- [Narrator] Hello and welcome to the GrandLineReview.
Source for everything One Piece except for maybe today
because we are celebrating another monumentous occasion.
As for whatever reason a mighty 200,000 of you
have ended up subscribing to this channel
which to be fair does inject regular One Piece content
straight into YouTube feed
and if you have not already hit that button
and that bell thing then do it right now.
What have you got to lose?
Nothing, that's what
what have you got to gain?
Everything.
But I'm incredibly overwhelmed
because to be perfectly frank,
I never thought we'd get anywhere near this far
into the whole YouTube game
especially with such a focused niche.
So as a result
we're going to be breaking out one piece focus
for this video.
Don't worry though,
it will be back soon and in copious amounts,
I assure you that.
But to mark this occasion,
I wanted to let you all in on the back end
of this channel for a bit
and quite specifically I am going to be going through
some of my biggest YouTube regrets.
Which I know doesn't sound particularly celebratory,
but I wanted to do something a bit different
than just like a thank you video or Q&A.
And maybe if some of you are considering starting a channel
or even have channels already,
then this may help you not fall
into some of the many, many, many holes that I did.
And also stay tuned
because after I go through my biggest regrets
on this platform,
I'm also going to drop what I would describe
as the one crowning feature of this channel success.
Something I did that a lot of my contemporaries
will disagree with,
but I just don't think I would be here today without it.
So look forward to that.
All right long, rambling intro over,
let's get into my first biggest regret,
which is simply not starting YouTube earlier.
I'm sure many of you will have heard this
from other creators.
And that's because with the benefit of hindsight,
it's an extraordinarily easy thing to say.
Looking at where this channel is now,
it's a no brainer to go, "Oh man,
"I really should have been working towards this
"ever since like 2006 or something."
But it's a really tricky one
because who knows what would have happened?
If I'd started this channel way earlier,
without the various bits of life experience I acquired
then maybe things would have just crashed and burned
or not even taken off to begin with.
However in this case I do have a very specific regret
because if you look at when GrandLineReview was created,
that date would be January 11th 2015.
That is when I first had the desire
to start making One Piece based content on YouTube.
So I made the channel
and then I did absolutely nothing with it for like a year.
And then I did actually stop making videos
but gave up after a couple of months.
And it was really early in 2017
that I began to properly invest my time and energy
into making videos.
And I can't help it strongly wish that I had that desire
when I first came up with the idea in 2015,
and here's why I didn't do it
summarized into one lovely yet annoying word, excuses.
I didn't think I was capable of engaging
in a time consuming hobby like YouTube
alone with working full time
and attempting to have some kind of social life
not a great social life
'cause I'm a profound introvert but still.
And I know for a fact that it was just a pile of excuses now
because I have done it.
Prior to the global apocalypse thing,
I was working full time and managing the GrandLineReview
which isn't to say that I'm some kind of amazing being
it's actually quite the opposite.
It's more to say that if even someone like me can do it,
then you absolutely can.
If you have the drive to start a YouTube channel
or you know what if you have the drive to do anything,
then just get over the excuses.
The human mind and body are capable of so much more
than it gets credit for
so put it to use and just do it.
Do not be like me and procrastinate for a total of two years
before finally having the determination to go for it.
Alright, cool, now that that's out of the way
another huge regret I have is not doing enough research.
And that might sound kinda vague
and that's because it is.
There is a phenomenal amount to consider
when it comes to making even the simplest of videos.
And one of my biggest issues
was definitely not watching enough videos
made by people who were
and are currently sharing my niche at the time.
Other One Piece handle general anime YouTube is basically
and this is a trap I fell into
because part of the design to begin the GrandLineReview
spawned from the idea
that I wasn't interested in watching other One Piece videos
and that was really annoying
because this series was one of my greatest passions
and the creators of the time
went scratching that particular itch for me.
So in response,
I quite foolishly decided that I had no need
to really research them
because I did not want to be like them.
However as a result,
I missed out on a lot of really basic information
that I could have easily gathered.
Really simple stuff like acceptable audio quality,
how loud to make your music
what kinda of topics generate the most interest for viewers?
what kinda video techniques were being utilized
at One Face Cams?
How people were crafting their thumbnails,
all of this information was readily available,
and I ignored it.
And so I began creating videos
with no standard of comparison.
So of course in my early days,
this led to a lot of issues
like my music being far too loud,
my voice being too slow and drowny and just boring.
My thumbnails being the epitome of a bis mal.
