How a failed horror movie director co-founded one of the most popular yoga channels on YouTube

01 Dec 2025 • 48 min • EN

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   There was a time 20 years ago where if you filmed a horror movie on a tight enough budget, you could plausibly turn a profit from the DVD sales alone. Unfortunately for Chris Sharpe, his entry into the horror genre came just as the DVD market was collapsing, and so his career as a movie director fizzled out after he made only one film.    Luckily, one of the stars of that film, Hilah Johnson, had a strong onscreen presence and a penchant for cooking, and together they launched Hilah Cooking, a YouTube channel that eventually grew to over 450,000 subscribers. Then a few years later Chris teamed up with another co-star from that movie, Adriene Mishler, to launch Yoga With Adriene, which now has over 13 million subscribers on YouTube.   In a recent interview, Chris walked through how he and his collaborators launched both channels, why Hilah decided to eventually end her channel, and the massive success they've seen building a yoga streaming app.  

From "The Business of Content with Simon Owens"

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