If you’re considering starting a YouTube channel or if you’ve already started one
that you’re wanting to grow or if you just have interest in this topic, this video is
for you.
Anyone can start a YouTube channel, but not everyone can sustain it. There’s a lot more
that goes into it than most people think, so if you fall under any of the previously
mentioned categories, I recommend that you watch this video until the very end and then
decide if you think it’s going to be right for you, because I’m about to be very real
here.
Why
This channel has grown with almost a quarter million subscribers in about eight months.
I’ve been doing this for longer than that, but that’s when it took off. Until then,
I had a few hundred. and I’m about to share with you some of the things that I’ve learned
on the way here.
The reason I want to make this video in the first place is because I’ve never been happier
doing anything else, I think doing this saved me in some way, as dramatic as that sounds.
And I want anyone who considers it to not let this opportunity slip right through their
hands.
This video is also a good opportunity for you to advertise your channel if you have
one; but we’ll get to that later. I'd like to split this video into six parts.
It’s going to be a big one, but very easy to follow and absorb. You might want to take
notes, though. Alright, the six parts are the following:
(1) Getting started, (2) What gear to use (3) Growing an audience (4) Making money (5)
Mental health (6) Some final words Getting started (timing, time, fear)
I’d like to start by debunking some of the excuses that you have right now for why you're
not starting a YouTube channel. Or, if you've already started it, why you're not pursuing
it the way you could and should. And that’s another reason for why you could
I’ve had all of these excuses, so I know. You need to remember that a YouTube channel,
at least doing it full-time, is a business. So, what I'll be talking about is very much
applicable for other businesses as well. Timing. "It's too late to start a YouTube
channel; there are already too many YouTubers out there".
- It's absolutely NOT too late to start a YouTube channel. Newbies blow up all the time.
More people than ever are watching YouTube and there’s so much information out there
on everything you need to know to run a channel, so I actually think it’s easier now.
- I started uploading consistently not even a year ago, and this is now my full-time job
and I'm making more money now than I made at my last job. With university degrees. We’ll
talk more about that later. - Yes, there are thousands and thousands of
YouTubers, but none of them are you. It's kind of like making friends in real life.
Yeah, there are millions of people, probably a few hundred or thousand in your town at
least. But even if you were to meet everyone, you wouldn't click with all of them, you'd
probably only click with a few. And it's the same with YouTubers. Yes, there are thousands
of YouTubers we, as viewers, could be following, but we only feel that connection with a few,
and those are the ones we choose to follow—whatever that connection is; we might think they’re
funny or smart we might just like their smile. And you too probably have something that others
will like that no one else has, even if you can’t see it yourself.
Also, when is the timing perfect for anything, ever, really?
Let’s move on to time. "I don't have time" - Time is about priorities. Technically, I
didn't have the time for YouTube when I was working my last job full-time. But I took
every little moment that I had to do make this happen. I gave up any social life that
I had (which was like one phone call a week, but yeah, I gave that up). Everyone around
me started calling my desk my cave because that’s where I’d spend all my wake time.
I made it a priority over everything else. No one added an extra hour to my day. I made
the time. But if you feel like the other things that
you’re doing are too important to give up or that you won’t be able to make any sacrifices,
then fine, you might not have the time, and this may not be for you.
- If you’re wanting to go full-time on YouTube, you will definitely need to be ready to make
sacrifices, because it’s a lot of work. I had three jobs once, and I was still working
no wear near as much as I do now. So, what am I saying? Should you quit your
job with no money and be a struggling artist? No, I don’t believe that.
Most people don’t quit everything and start a channel, you can definitely start while
having another occupation, you just won’t be able to fully dedicate yourself to it while
maintaining another job if you want to maintain your sanity as well. But that’s how most
people start out, by doing it as a side-thing. That’s what I did, too.
And finally, let’s talk about fear. Basically, two things: a) I don’t have a
perfect plan or idea yet or b) What if I fail? As for a) You’ll never have a perfect plan
or idea. When I'm telling you that people with millions of subscribers don't even know
what they're doing half of the time. Believe it. They don't. But they don't need to, that's
not the driving force. The driving force isn’t the perfect plan or idea; and that’s not
the determining factor for success. it’s the hunger. The strong desire.
Now, that doesn’t mean you should just throw yourself out there and have no idea what you’re
doing. You should have some idea. Some questions to consider are:
What is it that I want to communicate? (My experiences? My humour? My knowledge within
a certain field?) What value does this bring to others? (Entertainment?
