Entrepreneur: Kristine and Michael of Family Fun Pack

Tilt: Life in a two-parent, seven-kid family

Scene: YouTube (10.1M), TikTok (621K), Instagram (286K), Twitter (14K), merch

Snack Bites: 

  • Kristine created the public YouTube channel by accident. She intended to share videos of her kids with relatives, but the channel was set to public, and her family became an instant hit.
  • After about five years, she and her husband Matt turned it into a full-time business. (They don’t share their last name publicly.)
  • The Family Fun Pack channel has produced 2.4K videos in its 11-year history.
  • The audience has turned into a devoted fan base because they’ve followed the children growing up. Now, their 17-year-old daughter operates her own YouTube brand, Always Alyssa.

Why We Stan: With a fun origin story, the Family Fun Pack has become a business involving two parents, seven kids, and a staff of six. They recognize the importance of building a brand as a family unit and as individuals. We’re not a fan of some of their video thumbnails that sometimes feel a little clickbaity, but their audience doesn’t seem to mind.

Story of Family Fun Pack

Kristine didn’t want anyone to see her YouTube video. When she first posted on the platform, she only meant to share a video of her kids with her in-laws.

Today, over 10M subscribers tune in to the Family Fun Pack channel for travel and parenting advice, games and challenges, and keeping up with her family. Kristine and her husband Matt (who don’t disclose their last name publicly) turned it into a full-time content business, with some help from their seven kids who star on the channel.

In 2011, Kristine took a video of her identical twin boys climbing into their cribs to go to bed and wanted to send it to her in-laws, she explains to Tube Filter. At the time, sending the large attachment by email proved troublesome, so Kristine simply loaded the video on YouTube and sent the link to her in-laws. The video wasn’t supposed to get many views; in fact, it wasn’t supposed to be listed as public. Nevertheless, the clip went viral. In light of the video’s popularity, Kristine continued to post about her kids as they grew up.

Expanding and hiring a staff

By 2016, Kristine shares with Tube Filter, the channel had a million subscribers, and it became apparent that it could be a new career for the two parents. At the outset, Kristine edited every video in part because she had difficulty trusting outsiders to do the work. Slowly, the family began to bring in editors they felt they could rely on. 

Currently, a half-dozen employees edit the videos and create the graphics for the video thumbnails. 

Kristine wanted to share a video of her sons with her in-laws. But it was too big to attach to an email, so she posted it to @YouTube. That unexpectedly launched a family business (@FamilyFunPack). #Stan #ContentEntrepreneur Click To Tweet

Family Fun Pack’s videos consistently attract tens of thousands of views in the short term and climb into the hundreds of millions over the years. Kids 72 Costume Runway Show, for example, was posted eight years ago and has over 625M views.

Even in their daily life, the family experiences a great deal of support from their following. “We always meet fans when we’re out and about,” Kristine tells Tube Filter. “It’s always humbling to meet them and see how we’ve touched their lives and things like that.” 

Part of what makes Family Fun Pack’s community so special is that they post videos accessible to all ages and have been doing it so long that viewers have grown up with the family. Seemingly every video has a comments section inundated with positive remarks, such as:

“Literally (sic) my whole childhood I love you guys so much. The kids have grown soo much”

Of course, the family doesn’t limit itself to long-form YouTube videos. Kristine also frequently posts YouTube Shorts and TikTok videos. Many fans also follow Kristine’s oldest child’s channel, Always Alyssa, which offers a similar energy to her family’s account and has over a million subscribers. 

About the author

Leo Bonacci writes, proofreads, and edits for The Tilt. A student of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, he’s a fan of classical mythology as well as the English language. Leo’s interest in storytelling extends to his great enjoyment of movies and film, from low-budget schlockfests to cinematic masterpieces.