His name is Maxim Sheik & goes by the name @bymaximise.

Maxim Sheik was at IBM doing a Degree Apprenticeship in the UK when he realized the corporate path wasn't his. He was meeting his inspirations—like Ben Francis from Gymshark—on LinkedIn, but something didn't fit. So in 2023, he started building Maximise on the side, a vision around one idea: "do more with your time." He quit IBM in early 2024 without a backup plan, no brand deals, no safety net—just clarity and obsession.

He posted daily. Same format. Black background, Helvetica Neue text, rounded corners, minimal words, precise sound design. Nothing revolutionary. Just consistency. By month 3, he had 50K followers. By month 6, 500K. In September 2024, he announced: "6 months ago I quit my job at IBM. Today Maximise has over 1 million followers." From zero to running a media company in London—bootcamp, merch, competitions, documentary in the works—all because he refused to chase trends and instead built one format so clean, so intentional, that millions of people realized their feeds could feel calm instead of chaotic.

Today, he's changed how short-form video looks across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And almost nobody outside the creator and motivational world knows him.

The Problem He Solved

Before Bymaximise, motivation content was a mess.

Loud. Chaotic. Stealing every bit of attention. YouTube clips with terrible subtitles. Trending sounds mixed with random footage. Everything screaming at once.

On Instagram Reels, the algorithm rewarded chaos: fast cuts, bright colors, jump cuts, whatever would stop the scroll. The feed felt like being inside a carnival that never stopped.

Then Maxim started posting differently.

He took a simple idea—"do more with your time"—and wrapped it in clean black backgrounds, perfectly placed white text, rounded rectangle frames, and just enough sound design to make you want to listen. No chaos. No clutter. Just signal.

The feeds started to feel calm again. Intentional. Like someone actually designed this instead of just posting it.

He blew up.

And millions of people copied him.

What Makes Him Different

He went all-in on one thing.

While every other creator was testing 5 formats a week, chasing trends, pivoting every month—he was posting the same format. Daily. For months.

Black background. Helvetica Neue font. Rounded corners. 4-5 key words. SFX synced to the beat. 2-4 second shots. That's it.

Most people would call that boring. Maxim called it depth.

He optimized for clarity, not virality.

Algorithm-friendly content is usually loud and confusing. It grabs attention by being chaotic.

He did the opposite. Made things so clean, so intentional, so designed that you couldn't ignore it—not because it was shocking, but because everything else felt cheap by comparison.

He built a system, not just a style.

Most creators have a look. He has a system.

Typography hierarchy. Audio architecture. Text animation timing. Pacing rules. It's so consistent you can recognize a Bymaximise reel in 1 second.

Other creators studied his grid. Learned his font stack (Helvetica Neue + Roundhand). Reverse-engineered his sound design. Then tried to replicate it.

He stayed invisible.

Most creators with 1M followers are on podcasts, doing interviews, building personal brands.

Maxim? Still barely visible. Just posts reels. No vlogs. No "day in my life" content. No founder mythology.

The work is the entire brand.

What He Did To Take Over

1. The Frame – He took videos and put them inside a black rectangle with rounded corners. Sounds simple. Changed everything.

Suddenly, Reels looked intentional. Like they were designed, not just posted. It felt premium. Other creators copied it. Now it's the default "serious" aesthetic on Instagram.

2. The Font – Used Helvetica Neue (clean, neutral, disappears) paired with Roundhand (emotional, human, artistic).

This pairing became so iconic that 500+ YouTube tutorials teach it. Font choice wasn't decoration. It was the story.

3. The Sound – Most reels use music as background. He made sound part of the narrative.

Every whoosh, every sweep, every beat of silence had purpose. You could almost understand the message just by listening.

4. The Minimalism – While everyone else was layering effects, he was removing them.

4-5 words per reel. One emotion per video. No emojis. No stickers. Just pure signal. Paradoxically, less motion made it more engaging.

5. The Consistency – Posted the same format, every single day, for months.

Most people give up after 2 weeks. He understood that boring consistency compounds. Slowly, then suddenly, it became the standard.

What Happened Next

The Bootcamp
He launched a 60-day course teaching his entire workflow. Not cheap. Not meant for casual learners. For serious editors who want to operate at his level.

Link: https://whop.com/discover/timeline/timeline/

The Competition
"The Maximise Video" – Open submissions. 90 seconds max. Simple rules. Gets thousands of entries. Drives community and proof of his reach.

The Merch
Limited runs. Founders Club 2024 hat (£28, sold out). Weapon of Mass Distraction phone case (£24, sold out). Not about money. About community markers.

The Documentary
Posted on X: "Steve Jobs Didn't Accept Reality – A Documentary by Maximise, Dropping July 8th."

He's not stopping at reels. Building a media company.

Why This Matters

• Most people chase the algorithm.
• Maxim chased craft.
• Most people diversify their content.
• Maxim went deeper on one lane.
• Most people build personal brands.
• Maxim built a design system that works without his face.
• Most people talk about their process.
• Maxim just did the work and let others reverse-engineer it.

And it worked.

In less than a year, from zero to 1M followers. From IBM employee to running a media production company. From unknown to being the reference point for "how reels should look."

Not because he was the loudest. Because he was the clearest.

The Real Story

Here's what people miss:

Maxim didn't invent any new technique. Rounded corners existed. Helvetica Neue existed. Sound design existed.

What he did was combine them obsessively. Repeat them relentlessly. Refine them until they felt inevitable.

In a feed built for chaos, he proved you could win with calm.

In a platform optimized for virality, he proved you could win with consistency.

In a creator economy obsessed with personal brands, he proved you could build massive reach by making the work speak louder than your name.

That's not a hack. That's not luck.

That's seeing what everyone's doing, understanding it's broken, and building something so obviously better that millions of people can't help but copy it.

Right Now

• 792K Instagram followers
• 8,729 X followers (but posts insights there)
• 60-day bootcamp rolling out
• Maximise Video competition ongoing
• Documentary coming July 2025
• Merch selling out

The company: Maximise (London, 2-10 employees).
The mission: "Enabling individuals around the world to do more with their time."
Not the vibe of someone who got lucky.
The vibe of someone with a vision who executed flawlessly.

The Takeaway

If you're building anything:

Pick one promise. Not five. One.

Pick one format. Not ten styles. One.

Go painfully deep. Not shallow and wide.

Repeat obsessively. Not until it's perfect. Until it's inevitable.

Let the work speak. Not your personal brand.

That's the Bymaximise playbook.

That's why one guy, starting from zero, changed how an entire platform looks.