A skill? Education?) What do I want others to feel when watching
your videos? (Happy? Understood? Smart?) What’s important to me? (Money? Authenticity?
Attention?) There’s no right or wrong answer—whatever floats your boat.
In other words—what is your narrative? Again, you don’t need to have it perfectly
figured out (you never will), but if you’re waiting for your starting point to be perfect
before running, you’ll be standing still forever.
Let’s quickly address b) “what if I fail?” The best teacher is failures and wins, and
you won’t get either if you don’t get moving. You need to be willing to be a student.
If failing a test gets you an F, not even taking the test gets you so far below F that
it’s not even on the scale. That’s a whole other type of grading system.
In other words, you're already failing by not trying. And honestly, the one risk you
should never take is the one of looking back on your life filled with regrets.
Alright. Now that we've debunked all of your excuses and I’ve convinced you to start
a channel, let's move on to part two: The technical stuff, in other words, gear.
One of the questions I get asked the most is what camera I use. And I get it, it’s
interesting, and it can be valuable information. I’ve put together all the equipment I use
on my website, I’ll leave a link for it in the description box if you’d like to
check it out. I like good gear. I like getting a nice shallow
depth of field, I like those perfectly slowed down shots, and I can’t get that with a
smartphone or just any camera. But I didn’t have any of that when I first started out.
I started with what I had, which wasn’t much, but it worked.
If you can get the gear that you want, by all means, go ahead. But if you can’t right
now, don’t let that be a hinder. You do not need it.
Not all YouTubers use expensive gear, not all successful use heavy editing softwares.
Not even the big players. Doesn’t David Dobrik still edit in iMovie?
When it comes to making it on YouTube, there are no rules.
But, if you are going to invest in anything, I’d say invest in good audio first. Most
people are more forgiving of not-so good video quality, but not so much with bad audio quality.
You can definitely get fairly good audio for a couple hundred dollars or less. Good audio
tricks the mind into thinking the picture quality is better, too.
Let’s talk about growing an audience. Obviously, if you didn’t want views, you
wouldn’t be on YouTube. You’d just be making videos and keeping them to yourself.
So, when you share your work and no one watches it, it can be really frustrating. I remember
when I got my first thousand or even hundred views on a video and I was ecstatic, but it
took time until I got there. Now, of course, there are things that you
can think of: your title, your thumbnail and so on, but again—there are no rules. Some
of the big players here on YouTube use thumbnails that look like a screenshot from a 2004 phone
and thumbnails that are… strange. At the end of the day, if lady algorithm doesn’t
want to promote your videos, she won’t promote your videos.
One thing we do know for sure though is that lady algorithm likes her guests to stay for
as long as possible. So, if people are bouncing out of your videos after just a minute or
so, she won’t want to promote your videos. Basically, the longer people watch your videos
for, the better. That’s why titles that are too clickbate-y don’t work; because
people will see an intriguing title, click on it, watch for a few seconds only to realize
that they’re not at all getting what they came for. So, keeping your videos as engaging
as possible throughout the video, and most importantly from the very beginning of the
video, is probably the best thing you can do.
Also, of course, promote your videos across other social media platforms. Ask friends
and family to support you and to share. You can also leave comments on other people’s
videos. Don’t spam but write something interesting and people might be intrigued to want to check
out who you are. Sure, YouTube might randomly recommend your content, but you should do
what you can to (respectfully) try get it out there.
Now you might think, well, I do all of that. I got good thumbnails, good titles, my videos
are engaging, my friends are sharing them… but I’m still not gaining any traction.
You’re not alone. There are so many amazing creators on YouTube that are getting nowhere
near the attention they should be getting. At the end of the day, it’s really about
patience, consistency, persistence and luck. There’s no denying that luck plays a part
in it. So, if you’re lucky, you’ll get lucky.
Now, let’s talk about money. Making a living from YouTube is definitely
possible, and you don’t need to have millions of subscribers or views to get to a point
where you can live comfortably. Actually, the subscribers don’t really matter unless
they’re watching the videos, because that’s what you get paid for – the amount of views,
not the number of subscribers. I only started monetizing my videos about
7 months ago or so (monetizing meaning making money from the ads that play before and sometimes
during the videos) because I thought ads were going to be annoying to people, so I didn’t
have them on for months, which is very stupid. I mean, this is my job, and just like any
other job, I should be making money doing it.
