Ryan is just like any other 7-year-old. He likes riding his bike and playing with toy trains and cars. Sometimes his mom films and shares his antics. That has led to Ryan earning $22m in the 12 months leading up to June 1, 2018.
Today, we’ll look at exactly what Ryan is doing and how he is using the rule of bridges to generate a huge income (at a level which many companies don’t ever achieve).
An Overview on Ryan
- Ryan’s family film videos of him while he reviews new toys
- Ryan started out when he was just three years old
- His family uploads his videos to YouTube via his channel Ryan ToysReview
- Ryan made $22 million in revenue last year from his YouTube account
- Moving from number eight in 2017, Ryan was YouTube’s number one biggest earner in 2018
What Exactly Does Ryan Do?
Ryan makes ‘unboxing’ videos. His family films him opening up toys and other items made for children. In the videos, Ryan explains what he likes about the toys while running around and generally enjoying the toys that he unboxes.
When he is finished, most of the toys he reviews are donated to local charity.
How Did Ryan Get Started?
His mom said, “Ryan was watching a lot of toy review channels — some of his favorites are EvanTubeHD and Hulyan Maya — because they used to make a lot of videos about Thomas The Tank Engine, and Ryan was super into Thomas.”
She continued, “One day, he asked me, ‘How come I’m not on YouTube when all the other kids are?’ So we just decided — yeah, we can do that. Then, we took him to the store to get his very first toy — I think it was a Lego train set — and it all started from there.”
Ryan started out very slowly. In his first video, he goes to the store, picks a toy train set, brings it home, unboxes it and plays with it. Here it is:
In his next video, he is playing with two toys. However, fast forward to his most popular video, uploaded July 1st 2015, and Ryan is playing with one hundred toys at once. It has 952m views.
Why Are Children’s Unboxing Videos So Popular?
Many children today have access to Youtube. But they don’t all have the money needed to buy lots of new toys. Or they may not have the space needed to keep buying lots of new toys. And they don’t have the ability to drive to a store and buy toys themselves, without assistance.
So, children are very limited when it comes to buying the maximum number of new toys they would choose to, if they had no limits.
So, child viewers of these unboxing videos live vicariously through Ryan.
The videos provide a sort of ‘satisfaction-proxy’ for children. The child viewers get to experience the joy of receiving and opening a new toy, without actually having to own it. It applies even more for out of reach items, which is most toys, for most children, because it’s only possible to own a few toys from an almost unlimited range.
So by watching an unboxing video, children get to feel like they owned an item by experiencing it virtually and watching another child play with it.
How Does Ryan Make Money?
YouTube displays advertising on Ryan’s videos and pages. When these ads are displayed/clicked, the advertiser pays YouTube a pre-agreed sum.
YouTube gives a share of this revenue to members of its partner program, if they have enough views. Ryan has amassed 27.6 billion views across his channel, to date.
How Can You Use Ryan’s Success Principle In Business?
Do you want to start a new business or do you already own one? If so, you can apply the same success principle that Ryan unknowingly used to create his own success, to your own situation.
You can use this same concept to create a new winning business idea, sharpen up your current business offering or add new products and services to a business.
The rule of bridges says that to build your very own offering (known as a value bridge) you need to do a few things.
Here’s the ‘rule of bridges’ list of how to build winning products that matter, and exactly how it applies to Ryan:
Step 1: Define your ideal prospect
Ryan was very targeted in his approach. He knew his audience was other children, so he produced content specifically for his audience and no one else.
Step 2: Understand their ‘present island’
Where are Ryan’s audience at the present moment? Ryan’s audience are bored of the toys they have already. But they aren’t able to buy new ones, due to a list of possible hindering issues. These could be financial constraints, space requirements and the inability to go and buy them themselves (they would need adult help).
Step 3: Learn about their ‘future island’
What is the ideal outcome that Ryan’s audience want? Ryan’s audience want the experience of opening and playing with lots of new toys).
Step 4: Build the value bridge
How can we provide a solution to the problem that Ryan’s audience is experiencing? Ryan made the videos, allowing each child to have the experience of opening new toys.
Ryan also uploaded his videos online, giving him a perfect distribution method for the maximum number of children to watch his videos and experience what it would be like to have a new toy.
At the same time, the original hindering issues are still allowed to exist (the children’s present constraints could remain unchanged and they can still experience the joy of the unboxing videos).
Fortunately for Ryan, YouTube also allows monetization of his videos as well as exposing him to merchandising deals, which he has been able to take advantage of and generate a cool $22m a year in earnings.
How will you use the rule of bridges to increase your earnings?
METHOD: Ryan’s pre-tax gross earnings estimates were calculated for June 1, 2017 to June 1, 2018. Estimates are based on data from Captiv8/SocialBlade/Pollstar and interviews with industry insiders.
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