The Try Guys say their subscription strategy is working

After a rough couple years, YouTube creators The Try Guys said they’re on-track to reach profitability, with subscriptions to their three-month-old, ad-free service 2nd Try now accounting for 20% of the company’s revenue.

Of course, those numbers also mean The Try Guys remain reliant on other revenue streams, including YouTube advertising. But in an interview with CNBC, co-founder Zach Kornfeld said the service is exceeding expectations — and the goal is to keep growing until 2nd Try becomes their biggest source of money.

Beyond their popular videos and series, The Try Guys are also infamous for a scandal in which one of the group’s co-founders was caught having an affair with an employee — a scandal that also damaged the group’s relationship with advertisers.

“Our company was operating at a loss for essentially two years,” Kornfeld said. “We got to a point where it cost more money for us to make the shows our audience loved than we got in from YouTube.”

Another group of popular YouTubers launched a separate subscription service, Watcher Entertainment, earlier this year, provoking fan backlash over a plan to limit the amount of episodes released for free on YouTube.