What I Learned From 500 YouTube Videos transcript

I've posted 500 long- form videos that have generated 60 million plus views. But if you saw my first hundred videos, you would think that I have zero chance of success. I used to think that YouTube was broken. I would watch other creators just blow past me when we started at the same time. Well, my videos were stuck at like 47 views. I was so obsessive. I would be checking analytics constantly, refreshing, seeing that I got one more subscriber today, and just wondering why the algorithm hated me.

What was I doing wrong? Most creators think that success is luck. It's kind of like a a hockey stick where you're not seeing a lot and then bam, everything like happens. But after 500 videos, like 529 to be exact, 650,000 subscribers and helping hundreds of other creators, I can tell you it's pretty much nonsense. YouTube success actually follows three general patterns that nobody really talks about. And if you can understand these patterns, it could be the thing that keeps you from quitting right before you start to see success and even get you to that point where you can build a six-figure freedom business.

And to kind of prove this, I'll show you a couple of examples from myself and other people who have gone from zero to $10,000 a month plus inside of a year. In this video, I am going to break down the three biggest rules I have learned over the past 6 years on YouTube. rules that can save you years of frustration and get you a lot closer to where you want to be, running a actual profitable, successful YouTube channel, which by the way generally don't look the way you think it does.

Now, I started YouTube almost 7 years ago on a complete whim. I was obsessed about financial independence and investing and all this stuff. And I just like looked over to my wife. I was like, "Hey, like would it be okay if I like started a YouTube channel? Like get a camera and and kind of try that?" And she's like, "Yeah, sure." I was like, "Huh." Was kind of expecting a little bit more blowback than that. I was like kind of I was hoping for somebody to be like, "No, that's crazy." But she was super supportive.

And so that same day, I started filming random stuff on my phone. I bought my first camera on a random car ride and started filming with zero idea of what I was doing. And that impulse decision has literally changed my life. For the first few years, I was terrible. Like really terrible. My thumbnails look like they were made by a 5-year-old. Like my first thumbnail was a screenshot cuz I didn't know what thumbnail was.

I didn't know that you could edit a video. like I was that bad and I definitely didn't know how to properly title. I didn't have everything all planned out and perfect from the get- go. But what I've learned from posting every week for the past 6 plus years is that being perfect doesn't matter. Especially when you're starting. It is about being consistent and getting 1% better every video and zooming out and looking at every video as education.

Even if it fails, it doesn't matter because you learn something, you got better, and you move on to the next one. And even if that one fails, it doesn't matter and you move on to the next one. And the breakthrough for me happened when I stopped trying to go viral. And I started focusing on my systems. I started focusing on improvement. I went from posting three mediocre, relatively crappy videos a week to posting one video a week that was much more thought out, was much higher quality cuz it was three videos worth of quality shoved into one.

By the way, I had a full-time job at this point and two other part-time jobs and had like just gotten married, so like still the quality wasn't great. But the first week that I made that shift was the first viral video I've ever had. That video got hundreds of thousands of views and completely changed my life. All right, let's talk about the three rules of YouTube. Rule number one is to post and forget. Here's the thing.

The algorithm does not work like you think it does. Sometimes I've had videos that have sat at 100 views for months and then I go back and check it a year later and somehow it's at 50 or 100,000 views and literally nothing happened for months until it randomly got picked up. This is a pattern I've seen over and over again. So, when you post a video and it doesn't do as good as you expect, that's okay. Just realize that it could do better next week, next month, next year.

Who knows? It's not always instant. And that's the great thing about YouTube is that it's not just like a quick burn like it would be on a real or a short or a Tik Tok. Videos can get views for 5 or 10 years. I've had videos that were 10 out of 10. I get super depressed. It's very frustrating. I'm like thinking about quitting. I'm like, it's all over. And then I go back and look at a year later and it's at 300,000 views cuz it showed up in search and it's brought in 5,000 new subscribers. like how a video does in the first couple days of the first week is like it's cool for analytics reasons, but it doesn't really matter if you build your systems right.

See, most creators think about it the wrong way, right? They see low views and they think that they're doing something wrong. Then they start changing random stuff and it's good to change things and adapt and figure out what's going on. But sometimes, especially with a small channel, it just takes time. It takes consistency. And generally, if you can get to that first video taking off, it'll make all of these other ones start to take off as well.

