin”) gained 10 million views in a week and changed their lives forever. The twins break down their obsessive, highly analytical approach to studying their audience, why they believe 90% of the work is in the core idea, and how they scaled from a two-man team editing on iMovie to a massive 70-person production operation.
They also reveal exclusive details about their most expensive video to date (a $1 million Squid Game recreation featuring VFX artists from Endgame and Avatar), a surprise phone call from MrBeast, and a sneak peek into their massive new unscripted competition series coming soon to Netflix.
#StokesTwins #ForbesTopCreators #CreatorEconomy #YouTubeSuccess
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0:00 Meet The Stokes Twins
1:58 The Origin Story: Making Videos Since Age 10
4:24 The First Viral Hit: “What It’s Like to Be a Twin”
5:51 Living in a Car & Sneaking into Costco
12:36 Scaling the Business & Analyzing the Algorithm
22:01 Spending $1 Million on a Squid Game Video
27:05 YouTube Heroes & Getting a Call From MrBeast
31:43 Building a 70-Person Production Team
38:52 The Next Level: Creating a Netflix Original Series
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