Lessons Learned: Andrew Schulz

The meteoric rise in popularity of comedian Andrew Schulz is seemingly at odds with the lack of network features typically associated with famous comedians. How has Schulz marketed himself to comedic fame? Let’s break it down.

Riding Solo

After spending nearly 25,000 USD filming and producing his own special, Schulz offered it for free to various networks, all of which refused to air it. This prompted the comedian to set out on his own. After showing the special to different people, a common comment he got was,

Yeah it’s good. But I didn’t finish it.

Not what you want to hear.

Using YouTube

Taking the comments he got, Schulz broke down his special into bite-sized segments, and posted them all on YouTube.

YouTube was working. So I started treating my YouTube channel like my own network.

However, YouTube is a completely different medium from the typical shows that comedians give. You can’t repeat content, jokes, or scripts on any of your videos without losing your subscribers. YouTube rewards fresh, new content. A far cry from comedians who typically put out one special a year at most. Schulz had to stray away from traditional comedic approaches, instead focusing on his improv, honing his talent, and filming every show he did. Over two years, Schulz uploaded 125 videos of live comedy.

100 clips is 100 ways of discovering me. An hour on Netflix is one.

Adapting to Change

While most comedians were heavily impacted due to strict lockdowns, Schulz already had an edge by understanding with online markets wanted to see. So he leveraged social media to grow his following, averaging 2 million views.

Here’s a great example of how Schulz leveraged average user behavior on Instagram to get them to flip their phones, which meant they couldn’t scroll away from the video.

In short? Understand your market. Understand your channel. Then execute.