From Navy SEAL To Viral Content Creator - MrBallen’s Insane Story

**John Allen** (0:00)
I watched this grenade come over the wall. It's like, I can see it for a second. It disappeared. I can see it for a second. And it was like, time absolutely stood still. And when I was in this blackness of not seeing and not hearing, I knew absolutely that this is death.
I had mental issues, I had emotional issues, I had real physical issues. I was a complete psychopath. And when I got out, I thought social media and content creation was just kind of fascinating.

**Sam Parr** (0:28)
How did you decide that was a worthy way to spend your life?

**John Allen** (0:32)
If you create the right thing at the right time, it's like a lottery ticket and it goes viral. And then it's your chance at that point to capitalize in whatever way you want to. I was obsessed with it. So despite the many failures over the course of probably six months or so, maybe a year of just like awful cringe videos that went nowhere on a whim, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to shoot a quick video. And I leave my phone in the room for a couple of hours, come back. I couldn't even open my phone. And it had over five million views. In a matter of a few hours.

**Shaan Puri** (0:59)
So you built this empire quickly.

**John Allen** (1:01)
I went into this feverish, like constantly telling stories on TikTok, three a day for 30 days, and then left like seven million subscribers on TikTok and then shifted to YouTube. And here we are.

**Shaan Puri** (1:14)
What's one thing you teach me to make me a better storyteller?

**John Allen** (1:16)
It's something that people love and hate. If you're going to tell a story.

**Sam Parr** (1:30)
Have you ever seen the MrBallen channel before? Like I asked you if you should come on.

**Shaan Puri** (1:35)
No, when I found out you were coming on as a guest, that's when the research started. And I went to your TikTok first, and then I went to YouTube, and then I started watching some other stuff. But I love the genre, but I'm not like crazy about it. My brother-in-law is nuts about these spooky stories. He does something I don't even understand. You got to explain this to me. There's apparently a YouTube channel that takes spooky stories from Reddit and then reads it like text to speech, like robotic text to speech. And he'll listen to this thing for like two hours straight. I can't believe that he does this. But when I saw that, I was like, oh, that's like people who are far on the deep end of loving this type of content.

**Sam Parr** (2:12)
I've definitely have done like on a Saturday where I've got to do chores or something like that and run errands. I've done a six to eight hour marathon of Ballen, of MrBallen. What's your consumption rate on your channel right now? Is it just through the roof?

**John Allen** (2:25)
That's a Nick question. So Nick, Nick does everything with the exception of telling the stories on camera. I'm like completely out of the loop with virtually everything else. I just sit down and tell stories and Nick, Nick is the guy for literally every other question in terms of like growth, the channel, like metrics. That's Nick. That's Nick's wheelhouse.

**Shaan Puri** (2:44)
dude, that's nirvana for content.

**John Allen** (2:46)
Oh, dude.

**Shaan Puri** (2:47)
Where you can just sit down, you just record and then you disappear and everything else happens magically.

**John Allen** (2:53)
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:54)
Every content creator wants that.

**John Allen** (2:55)
I will get to this, but he came in when I didn't know how to like grow my channel beyond just me and like I was so burned out. Nick came in when it was me. I think I had an editor and maybe like a topic finder. That was overwhelming for me. I was deleting all emails that came in. People try to do business with me. I just delete everything. So I had no idea how to figure out if it was good or not. Nick came in and was like, oh, dude, I'll help you. He grew the business.

**Sam Parr** (3:18)
How big were you when that happened?

**John Allen** (3:19)
We were like significant on YouTube, but I personally was at a place where I was just jumping in.
It took me about 26 hours, give or take, to make one video in the first six months I was on YouTube, and I was doing anywhere from three to five videos a week. At the same time, I'm married, I have three young kids. I completely was negligent in all duties besides content. My wife is a saint and picked up everything else. But I was doing, I mean, do the math, when he said like over 100 hours of just constant grinding like at all hours. And so even though the channel was in the millions, and we were by all accounts had made it as a YouTube channel, I was so close to being like, dude, this ain't worth it. Like I'm in my 30s, I got a family, like I've done well for myself, but this is like the worst thing ever. And it was around that time that I'm like, maybe all those people that are emailing me, maybe they can offer something that will help me grow. Because I swear to God, I was just mass deleting emails because it was so stressful. People that were trying to pitch me. And I saw an email come through that was like, fellow combat veteran here to help. And I'm a military guy and I'm immediately like, okay, this guy I could talk to. I don't know who he is. I don't know what he means by help. But I opened his email and he's like, yeah, I'm a day-to-day manager with MrBeast. I have experience in traditional talent. I'm not looking to sign you, not looking to really do anything, but I just saw you're a vet. It's rare in this space and I'd be happy to help. And so I immediately hit him up and I'm like, I don't know you, but my life's fallen apart here, man. I got all this great stuff happening with YouTube, but I can't manage it. Like I'm losing my mind. And so that began what turned out to be the reason that the MrBallen thing did not fade into obscurity. I mean, I'm a great storyteller, but I cannot grow a business. I couldn't have done this longer than literally that month. I remember talking to my wife and being like, I just don't know if this is worth it. But Nick came in and I handed the reins of virtually everything over to Nick and he scaled the company. We have like 50 plus employees now. We got a slate of shows. I show up to the studio and just somebody else hits record and I just tell stores and I leave because of Nick.