I Went From 4k to 38k subs in 365 Days (Honest Numbers + What Worked) transcript

In the past 365 days on this channel, I've gotten 1.3 million views, 96,400 watch hours, 33,900 new subscribers, and I've made about 7,700 bucks in AdSense. And exactly 1 year ago, this channel had about 4,500 subscribers, and I pretty much wasn't making any money. So, it's been a good year. As some of you might not know, this is actually my second, kind of third channel. I have a main channel that is much bigger. But, I know a lot of you are in a similar place to where I was on this channel about a year ago.

Small, trying to still figure out what you're exactly you're trying to do. So, I wanted to break down how I was able to have a lot of growth in the past year, actually start making money, turn this channel into a six-figure business, all while running it in far under 5 hours a week, specifically because of the style of videos that I make. Actually used to take longer than that, but I really dialed it in, and now it makes more money with less time than most of my other channels.

So, when I started this channel, I didn't have a crystal clear idea of what I wanted it to be. I think when a lot of people start channels, they don't really have that like perfect vision. However, I knew that I wanted to watch stuff that I could watch again next year. I wanted to make stuff that was evergreen. I didn't want to chase trends. I didn't want to chase viral videos. I want to make stuff that I would watch myself or that I enjoy making myself.

When you chase like viral trends or, you know, what AI thing just came out or any of that type of stuff, you're pretty much in this loop of just chasing attention because people aren't really there for you. They are there for the topic, and that is something I did not want to happen on this channel. If you look at some of the videos that went really well on this channel so far this year, we had, you know, how average people are blowing up in 2025, we had what actually works for small YouTube channels, what I learned from 500 videos.

Those ones weren't really chasing trends. Those ones were, you know, the average people are blowing up on YouTube. That one I literally just saw and made up within like 20 minutes. I think it was half hour from idea of like, oh, this is cool till like having the done video. And those are also ones that are kind of, you know, going to be evergreen. A lot of the things that worked for, you know, average people on YouTube in 2025, those still kind of work.

The things that I learned from 500 videos, those are going to be relatively the same next year as they will be this year. So, they're just going to have a long shelf life as opposed to like this new YouTube update might get a lot of views, but it's going to die really quickly. So, if I could like kind of give you something to to work on, it would be to stop chasing trends, stop chasing the spikes. Like those things are good, a couple videos can really make a really big difference in your channel, that's very true.

But, what you really want to work on is your floor. You want to work on your community, your base. You want to have your average video that's not optimized at all to get 1,000 views. And then like 2 months later, now you're getting 1,500 views on those. And then 6 months later, you're getting 3,000 views on those. And then whatever, and you're building that baseline, that community of people who show up because they care about you, right?

And so, at least that's the type of channel that I like to build. It generally monetizes better, you generally connect more with people, and it's just like more fun cuz you get to know the people in your comments cuz they show up cuz you're being a real person, you're not just talking about trending stuff. So, it just tends to be better in most ways. It doesn't get you as famous, it doesn't blow you up as much, but depends on what if your goal is to make money and to build a community and stuff like that or your goal is to get famous.

And so, one thing that I really noticed looking back over the last year is all the videos that I put a bunch of effort into, and I mean like a bunch of effort, scripting these beautiful scripts or vlogging my entire day and like editing it like a lot and all that type of stuff, those ones almost never work. I don't think any of them really clicked. And yet, like I just said, some of the best performing ones are the ones where I was like, "This is an interesting idea.

This is something that will help people. This is something that I'm noticing. Let me just shoot this real quick." Generally, all of my top ones have gone from like ideation to having a shot video inside 30 minutes to an hour. So, it's definitely just reinforces this whole idea that like more work does not mean a better video. Sometimes it does if you're doing like a entertainment style video where you have to like, you know, go travel or do something really big for your video, but that's not who I talk to.

But, you're probably not an entertainment creator. If you are, this probably isn't the channel for you. But if you're in the education space, a lot of people are there for knowledge. So like as long as the information is good, how long it takes to give that information doesn't really matter. And then another thing I noticed was I really got trapped in this idea of how I make my videos is what's going to make the channel do well.

Like on my main channel, I put a lot of effort into the videos. I have a high production quality, but on this channel, I realized that idea, title, thumbnail are literally all that matters because we have a like a a pretty good relationship here. And I can just sit down, I can talk, I can share things that have actually worked for me, turn the camera on, not really have a script, just like some bullet points, and the videos are going to do well.

