About Tim Schmoyer

Father. Creator.
In training for something eternal.

I believe God is training us for something so big that it changes how I approach everything: leading my family, growing a business, and coaching other men who want to do the same.

Tim Schmoyer and his family on the Roebling Bridge in Cincinnati
The Origin

I started making YouTube videos because of a girl

In 2006, fresh out of seminary and serving as a youth pastor, I stumbled onto a new site called YouTube. I uploaded videos of my girlfriend and me going to dinner, the park, playing video games. We'd call them vlogs today. Back then it was just being awkward in public with a camera.

Then other people started watching, which freaked me out, so I started digging into how YouTube worked. My girlfriend and I got married, moved to another church, and kept making videos on the side.

By 2011, I'd become the first creator training other YouTube creators. My company, Video Creators, grew to help thousands of creators earn over 20 billion views and 100 million subscribers. I worked with brands like Disney, eBay, Warner Brothers, and HBO. We were featured by FOX, Forbes, and the BBC.

In 2022, I sold the company to vidIQ and started publicly wrestling with the question I've been pondering for almost two decades: "What is all of this actually for?"

Tim speaking at Social Media Marketing World

"Dad, I feel like our family only does fun things together when we make YouTube videos."

— One of my kids, 2014  ·  The sentence jolted me out of focusing primarily on YouTube and redirected my focus to leading my family well.
Track Record

Two decades of building businesses around online audiences

In 2013, I started a YouTube growth agency from scratch, scaled it to serve major global brands and top creators, then sold it. I went through all the stress, team problems, product failures, and hard lessons that came with it.

20+
Years as a creator
20B+
Views driven for clients
100M+
Subscribers earned
2022
Agency acquired by vidIQ
Worked with brands like
Disney eBay Warner Brothers HBO YouTube
The Mission

There's a bigger vision than a successful business or a comfortable retirement

After years of exploring leadership in family, business, marriage, and faith, someone challenged me to summarize it all in one word. It came almost immediately: Eldership. Not the old men passing offering plates. The kind where men are known at the gates of their city, where they govern with wisdom, manage faithfully, and lead their homes well.

1
Stage One

Father in the Home

A man must first learn to lead his own household with grace and wisdom. This isn't a lesser calling, as many men live today. It's the training ground for everything that comes after.

"He must manage his own household well." — 1 Timothy 3:4
2
Stage Two

Elder in the City

The father who manages his home well earns the privilege of sitting in the city gates, presiding with wisdom over broader community and business life.

"Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders." — Proverbs 31:23
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Stage Three

Ruler in the Kingdom

Christ rewards faithful stewardship of home and city with authority over cities in the age to come. Retirement isn't the finish line. The Kingdom is.

"Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities." — Luke 19:17

This means your daily work as a father is connected to eternal impact. When you navigate conflict with your wife, you're learning the patience required to mediate disputes. When you teach your children to think biblically about money or marriage, you're practicing the shepherding skills you'll one day exercise over broader spheres.

Fatherhood is both the proving ground and the training ground for what's to come.

And the business you're building is part of the practice. The audience you've grown, the team you're learning to lead, the product you're trying to launch is all preparation for something bigger than your business stats.

I'm not writing or coaching as an expert who has it all figured out. I'm a dad who just believes that the daily work of leading a family connects to fathering a city, and one day, responsibility in God's Kingdom. I'm still at step one and am inviting other men to wrestle with this alongside me.

The Schmoyer family at home with their backyard chickens
Life Outside the Work

What home base actually looks like

My wife Dana and I have seven kids, all homeschooled. We live in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area on a mini homestead farm, which is its own kind of leadership training.

We do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu together as a family. Turns out grappling is a decent metaphor for a lot of things in business and leadership.

I'm involved with Story-Formed Life, a faith-based discipleship organization, and part of a Cincinnati-area community exploring multigenerational family vision.

I still work at vidIQ as Chief Creator Coach, leading a coaching program that serves thousands of creators, but this coaching work is separate and personal.

What's Next

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1:1 Coaching · Application Required

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For mission-driven creators who are ready to build a business that funds their vision without consuming their family. We'll work on your systems, team, offer, funnel, and the bigger questions underneath all of it.

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