Jason made two videos about the same tool

Hey,

Jason Staats has made two videos about Claude Cowork this year, on the same channel and for the same audience of accountants, and one of them did about 8,500 views at first while the other did over 150,000.

Jason built an accounting firm and sold it, and these days he runs Realize, which is a paid community for firm owners, so his channel is where accountants go to work out what AI is about to do to their jobs. We've been working together since March 2025.

Now if you know accountants at all, you'd have backed the first video.

It went out as "6 Claude Cowork Use Cases For Accounting Firms", and it's exactly what that audience says they want, which is six practical things they could go and do on Monday morning.

It did about what his videos usually do, around 8,500 views in its first 11 days. Later it was retitled around QuickBooks, and it's now past 30,000.

The other one was called "Why Claude Cowork Is Already Changing Accounting Firms", and it's the biggest video he's ever made. People watched it for nearly seven minutes on average, which matters, because a title can get you the click but it can't keep anyone watching, and his watch time for the whole year is up 110%.

So what was the difference, when the tool was the same and the person on camera was the same?

I think most of us assume the click is a value calculation, so we load the title with useful things and trust the viewer to add them up.

But the first title only describes what the tool can do, and the second one tells the viewer that something is happening in their industry without them. "Already changing" means the firm down the road has moved and you haven't, and for someone who runs on cost-benefit maths all day, the one thing they can't put a number on is being left behind.

Jason has now used that exact phrase, "Is Already Changing Accounting Firms", five times. It gave him his biggest video ever, and his second biggest video of the year is "Claude Cowork Is REPLACING QuickBooks in Accounting Firms", which is the same idea in different words and has done nearly 90,000 views. He still makes the practical videos, and they do fine, but they aren't the ones that bring new people to the channel.

Jason told me last December that they thought they'd hit the ceiling, and since then partnerships have roughly tripled and the community has grown by about half. The videos aren't the whole reason for that, but they're where most of those people first found him.

Here's what I'd do with this.

Before you film your next video, write the title twice. Write the useful version first, the one that lists what the viewer gets. Then write the version that says what's changing in their world and that they aren't part of it yet.

Then check the second one is actually true, because that's the whole trick. When Jason put the same phrase on a tool almost nobody was using yet, that video did 8,000 views. Claude Cowork really was changing firms, so 150,000 people clicked and stayed for seven minutes.

If your second title is true, make that video.

Jamie

P.S. The Thumbnail Vault is open now. Every thumbnail in it comes with a note on why it earned the click, including a few of Jason's. Have a look here.