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How do we have so much stuff? How much

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is this even worth? And all of this is cheap compared to employing everyone.

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Sir, don't call me sir. Sir, I know I've

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been here a short time, but how do we pay for all of this? Obviously, this

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helps, but there's got to be more. Is there something you're hiding?

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Nope. But it has been a while since we've done one of these and a lot has

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changed in that time. There's been good times, some of them very good and bad

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times. Some of them very bad. And through all of that, we have more than

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doubled the size of our team. How do we make money now then? Like this. That

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right there is 2024's finalized revenue split. So, uh, video done

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then. Oh, right. You guys probably want

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a bit more context. But here's the thing. As we've grown, I have stepped

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back from some of the day-to-day leadership. So, I might need some help

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getting you guys the full story. That's why I was tasked to go to the accounting

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department as well as talk to the other executives to find out all the juicy

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little details for you guys and have them present it to

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you. Our first stop is Colton. I

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wouldn't go over there. At least not until you've told these fine folks about

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our sponsor for this video, Odo. While we don't use them daily here at LMG,

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they would love for us to show you some examples of how ODU helps manage your

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business using their apps that integrate into one cohesive platform for easy

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management. Start your 15-day free trial by visiting the link down

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below. We're actually going to start with the biggest change on our chart,

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ltstore.com. When Lin discovered LTT Store in the 2020 breakdown, it was 15%

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of our total. Now, we've shipped over a million orders and it's ballooned to a

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staggering 55%. The biggest reason for this is that

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back then, two of our biggest product families didn't exist yet. Hand tools

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and bags, which now make up about half the revenue with the rest coming from

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everything else. That includes apparel, cable management, thermal pads, pet

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accessories, baby stuff. It's a pretty broad mix. Yeah, the ltstore.com call

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outs can be a little cringey, but they get people's attention. And when you

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combine that with quality products, it clearly works. So much so that we

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recently flipped the script and went from sponsor to sponsorer, choosing some

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of our favorite creators to show off all of our products. The team has been

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killing it. Black Friday grew 45% year-over-year. But in my opinion, the

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best part of that event was that the orders were also fulfilled 60% faster

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than they were in 2023. I'm sure you appreciated that. It doesn't mean we

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never have problems, though. Near the end of 2023, we found out live on the

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WAN Show that a manufacturer screw up on our OG backpack meant it didn't have the

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dual layer bottom that we promised. But our motto has always been to make it

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right with our customers. So, we retroactively modified our warranty to

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provide extra coverage on that bottom layer. And our amazing in-house support

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team offered gift cards as an apology. And if that wasn't enough, we offered

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outright refunds to anyone who wanted one, even those folks who had been using

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the bag for over a year. Now, if you want to provide great support, Odo has

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you covered. Their e-commerce app allows you to build a digital store to market

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and sell your goods. And they offer time tracking, priority assignment, and even

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documentation about how certain tickets should be resolved, so onboarding new

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employees is easy. I could go on all day, but that's enough about LTTO for

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today. So, let's throw this sleek and

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stylish commuter backpack, ltstore.com,

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to the writing department to talk about AdSense. Oh my goodness. Thanks. From

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2016 to 2020, AdSense actually grew from 18% to 26% of LMG's overall revenue. And

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I'm happy to report that in 2024, it went down.

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Not going to lie, I was actually super confused when they told me this was a

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good thing. We literally call ourselves YouTubers. How can it be good to make

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less money from YouTube? Well, for starters, just because it's a smaller

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percentage does not mean that it's less money. And second, it means that LMG is

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far less reliant on our Google overlords than we used to be. Let's say YouTube's

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ad business just collapsed. For most channels, that would probably mean game

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over. But thanks to our diversified revenue streams, we can actually carry

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on through challenging times. Of course, we don't mind it ain't money. So, let's

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break it down here. 61.5% comes from ads. So, if you're someone who sits

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through the ads before watching the video, we thank you for your service. As

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for the folks who can't stand ads and opt for YouTube Premium, you guys make

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up 37.3%. Hold on a minute. How can 29%

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of our views make up 37% of our YouTube

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money? It's funny because I've had a lot of people ask me over the years, oh

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Lionus, I've got premium, so I'm watching without ads, does that harm

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creators? But no, it's the complete opposite. The way that premium works is

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it takes 45% of your subscription fee. That goes to YouTube to, you know,

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maintain the platform and pay for YouTube music. And the rest, so 55% gets

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divided up according to your total watch time over the course of the month across

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all the channels that you watched. So if you watched 50% LT and 50% other

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channels, you would actually be contributing many times more than an

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adup supported viewer. Now shorts are a little bit different because Google

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allocates part of their revenue to music licensing for shorts. The creator share

