9 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started YouTube

Arshian

9 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started YouTube  dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00All right, item number one is that no one cares about your videos.

00:03This is two categories of people do not care.

00:05Number one, your friends and family do not care.

00:07And number two, the audience also does not care.

00:10Firstly, on the friends and family front,

00:11I was so worried when I started YouTube six years ago

00:13that people were going to say bad things about it.

00:16I was afraid people were going to judge me.

00:17And then I started making videos and I realized no one cares.

00:20No one cares.

00:21People are busy with their own lives.

00:23People are doing their own stuff.

00:24They do not give a flying toss whether or not I have a YouTube channel

00:27or whether or not I make videos.

00:28They're never watching my videos.

00:29My videos are not aimed at them.

00:30And so me making videos is not for the sake of my friends and family.

00:33And so many people get held back by the worry of what their friends,

00:37their family, their co-workers, their boss, their aunt, their uncle, their dog

00:39is going to think about their YouTube channel.

00:41No one cares.

00:42Everyone is doing their own thing.

00:43You can absolutely do YouTube.

00:44And I guarantee your friends and family will not care.

00:47Secondly, the other category of people that doesn't care is the audience.

00:50When I first started making YouTube videos six years ago,

00:52I thought people would care.

00:53I started making videos about me and my friends singing songs,

00:56a cover of Payphone by Maroon 5, a cover of Adele or whatever.

01:00And the way I now think about this and what I kind of wish I'd known before

01:03is that videos on YouTube are not actually free.

01:06People are paying for watching your videos.

01:08They're just not paying with their cash.

01:10They are paying with their time and attention.

01:12And those are two currencies that are even more valuable than money.

01:14And so when you're new to YouTube and you make a video

01:16and it doesn't get any views and you think,

01:18oh, the algorithm doesn't like me.

01:20It's not the algorithm doesn't like you.

01:21It's that your video is not worth watching.

01:24People have not decided to click on that video.

01:26People have not decided to watch it

01:27because it has not provided them with any value.

01:29And these days, increasingly, people have so many choices

01:32of how they can spend their time on the internet.

01:33The thing they want to do is they want value.

01:35Whether that's value in the form of entertainment or education or inspiration,

01:39it needs to have some kind of value.

01:40And if there is no value in the video, then people will not watch the video.

01:43And if people are not watching the video,

01:44the algorithm will recognise that no one's watching it

01:46and is therefore not going to recommend it.

01:48And this is enormously liberating and enormously freeing

01:51when you're getting started

01:52because it means you don't need to overthink it.

01:53No one's going to watch the first several videos anyway.

01:55You have to start off by being bad.

01:57And over time, by being bad repeatedly,

01:59you will eventually be good at making videos.

02:02Your videos will start to add value.

02:03You'll start to figure out what your niche is.

02:05And then when people give up their time and attention to watch your videos,

02:08it will actually be worth it for them.

02:09And now the algorithm is going to start recommending you

02:11and then your channel will grow.

02:12And then at some point, you'll become a millionaire

02:14and then life will be all great.

02:15Lesson number two is the difference between being an architect

02:17and being an archaeologist.

02:19Now, what I wish someone had told me when I first started YouTube

02:21is that there are two approaches to finding your niche.

02:24Firstly, there is the archaeologist approach.

02:26The archaeologist approach is where you think,

02:28okay, there's some interesting videos I can make over there.

02:30And you start making those videos

02:31and you make a handful of them and you see what happens.

02:33And then you realise no one cares and you're not very good

02:35and maybe you didn't enjoy making those videos.

02:36So then you go to a new topic

02:38and then you do this a bunch of times.

02:39And eventually by exploring enough hot zones,

02:41just like an archaeologist would,

02:42eventually you'll be making that video

02:44and then something good will happen.

02:45Maybe you'll get one comment when normally you have none.

02:47Maybe that video will get a hundred views

02:49when normally it gets three.

02:50That's like the equivalent of the archaeologist digging

02:52and then finding something like,

02:53oh, hello, there's something here.

02:54And now that you've found something interesting in the area,

02:57you continue to excavate and you continue to dig.

03:00And this means basically continuing to make

03:01more and more videos about that topic.

03:03Now, the alternative way to approach YouTube

03:04is as an architect.

03:06Now, an architect does not bother

03:07kind of willy-nilly digging in random areas.

03:09An architect has a plan.

03:10They've got the blueprint.

03:12They know exactly what's gonna happen.

03:13And only once they have all the information out there

03:15and it's all written down,

03:16do they start to hire someone to lay the first brick

03:18and lay the foundations.

03:19If you're trying to approach YouTube like an architect

03:21and you have no experience with making videos,

03:23you're trying to make the plan,

03:24you're trying to figure out your niche in advance,

03:26chances are you're not actually gonna take any action

03:29because it's very difficult

03:30to figure out your niche in advance.

03:31The vast majority of people that I would recommend

03:33should start by being an archaeologist.

03:35If you don't yet know how to make videos,

03:36it doesn't matter what you're trying to make videos about.

03:38Your niche is irrelevant.

03:40Focus on making the videos,

03:41digging like an archaeologist.

03:42And over time, as you get better at making videos,

03:45you will then start to figure out what works

03:47in terms of how you feel

03:48about making certain types of content

03:50and also what seems to be resonating with the audience.

03:52In my case, I started off with making videos

03:54about singing, no one cared.

03:55I then started making travel vlogs

03:57about my adventures on my medical elective

03:59in Cambodia and Vietnam, no one cares.

04:00I made a series talking about

04:02how I was building a medical app, no one cared.

04:04I started vlogging about life as a medical student.

04:06Broadly, no one cared,

04:07but it was when I started making

04:08specific educational videos,

04:10helping people who were applying to medical school

04:12back in the day, six years ago,

04:14that was when people started to care.

04:15And based on that, people started to ask me,

04:17how do you do all this studying for exams?

04:19What study tips do you have?

04:20And I started making videos about study tips

04:22and people cared.

04:23I dabbled with a bunch of other series at that time

04:24that no one cared about,

04:25but then people started asking me,

04:26how are you so productive?

04:28And I made videos about that

04:29and then people started to care

04:30to the point that now, six years later,

04:31I'm the world's most followed productivity expert.

04:33I've written a book about productivity.

04:34It's coming out in a few months, link down below.

04:36But none of this was intentional.

04:37It was all the archeologist approach

04:39of like digging, making the videos

04:40and consistently just sticking

04:42to producing one or two videos every single week,

04:45even while I was a full-time medical student

04:47and trying to prepare for my final year exams.

04:49So if you're allowing the concern

04:50about not having a niche hold you back

04:52from making the videos,

04:53please don't let it, just go for it.

04:55And I promise your niche will emerge over time.

04:57Lesson number three is the importance

04:58of supply and demand.

05:00Now, supply and demand is an economic reality,

05:02but it's also very much a reality here on YouTube.

05:04And basically what happens here

05:05is that the more supply

05:07of a particular type of content there is,

05:09the higher the bar gets raised

05:10in terms of how you stand out.

05:11The lower the supply and the higher the demand,

05:14the lower the bar gets.

05:15So for example, right now,

05:16YouTube is absolutely saturated

05:18with videos from students teaching people

05:19about how to study for exams.

05:21There is a very high supply of that content.

05:23There's still a pretty reasonably high demand for it,

05:25but the bar is very high.

05:26That means if you're a brand new YouTuber

05:27without any camera gear,

05:28without any experience talking to camera,

05:30without any experience editing,

05:31just filming on your phone,

05:32it is very unlikely

05:33that you'll be able to stand out.

05:35Now, based on this reality,

05:36there are two different approaches you can take.

05:38One approach you can take

05:39is just improving the quality of your videos.

05:41I wanna continue making videos,

05:42let's say about productivity.

05:43I know the bar is here

05:44and therefore I want my videos to be there,

05:46for example, so they cross the bar

05:47and so that they stand out in a crowded market.

05:49The problem is it's very hard to make videos

05:51stand out in a crowded market.

05:52Generally, you need some kind of unfair advantage,

05:54more on that later.

05:54But the alternative approach

05:56is to choose not to compete in a niche

05:57where there is already quite a lot of attention.

05:59We've had thousands of students go through my course,

06:01the Part-Time YouTuber Academy so far,

06:02and like 80% of them wanna make content

06:05about productivity, personal development,

06:07finance and business

06:08because they enjoy that stuff.

06:09But the problem with all of those very broad niches

06:11is that they are very, very, very saturated.

06:12And generally the ones that we find succeed

06:14are the ones who niche further and further down

06:16so that they can make very specific videos

06:18about a specific topic

06:19that they have some sort of unfair advantage in.

06:22Lesson number four

06:22is the importance of thinking in systems.

06:25Now back in the day,

06:25for the first, let's say,

06:27six to 12 months of me making videos,

06:28where I made my first 50 to 100 videos,

06:31I was focused on thinking one video at a time.

06:34I was thinking in terms of videos.

06:35I was like, cool,

06:36what video am I gonna make this week?

06:37And then I would write the video,

06:38I'd film, I'll edit, I'd publish.

06:40And as the video was uploading,

06:42I'd think about the title

06:43and figure out the thumbnail.

06:44I'd publish the video,

06:45I'd look at the comments,

06:46and then I'd move on to the next one.

06:47This is an absolutely exhausting way

06:49of making YouTube videos

06:50if you're focused on making the videos one at a time.

06:52The big level up that I had

06:54about a year into my YouTube journey

06:55was when I started to think in terms of systems.

06:58I read a fantastic book

06:59called The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber,

07:02which is a book about how small businesses grow

07:04and how small businesses fail.

07:05And initially I thought

07:06I wouldn't learn anything from it.

07:07But then I realised that a YouTube channel is a business

07:09and businesses grow through systems

07:11and through operations.

07:12Now there are some people

07:12that choose to view YouTube as a hobby.

07:14And if you wanna view it as a hobby,

07:15that's totally fine.

07:17But if you wanna view it as a business,

07:18i.e. something that makes money

07:19while providing value for other people,

07:21rather than as a hobby,

07:22which is something you do for yourself for fun,

07:24if you wanna view it as a business,

07:25then there's a profound importance

07:27in thinking in systems.

07:28So instead of thinking,

07:29what video can I make today?

07:30What video can I make tomorrow?

07:31Think, what is the system that I can build

07:33that would make the process

07:34of making every subsequent video

07:36way easier than it currently is?

07:37This might involve, like I do,

07:39having a content library,

07:40a database of video ideas.

07:42This is all the stuff

07:42that we teach on our course, by the way.

07:43It might involve

07:44systematically brainstorming titles

07:46and thumbnails in advance.

07:47It might involve having a systematic house style

07:49for your thumbnails,

07:50so it's less work to create thumbnails every time.

07:52It might involve having a specific system

07:53for how you look at YouTube analytics

07:55and what action you can take on them

07:56and completely ignoring the analytics

07:57that you don't intend to act upon.

07:59The point is, by thinking in systems

08:00and by treating your YouTube channel as a business,

08:02as a sort of media business,

08:04which is basically what it is,

08:05you can start to benefit from economies of scale

08:07by the fact that you're making multiple videos

08:09over a very long period of time.

08:11And systems are a form of leverage.

08:12It's like the same amount of effort,

08:14combined with leverage,

08:15it gets you way more output.

08:16And especially as part-time YouTubers,

08:17if like I was,

08:18you're trying to grow a YouTube channel

08:19while you've got a really demanding day job

08:21or while you're a student,

08:22systems and leverage

08:23are one of the key principles

08:25that will take your YouTube channel to the next level

08:27without it completely ruining your life.

08:28Now, if you're in that boat

08:29and you do wanna take YouTube seriously,

08:31but you're not sure exactly what the next steps are,

08:32then you can take my completely free quiz.

08:34It's called the YouTube Growth Scorecard

08:36and it's a completely free assessment

08:37that I've put together

08:38based on my six plus years of experience

08:40to try and figure out like,

08:41what are the key things

08:42that it takes to grow a YouTube channel

08:44into a sustainable and profitable business?

08:46And you can take this quiz completely for free

08:47and based on your answers to the questions,

08:49it will give you a score

08:50for all of the five different aspects

08:52of growing a YouTube channel business

08:54and it will give you actionable,

08:55tangible takeaway points

08:56depending on how you answered

08:57and depending on your score.

08:58So you can check out

08:59that completely free YouTube Growth Scorecard

09:00by clicking the link in the video description.

09:02All right, lesson number five

09:03is the profound and ridiculous importance

09:05of titles and thumbnails.

09:06Honestly, I don't like the fact

09:07that YouTube is so reliant on titles and thumbnails,

09:10but the truth of the matter is

09:11the video could be the absolute best thing in the world,

09:13but unless the packaging for it

09:14is sufficiently intriguing

09:16for the target audience that you're aiming for,

09:18no one is gonna click on that video

09:19and if no one clicks on the video,

09:20they don't even have an opportunity to watch it.

09:22This means, and this is the thing

09:23that I wish I'd known when I started YouTube,

09:26that it's very, very helpful

09:27to think about the title and the thumbnail

09:29before you even think about writing the video.

09:31Back in the day, as I mentioned,

09:32I would think about the title and thumbnail

09:34as I was uploading the video.

09:35This is very, very inefficient

09:36because it takes a lot of effort,

09:3810, 20 hours sometimes to make a video.

09:40Way more if you're making videos

09:41that require lots of research and lots of effort.

09:42And putting in all that research and all that effort

09:44and all that time and effort

09:45and blood and sweat and tears into making the video,

09:47but then thinking about the title and thumbnail

09:48as the final 30 seconds

09:50is completely the opposite way around of thinking about it.

09:52So now what I do on this channel

09:53is that we really think

09:54about the title and thumbnail first,

09:56and only when we can think

09:57of a really nice title and thumbnail for a video

09:59do we then even consider

10:01what the video outline is gonna be

10:02or think about writing the video.

10:03Now, as part of my part-time YouTuber Academy,

10:05I've interviewed dozens

10:06of ridiculously successful YouTubers

10:08from several hundred thousand subscribers

10:10to over 10 million subscribers.

10:11And I always ask them,

10:12what is one thing that you wish you knew

10:13before starting YouTube?

10:14And this is the one thing that they say.

10:16They always talk about the importance

10:18of the title and the thumbnail.

10:19And every single YouTuber learns this the hard way

10:22that over time,

10:22you've gotta do your title and thumbnail first

10:24and then worry about the content of the video itself.

10:26What I would encourage you to do

10:27is to think about who is the person

10:29you actually want to be watching this video?

10:30Because whatever the video is,

10:32it's not aimed at everyone.

10:33This video is not aimed at everyone.

10:34It's aimed at people who wanna start

10:35or who wanna grow a YouTube channel

10:37who are probably quite sophisticated,

10:38who are probably highly attractive

10:39and very intelligent, people like you.

10:41And therefore, it wouldn't make sense for me

10:42to make the thumbnail for this video

10:44something like this.

10:45That would be pretty absurd, right?

10:46Like it's a bit,

10:46it's not really the vibe

10:48of this sort of educational video.

10:49Even though this thumbnail

10:50might work for a MrBeast video,

10:51it's not gonna work for a video on this channel

10:53because it's a different kind of target audience.

10:55So yes, title and thumbnail are very important,

10:56but that doesn't mean you need

10:58to follow the MrBeast formula

10:59for titles and thumbnails.

11:00Think about what would resonate

11:02with your target audience.

11:03Relatedly, we come to lesson number six,

11:05which is the importance of the first 30 seconds.

11:07So if the title and thumbnail

11:08were ridiculously important,

11:10the first 30 seconds of your video

11:11are like secondary in terms of importance,

11:14but also very, very, very important.

11:15You'll see that in the first 10 or 20 seconds,

11:17a lot of people will have clicked on the video

11:19and then they will leave the content.

