Ryan Trahan's 28th Birthday Countdown

Ryan Trahan Timeline

About Ryan Trahan

A former competitive runner, Trahan grew a massive YouTube following with viral challenge series, most famously crossing the United States starting with a single penny, and co-founded the candy brand Joyride. He's a frequent MrBeast collaborator.

The runner who bet on a water bottle

In 2017, Trahan was a freshman cross-country runner at Texas A&M with a small YouTube channel and a water-bottle startup called Neptune Bottle. The NCAA handed him an ultimatum: he could keep competing or keep promoting his company online, but not both. Rather than shut down the business, he walked away from Division I athletics and, eventually, from school itself - betting everything on the channel. The bet paid off spectacularly: that little running vlog grew into one of YouTube's most-watched channels, with more than 20 million subscribers.

One penny, thirty days, 196 million views

Trahan's signature format sounds impossible on purpose. In June 2022 he started with a single penny in California and spent 30 days flipping it - surveys, lawn mowing, DoorDash runs, reselling water bottles - into enough money to cross the country and hand-deliver the penny to MrBeast in North Carolina. The series pulled in roughly 196 million views in a month and added over two million subscribers. He ran it back in 2023 with an international penny journey, cementing the challenge as a genre of its own.

The videos that feed people

Trahan turned his stunts into fundraising machines. The 2022 penny series raised $1.38 million for Feeding America - nearly 14 times his $100,000 goal, enough for millions of meals. The 2023 sequel raised about $400,000 for Water.org. Then in 2024 he and his wife Haley visited all 50 states in 50 days, posting a video from each one, and their community raised more than $11.5 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital - one of the biggest creator-led fundraisers YouTube has ever seen.

Quick facts

• Born October 7, 1998, in Eagle Lake, Texas
• Ran cross country for Texas A&M before leaving to build his startup and YouTube channel
• His 2022 penny challenge raised $1.38 million for Feeding America in 30 days
• His 2025 '50 States in 50 Days' series raised over $11.5 million for St. Jude
• Co-owner and Chief Creative Officer of the low-sugar candy brand Joyride
• Has more than 20 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel

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