Meet the Vancouver brothers behind the finance and economics channel 2 and 20
Aman and Kamal bring their backgrounds in business, consulting, history, and economics to the explainer videos they upload to their YouTube channel, 2 and 20, which has racked up millions of views. As one of 21 creators selected for the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program, they plan to use the money to increase their output and build their media brand.
At the end of 2023, Aman, a Vancouver-based investment professional and former consultant and investor, started making videos about finance, economics and global affairs and posting them on YouTube. “It was just me talking in front of a low-res camera,” he explains. “It was very low fidelity.”
The videos were a hobby that complemented his nine-to-five job. “My work is a lot more numbers-oriented, and I’ve always loved being more creative,” he says.
His first two videos were about the signals pointing to a housing crash and recession in the U.S. — topics he was interested in and knowledgeable about.
He showed the videos to his brother Kamal, who studied history and economics at the University of British Columbia and now works as a business strategist and investor. “Kamal was like, ‘We can make this a lot cooler and more entertaining,’” recalls Aman.
Kamal started helping Aman edit the videos, adding elements like music, graphs, animation and video footage. “I learned how to edit and animate myself, just from YouTube tutorials,” explains Kamal, who was also interested in starting a YouTube channel. “I was trying to figure out how Johnny Harris, who is a big YouTuber and has about 6 million subscribers, animated his videos to look so pretty. That upped our production level quite a bit.”
Meanwhile, Aman adapted his writing style to be more approachable. He admits his prior work in consulting led him to write scripts that were dense and heavy at first. “I started to change it to be more narrative-driven,” Aman says.
A Channel is Born
They named their channel 2 and 20 after the structure of investment funds that charge a two percent management fee and a 20 percent performance fee on profits above a minimum threshold.
With their new formula and identity, the duo started to see more success. In September 2023, they released a video about the Canadian economy that got about 37,000 views. That was followed by a video in February 2024 called “Why Brexit Failed the UK,” that got nearly 140,000 views. Then came a string of viral hits — a video about the housing and affordability crisis in Canada, followed by a similar video focusing on housing and affordability in Australia, each of which now has around 3 million views.
“Our subscriber count went from 5,000 to 40,000 in weeks,” Kamal recalls. “We started getting sponsors reaching out and famous YouTubers reacting to our videos. It was an insane amount of exposure.”
The brothers started to take their channel more seriously, seeing the potential for it to become something more. Kamal hired editors, animators and thumbnail artists to take over some of his duties, in part because the workload at his day job was increasing. He moved into more of a production role. “I will write up production guidance for the editors and animators, line by line, for the entire video,” he explains.
Aman, too, got help with researching and writing the scripts, which usually take one to two weeks to complete. At the end of 2024, Andrew Hayley, a former Reuters journalist who now works in finance, reached out to the duo to offer his help. “That's been really cool, too, because he brings something to the table with his perspectives,” says Aman.
Sponsors and CMF Support
The brothers now have a strong following of 230,000 subscribers. Since they still work their day jobs, they can be picky about their sponsors, ensuring they’re a fit with their brand and audience. Finding a balance between sponsorship opportunities and maintaining their audience is something Kamal says is a challenge. “We want to keep a close-knit community but not inundate them with sponsorships.”
Another challenge is how to grow the channel while meeting the demands of their day jobs. Kamal and Aman hope hiring more outside assistance can help them find the balance they need. Their goal is to increase their output from about one long-form video per month to one every two weeks.
They also want to release more short-form videos on platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram — something they’ll be able to accomplish with the funds they’re receiving from the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program. The program, now in its third year, distributes a total of $394,000 among 21 creators who make short-form video content on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
“We've always put off shorts just because of money and people resources,” Kamal says. “[The fund] will help us tremendously. Scaling our shorts strategy is important for bringing a new set of viewers to our long-form content, which we think is more valuable.”
Hopes for the Future
Aman and Kamal see 2 and 20 as more than just a video platform. “We want to build a media group focused on economics and geopolitics,” Aman says. “We want to not only do long-form videos but also go to different countries and speak with people, adding on a podcast as well.”
Their future goals represent a vision for how news-driven content creators, like 2 and 20, could gain more popularity and importance than traditional media outlets with the right funding and support. “Our generation, millennials and Gen Z, aren't watching mainstream media,” Kamal says. “It's important that you're on the platforms [that] people are headed towards.”
