YouTube Collaborations: How Matthew Beem & Airrack Cracked the YouTube Growth Code

YouTube collaborations serve as one of the most effective strategies for channel growth. When creators team up, both parties gain exposure to new audiences, creating a win-win situation for everyone involved - including viewers who get fresh content.

Case Study #1: Matthew Beem

Matthew Beem stands out as a prime example of collaboration success. He built his massive following through strategic partnerships with YouTube's biggest stars. His approach focused on creating value for established creators by building custom projects.

Starting with few subscribers, Beem persisted in getting MrBeast's attention. He created videos featuring the MrBeast brand, even covering his house with MrBeast merchandise and consuming 300 MrBeast burgers. After a year of attempts, Beem took a bold step - he secured a loan to create a custom car for MrBeast despite having no prior connection to him.

This risky move paid off. The video received 4 million views, and MrBeast recognized Beem's potential. Later, MrBeast contacted Beem to build the iconic Squid Game doll for his recreation video. This collaboration resulted in 20 million views for Beem, gained him 1 million subscribers, and earned him a mention in a video that garnered over 200 million views.

Beem continued this format by creating custom projects for other top creators:

• Giant boxing gloves for Jake Paul

• A Pokemon card for Logan Paul

• A recreation of Bikini Bottom from SpongeBob

Case Study #2: Airrack

Another creator, Airrack, employed similar tactics. His approach to collaborations focused on making content creation easy for established YouTubers. When David Dobrik needed content, Airrack hired Dobrik lookalikes to surprise him at his house. The video earned 1.7 million views while providing Dobrik with free, effortless content for his own channel.

Airrack repeated this strategy with Logan Paul. After learning Logan wanted to sell his expensive couches, Airrack took out a $17,000 loan to purchase them. This move not only created content but established a relationship with Logan. By coordinating his video release with Logan's, Airrack gained 250,000 subscribers in a month, transforming his channel trajectory.

According to TubeBuddy, the average creator uploads 3,873 videos to hit 1 million subscribers. Airrack only uploaded 58 videos to reach 1 million subscribers.

Case Study #3: Tyler Oakley

Many of YouTube’s biggest creators started with zero budget. Their success came from being resourceful, building strong audience connections, and leveraging collaborations with other channels. If you want to grow in the same way, think like a creator and use partnerships to your advantage.

Tyler Oakley, a YouTuber with 6.7 million subscribers, has built a large portion of his success through collaborations. He has a playlist featuring over 122 collabs, making up nearly 20% of his main channel’s content.

Fish where the fish are and collaborate with similar channels that already have established subscriber bases.

Collaboration Strategies from a Research Paper

The research paper "Collaborations on YouTube: From Unsupervised Detection to the Impact on Video and Channel Popularity" reveals specific patterns for collaboration success:

The Sub-100K Growth Explosion

For creators with under 100,000 subscribers, collaborations can spark exponential growth. Smaller channels often see their subscriber counts double after strategic partnerships.

The key lies in timing - posting collaboration videos immediately and promoting them aggressively during the first 48 hours captures a 30% higher growth rate than delaying release.

This initial burst of activity signals to the algorithm that the content deserves wider distribution, creating a snowball effect of visibility.

Million-Plus Channels: Beyond Subscriber Hunting

Channels that have already crossed the million-subscriber threshold operate with different objectives. At this scale, pure subscriber growth is more challenging.

Instead, these larger creators focus on using partnerships to drive views, watch time, and engagement metrics.

The content quality and viewer retention become paramount, as these factors influence revenue more directly than raw subscriber counts at the upper echelons of YouTube success.

The main rule of collaboration is to stick to your niche. You need to collaborate within your own category (e.g., Entertainment, Gaming) for better subscriber gains, unless you’re in “People & Blogs”—then mix it up.

The Power of Value Exchange

Successful collaborations share a common element - value exchange. Matthew Beem and Airrack understood this principle. They invested significant resources upfront without guarantees, making it easy for established creators to say yes.

The pattern works because larger creators receive:

• Free, high-quality content

• Reduced production effort

• New creative concepts

In return, smaller creators gain:

• Massive exposure to new audiences

• Credibility through association

• Content that stands out in the algorithm

This approach demonstrates the effectiveness of strategic collaborations on YouTube. By providing genuine value to larger creators and their audiences, smaller channels can experience rapid growth even without initial connections in the industry.

Hat Tip to Open AI's Deep Research (more directionally correct) and Grok's DeepSearch for the resources. I had notes on YouTube collaborations that I had read years ago but couldn't find them for very long. Found the note by chance today and decided to try them out with the new AI tools and found exactly what I wanted. For context, I am top 0.1% of searchers in the world who can find almost anything but couldn't find this. Make of that what you will.

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