I Failed at YouTube, Until I Understood These 4 Things

There was a time not that long ago when I started YouTube where I would spend weeks on a video. Perfect lighting, perfect sound, perfect transitions, a great thumbnail, a great title. And every time I'd make a video, I would think, "This is going to be the one. This is going to be the video that finally blows up my channel." But time after time after time, it didn't work. I'd post the videos and they'd get 10 views if I was lucky. And every time, I would want to quit right there. And I thought that my dreams of being a YouTuber were over. But then I discovered something. Something that went against everything I believed about YouTube. And once I understood this one thing, everything changed. And let me show you what I mean in this video. Oh, and by the way, if you like me doing this type of content, gently tap that like button and I'll do more of it in the future. And with that being said, let's jump into it right now. So, the first thing you need to understand is that you shouldn't fall into the common traps that almost everybody who tries YouTube falls into because here's what most small YouTubers do. And by the way, I did this too. We all think that one perfect video will blow us up. So we spend one to two weeks, sometimes one to two months on a single video. We obsess over the editing, every transition, every word that goes into the video. We spend hours on color grading and sound design. And we believe that production quality is the key to growth. Oh, and let's not forget about the thumbnail. There's been times where I spend an entire day making the perfect thumbnail. And then we post it and we wait for this masterpiece to get discovered. And then what happens? the video flops or worse, it gets only a few hundred views despite all that effort we put in. Now, let me ask you something. Who do you think is the wealthiest YouTuber? You probably said Mr. Beast, right? And if you look at his production quality, it's insane. He spends millions of dollars on each video. But here's where it gets interesting. There's actually someone far richer than Mr. Beast. And his name is Allak Pandi. Ever heard of him? Probably not. His company Physics Walla, which he launched from his YouTube channel, is now worth $3.7 billion. Not million, billion with a B. And like I said, he launched this company from his YouTube channel. And he's from a small village in India. And here's the craziest part. He started off teaching physics using a really bad phone on a whiteboard with terrible lighting in his basement. No, seriously, look at his early videos. The quality was terrible. Bad lighting, bad sound, bad everything. But it didn't matter because he was providing value. He found video ideas that a ton of people needed. Students needed his tutoring, so they gladly watched his videos. Even though the production quality was honestly really bad. So production quality didn't make him successful. His idea did. At the time, providing accessible physics education to millions of students was something that nobody else was doing. And although his videos didn't have high production quality, they were valuable. He was actually teaching students what they needed to learn physics. And they didn't care about his crappy camera or his lack of editing or even his terrible lighting. All they cared about was the idea and the value that he was giving. All right, quick break. This Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, I'm hosting a free live workshop called Make Money with YouTube in 2025. If you've been struggling to find your YouTube niche or you don't want to spend months or even years building a channel around something that isn't profitable or just doesn't work for you in general, then this workshop is for you because for everyone who shows up live, I'll be giving away the Niche Validator 2.5. This is the most advanced version of my GPT powered niche validation tool yet, and it's designed to help you instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you invest your time, money, and effort into the wrong one. and it's the most refined data driven version so far and I'll be giving it away completely free, but only during this live workshop. So, attend the free live workshop by clicking that link down the description and the pin comment below to grab it. You'll also be able to ask me questions live. So, I look forward to meeting you. Oh, and just a heads up, this will be probably one of the last times I'll be giving away a version of the niche validator for free. So, make sure you click that link and show up to the workshop. Make sure you put in your calendar and I look forward to seeing you there. