This took my YouTube channel from 0 to 1000 subscribers

I was initially going to write about how I just hit 1 million total followers across all social platforms, because I thought it would make an impressive headline and you would think I’m cool.

But then I realized that would be dumb, because nobody really cares about how many followers I have.

(if I wanted someone to tell me “good job, Finn!” I would call my mom)

So instead I’m going to write something that should be more useful for the vast majority of you, which is how I went from 0 to 1000 YouTube subscribers.

I think it took about 9 months, but this was back in 2018 so my memory is a little foggy.

1. Pick the right topics for YOU

The initial idea for my channel was about business, because that’s what I’m most passionate about and I’d like to think I had some good ideas.

But there was a big problem: nobody gave a shit what I had to say about business 😅

And the reason why is pretty obvious: at that time, I’d never really done anything all that impressive in business.

Sure, I’d worked on some big brands like Febreze, Swiffer, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc… but I couldn’t really take any credit for their success. I was just one of many, many people who worked on them.

So why would anybody listen to me, just some guy who happened to work on some brands, on the topic of business?

Turns out, they wouldn’t!

2. Don’t be afraid to make big pivots in the beginning

I was getting pretty discouraged. Even after months and months of publishing 2-4 videos a week, I was getting around 100 views per video.

And so without much to lose, I said f*** it— why not take a wild swing for the fences?

The worst that could happen is nobody cares… which wouldn’t be so bad, since nobody cared to begin with 😅

So I decided to switch it up and talk about music.

3. Once you find something that works, TRIPLE DOWN on it

Unlike business, music was something I could talk about with extreme credibility.

I grew up going to punk shows in the 90s and had lots of friends in highly respected bands like Periphery, Between The Buried And Me and Saosin, and I’d worked with dozens of the world’s best music producers.

So when I talked about music, it took off almost immediately— within a month or two of making the shift, I was now getting 1-5k views on my videos!

I knew I’d found “content market fit” FINALLY after all those months of eating shit and it felt AMAZING 🙌

Eventually I was regularly getting 50k views per video.

Then I hit 100k views on a single video, which was INSANE.

That was 5 years ago, and I’ve never taken my foot off the gas.

Now I feel like a failure if I don’t hit 100k views on a video in the first week.

The point: You need to find the specific thing that only YOU can do.

For me, that was analyzing alternative music from a marketing perspective.

For you, it could be getting a job in product design, breaking down viral products from TikTok, productivity for remote workers…

It could be anything as long as it’s something you can talk about with extreme authority and/or passion.

Find that, and that’s where your growth will come from.

If you liked this, please subscribe!

I’ll write here as often as I can, and let me know what you want to hear about.

And thanks for listening to my bullshit 🤗

-Finn