So it's really more about the idea than the production quality. A lot of people assume that more subscribers means more revenue. It almost has nothing to do with each other. My revenue has actually been pretty consistent. Besides the AdSense, I don't really look at the AdSense much, but the revenue has been consistent besides that because as long as you're reaching your target audience and you have some way to make money, whether be affiliates or product or coaching or whatever you do, then the subscribers are going to grow, but it's really about those baseline views.

That's what's way more important than subscriber count. So it doesn't really matter as all. It's pretty much just a vanity metric. It does give you some authority maybe, but that's about it. All right, so I actually went through some of the top videos cuz there's a pattern that I thought was really interesting that you might find some value in. But we got to dance first. Drone shot. Gun shot. All of those things you just saw are thanks to the sponsor of this video, Storyblocks.

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I actually didn't have a script one. But it worked because it was real, it was resourceful, it was different than other people, and it actually helped people, right? Another one that worked was why you shouldn't tell anybody about your YouTube channel. This was one that was one of those trenders. It worked for a lot of people. However, I had my very unique spin on this. I had seen like I've had hundreds of students and a lot of them they'll put out their stuff before working with me to their friends and family and then it gets caught in this algorithm of people who are not your ideal audience.

So not only can it like mentally kind of affect you, but also it can actually like hurt your algorithm and your channel in general. So that was like something that I had a very unique spin on because I had a lot of experience with that. And what I realized about a lot of the top videos was they were very specific. They weren't like fluffy, there was no filling some giant thing or making something up out of something that wasn't really interesting.

Sometimes we get in this trap of like how do I get a full video out of this idea? And a lot of these were like there's a lot here to talk about and how can I condense this and make it clean and efficient? And then how can I actually connect with people in a human way, which I know is something that people are really craving on YouTube right now. It's just a real person sharing real experiences who's actually done what they want to do.

And this is where kind of another idea comes in. And that is that I didn't fake it. So, when I started my main channel, I had no success for a really long time. I had a little bit of success, but I also noticed on that channel the success that I had was when I was sharing what I was actually doing, right? I shared how I house hacked at 22 and was living for free. That video did well. I shared my frugal living life. Well, that was the first video that went viral for me.

But the reason those ones did well was because I was being honest and real. I had other ones where I was like, "How to credit card hack?" I had other ones about how to pay off debt. I never had debt. I had these ideas because they worked for other people, because they were trending topics, because there were search volume for them. Even though if I didn't have experience, I was trying to teach people about this stuff.

And now it's something I never ever ever ever do. I switch from the here's how to do that to only talking about things I've been through myself. When I'm making the videos on this channel, the reason that it had a lot of success and I have more success than somebody else would have maybe making the exact same videos, literally the exact same title, thumbnail, and whatever. But if you haven't had two successful YouTube channels in totally different niches and helped hundreds of people and had a lot of success from them and actually know what you're talking about, been on YouTube for 7 years, and made hundreds and hundreds of long-form videos, then you are not going to have the same success because you don't have the proof.

You don't have the burden of proof to share with people, right? And so one of the reasons this channel has had success and it's built an audience is because I know what I'm talking about. I'm not like saying that to brag, but like a lot of people start a channel and they're just faking it till they make it. But what people really want is someone who has been on the journey before. So, if you're teaching gardening or you're teaching something and you don't have enough experience about it, you haven't had enough life stories, you're just really still on the journey and you're pretending you're at the destination because that's what the big YouTubers in the space do.

They talk about these things. Well, you need to find your own space, your own unique thing that works for you. When you have that authority, when you've lived that life, when you've helped other people go through it, now you have all these stories and experiences to draw on, you can have instant credibility when you start, as opposed to having to fake credibility, right? So, that was just something that I noticed. When I am talking about something that I really know, that I'm really interested, that I have actual experience in, when I'm not trying to teach something that I I don't really care about, that's when the videos started to have a lot more success.

Even again, if we go up to the how average people were blowing up on YouTube, I know how much creators are making cuz I have channels that have this amount of views. So, I'm able to say this person's making 10K a month, this person's making 50K a month, just by eyeballing cuz I know a lot of the top creators, I know how much money they make, I make decent money in a lot of different ways, so I know like, "Okay, they have affiliate links, probably making 20K a month in affiliate links because that's what I make on this channel." And they're like, there are certain things like that.