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both for ads and for premium is just 45%. Frankly though, I don't really

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blame them. Shorts get lots of views and therefore are a significant burden on

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the platform's infrastructure. But it's clear that Google has a lot of work to

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do figuring out how to monetize those views. Our biggest short in 2024 got 13

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million views and made $1,300. That's about 100th of a cent per

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view for me. And once everything is accounted for, probably even less for

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Google. For comparison, our biggest VOD last year did over 20 times that amount,

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over 2/10en of a cent per view. Then

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there's longer live stream archives, and the numbers completely change. Again,

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here we're looking at about 1.8 cents per view. Now, again, this is just

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looking at our top performing in each category for the year, but it gives you

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an idea of how watch time contributes to revenue, especially for premium viewers.

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Not every channel performs the same though. Out of our active channels, the

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main LTT channel brings in about 76% of

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our AdSense with ShortCircuit and TechLink finishing off the podium. Now,

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I want to clear something up that I'm sure will be a point of discussion in

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the comments. LMG's numbers are not and

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will never be directly comparable to other creators. If you're a Moist

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Critical fan, you probably saw his video which broke down YouTube revenue versus

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Twitch revenue and saw that he pulled in a whopping

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$84,000 for a 4-hour stream. But if you

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look closely, that's because he was making over 17 RPM or $17 per 1,000

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views. If you took that number and multiplied it by our roughly 850 million

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views last year, holy we should ask for raises. I keyed because we don't

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make nearly the same RPM on our channel and he might not either. Even on the

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same channel, RPM can change dramatically depending on how desirable

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your content is to high roller advertisers. On our channel, we've seen

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as high as $11, but as low as $3.

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Though, of course, that's before we bake in our own sponsors. Speaking of

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sponsors, this seems like a good time to segue to our Colton. That's right. I

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still work here. And if you watch regularly, you'll know we have a wide

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variety of partners that we deal with. How wide? We managed to break it down

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into about 13 different categories, ranging from PC parts to gaming to

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lifestyle, and even software as a service, like our sponsor for this

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video, ODU. One of their apps is completely dedicated to sales. It helps

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you keep track of clients, track income, and organize your data into almost any

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type of chart you would need, like this one. This is a breakdown of our 13

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categories. SAS companies like ODU make up 25.5%.

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Lifestyle is 13.6% and PC parts is

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34.6%. PC parts are actually up from 2020, which is both good and bad. It's

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good because it clearly shows that you guys are closely engaged with the brands

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you see featured on our channel, allowing them to outbid our other partners. But it's bad because Business

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101 says to diversify your income and not put all of your eggs in one basket.

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And tech has a risk of becoming a heavy basket for us since our audience

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demographics are so obviously appealing to tech companies. With that said, while

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three of our top tech partners do make up about 15% of our sponsor revenue,

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none of them are over 5%, meaning that none of them can have a major impact on

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our business. Another way we avoid overreiance on individual partners is to

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have a wide variety of partners within our categories. In the PC parts

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category, we work with 26 partners and across all categories, we have over 150.

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To add some additional context, our sponsors made up 21% of our 2024 revenue

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with invido reads accounting for 9% and dedicated sponsor videos accounting for

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12%. We also provide production value to companies like Dbrand and MSI. We just

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released a video where Plof and Sherrod take you through how it's done and give

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a little bit more insight into how LMG works down in the gears and the guts.

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Head over to LMG.gg/flowplane to check it out.

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Sponsored videos come about in one of two ways. The ideal way is when we

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integrate a sponsor's product into an already existing idea. For example, we

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had the idea for me to make an outdoor pool gaming setup. So, when someone

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reached out looking for a cool project to show off their projector, that was a

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perfect fit. The same goes for the time we wanted to make a video on cleaning

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out a water cooling loop and an ultrasonic toothbrush brand stepped up.

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Naturally integrated and more importantly, highly relevant to the

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project. The second way these videos come about is a sponsor will bring us a

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product. let's say a robot lawn mower or pool cleaner and then we will go out in

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search of a lawn or a pool to maintain.

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These videos tend to rely more on unscripted shenanigans and the

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personalities of our hosts to drive viewer enjoyment while we tick off all

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of the key points the sponsor wants communicated about their product. Now,

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these videos are always clearly disclosed both verbally and visually.

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And while they do often include candid footage of us using the product and even

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providing commentary on it, a sponsor can buy airtime on our channel, but they

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can never buy our opinion. FTC guidelines clearly state that if you say

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it, you have to believe it. And no vendor talking point should ever be

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disguised as an opinion unless you happen to agree, let's say, for

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instance, that the design of this product is minimalistic or what have

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you. We also go out of our way to validate manufacturer claims when

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possible, even in sponsored videos. One area that this has been really useful is

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when evaluating displays for phones, which sometimes do not reach the

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brightness levels that are specified by the manufacturer. This kind of scrutiny

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is just part of the process of working with us. And if a sponsor doesn't like

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it, we'll just drop them like we've dropped so many others in the past.

