Over two years ago, senior mechanical engineering major Kyle Cordova started working for the YouTube channel “Mathew Beem.” Since then, the channel has become one of the fastest growing channels with 1.51 million subscribers.
Cordova is the lead engineer for Beem’s channel. He oversees and creates designs for the projects, and then helps build them. He called it a “crazy experience” and one that he will do full-time after he graduates.
Cordova met Beem through a friend and began working on videos almost immediately. According to Cordova, Beem was always filming and asked him for some help. Both Cordova and Beem are from Colorado.
“I didn’t have any plan coming in to school and stuff. I was just like, ‘I’ll just do chemical engineering,’” he said. “I graduate this May and I’ll do full time YouTube after I graduate.”
Cordova started getting paid for his work on the channel a couple of months ago. Before, he worked for free because he enjoyed it.
“He didn’t have to pay me now but yeah, he’s getting the money,” Cordova said. “A lot of people don’t realize how much money you can make from YouTube.”
The channel had about 20,000 subscribers in July 2021 and has since gained more than 1.5 million subscribers.
In video published in July 2021, they built a custom car for the famous YouTuber “Mr. Beast.” The video has over 3.9 million views and has been credited as the video that helped the channel become one of the fastest growing on YouTube. Since then, Beem has built MrBeast a “Squid Game” doll, a giant chocolate bar and a MrBeast burger to space.
A lot of the channel’s videos begin with a challenge Beem wants take on. His team, including Cordova, work through the challenges presented with Beem’s ideas. Sometimes they question if it’s possible to meet his ambitions.
Cordova works on most of the videos and is often one of the teammates facing these challenges.
“I help on like 80% to 90% [of videos]. Some, I can’t make because of school,” he said. “But I try to be there as much as I can.”
The job requires some traveling to achieve the ambitious challenges in videos Beem creates. Recently he left the country for an event where YouTube rivals Logan Paul and KSI were launching a sports drink called Prime. Beem’s goal was to surprise them with Giant Prime Hydration bottles.
“I was in London because Logan Paul was supposed to be in London,” Cordova said. “We gave the models to KSI in London. I’ve traveled to New York to LA to a lot of places and Hawaii.”
The channel began in January 2018, but Beem didn’t start uploading vlogs and challenges until February 2019.
According to Cordova, Beem has a relentless work ethic. Cordova respects Beem’s energy and dedication to studying YouTube trends, working on ideas and his persistence after being shut down several times.
“I mean he’s crazy, He gets stuff done,” Cordova said. “Like he will not stop until he’s at the top. And I support him, and I want to be there with him when he makes it to the top.”