How horror YouTubers Sam and Colby built a $13 million apparel business by focusing on the origins of their friendship

Sam and Colby Enterprises generated about $20 million in revenue last year.
Clothing brand XPLR accounts for the biggest slice of the pie.
The horror duo has been ahead of their time bringing YouTube videos to the big screen.

As shy high schoolers growing up in Kansas, Sam Golbach and Colby Brock became best friends exploring abandoned sites around town.

Forging friendships by doing scary things together — “getting off your couch, and exploring the world,” as Brock tells it — is a concept at the heart of their multifaceted media business, which generated about $20 million in revenue last year, they told Business Insider. BI confirmed the figures with documentation provided by the duo.

Golbach and Brock rose to fame as teenagers on Vine, chronicling public stunts and goofy skits. Roughly a decade later, at 28, they’ve gone against the grain with endeavors like feature-length YouTube videos amid a short-form explosion and an apparel business that doesn’t even bear their names.

They said they’ve kept an eye on ventures that can appeal beyond their fandom of 14 million subscribers, knowing YouTube fame can’t last forever.

Over time, the duo’s content has evolved from exploring abandoned places to paranormal investigations — most recently at Mexico City’s Island of the Dolls. Given this conceit, they’re leaning into experiential business ventures. That includes the purchase of a haunted elementary school in Iowa, which they’ve used for filming and to offer tours, as well as a forthcoming escape room inside The Escape Hotel in Los Angeles.

“That sense of community is everything to our business,” Golbach said. “That has been the sole reason why we’re able to last more than a decade on YouTube.”

Zumiez and Hot Topic have been force multipliers

Their clothing company, XPLR — short for “explore” — launched in 2017 in partnership with merch purveyor Fanjoy.

“We didn’t want to be the face of a brand,” Brock said.

While he knew items plastered with their names and faces would sell well in the short term, the duo wanted to create something with “deeper meaning,” and a brand inspired by the genesis of their friendship.

They retained the rights to XPLR when they took operations in-house.

“We just had an epiphany moment around the end of 2022 that we were making merch and we wanted to make clothing,” Golbach said of elevating the line and expanding into new categories like mugs, jewelry, and shoes.

Online sales accounted for $7.7 million in 2024, but brick-and-mortar has been a force multiplier. In 2023, Golbach and Brock linked up with retailer Zumiez through their supplier. After a successful Black Friday trial, they landed in stores nationally. Hot Topic brought the range in-store in 2024. Physical retail accounted for $5.3 million in sales last year, the duo said.

The growth of XPLR has also sparked a sense of pride among fans who’ve followed along since its inception.

Golbach said a meet-and-greet at Zumiez inside the Mall of America attended by nearly 10,000 fans last year was “the best day of our lives.”

Doubling head count to 16 employees

As their careers have grown, Golbach and Brock have been working behind the scenes to structure their enterprise for the long haul.

They had eight employees at the beginning of 2024, and now have 16. Chief Operations Officer Kong Pham, who has been with the company since 2023, has been instrumental in building the team, they said.

Brock called entrepreneurship a “big learning curve,” including cultivating management skills and shaping an autonomous company culture. Slack is key for their mostly remote teams, which include content, merch, and management.

They recently onboarded staff to dub their videos in Spanish, which resulted in the biggest spike in YouTube subscriptions and ad revenue in a single day.

And while “content is the train that carries everything else,” Golbach said, brand deals aren’t a huge part of the equation, accounting for just $900,000 in revenues last year.

They’d prefer to launch their own brands, he said.

That’s an approach that’s become a trend across the creator landscape, with top stars like MrBeast and Emma Chamberlain focusing on their own companies.

Bringing feature-length YouTube videos to the big screen

As Hollywood increasingly looks to native creators for streaming films and shows, Golbach and Brock were ahead of their time. Their feature-length videos have been something of an anomaly — especially amid a short-form content explosion starting around 2020.

“You get to know somebody when you spend an hour and a half with them,” Golbach said.

During the Halloween season of 2023, they partnered with theater chain Cinemark to distribute “A Week at the Conjuring House” ahead of its YouTube premiere at 170 screens nationwide.

In 2024, their film “Sam and Colby: The Legends Of The Paranormal,” premiered at the famed TCL Chinese Theatre and debuted at the No. 6 spot at the domestic box office. It was subsequently distributed in 350 theaters.

Brock said they’re currently in talks with major production companies about what’s next.

And the success of other creators in the traditional space, including Amazon Primce’s “Beast Games,” marks a step forward for the greater creator economy, said Golbach, who foresees “a massive shift” with more creators getting into business with Hollywood over the next five years.

“This definitely won’t be the only time you see Sam and Colby in theaters, but next time it will be absolutely different,” he said.