My First Million · 3 min instead of 1 h 3 m · Oct 7, 2026
Letting viewers skip ads earned the attention to raise $11M
Jeff Harmon
Founder, Angel Studios
Shaan PuriHost · Co-host, My First Million
Sold Bebo to Twitch in 2019; co-founded the crypto newsletter Milk Road.
About this segment
Harmon helped design YouTube's skip button, arguing for no time limit on ads. He then ran a 20-minute pilot as an ad and raised $11M for The Chosen on $800K of ad spend.
From “Every successful startup starts with this one advantage”, Oct 7, 2026. Watch the full episode
“Give me five seconds and then I get five minutes. They're okay with that. But I've earned it. Yes, because I've earned the attention.”
Takeaways
- Earn attention rather than demanding it: let people skip after five seconds
- 17,000 people invested $11M in The Chosen after watching the pilot
- $800K in ads was under 8%, below Wall Street's 8-12% fundraising fee
In this episode
Full episode- 8:30A glitch like early YouTube ads gives you a beachhead2:13
21:10Letting viewers skip ads earned the attention to raise $11M3:01
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 21:22
and they said, how can we get more people to do things like Aura Brush? And we came, they sat, I think for three or four days, they sat with our team in Provo, Utah, and we came up with this idea of a skip ad button where you could, after five seconds, you click skip if you're not interested in the ad. And that concept, originally they were going to make it like a 15-second ad or a 30-second ad. And I said, no, don't put a time limit on it.
- 21:49
If I can maintain your interest, let me just keep them. Well, that's so counterintuitive. You're the advertiser and you're telling the platform, hey, let them skip after five seconds, right? That sounds completely against your interest. But it's the only way to get along that. If I had said, let me steal five minutes of their time for a poopery commercial or a squatty potty pooping unicorn commercial, they would have been like, no, we don't want you getting in front of the content.
- 22:18
Give me five seconds and then I get five minutes. They're okay with that. But I've earned it. Yes, because I've earned the attention. and so when we get to the chosen tv series and we have this pilot episode it was a short film i called it a pilot we renamed it a pilot we could just take the same concept that we built for these two three minute ads and just go 20 minutes let's just do 20 minutes and see what happens because it's entertainment and so they watch 20 minutes they're totally invested and then we pitch them, come invest in this project and let's make a TV series like the Game of Thrones for the New Testament.
- 22:59
That's basically what it was at that time. And 17,000 people invested $11 million into The Chosen. And how much ad spend do you think you needed to get to that $11 million? $800,000. So it took about a little less than 8% of the total raise went into advertising it. and I explained to Dallas Jenkins, the director, I said, because he was actually pretty upset about that. He was like, I thought you just do viral ad campaigns and you were just going to raise the money.
- 23:31
For free. For free, basically. And I was like, how do you think we built Poopery and Squatty Potty? We spent money. And if you had gone to Wall Street and asked them to raise you money, they would charge you 12%. Right? They charge you 8% to 12%. So we're actually right in that world, but we're just having to buy ads, which is getting you awareness on your project. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned,