My YouTube channel was flopping

The first 9 months of my YouTube channel were a complete flop.

This isn’t false humility on my part, it’s just facts.

(look at the chart above… most of my videos were getting less than 100 views until mid-2018)

It wasn’t fun… but I knew this was just part of the process. I knew that if I kept my head in the game and looked at every video as a chance to learn, that I’d eventually crack the code.

And after about 9 months, I did crack the code— finally, it started working:

First, one video got 800 views in a day. Not exactly viral, but a huge step up from the 50-75 views I was used to getting.

Then a few weeks later, I got 2400 views in a day… HUGE!!

I couldn’t believe it… it was working! Over TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE watched one of my videos!

My next few videos got 2k, 5k, sometimes even 10k views.

All the work I’d put in over the last 9 months instantly felt like a small price to pay for what I now had 🙌

I had thousands of people showing up for every video… all I had to do was upload, press “publish,” and the audience would show up every week!

Now you’re probably thinking, cool story but what’s in it for me?

(At least, I know that’s what I would be thinking…)

Well, here’s what I’d tell myself if I could go back in time:

1. Don’t over-invest in production
   Since your videos probably won’t get a lot of views in the beginning, don’t invest too much time into production. Your goal should be to create a lot of content as fast as you can, to find what works. Once you know what the audience wants, you can polish your production.

2. Learn from every single video
   Some of your videos will be hits, some will flop. Either way, there’s something you can learn from them. Was it the topic? The title? What did people say in the comments? How was your retention? You can learn from all these things…
   For example, if the views were low but the retention was really good (40%+), that probably means the content was good but you picked a topic with a small audience.

3. Focus on topic, title and thumbnail
   These three things combined determine probably 80% of a video’s performance. Choice of topic is the most important factor because it determines the total number of people who might be interested in the video.
   For example, a video about some obscure NoSQL database probably isn’t going to get views no matter how good it is. On the other hand, a video about Elon Musk has potential for millions of views.
   There’s some nuance to this, but in general I think it’s usually best to pick topics with the largest possible audience.

More than anything, just KEEP GOING. The first 1k subscribers are by far the hardest… but keep grinding and you WILL get there!

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PS - Here’s the part where I try to sell you something… if you want to work with me to grow on YouTube or LinkedIn, just reply to this email or set up a call here