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Sometimes we also drop sponsors because of you guys. We maintain an open line of

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communication for sponsor issues or concerns through our community forum and

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we have a long track record of leveraging user reported issues to

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affect change at the companies we partner with. Speaking of forums, ODU

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also has a dedicated forum app in case you want to add it to your website so

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people can complain if you're discounted affiliate links aren't working. Speaking

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of affiliate links made up about 3% of our 2024 revenue. Those are the links

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that you'll often see in the description, like our referral code for private internet access. Those can be a

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pretty good deal for all sides. PIA gets a new subscriber, you get a discount,

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and we get a kickback. All in, the business team lands at about 24% of the

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total pie. Now, you can see why we keep bringing Colton back into the fold. Now,

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we're almost done, but first, let's take a quick ride on a flopplane.

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Flipplane.com is our paid membership website where we offer exclusive content

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and sometimes early access to our videos. We offer two subscription tiers,

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$5 or $10, with the difference being that the higher tier gives you 4K video

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and sometimes access to extra exclusive

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content like the digital pass to our last LTX expo. In 2024, Flowplane was 7%

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of our pie. It's a humble slice, but it's also up 1%. And I think it's pretty

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cool that with Invido sponsor spots coming down and Floatplane going up, we

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are contributing almost as much as every Invido sponsor combined. Lionus often

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talks about how the audience is the real boss of the company. And this is a prime

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example of how easy it is for you guys to show us when you support our

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direction and to show us when you don't.

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Elephant in the room. We lost a ton of Flowplane subscribers after the great

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reset in August of 2023, but thanks to

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the hard work of our team. Shout out to Sammy for the great exclusives, we had

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three major pushes to help bring us back to just about where we left off. Thanks

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again for supporting us at Flowplane. Now, let's get back to Lionus for some

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closing thoughts. There you go. The last under 1% is miscellaneous things like

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random reimbursements, which I think underscores the point that Luke mentioned about you guys being the boss.

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When you break it down, every single piece of the chart still boils down to

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you. You are the boss when it comes to choosing to engage with our content

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ideas on YouTube. You are the boss when it comes to what sponsors we work with.

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You're the boss when you evaluate the quality of our products. And you're the

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boss when you choose to directly support us on Flow Plane. And just like any

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boss, if we're not living up to your expectations, you have the power to give

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us a good old-fashioned dressing down, to dock our pay, or even sack us

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outright, which it's kind of a scary way

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to live, if I can be real for a minute. But it's also super cool because not

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only do we have this massive community to share our passions with, but a

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massive community that can help guide us toward what you guys want to see in the

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future. As for our second larger elephant in the room, you'll notice that

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we never gave you guys any specific dollar amounts. I am sorry about that

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and I understand that in trying to be as transparent as possible with you guys

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over the years, we have created an environment where the one thing we can't

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talk about can trigger a vigorous pitchforking. But the reality of it is,

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whether it's channels pausing production or employees leaving the company or the

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exact dollar amounts that we made on a specific deal, there really are some

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things we just can't talk about. Both for our protection and for our team. Say

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you were canned, for instance. Would you want your former boss or colleagues

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talking about it on a podcast? Of course not. And for fairness sake, we have the

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same processes so that everyone is treated the same. As for the final

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chart, you can see there is even more detail under each slice that we didn't

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really get into and it can get pretty complicated. This is a big part of the

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reason that I hired a CEO back in early 2023 and have asked the rest of the

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leadership team to step up. My strength is being a bottomless pit of creativity

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and I found that while I could spend my time on the details, it wasn't

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necessarily the best thing for the company and the team. What the team does

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like though is getting paid. Thanks to our sponsor, ODO. They have an

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accounting app that helps you manage your business or website. So whether

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it's managing customer invoices, your POSOS system, your employee salaries, or

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other miscellaneous operations, ODU can track, receive, or pay out bills as

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needed. They have a wide variety of apps, and you only need to select the

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apps that you need, and you can even start by using one full app completely

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for free. So head down to the link in the description to start your 15-day

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trial today. Thanks for watching, guys. I don't actually sit in annual business

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reviews anymore. So, when I reviewed the script with Elijah, that was

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legitimately my first look at these numbers for 2024. Hopefully, it was as

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fun for you guys to go through as it was for me. If you want to see in more

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detail what's changed over the years, go check out the two previous editions

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we've done of this back in 2016 and in 2020.