And honestly there are just not a lot of redeeming factors
about early GrandLineReview,
which is a stage I feel like I could have avoided completely
with just a little bit of willingness
to cast my gaze a bit further into the realm of research.
And to be clear
that doesn't mean copying what other people do.
It just means critically analyzing their work.
Ask yourself what they do,
how they do it,
and how that affects people watching.
And then even if you end up
doing something completely different
then at least you have a basis for something
rather than just blindly wandering around in the dark
like I did.
Now my third most profound regret on YouTube
is something I still do to this day,
which is saying "It's good enough."
If you have ever mentally or verbally told yourself
that something you've made is quite on quote "good enough"
then the overwhelming probability
is that it is not in fact, "good enough"
because saying that to me is like admitting defeat.
It's like stating, "Yeah this could be better,
"but I don't have the time or energy to make it better."
And I do that a lot more than I'd like to admit,
especially when it comes to thumbnails.
In my process which is changing now
thumbnails were typically the last thing
I tended to make for a video which is out of madness
because they're usually far more important
than the actual video itself.
You know, if nobody wants to click the thumbnail
then the video itself does become worthless.
And I try not to slip into that mindset these days,
and just keep pushing until I land on a thumbnail
that I feel would entice me to click.
But I've made some optic picture
of the course of the channels life,
which is most apparent when you look at
the Sagas a Minute series.
I mean, I've recently changed the thumbnails for all these
but thank you to everyone
who clicked on these early thumbnails
because when I look back at these, I just go
"Who in their right mind could click on that,?"
There're cluttered, the font is weird
and there's nothing to like really grip you.
And that's because I made these
and I said "good enough"
then proceeded to pump them out.
A mistake which I think I began to rectify
near the end of the Sagas Minute series
where I just enacted the mindset
of "Don't produce thumbnail that you yourself
"would not click on."
But even then there are still times
when I go "good enough" in every aspect of video making
and I suppose just be aware of any time
you say or think that to yourself,
because it is a huge, huge, huge creative red flag.
So my fourth mega regret in this realm,
it would be not investing in decent equipment earlier.
Quite specifically a microphone and some acoustic phone.
Because the truth is,
you don't really need a whole lot of fancy stuff
to do what I do on this channel,
but when I began I didn't even have that.
And you know what,
I had no drive to actually acquire those things
because I was stuck in yet another mental trap.
And you know what,
here's a fun story that relates
to this topic pretty heavily,
which is that one of my best friends one day
decided to begin a YouTube channel of his own
focusing on Magic: The Gathering.
And the general concept
is that he would go through dark ideas
and commentate on his games,
which he was good at.
He was actually really good at it
because he's insanely intelligent.
He had his pulse on this very niche topic,
and he even had a side of wit to add on top of it.
But he was using an inbuilt microphone to record his audio.
And as a result,
no matter what substance was coming out of his mouth,
it was frequently peaking, highly distorted,
and it just didn't sound good.
So I told him that
the one thing he really needed to do immediately
was invest in a proper microphone.
And his response was, "Yeah, I'll buy a microphone
"if this channel starts to become successful."
And that drove me insane.
Because that is the complete opposite mindset you need.
Like I can practically guarantee anybody
that in this day and age on YouTube,
you will not become quote unquote, "successful"
without at least at least an entry level microphone,
not doing the sort of thing we were doing anyway.
But at the same time,
I'm also a bit of a hypocrite there
because that was my mindset as well.
In the very early days of GrandLineReview,
I thought to myself, "Yeah I'm just making these videos
"as a hobby
"and if they take off then that's great.
"That's when I'll invest in something."
Which is fine but I really do wish
that I had not wasted like a whole year or so
in this channel using a pathetic microphone
because when I did finally switch
to something halfway decent,
that's when the GrandLineReview really started to explode
and became much more popular.
Probably because people could
actually stand listening to me now.
And so if you think that your YouTube videos
are just a hobby,
I understand that
but I would strongly encourage you to invest in your hobby.
You know it's pretty difficult to collect Pokemon cards
without buying cards
or engaging in woodwork without woodworking tools.
Similarly, it's very hard to make YouTube videos
without proper recording gear for example.
So even if it's just something you do for fun,
make it more fun for yourself
by getting some reasonably priced equipment to help you.
Alright, that turned into a long and rambling one.
So my next regret regret number five if you will,
would be that very brief period
where I tried to do videos seven days a week
on GrandLineReview.
And I don't know how many of you
will actually remember this time.
It was about a year and a half ago now
when I published one video every day
for about a month and a half.
And the theory behind it was my videos were doing great.