So, you just have to wait, be patient, and build up a library. And the cool thing is YouTube has actually updated their algorithm to be more like the Tik Tok algorithm that could really kind of changed a lot of things. And so now YouTube has a very interested algorithm. So like instead of subscribers being the things that matter, now it is the topics and channels with no views can get their videos recommended if they are highquality videos that make people uh glad that they watch them.

They want to watch more on a topic that those people are interested in. That's why you see small channels randomly getting recommended to you that you've never seen before in your life. And sometimes this can take time and a good video doesn't always mean views right away. So what we're really doing here is trying to use the compound effect. There's a book called the compound effect, but it's pretty much like you're putting in reps, you're continually getting better.

You're building this library and eventually these will all start to get more views if you're making high-quality videos. And a lot of time it's just a matter of time. And if you stay consistent and you keep getting better. So don't change your entire strategy if one video underperforms. Give your content some time to find its audience and then you can always adapt. I had one video where someone actually emailed me and like, "Hey, you should change the title to this." And the video was stuck at like 10,000 views for months now.

I was like, "Okay, what's the harm? I'll just change the title." That video that was 6 months old got like another 40,000 views and now I think it's close to 100,000. I'll have to find the video. But this was literally just because I changed the title like months after uploading the video. Sometimes it's not right away. Sometimes it's a small tweak. Sometimes this happens on your own without you doing anything. an old video that you have like posted two years ago will randomly get this giant spike in tens of thousands of views just because.

So post it, forget it, move on to the next one and get better. Rule number two is that it only takes one video, but you need more than one video. You've probably heard of the Perto principle or the 8020 rule. This applies to almost everything in life, but also to YouTube where 80% of your growth is going to come from about 20% of your content. And that means that if you post 10 videos, one to two of them will do very well and the rest will do average to tank to doing bad.

That's going to be what happens. The sooner you realize that, the less stressed you get. But most creators don't understand this. They try every single time to have a viral video. And when it doesn't do well, they get super frustrated. Like if every video was a 1 out of 10, like you'd be like a billionaire in no time. It's just it's not going to happen. So let the pressure off. Some of them are going to do great, some of them won't.

If you're posting one video a week, probably one every three months is going to do great and the rest are just going to be like, "Oh, oh well, I tried." That's okay. That is a normal rule that applies to almost everything in life. But those few videos that do take off can change your life. If we look at like a kind of an extreme example, Mr. Beast's Squid Game video, one video drove 30% of his yearly growth in just 60 days from one video, 275 million views in 5 months when the average was 50 to 100 million.

He grew 10 million subscribers in 60 days. That was 30% of his growth for the whole year. And so your goal is to find that Squid Games. For me, it was to find the frugal living for early retirement or on this channel, the how normal people are blowing up on YouTube. One video will change the trajectory of your channel, will be the thing that gives you a clear insight into what your audience wants, will be the thing that gets you most of your subscribers, most of your money, and the rest can support, they can do good, but you're probably going to get about 1 out of 10.

If we look at my analytics, my top video got 83,000 views in the last 28 days. That's nearly 10% of my total monthly views just from one video. My top five videos brought in 284,000 views while my entire back catalog of hundreds of videos brought in the rest. That is the 80/20 rule in real time. If you see a competitor who's like blowing past you, it's not because their videos are like way better. Maybe that is the case if your videos suck.

Try to be honest with yourself, by the way. But a lot of times it will be because they had one, two, maybe three videos that popped off and that's why there are now suddenly 10, 20,000 subscribers ahead of you. it's because of one or two videos. Now, when most people hear about the 8020 rule, they're like, "Okay, well, I'll just focus on the top 20% of the videos and skip the 80% that don't do well." But the problem is, you need that other 80%.

Each video is practice. It's like going to the gym. You need to continually get in those reps. Your back catalog also builds community. Some of my most engaged videos are the ones that are like an 8 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. They don't do very well, but they build a relationship with my audience where this video is not meant to go viral. It is meant to share with my audience what is going on. I'm not trying to make money from the video.

