This social-first news outlet turned street interviews into a 600,000-subscriber YouTube channel

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Roca News was founded on a simple premise: so much of news now is consumed on social platforms, with fewer and fewer internet users clicking through to article pages.

After launching in 2020, it gained its initial success on Instagram, where it amassed hundreds of thousands of followers by distilling important news stories into swipeable images.

It then launched a daily newsletter that’s since grown to over 200,000 subscribers.

Most recently, the company has invested heavily in its YouTube channel, sending its on-camera hosts to far-flung locations to interview everyday people about their unique experiences.

Each video racks up hundreds of thousands of views, and the channel has grown to close to 600,000 subscribers in a little over a year.

In a recent interview, co-founders Max Towey and Max Frost recounted Roca’s origin story, walked through its initial Instagram strategy, and explained how they invented a unique documentary format for their YouTube channel.