11:21And with a lot of channels,

11:22especially educational channels,

11:23you'll get 30 seconds into the video

11:24and only half of the people will be left remaining.

11:27That means that any effort you put

11:28into the first 30 seconds of the video

11:30or the first minute of the video

11:31will be disproportionately seen

11:33by way more many people

11:34than the effort that you put

11:35into the second half of the video,

11:36where maybe only 10 or 20%

11:37of the audience is remaining.

11:38And so the way to think about this

11:40is that if you're spending

11:40lots and lots of time on your editing,

11:42but the funky animations you're making

11:44come seven minutes into the video,

11:46chances are very few people are gonna see them.

11:48Try your best to front load the effort into the video

11:50so that as soon as someone clicks on it,

11:51they see, oh, a lot of effort has gone into this

11:54and then they're more likely to stick around

11:55once they turn their phone sideways,

11:57once they click full screen.

11:58At that point, you can back off a little bit,

12:00but you do have to do quite a lot of work up front

12:02to get people hooked onto the content.

12:04Lesson number seven is that at the start of the journey,

12:06gear doesn't really matter.

12:08I know plenty of YouTubers in the educational space

12:10who have just been filming with their iPhone,

12:12some to this day who just film with their iPhone,

12:14and they've got hundreds of thousands of subscribers

12:16and are making at least six figures a year here on YouTube

12:18and they're just filming with their phone.

12:20Gear does not matter at the start.

12:21However, if you can afford gear

12:23and you can level up your production value,

12:25it is one thing that makes your content

12:27stand out from the crowd.

12:28But again, this depends on your target audience.

12:30There's like a sweet spot for production value.

12:32For certain educational niches

12:33that are aimed mostly at intelligent adults,

12:35which is probably people like you,

12:37having decent production value is pretty good.

12:39In the tech niche, for example,

12:40having good production value is basically a requirement

12:42because people like that sort of thing in the tech niche.

12:45But if you're doing, for example, a lifestyle vlog

12:47that's trying to be relatable,

12:48then shooting your content with like cinema cameras

12:50is gonna make it seem less relatable

12:52rather than more relatable,

12:53and so there isn't really much point in doing that.

12:54So for every different type of content

12:56and for every different audience,

12:57there is a sweet spot of production value.

12:59And if you can get to that sweet spot

13:00by investing in gear and lights and cameras

13:03and mics and stuff, then fantastic.

13:04But you don't wanna make the mistake

13:05of going too far along that spectrum.

13:07And especially in the early days,

13:08especially if you're just starting out,

13:09you can absolutely get lots and lots and lots of subscribers

13:12and lots of views by filming things with your phone.

13:14The main thing is the quality of the content itself

13:17rather than the production value of the cameras.

13:19That'll come later, and that is something

13:20that can give you that little bit of sprinkle

13:22of extra spice over time.

13:23All right, lesson number eight

13:24is to find your unfair advantage.

13:26Now, having taught over 3,000 students

13:28from my part-time YouTuber Academy,

13:29we've been analysing the data painstakingly

13:31and trying to figure out what is it

13:32that makes the most successful YouTuber stand out

13:35compared to everyone else.

13:36And in almost every single case

13:37where we've had a student whose channel

13:38is really blown up after taking our course,

13:40a big part of it is that they've had

13:42some sort of unfair advantage to lean into.

13:44Now, what is an unfair advantage?

13:46An unfair advantage is something

13:47that would be very difficult or impossible

13:49for someone else to replicate.

13:50So hard work is not an unfair advantage.

13:52Hard work is a totally fair advantage.

13:54It's like everyone can compete on the realm of hard work.

13:56But an unfair advantage is something

13:57that's a little unfair,

13:58something that would be very difficult

13:59for someone else to actually take as their own advantage.

14:01For example, when I started YouTube,

14:03I leant into my unfair advantage

14:04of the fact that I was a Cambridge University medical student

14:07because there weren't many Cambridge University

14:08medical students making videos

14:10about how to get into medicine at Cambridge.

14:11Crucially, being a Cambridge University medical student

14:14and trying to make videos playing the guitar,

14:15I don't have any unfair advantage there.

