On a rainy afternoon in Los Angeles, fans wrapped around the block waiting to experience BigTime, the explosively popular automotive YouTube channel known for its ambitious builds and garage-hang energy. For its first-ever in-person event, BigTime, partnered with Shopify to bring its community offline for a pop-up, complete with the team’s big rig outside, racks of its signature offbeat merch, a chain-stitch station customizing pieces on the spot, and even Max Verstappen’s Red Bull F1 car, delivered straight to the event. The turnout “was something I’ll never forget,” says Jeremiah Burton, BigTime’s cofounder. “To have people come out to support us meant the world to me.”
The pop-up was a big moment for a channel that hadn’t existed just over a year ago.
In late 2022, Jeremiah, designer Andy Paz, and several colleagues made the decision to leave Donut Media, one of YouTube’s most established automotive entertainment brands, where they had spent years helping shape its content and merchandise. Andy had scaled Donut’s merch program from six figures to seven, and both had seen the rewards—and the restrictions—of building under someone else’s brand. Spurred on by the desire for bigger builds and more creative control, the newly formed team set their sights on creating a channel that reflected their vision, without having to ask for permission. Starting from scratch was a risk, but they knew what they wanted: ownership and autonomy. “I knew we had everything we needed to launch something new—creative ideas, experience, connections,” Andy says. “We just needed the freedom to do it our own way.”
The decision paid off quickly. When BigTime launched its YouTube channel in June 2024, the response was immediate. Donut announced their departure publicly, and within just seven days, BigTime crossed one million subscribers. With full creative control and no red tape, BigTime was built around experimentation: buying a semitruck, a post-war Willys Jeep, a GT1 Trans Am race car, and even a Rascal scooter, just because they were interesting and fun. “Having full creative control has allowed us to take risks on projects and videos we wouldn’t have been able to do previously,” Jeremiah says. “We’ve taken some shots that were stinkers, and that’s part of the game.”
Jeremiah owes the rapid success to the way he and co-host Zach Jobe connect with their community. They aren’t untouchable creators, but people who genuinely love cars and want to try things without overthinking them. “I think we strike a balance of being super relatable while also being dreamers,” Jeremiah says. “Our audience loves the core videos of two guys in a home garage, but they also like the ones where we step out and surprise them with a side quest.”
Months before the channel’s first upload, Shopify signed on as BigTime’s first sponsor—a decision Jacob McCourt, Shopify’s creator partnerships lead, says came down to the fact that “Jeremiah, Zach, Andy, and their team were the kind of people you bet on.”
“They know how to make content that works, but more importantly, they’re unpretentious, funny, and incredibly smart,” he says.
The BigTime team knew that monetizing their brand’s energy via merch could become its own lucrative revenue stream, so they decided that even before they went live, they’d launch a Shopify store. For Andy, who had used Shopify for years to prototype designs, test drops, and run small collections, Shopify was the obvious infrastructure. “I could take a picture on my phone, plug it into Shopify, and launch something within minutes,” he says. “That accessibility was huge for me, and it still is.”
That simplicity informed the kind of products BigTime could make. Instead of defaulting to standard automotive tees, Andy designed merch rooted in culture, storytelling, and pure ridiculousness, such as collectible 10.5 millimeter wrenches with embedded chips that gave access to discount codes or exclusive content, drops that referenced the channel’s inside jokes and ongoing builds, and even a plush toy of Jeremiah’s dog.
For fans, BigTime’s merch became a way to participate. The same accessibility that made its content feel relatable carried over into the shop: a strong identity and an easy way to buy in. Before the team even pressed Post on their first video, BigTime launched its store using tools available to any creator and were able to get up and running quickly, so when it hit millions of views and subscribers poured in, the business was already set up to keep pace without slowing the creative side down.
It’s the same dynamic that was on full display at BigTime’s pop-up, where the brand received Shopify’s 10,000 order Milestone that day. Inside the event, fans were able to take home a piece of the brand for themselves, but they were just as focused on connecting with fellow fans who loved the same builds, jokes, and automotive shenanigans that shape BigTime. Andy remembers two people in particular—one who had driven from Seattle and another from San Diego—who met in line and immediately made plans to visit the LA-based house featured in Fast & Furious together the next day. “They had never met before,” he says. “Watching people connect like that was the best part of the whole day.”
That mindset is shaping the next phase of BigTime’s growth. In downtown LA, the team is renovating a warehouse into an event space and their first retail store. It’s another way to connect with their audience in person, and a look at where success can lead when business systems support it. “Cars are physical,” Andy says. “People want spaces to hang out. So we’re building that.”
The launch of the warehouse is also a return to the idea that started BigTime in the first place: the team betting on themselves. The channel was built on creative control, on making decisions without gatekeepers, and on growing a business at the same pace as the ideas behind it. With Shopify powering the brand’s back end, the founders have been able to scale the way they wanted to: on their own terms, without slowing down. For BigTime, independence is the reason the channel exists at all. “Going off on our own was a life-changing moment,” Jeremiah says. “And it wouldn’t have been possible without the people who watch our videos.”
