Arvid Kahl is a founder, a writer, a software developer, and the owner of The Bootstrapped Founder (TBF). I've worked with Arvid since December 2022 as a thumbnail designer and an audio and video editor for his newsletter, podcast, and YouTube channel.
I have helped grow his YouTube channel by adding more value and improving the overall production quality of the videos. Since then, TBF has grown from 990 to over 6,200 subscribers.
Here's an overview of how I've helped Arvid get there.
+532%
Subscriber growth since December 2022
+3.6%
Average view duration since December 2022
Video editing
Optimizing audio for YouTube
Animation
Thumbnail design
A/B testing
Branding
Selecting and producing clips
Topic ideation
Finding and preparing guests
Since taking over the audio and video editing of TBF's videos, I've made dozens of tweaks and improvements to make each episode more engaging.
One of my favorite improvements are the custom transitions between segments. Each video now has a branded transition between the intro, the main content, the outro, and the end of the video.
I've also added transitions to the appearance and disappearance of name tags and the main view.
In recent videos, I've added visual improvements to keep people watching for longer. In the examples above, the guest's name appears during the intro, and Arvid swipes away a dashboard card to make a point.
The Bootstrapped Founder releases two videos per week, which means I've designed over 120 thumbnails since December 2022. Here's what I've done to improve TBF's YouTube thumbnails.
Create consistency in font sizes, positioning, style, and use of color.
Create custom visuals for each thumbnail based on the video's main topic.
Use A/B tests to discover what thumbnail works best and set up guidelines for future thumbnails.
Thumbnail design is the first thing I did for TBF, and you can see an immediate effect on his subscriber count.
I run recurring A/B tests on The Bootstrapped Founder's channels to discover what (video) thumbnails convert best and how to improve their videos' engagement and average view duration.
Both are important to understand for channel and revenue growth. Let's take a look at two A/B testing examples below.
One great example of such an A/B test was adding a countdown to the bottom right corner of the episode intro.
Based on my experience in design and user psychology, I expected a countdown to capture the viewer's attention for longer, which would be positive for numerous reasons.
To see if it worked, I used the countdown for six videos and compared the average view duration (AVD) of those six videos to the six videos before I started using the countdown.
Since including the countdown, the AVD has moved up from 15% to 17.6%. That's an increase of 2.6%. The overall improvement in AVD since 2022 is 3.6%, which is even better.
This is a very valuable increase for a YouTube channel because it means more people are watching your videos for a longer time, which will likely increase brand awareness, sales, and subscribers.
Another area where I've done recurring A/B testing is video thumbnails. I test multiple thumbnails to find which one converts best. Each thumbnail is tested for seven days to give us enough data to analyse.
For example, I have checked the CTR of thumbnails where we (don't) include a visual title.
As in the previous example, I've tried this idea in several videos. Here's an example of two thumbnails for Arvid's interview with Tony Dinh.
I've seen that thumbnails with text perform better than thumbnails without text. As a result, I've included a title as part of TBF's default thumbnail guidelines because it converts better for his audience.
I conduct recurring A/B tests to find guidelines like the example above for future thumbnails. They help create brand consistency and a better CTR for The Bootstrapped Founder's videos.
Working together with The Bootstrapped Founder continues to this day, and we have a lot more in store.
In the upcoming weeks and months, we will work on color grading, adding more visuals to the interview episodes, and updating the intro and outro of each video.
You can see the improvements we make each week if you look over on The Bootstrapped Founder's YouTube channel.