14:17Therefore, there's not much point in doing it

14:18because it's very unlikely to be successful.

14:20But I found a domain of video making

14:22where I was leaning into an unfair advantage.

14:24Similarly, let's say that you've painstakingly worked

14:26really hard to teach yourself a language

14:28and now you wanna make YouTube videos

14:29teaching other people how to learn that language.

14:31That is, in a way, an unfair advantage

14:32because it's very hard for someone to compete with you

14:34because they would have had to learn the language.

14:36And especially if you're trying to create videos

14:38in a saturated marketplace,

14:39which a lot of different niches are on YouTube these days,

14:41it's important to think,

14:42what are the ways in which you can personally stand out?

14:44What unfair advantages do you have?

14:46Now, crucially, this does not matter at the start.

14:47We talked about architect and archeologist.

14:49And at the start, the main thing you need to do

14:50is just make a few videos.

14:51But definitely, once you get to the point

14:53of treating your YouTube channel like a business

14:55and thinking strategically about how you're gonna grow

14:57and how you're gonna stand out,

14:58thinking what are the personal, competitive,

15:00unfair advantages that I have

15:01that could help me stand out from the crowd

15:03is a very helpful way of helping you figure out

15:05what your angle for videos is gonna be.

15:06And then lesson number nine

15:07is something I wish someone had told me

15:09like months into my YouTube journey,

15:10rather than two years into it,

15:12which is when I started doing it,

15:13which is to outsource your video editing

15:15as soon as you possibly can.

15:16The vast majority of the big successful YouTubers I know

15:19have outsourced their editing.

15:20And when you do outsource your editing,

15:21you find that it frees up

15:22an absolutely enormous amount of time

15:24for you to be able to focus on the things

15:25that you can do better,

15:26which is writing and filming the videos.

15:28And that was held back so much at the start

15:29by thinking that no one could replicate my editing style.

15:31It would be hard to find an editor.

15:33I tried outsourcing to someone

15:35and then it didn't really work.

15:36And then I threw it away thinking that,

15:37oh, it would take so long to train them.

15:38I might as well just continue editing the videos myself.

15:41I told myself that I enjoyed video editing

15:43and it was fun and therefore I should continue doing it.

15:44But what it took was a mentor of mine

15:46who had several multimillion dollar businesses

15:48to sit me down and be like,

15:49look, trust me, you need to outsource your editing.

15:51And I thought, all right, cool.

15:52So then I outsourced my editing

15:53and it completely changed my life.

15:54And that was when the channel really started to skyrocket

15:56because all of a sudden my own time was freed up

15:58to be able to make more videos,

15:59to be able to think more strategically about the channel,

16:01to be able to learn more stuff and share it in videos

16:03rather than what it was previously,

16:05which is every day I'd get home from work

16:06in my day job as a doctor

16:08and I'd be editing videos for hours

16:09and hours and hours on end.

16:10Now, again, if you're in this position

16:11where you wanna grow a YouTube channel

16:12but you're not really sure what the next steps are,

16:14you should absolutely check out

16:15my YouTube growth scorecard.

16:16It'll be linked completely for free

16:17down in the video description.

16:18And it'll ask you a bunch of questions

16:20and based on your answers to that,

16:21it will give you a score for the five different areas

16:23of growth on YouTube

16:24and it will give you practical recommendations

16:26for what you can do as your next steps

16:28in each given area.

16:29So these were nine lessons that I wish I'd known

16:30when I first started YouTube,

16:31but this list does not lay out

16:33what the strategic step-by-step method

16:35that I would follow would be.

16:36And so if you're starting on YouTube

16:37or your channel's not growing as fast as you'd like,

16:39you might like to check out this video over here

16:40where I lay out exactly what I would do

16:42if I was starting a YouTube channel

16:43completely from scratch.

16:44And in that video,

16:45I give you my three-part method for growth on YouTube,

16:47which thousands of people have said

16:48have completely changed the way

16:49they approach their channels.

16:50So thank you so much for watching

16:51and I'll see you in the next video.

16:52Bye-bye.

Category

Transcript

Recommended