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. And this brings me to idea number two, which is to ignore all the stuff that doesn't matter and do what actually matters. So, here's the truth that nobody tells you. YouTube is an idea business. It's not an editing business. It's not a thumbnail business. And unfortunately, the best videos rarely win. Let me break down the 8020 rule. The video idea is 80% of success. Editing quality has a tiny impact on growth, especially when you're just starting. And a great idea with mediocre editing will always beat a bad idea with master level editing. Every single time people click because of the concept, not because you spent 10 hours color correcting. Now, let me show you some real examples. These videos went viral with minimal editing. Some with literally zero editing. Example one. The title here is the poor man's way to get rich. Now, this channel has over 30,000 subscribers and this video got 691,000 views. And the editing level, just a guy with a whiteboard in a basement. Single camera angle, no cuts, no effects. Why did it work? The idea. There was a lot of demand for that idea and there was very little supply. Example two, the title is just Exit Bro and the channel is Money King447. They have over 180,000 subscribers and this video got 2.8 million views. That's 136x viral multiplier. And the editing level, well, it was filmed outside a trailer home. Basic talking head, minimal editing. Why did it work? Again, the idea. Relatable life advice with a casual title. It makes you curious. Example three. It took me 30 plus years to realize what I'll tell you in minutes. The channel is Maggie McCormack. She has over 200,000 subscribers and this video got 6 million views. That's 115x viral multiplier. And that means the video did 115 times better than her usual videos. Now, the editing level, standing in a forest, a few simple text overlays, and no fancy editing whatsoever. Why did it work? Again, the idea it was all about not wasting your life plus condensed wisdom. And this creates a powerful curiosity gap. Another similar video. It took me 40 years to realize what I'll tell you in 8 minutes. The channel is Jim Burroughs Thrives. He has over 40,000 subscribers and the video got 2.3 million views and it's a 3,000x viral multiplier. Now, the editing level, standing in a backyard, simple text overlay, basic filming. Why did it work? Again, the idea, same formula as before. Life wisdom plus time compression equals clicks. Next video is I'm 40. I wasted my life. Don't make the same mistake. The channel is dad mode and dark mode. They have over 20,000 subscribers. This video got 205,000 views. That's a 9.5x viral multiplier. And the editing level, podcast style setup, static camera, simple thumbnail text. Why did it work? Again, the idea. Vulnerable confession plus warning equals emotional connection and massive curiosity. See the pattern here? None of these needed fancy editing. They just needed a great idea. Even the thumbnails on all these were incredibly simple. Now, by the way, if you want to succeed like these people, but you don't know where to start. For instance, if you're confused about choosing your niche, make sure you attend my live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, click that link in the description and the pin comment below in order to sign up. All right, point number three is teaching the algorithm. So, here's what most people don't understand. YouTube needs data about your channel in order to match up your content with the right audience, and you need to teach it who you are. But here's the algorithm's problem. There's so much AI slop on YouTube and really poor quality content. And so, until YouTube knows that you're going to consistently upload videos that are on topics that people actually care about, they're probably not going to promote your channel because YouTube's algorithm needs data. One perfect video every month or two months, that's not enough data. It's not enough for YouTube to understand you and understand the audience that they should promote your content to because the algorithm needs to learn your niche, your audience, your content style, and what topics actually work for you. And you can't teach the algorithm anything if you're only uploading one video a month or one video every 2 months. So, let me show you a real example. This is Steven Noent. Now, he's a farm D and a pharmacist. And I used to be a pharmacist myself. So I was attracted to his channel and the algorithm knew to serve his videos to me. Why? Because Google is a company that has a massive amount of data. So Google is the largest search engine in the world and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Guess who owns YouTube? Google. So they share data with each other. So because of all that data they have, they knew that I was a pharmacist myself and therefore I would be much more likely to enjoy his content. Now, he's recently been doing very well on YouTube. He's got around 8,000 subscribers right now, and he uploads about seven videos per week. Now, the average video length is around 19 minutes, and his channel is growing incredibly quickly. And because he's regularly uploading content, YouTube is sending him to an audience of people that are going to actually like to engage with his content, such as myself. Now, the really cool thing about his channel is he literally just films in his car. I'm pretty sure he just films his videos while he's driving to or from work. simple setup, no fancy editing, just him talking to a camera, and mostly he talks about real estate investing and financial freedom. Now, here's what happened to him. First, he was posting erratically. He wasn't posting consistently, and he didn't get very much traction. But when he started posting consistently, which is phase 1, almost daily in his case, most of his videos were only getting about 200 to 300 views, right? Just hundreds, not thousands. So, no viral hits yet. But he kept going. He posted video after video after video. Why? because he was teaching YouTube what his content was about. Real estate