I am there simply to build a relationship with people so that when I do stuff down the road, they they actually care about me. They show up when I do a house tour. And you need this catalog of different topics, different things, different things that you've tried so that when those one video hits, they have other things to watch. They have, if somebody cares more about your personal life, they can do this. They care more about uh this style of content, you have that.

Like I try to do quarterlyish like life updates. I am not going to gain any subscribers from a life update, but everybody who does follow me is now going to care about me a little bit more. It's now going to feel a little bit more connected with them, and I'm going to get an insane amount of engagement from that. Even if I don't really make any money or grow at all, I'm building a long-term business through those videos that don't do very well.

Now, if we go back to that 6-month period where I was losing subscribers every time I posted, I wanted to quit. I really thought about it, but I just kept posting one because it was habit. I was posting every week. Just became what I did, became who I was. And the sooner you can get to that point of like this is just what I do, the sooner like quitting doesn't really become an option. Two, I really cared about what I was doing.

If I wasn't passionate about what I was talking about, would have been really easy to quit. And then three, I did the thing that I learned from Rich Dad Poor Dad, which is working to learn instead of working to earn. It's okay if my videos flop. They all do bad. I had pretty much just had the one at this point, but I knew that eventually if I kept getting better at the skill of YouTube, one other video would do well and I would be right back on the wagon.

And that's eventually what happened. And then all those other videos that failed and failed and failed and failed and failed for six months started to slowly get more views. It was like just a timing issue and a skill issue for my part. I sucked back then. I'd never really studied YouTube and therefore I sucked at it. This is also why I batch create on my channels and I try to stay at least a couple weeks to a month ahead is because it really takes the pressure off the individual video cuz I'm always looking on to the next thing.

I'm not as attached to my videos. And when you have those systems in place and a long-term view of what you're trying to do, it doesn't matter. And I actually plan for some videos to do bad so that I can build a deeper relationship with my audience. And if you want to get better at YouTube, I also made a free mini course. I'll leave a link down below. People have said it's better than courses they've paid for. It's an email course.

I'll send you an email every day about different areas of YouTube and how to get better at them. Totally free. There's a link down below. Rule number three, it's not linear. Like most creators think it's going to be this hockey stick where you're like, "Nothing, nothing, nothing. Boom. We're off to the races." In reality, it's about raising your floor. You're going to have one video that pops and now your floor is going to be better.

Like let's say your floor, every video you post, 10 people show up to watch that video. But then you get a video that has 5,000 views. Well, now 97 people show up to your average video. Like sweet, this is great. So you everything's higher. And then you get this next video that gets 10,000 views. Well, now you have 150 people show up to every video that you post. And that is all that you are doing. You're getting those one videos that change things.

And now your baseline's higher. One video, now your baseline's higher. This has been the track where generally you're going to have these spikes, but the main thing is to work on your baseline. Not really caring too much about the spikes, but get that baseline higher so that you have consistent views because you built a relationship with people. And while the floor comes and that takes the one out of 10 and it takes the eight out of 10.

What this looked like for me is I went from 800 subscribers after a year to 30,000 the next year, then 50,000. Then when I actually started to get serious about YouTube, it bumped up to 400,000. It wasn't a smooth process. It was really like when I started to learn things, I started to see real growth, but it came in like these lurches and jumps and then you have like three months where everything's failing and you're like, "Oh no, I got to quit YouTube.

This is terrible." And then you have a couple months where it's doing great. You're like, "This is the best thing ever. I'm an amazing YouTuber." And then it's down again. It's like that is the cycle. But the main thing is working on that floor. The truth is that most people quit during the flat parts. I had 800 subscribers after 12 months. If I had quit during that time, which would have been reasonable. I was losing thousands of dollars cuz I like bought a laptop and stuff.

I never would have seen the next year when I went from 800 to 30,000. The biggest mistake I see creators making is quitting before they hit that breakthrough. So why do these breakthroughs happen? Well, sometimes it can be that the algorithm needs to figure out who your audience is and that just takes a little bit of time sometimes. Another reason is cuz you kind of suck. You suck at making videos. I sucked the first year.

I did not deserve to have more subscribers or more views because I sucked. If you're not getting views, you probably do too. Just be okay with that. Another reason can just be because of timing. If you're new, you've only been around for a few months, people don't know you. They don't have a relationship with you. It's not a habit to watch you. And so, you don't have that connection with your audience where they're going to continue to show up and engage in your videos cuz they haven't known you long enough.

