My First Million · Oct 7, 2026 · 1h 3m · 45m saved
With Jeff Harmon, Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer of Angel Studios
Jeff Harmon's first viral campaign cost $500 to make. It sold tongue cleaners, and he thinks the company behind them sold for about $10 million.
A university class told the inventor that only 8% of people wanted to buy his product online and that he needed a deal with a consumer-goods giant. Harmon said 8% was about 30 million Americans, and built every business since on a small group the rest of the market ignores.
"I found a glitch in the system and everybody who starts a business, you have to find your glitch." — Jeff Harmon
Jeff Harmon, co-founder and Chief Content Officer of Angel Studios, on My First Million, ran the Harmon Brothers agency behind the Poo-Pourri, Squatty Potty and Purple mattress ads before building Angel, the studio that released Sound of Freedom and started The Chosen. The host put Angel's revenue at almost $500 million.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 1 hour 3 minutes of audio, 18 minutes of reading.
Here are the 14 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
The first Orabrush ad cost about $500, and YouTube ads then cost less than a penny a view
Every $1 of total cost brought in $2 or $3
Look for attention nobody else is paying for, such as shoppers who buy through AI agents instead of Google
Harmon helped YouTube design the skippable ad and asked it not to put a time limit on an ad viewers chose to keep watching
A 20-minute pilot posted as an ad raised $11 million for The Chosen from 17,000 people, on $800,000 of ad spend
It is easier to train a comedian to market than to train a marketer to be funny, and every joke has to sell the product
Each Angel film is launched like a new startup, with a new release every four to six weeks
Social platforms recognize faces, not just captions, which is how a new account run by Kevin James in character went viral
Angel's members vote on every film before it reaches theaters, and a veto means Angel cannot release it
Sound of Freedom cost $14 million to make and $40 million to market, and reached $250 million worldwide
Hollywood has a cost problem, not a revenue problem, Harmon said
Harmon does not expect AI to cause mass unemployment, because more productive workers make companies want more of them
1. The $500 Orabrush Video
On the last day of his last university class, a dentist the host called Dr. Bob asked the students how to sell his Orabrush, a tongue cleaner he had invented. His garage was full of unsold boxes. The class told him almost nobody wanted to buy it online and that he should partner with Procter & Gamble or Johnson & Johnson.
Harmon saw a market in the 8% the class dismissed
"And I interrupted them and said 8% of people is like 30 million people just in the United States." — Jeff Harmon
The dentist asked to work with him after class. Harmon first had him spend $5,000 to buy a Facebook page called Kisses, with what he thinks was 1.3 million followers, and renamed it for the brand. It sold almost nothing. Google ads cost $3 to $5 for each dollar of sales.
The script came from door-to-door selling
Harmon watched the early YouTuber iJustine cut out every pause in her videos and decided the company could make something at that level. A film-major roommate shot it and a comedian roommate punched up the script. Harmon drew on two years as a Mormon missionary in Ireland and a teenage job selling Idaho potatoes door to door.
"So you become a pretty good salesperson selling the gospel and learn how to take rejection." — Jeff Harmon
The video borrowed from a Howcast clip with about 400,000 views on how to check for bad breath with a spoon. Harmon said the tongue is the source of 90% of bad breath.
The glitch was YouTube's new ad platform
"And making a video that we spent $500 on which Dr. Bob complained about at the time that we were spending too much money." — Jeff Harmon
Harmon's brother built a site offering a free brush for the price of shipping. YouTube had launched its ad platform weeks or months earlier.
"We got on YouTube and we started buying ads and those ads cost less than a penny per view." — Jeff Harmon
"So it's like the early days of AdSense and so we were able to spend a dollar and bring in two or three dollars." — Jeff Harmon
That dollar covered the ads, the shipping and the brush. As YouTube ad prices rose, the data from that early traffic let the company keep getting more efficient. Harmon called that first foothold a beachhead, as at Normandy.
"I don't remember the revenues, but we sold I think the company sold for about $10 million." — Jeff Harmon