investing, financial freedom, no BS, straightforward advice, multif family real estate, and wealth building. Phase two, the breakthrough. After consistently posting, one video finally blew up. It got 72,000 views, and that's a 306x multiplier. So, YouTube finally understood his audience and his niche, and the algorithm now knew who to recommend his videos to. And then he entered phase three, which is consistent growth. So after that one breakthrough, his next video started getting thousands of views each as a minimum. Now before the breakthrough, it was hundreds of views. After the breakthrough, thousands minimum. Plus, he's had several videos that have taken off now. And most importantly, he's attracting an audience of people that are very interested in what he has to say. He's not attracting them because he has some kind of super fancy video editing or his videos are super entertaining. His videos are very simple, but he talks about really interesting stuff to the right audience. What's happening guys? In the editing process of this video and I have an opportunity for a select group of people. So these are people who are serious about growing their personal brand on YouTube. So basically we figured out recently how to grow a personal brand and combine all the upsides of a personal brand with the upsides of automation, right? Using AI, using things like this to basically grow your personal brand 10 times faster, which in the past used to take decades to do. And now you can do it significantly faster. You can do this to get a better job. You know, we work with beginners that just want to get a better job with their personal brand. You can do this to make money as a side hustle. We work with a lot of people like that. We can do this to make more money if you already have a side hustle or a small business. Or if you're already crushing it on YouTube, we can help you crush it 10 times more. We've worked with people like that as well. I mean, I literally can show clients at each level. People that we've gotten from zero to over 10K, zero to like over 30K, uh, from like 1K per month, all the way up to 185K per month, from around 30K per month, all the way up to over 500K per month. So literally at every single level and it works for everyone in every situation. With that being said, we are only working with three to five people and they have to be people who are very serious, right? People who are dedicated to making this work. So if you think you're that type of person, go ahead and apply it down in the description and the pin comment below and you can be part of our group of 35 that we help. So see you there. Have a good one. >> And this brings us to number four, which is the real strategy. First, you got to nail the fundamentals, and you have to be talking about ideas that are very likely to succeed. And after that, it's pretty much all volume and consistency. This is going to beat perfection every single time, especially when you're starting out. So, let me just give you an example with my brother's story. Now, keep in mind, my brother is over 50 years old. He's never made a video in his life. He's not techsavvy, and he barely watches YouTube. He's more of a TV person. And usually I create a new channel from scratch every single year just to make sure that I still know what it's like to grow a small channel. But this year, instead of creating my own channel, I decided to grow my brother's channel instead. And his very first video that he posted blew up and it now has over 800,000 views. And 29 days after posting his first video, he had a $214 AdSense day. Around 3 months after posting his first video, he had a $440 AdSense day. and my brother followed this exact strategy that I'm talking about in this video. Now, by the way, if you want to get an update on my brother's situation and basically learn exactly how we grew his channel so quickly, then go ahead sign up for that free live training down in the description and the pin comment below and I'll make sure to give you an update on the live training. A lot of the time my brother actually attends these, so you might even see him there. Now, I realize that 99% of people watching this video, maybe even 99.9% of people watching this video are just going to enjoy my free content, right? this video as well as my free live trainings. And they're never going to work one-on-one with me or my team like my brother did. With that being said, if you do want to work one-on-one with me and my team, just like my brother did, then you can go ahead and book a call down in the description and the pin comment below. It'll be the second link down there. On this call, we'll figure out where you are right now, where you want to be. We'll make a plan to get there, and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together or not. Only book this call if you're very serious about growing and making money on YouTube. And of course, we are very limited in the amount of people that we can work with. So only book it if you're super serious. But if you are, click that link in the description and pin comment below and we'll talk to you on the call. And also check out this video from Shawn by clicking right here. Shawn was stuck on YouTube basically growing at the same exact pace for a very long time. And we helped him scale all the way up to over $500,000. And again, you can check that video out by clicking right here.