🌾 Who is SB Mowing: 25+ million followers?

September 20, 2023 | Sign Up | Support Us

TOGETHER WITH

Good morning, Wichita!

The first day of actual fall is coming up and Kansas weather is acting accordingly.

In today's Wichita Life Update

Who is SB Mowing?
SB Mowing Deep Dive
Upcoming events

Let's get to it!

- Landon Huslig

TOGETHER WITH THE CITY OF WICHITA

During Open Streets ICT, I took to the streets to see how well our fellow citizens know their beloved city.

I asked a few trivia questions, but one of them was:

“Including the Mayor, how many people are on the City Council?”

To my surprise (not), no one got it right, although some were close, but I wanted to give you your fun fact for the day.

There are 7 people on the city council, including the mayor.

You can find your district here as well as your council representative.

Learn More Here

SB Mowing

Wichita has its fair share of large youtubers between Hoovies Garage (1.52 million subscribers), Tanner Braungardt (4.42 million subscribers), Lisa Nguyen (4.6 million subscribers & no longer in Wichita, but we still claim her), and more, but there is someone else we are highlighting today who you might have seen go viral a time or two.

You might have also seen him on KMUW, KWCH, or KSN.

SB Mowing is basically the Mr. Beast of the lawn care industry. In just 2 short years, he has gained over 25+ million followers and subscribers across his social media empire.

That brings about the question, who is SB Mowing?

Who is SB Mowing?

Meet Spencer B aka SB Mowing.

Spencer is a Wichita native who has owned a lawn care business for over half of his life. Let's dive into how he became the famous content creator he is today.

Here is a rough timeline of events:

~2010 (Age 11): Spencer started SB Mowing to make money as a kid and continues through high school and college.
~2017: Spencer received a scholarship for computer science to KSU, but kept SB Mowing going through college by hiring family friends in Wichita and coming back himself on weekends.
May 2021: Spencer graduated from KSU and started a remote programming job out of Chicago while living in Wichita.
August 2021: Spencer always wanted to start a YouTube channel, but outside of some personal finance videos he made (which wasn't a great fit for him - see below), he hadn't found his fit quite yet.

August 2021: Inspired by other lawn care youtubers like Lawn Care Juggernaut, Top Notch Lawn Care, and Fill's Lawn Care, Spencer started mowing one lawn per week for free and filming the experience.
August 2021: Spencer's 1st video hit 7 million views on TikTok and 10-20k on Youtube.

His 2nd video hit 5 million in the first month on Youtube and has gone on to be his 2nd most watched video, now up to ~14 million views. This catapulted him to 60k subscribers on Youtube in month 1 and allowed him to monetize his channel per ad revenue.

October 2021: Spencer loved creating content and weighed the risk vs reward of quitting his job to go all in on it, which he did this month as he needed more time to make better videos. Yes, he QUIT HIS first full-time JOB just 2-3 months into making videos and just 6 months after graduating college!
Summer 2022: Spencer has roughly ~1 million followers across all platforms.
Early 2023: Spencer sells the actual mowing business of SB Mowing to his brother to focus full time on social media.
August 2023: Spencer has ~23 million followers across all his social media.

How has the format changed?

Starting out, Spencer used to record himself working on the lawn and then record a simple voice over.

This evolved over the next 6-12 months until he really nailed down his classic style everyone has come to know and love where he shows his face, tells the story and then shows the interaction with the home owner or neighbors followed by the actual time lapse of the incredible work he does.

What does the process look like?

Spencer and his wife drive around for ~5-10 hours a week down every street in every area of Wichita before following up with the yards that need the most help before stopping by to ask the home owner or neighbors (where nearly everyone says yes).

Spencer then cleans up ~2-3 yards per week which typically take a full day per yard to clean up. His wife helps him edit the main videos full time and then he edits the short form videos for the various platforms.

Each video takes up to ~40 hours between the clean up and editing. There is a direct correlation (in his words) between the amount of time spent and the quality of the video.

Highlights

Every video has a great story, but a few stand out.

Mark Eden is a disabled veteran who couldn't afford his utility bills.

Not only did Spencer clean up his yard, but he created a GoFundMe where he was able to raise $10k for Mark in just a single day to help him get back on his feet.

Tips for aspiring Creators

In our podcast with Spencer, he gave incredible advice, but a few pieces were to:

Post consistent, good videos
Make it super interesting in first 10 seconds
You don't need fancy equipment, he uses a DJI action camera (like a go pro)

Want to learn more?

Be sure to listen to my full podcast with Spencer where we touched on topics from how his income breaks down between ad revenue and sponsor dollars, the scariest lawn he has cleaned up, privacy, and copyright issues.

Check it out on Youtube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!