- Is it too late to start a YouTube channel?
This question comes up every single year
whether it's 2022, 2023, 2025,
everyone is always going to believe
that it's too late to start a YouTube channel.
And so the question is, why would you even think that?
Now, I've been on YouTube for a very long time.
I actually started doing consistent YouTube content in 2013,
and guess what?
Back then, people were saying the same thing,
it's too late to make it on YouTube.
Everything is saturated
and there's never been anything
that I've ever done successfully on YouTube
where there weren't a lot of people competing at,
but you know what YouTube is not saturated with?
It's not saturated with quality content
and it's also not very diverse in the type of content
or the type of creators that have succeeded, not just yet,
which means there's plenty of opportunity for you
and I'm gonna give you some statistics and facts
about YouTube that you've probably never heard before.
If you're worried about being oversaturated
or too competitive on YouTube,
that's just your insecurity talking,
there's still plenty of room at the top of YouTube.
And the reason I know that
is because there are only about 300,000 content creators
in the entire world with Silver Play Buttons
that have over 100,000 subscribers.
I have over 500,000 subscribers,
I'm a Silver Play Button holder, I got mine in 2016
and I upgraded to the new new style version
so I have, you know, both designs
which is actually pretty dope,
it'd be great to get Gold one day.
But speaking of people who have Gold,
guess how many people that is?
It's only 30,000 creators who have Gold Play Buttons
and as of the making this video,
it's less than 1200 that have Diamond
and most of those are big, major outlets and networks
or the top YouTubers on the entire planet.
And what that means is, they are less than 1 million
content creators in the entire world.
Despite there being 2 billion viewers on YouTube,
they're still less than a million content creators
who've even got a Silver Play Button,
there's plenty of opportunity.
Let you in on a little secret,
channels that have Silver Play Buttons
aren't always YouTube creators and it's not 300,000 people,
not 300,000 creators, for one thing,
some creators have multiple Silver Play Buttons
and multiple channels.
Some even have as many as 10 of them to themselves
and there are plenty of companies
that have multiple play buttons in terms of media companies,
tech companies that happen to have popular YouTube channels
which means the amount of home grown YouTubers
that have Silver Play Buttons is probably closer
to maybe 180,000 people as of the making this video.
It's still not even close
to being a million or half a million people.
So what that means as in terms of top tier YouTubers,
there's still plenty of room,
how can it be saturated when there's not even
a million people in your niche
that are very, very successful
when there's not even a million YouTube creators
that are very, very successful
and have built large audiences?
If a million people haven't built large audiences
across the entire platform, across every language,
and every country, and every type of content,
think about it, collectively,
that's not that many people at the top
and to prove it to you, I want you to understand this.
It's estimated that there are 75 million
to 100 million content creators worldwide right now,
right now, so, guess what that means?
That means that we have not even come close to peaking,
not even close because not even 1%
of all the potential content creators
have actually even built an audience of a 100,000,
so there's still massive opportunity.
In terms of monetized YouTube channels,
there are only 3 million channels
in the YouTube Partner Program
and to get into the YouTube Partner Program,
like I've talked about in videos about YouTube monetization,
you can definitely watch those,
especially if you're trying to get
your first 1000 subscribers, get your first 4,000 hours
of watch time, I've made detailed breakdowns on this,
but, there's only 3 million people in the Partner Program
which means that the far majority of content creators
don't even earn money on YouTube.
It's not even 10% of the people on the entire platform
that have been able to meet YouTube's
monetization requirements.
And what this tells you is what I said earlier,
YouTube is not saturated unless you think it's saturated
with mediocre content, below average content,
content people don't wanna watch, sure,
it's saturated with that, yeah, YouTube is saturated
with content nobody wants to watch.
What YouTube is not saturated is high quality content.
There's probably not a single niche in YouTube
that has like 5,000 people with Silver Play Buttons.
There's probably not a single niche in YouTube
that has 5,000 creators that are all at 100,000 subscribers
or more, I doubt it, and the niches in YouTube
don't have the same amount of content creators.
There are not as many car channels,
there are not as many animal or pet channels,
there's not as many science channels
as there are channels for gaming,
there's probably more gaming channels
than anything in YouTube, even at the top of YouTube,
the top of YouTube, yes, the top of YouTube
has a lot of high tier gaming channels,
but not every video game has been made,
not every video game franchise has been made,
not every video game console has been made,
which means there will always be new trends,
which means there'll be new opportunities,
and there'll be new creators.
There's also people who are gonna retire,
people who are gonna fall off,
people who are gonna quit making content,
there will always be room for a new generation
of content creators.
And that's in basically every niche on the entire platform.
So no, YouTube doesn't have a problem with being saturated
if you are going to make quality content,
it's certainly not saturated with people
who make slightly above average content more consistently,
a lot of people are trying to pull a quality over quantity
and they're trying to make the biggest bestest content
in the world, which they, in many cases can't do,
they usually go broke trying because
you can't start by making extravagant content
in most cases, if you're not coming from a background
of I'm already rich, like you can't usually do that,
most YouTubers have to start out very modest
and very humble.