Another reason could just be because you haven't had that one video that breaks through yet. And this is where you need to change your mindset because I lost money for the first 3 years on YouTube. If my goal was only to make money as quick as possible, I would have quit. But because I was passionate about the topic, I had that long-term mindset of skill building. So, if I could give you some advice, it would be please uninstall YouTube Studio off of your phone, stop checking the analytics, stop stressing about those.

It it it will make you depressed. I've lost so many days to like a video doing bad. Continue checking analytics, being super like stressed out, and like it's really bad. Focus on gaining skills, making better videos, not on the numbers. All right, so let's talk about money and the real successful deal. After 529 videos, here is what actually works. Commit to making 100 videos minimum. Comment 100 club down below if you're going to do that.

If you're not going to it, I would suggest just quitting. Don't bother. It's a waste of time. You're probably not going to make it. If you do one video a week, that's about 2 years of sticking with it every single week. And if you're not willing to make that commitment, I have seen very few people have success in under two years, unless they've had success on another channel, which took them a couple years to build. Next up, focus on skills, not metrics.

One video doing well is awesome, but you need consistent quality content consistently having videos do well every couple months. Otherwise, you won't have a sustainable business. So, during those hundred videos, just focus on the skills and everything else will come. Prepare for the flat periods. You're going to have times where everything's failing. You don't know what to do. Again, if you're zoomed out to that 100 videos where it's like, okay, even if 10 fail here, I'm still making 42 others this year, so who really cares?

You have that mindset. The stress goes way down. Now, let's talk about the truth about money because most people when they're creating YouTube videos, they want to make some money. And you do not need to wait for that. I have a channel with about 500 subscribers that makes over $1,000 per video and has made over $20,000 last year with just 15 videos and like 500 subscribers. So, trust me, you do not need a lot of subscribers to make money on YouTube.

You don't need to wait till you're monetized even. I literally don't care if that channel ever gets monetized cuz doesn't matter. And even one of my students, Natasha, went from making zero dollars last year after that two years and getting a lot of reps in, started to implement some of the systems that I use, gained some skills, and now she made $15,000 last month from zero a year ago with only 12,000 subscribers. You do not need a large audience to make money.

But what she did was focus on the skills of YouTube. Had one video that took off. That one video gave her direction. She doubled down on it, learned some monetization strategies from my 5-hour YouTuber cohort, was by far the most engaged person there. Pretty much just copied a lot of things that are just proven to work. Now she's on track to make $10,000 a month on average, probably closer to $20,000 a month by the end of the year with again 12,000 subscribers.

You do not need a large audience. What you need is monetization systems. And on top of that, you also need systems for your videos. So, I was able to get my video making process down to under five hours a week, which is how I run three plus YouTube channels and like other side businesses. It's because YouTube can take over your entire life. Or you can knock it down to just a couple hours per week and make this sustainable system that doesn't take over your life so you can enjoy time with your kids, traveling, location freedom while still making content and making money.

So, if you're just like throwing spaghetti at the wall every week, you don't know what you're doing, you're all over the place, you're stressed out, you're chaos, you need to focus on some systems. Now, I know this video wasn't the like how to get 100,000 subscribers in in 60 days type of thing, but this is what has proven to work. I've seen it over and over and over again, and it's really nothing sexy. You need to get better at the skills.

You need to stick with it for a long time, and you need to systematize your monetization and your process of making YouTube videos. If you want to learn more about that, you can join the weight list for the next 5-hour YouTuber cohort. In the past like year and a half, we've been doing this. We've had five people leave their day jobs through YouTube, and I'm trying to get that to 100 people. So, if you're super serious about YouTube and putting in the reps and actually getting better at the skills, join the weight list down below.

What I personally love most about the cohort is that I directly interact with and review channels and talk to people and make friends with the people who are there because that's what made a lot of the difference for me was meeting people who had actually done what I was trying to do. Getting to know them as a human, seeing the real people, doing normal things, and getting advice from people who have actually been where you want to be, which most other like pre-prackaged programs don't do that.

We do everything live so that you can um learn directly from me and other people who make crazy money from small channels. So hopefully this video was helpful. See you next week.