But YouTubers often find different income streams because the money you make from ads
fluctuate a lot month to month depending on how many views you get, how many videos you
put out and so on, so you can’t really count on making x amounts of dollars each month.
The amount of money you make from ads also depends on what kind of content you are making,
because not all advertisers pay as much. So, basically, for instance, ads related to my
content which are usually things like book companies, pay very little money compared
to tech companies or finance companies who pay a lot more. So, what I make from ads,
a YouTuber who makes videos related to finance but who has a tenth of my views probably makes
more money than I do via ads. That’s why I rely more on other income streams,
such as my Patreon where some of you lovely people contribute with money every month to
help me support my work and to make this possible. Here’s a little shameless plug, if you do
enjoy my content and you want to be help enable me to keep making these videos, feel free
to check out my Patreon page. It’s a fun little community and I post thing there that
I don’t post anywhere else. I’ll leave the link for it in the description box.
Another way to support your favourite creators is to simply like their videos and leave comments.
This boosts their videos as it shows YouTube that people are interacting with the video,
and it makes lady algorithm want to promote it. So, that little like button that most
people ignore actually has a lot of impact, and it’s a very easy way to support someone’s
work. And that’s also why you as the creator, shouldn’t feel ashamed to ask people to
leave a like. A lot of people don’t mind it, they just simply forget, and it’s ok
to remind them. Another income stream is sponsorships. This
was also something I thought would be annoying to people and something I avoided for some
time because of that. I think some people still don’t see this
as a “real job” and therefore get annoyed when creators seem “money-hungry” or when
they do a lot of sponsored videos, but, hey, we all want to make money doing our job, and
if it’s done in a fair and honest way, there’s no reason not to.
And also, keep in mind that many creators turn down a lot of offers and often times,
a lot of money. I probably turn down 98 % of all the offers that I get, because I want
to make sure that I know enough about the product, that I trust it and that it will
be valuable for you. With that being said, some people will sell
you anything to make money, so definitely do your own research first, but that’s another
topic. There are other income streams as well. I
might do a separate, in-depth video on this where I break it down, if you’d like that,
let me know. But regardless of where you get that YouTube
money from, patience is a must. If you’re starting from zero like I did and like most
other people do, you won’t be making thousands or even hundreds of dollars in a long time.
Quit if you lose interest, but don’t quit because it’s been four months and you’re
not making as much as you wish. Now, let’s move on to mental health.
Let’s start with the negativity. The haters. Whatever you wish to call it. If you don't
grow thick skin early on you will become very discouraged really fast. There will always
be someone or someone(s) who’s full-time job is to search the internet and find ways
to try and make others miserable. Don’t buy into what they’re trying to sell. Just
like how you’d react if a seller rang on your door wanting to sell you a bag of negativity.
Don’t open it. Pretend you’re not home. Don’t let that scare you from creating what
you want to create, because it doesn’t matter what you put out there. You could be making
a video reviewing a piece of gum and someone will write that they hate you and that your
gum-reviewing techniques are the worst thing to happen to humanity.
Not everyone will like you. In fact, a lot of people probably will not.
That’s just how it is. And you need to ask yourself if you can handle that.
On another note, let’s talk about positivity. There are lot of amazing people on this platform.
People who will believe in you, people who will encourage you, people who will want to
see you do good. Don’t ever take them for granted. I wouldn’t have any of this if
it weren’t for you guys watching and supporting, and you never know how long it will last.
Even when you only have a few people following you, that’s still people who saw something
in you, so be grateful, and allow yourself to think that you have something that these
people want to see more of. Alright, here are some final words.
Doing YouTube is a lot more than just having fun with a camera and throwing it into an
editing software and post it and get all this money and attention.
There is a ton of work that goes into it. A lot of not-so fancy stuff, too. Taxes, accounting,
dealing with legal stuff. A lot of mental and physical stress. I can’t tell you if
it’s going to be worth it. You need to decide that for yourself.
Alright. I know that this video was different from what I usually do, but at the same time
it’s not. My videos are really about sharing my experiences and to hopefully help people,
and that’s what this video was about as well.
If you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up, because, lady algorithm, and consider
subscribing if you’d like to see more, and check out the links in my description box.
Also, feel free to promote your YouTube channel in the comment section if you have one. Let’s
help each other out. I’ll definitely check out some of your channels and videos and leave
some comments. Thank you for watching, I’ll see you soon.