MKBHD is one of the biggest if not the biggest tech YouTuber
with over 15 million subscribers and his first 100 videos,
he only got 74 subscribers.
The reality is that a lot of you
just aren't putting in the work to improve
and you're not patient, and you think you're supposed
to get somewhere just because you've been uploading,
uploading, uploading, or you've been doing it
for a long time.
It takes most people five to seven years
to see success on YouTube if they keep at it.
And the reason there's not more creators
that are successful, is because people give up too soon
and they get discouraged.
MKBHD, 100 videos, 74 subscribers,
MrBeast, who is about to hit 100 million subscribers
if he hasn't hid it already by the time this video is out,
well, his first 100 videos got like 780 subscribers,
PewDiePie, the video solo creator right now,
he got like he has 100 million plus subscribers,
his first 100 videos he got 2,500.
I think the biggest problem is, and I covered this
in my video about how to grow a successful YouTube channel
and what is YouTube success?
I think a lot of you are using these unicorns
as your goal post and you're looking
at what they're doing now
and you're not realizing how challenging
or difficult it was for them starting out
and how long it took them to get somewhere.
A lot of them were small YouTubers longer
than they've been big YouTubers,
that's true for most people, YouTube is very difficult,
it's very hard to learn all these skills,
writing titles, making thumbnails,
that's like graphic design, that's copywriting,
you know, that's a whole career somebody could do
and you have to do both of those things,
and you have to learn how to produce video,
that's a whole career.
You have to learn about lighting, that's a whole career,
audio, that's a whole career,
video editing, that's a whole career,
there's about eight things
you have to do to be a successful YouTuber
and to start making a full-time income,
get to 100,000 subscribers
and get a Silver Play Button,
get to a million subscribers, get a Gold Play Button,
there's like eight to 12 different skills
you have to learn along the way and each and every one
of those things could have just been a career,
that have just been a job or a career by itself
that someone and earns a full-time living from
and can make a claim to success from.
And you're having to do eight or 12 of those things,
why would any of you, if you're being realistic
with your current circumstances,
going to school, going to work, having a family,
whatever it is, not necessarily being born rich,
why would any of you be able to do eight to 12 things
that you've never done really well,
that you've never done 100 times
and let alone 1000 times and be good at it
in one to two years?
Make that make sense.
I think that the biggest problem with the idea
that it's too late to make it on YouTube
and everything's been done, and everything's been saturated,
is imposter syndrome, a lot of nonsense,
a lot of constantly looking at and watching big YouTubers,
instead of realizing that you could be one of those people
that your first year on YouTube, maybe your goal
is just to learn how to make videos
that are less crappy than your first video
and you just make 100 crappy videos until you figure it out,
then you know how to make even one good video
and now your next 100 videos, maybe they don't suck so much,
maybe they're not so bad,
and then by the time you've made 300, 400, 500 videos,
you're onto something.
You have experience, you have data,
and new people have seen you come up along the way
and then maybe you're getting somewhere,
and that's usually what it takes.
I did a case study with YouTube buddy,
about 3 million channels, we have the anonymized data,
it takes most people, 500 to 1000 uploads
to get success on YouTube,
it takes people five to seven years on average
to get success on YouTube.
It is a marathon, looking at a handful of people
who blow up and go viral is not mentally healthy
and it's the reason a lot of you are not gonna make it
is 'cause all you do is wish to win the lottery
instead of commit to a career as a content creator
and realize, yeah, you know what?
To get somewhere in your career,
maybe you gotta do on the job work and training
for a couple of years, earn your stripes, you know,
pay your dues, and then maybe you get to be somewhere.
Why would that not be the case with YouTube
if you legitimately think that this is a career?
How are you just gonna manifest being good at career,
conjure out of thin air being good at a career
that you haven't done anything with
and haven't practiced that in a year or two?
There are some talented, blessed geniuses
and unicorns out there, maybe you're not one of them
and that's okay, and you can just work really hard
and you can get better along the way.
So do I believe for any reason that it's too late
to start YouTube channel?
No, I think that what you have, do I think YouTube
is saturated or oversaturated?
Yeah, with mediocre content maybe, but not quality content.
If you strive to make quality content
or above average content that can be consistent,
you have a future in this platform,
you have a place in this platform.
The majority of creators, 90% of creators,
never even get to 10,000 subscribers.
You don't need to necessarily get
to 100,000 subscribers to make a claim
to some success on YouTube, I've made a video about this,
and again, I think more of you should be reaching
to learn the platform, make 100 videos,
get monetized on YouTube and meet those requirements,
make your first $1,000, and then I think
what you should be striving for is to be one of the 10%
of people on this platform that even get 10,000 subscribers
and then everything after that is just gratitude.
And that's what I think a lot more of you
should be focusing on if you actually want to be successful
and grow a YouTube channel.
Speaking of which, if you enjoyed this video
and you wanna know how to grow a successful YouTube channel,
I've made a dedicated video about that,
it'll be in description down below all.
Also, if you want my playlist on YouTube tips,
then, you can also check that out,
it'll be linked in the description, as always,
thank you so much for watching and don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.