On average they were bringing in
around 24,000 views in 24 hours,
which was a nice handy metric I used
but I was only posting between three to four videos a week.
So in my rudimentary thinking,
I figured that if I doubled the amount of videos I posted,
then that would effectively double my views,
which would double my revenue, right.
Surprisingly, not only was it not right,
it was actually very, very wrong.
After a couple of weeks of implementing the strategy,
I noticed that my average was sinking
to around 18,000 views in 24 hours.
And while the money I was earning did go up,
it was a very, very incremental amount of growth.
And after speaking to a fair few people,
it became apparent to me
that I was flooding my audience with content.
Which was probably great
for the more core viewers of the channel,
but it meant that there was so much coming out,
that people simply could not keep up with it at all.
Which had some more long term ramifications,
because if someone doesn't click your video
a couple of times in a row,
then YouTube will be far less likely
to recommend those videos to them in the future.
So I made the kind of painful decision
to go back to publishing three to four times a week,
but the damage had already been done by then.
And it was quite a long journey
to get things back to where they were
before I changed up the schedule.
So I discovered what the critical mass for my videos were
the hard way,
and then instead of making stuff
seven days a week on GrandLineReview,
I made a new channel for other series in general
called NewWorldReview.
So I do still effectively publish seven days a week,
just over two channels,
which keeps them both healthy,
but not overly saturated.
And speaking of my final regret for this video
has to do with my second channel,
which was the decision to name it New World Review.
So to all of you the reasoning behind that name
is probably pretty obvious.
I mean, when I was thinking about how to expand this brand,
it made all the sense in the world to name a second channel
after the second half of the Grand Line.
It's kind of perfect, isn't it?
However, what I really really should have thought more about
was the idea that this channel
was designed to cover literally any series
that wasn't One Piece.
So NewWorldReview is actually an incredibly meaningless name
for anyone who goes there
without any knowledge of One Piece.
But the worst part is even if they are a fan of One Piece,
it's very confusing because it has One Piece based name,
but no One Piece content,
so it's bad all around.
So as much as I do like the name
and how it blends with GrandLineReview,
it was far from the smartest idea
and I do wish that I could go back in time and change it.
But to top off this regret filled day let's have a positive.
The one thing I feel like I really nailed
with the whole YouTube thing,
which I suspect many other YouTubers will disagree with,
but that is keeping the GrandLineReview
focused exclusively on One Piece.
Over the years I've had a lot of people ask me
why I made a second channel for the series
when I already had an established audience here.
And that's because I really believe in the power of niche.
I really like the idea
that everyone who comes to this channel
will potentially be interested
in every single video it features
because it's all One Piece based.
I think it's a much more solid proposition
than trying to cover multiple series
like if the GrandLineReview featured One Piece
Bleach, Hunter Hunter, whatever,
it would become far more general.
But I think this laser like focus on One Piece
was super valuable in the early days
because despite the fact that I was making bad videos,
some amazingly rare people
were finding and watching them anyway.
And those people would then go through the channel library,
which helped push out videos to more people
whereas if I'd split my focus
that growth may not have happened.
Someone may have come to the channel
and enjoyed a One Piece based video
but not clicked on any of the others
because they weren't keen
for the other series being featured
or even not subscribed
because they didn't want to see Hunter Hunter content,
clogging up their recommendations
when all they came to me for was One Piece.
I wholeheartedly believe that it made it a lot easier
for this channel to grow.
And I'm sure a lot of people will point fingers like,
say, taking on Nux Taku
who have gigantic audiences
with a base in covering multiple series,
but it's not a direct comparison,
because they can drive that kind of engine
based on pure personality.
It's a very different value proposition.
And while the reality of that situation means
that a channel like GrandLineReview
will be highly unlikely to reach
the levels of views and subscribers
I honestly don't think I'd even be here today
if I'd spread my focus across multiple series
instead of just providing a solid injection
of pure One Piece onto this platform.
So I think that was absolutely the greatest decision
that I've made in regards to the GrandLineReview,
accompanied by very, very many regrets
but there's nothing wrong with that.
Very few people conduct themselves in any first time venture
with flawless execution
and learning a lot of these lessons the very hard way
will ensure that at the very least,
I never forget them.
So take my mistakes and hopefully it's provided some insight
for your own endeavors.
What do you guys think?
Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below
or even join my Discord server.
And if you'd like to see more videos like this
except probably not exactly like this,
then please do go and check out some of my other content
or even subscribe to the channel
for more glorious One Piece business
uploaded straight in to YouTube feed.
But for now this has been the GrandLineReview
and I'll see you next time. (soft beat music)