Other small creators, or even other big creators who aren't in that space, they just won't be able to do. So, I'm trying to take every unique advantage that I have and kind of hone that into my channel where it becomes very unique to me. And that's something again, you should be doing as well, just cuz there's a trendy video going around, just cuz other people are talking about it and big channels do that, doesn't mean you should do the same thing cuz you're on a different spot in your journey, and that can be your advantage is that you're not there yet, right?

I should probably do like a whole video on this, but that's something I've been talking about in my main channel where if like, I don't really talk about saving money as much on that channel because I'm at a different point in my life now. I didn't have money before, so I had to save money, so I talked about it. Now I have money and I talk about business more cuz that's what I actually know and I'm doing and like how to scale past that.

So, like things change as your personal story changes. So, now looking back on this channel specifically, what would I do more of if I wanted to grow faster or do this again? I would probably post more, not like try to do double or triple or whatever, but these videos are pretty easy and a lot of times like I've had ideas for them, but I think I trained myself to only make outlier videos because of my other channels.

And this channel that this is not like how this is designed. It's not designed to get sponsorship money, it's not designed to get viral views, and so I kind of like trained myself too much from the other channel to do that. And so I should have just made stuff if I thought it was interesting, I should have just made a video about it. Taken more shots, be more consistent because there are times where like even during this year I haven't posted for like a month sometimes.

And I would like to have like a more consistent cadence, but I think that's because I run multiple channels. So I get a hyper obsessed about something, I forget about making videos. Another one would be I'd take packaging more seriously earlier. I messed around with just like screenshot stuff cuz again it was working for other people, but it's not really my style. And so again, just cuz something working for somebody, if it's not working for you probably like it's good to try, but yeah I would have taken packaging a little bit more seriously at the beginning.

And then I don't even put in a lot of effort to the packaging like it's pretty simple stuff still, but I was kind of like just making them myself last minute. And it was because I was just treating this channel like it was just fun. Like I wasn't really trying to make a business out of it. And so I put in way too little effort at the beginning. Another thing is I'd worry less about quality and more about clarity, especially when at the beginning I was trying out some vlogs.

But I'm glad I did it. Now I know that I don't love making vlogs. But I put in a lot of effort to those. I had like all these beautiful uh cinematography stuff. It was like really cool. It was fun to make that, but the storyline was just not there for like a day vlog. And maybe if I just kept making a bunch of those, there'd be better storyline. But just because look something looks cinematic, just cuz the lighting's good, the camera's good, all that type of stuff doesn't mean it's a good video.

It doesn't mean anybody cares or it helps them in any way. So that would be something. So if I was where maybe you are right now. So maybe you have a few hundred or a few thousand subscribers, right? Your channel's just not getting a lot of traction. You're stuck with the same amount of views. It's just not really clicking. You can't figure out, you get frustrated, you think about quitting. First of all, do not quit.

But I will just tell you right now that you got to look at this long-term game, right? You obviously got to have the love of the game. You got to enjoy making videos or at least talking about what you're talking about. Got to have a lot of experience to draw from where you can talk about this for the next 10 years. I just love talking about YouTube, that's why I have this channel. But then realize that you're going to post maybe 52 times a year.

Out of that, like if you look at the example of this channel, maybe four months out of the year I actually had growth on this channel. The The of the time, eight months out of the year, there was almost no growth. And so, it's not going to be some steady thing. You're going to have six months straight where nothing happens, and then three months of everything's amazing, and then it just dies for four months. Like, it's going to be up and down and all over the place.

But again, if you're thinking of that long-term game, you just like keep doing your thing, enjoying the process, you have the business plan in mind, so that even when when those downtime comes, you're not really growing, you can still make money. That's what you got to treat it as like it chasing those style trends. It's not always going to be up into the right. It's just like a steady journey with your baseline improving.

And actually, what I see a lot of times, again, with my students, I've had hundreds of people through the Five-Hour YouTuber, the ones who don't see success, the main trait that I see of people who don't make it is they want the result right away, and then they'll quit after five videos, 10 videos, 20 videos, and they'll just never even give themselves a chance for success. Just never even a chance. If you can't say like, "I'm in this for 100 videos.

I'm in this for 200 videos," or, you know, a year, two years. If you're not at that mindset, it's probably just never going to happen. Not saying you can't get results right away. A lot of the people who do Five-Hour YouTuber, like JC, he went from 4,000 subscribers to 20,000 within two weeks of implementing the stuff that we talk about. But that's not going to happen for absolutely everybody. He had already had eight months of building a a really good base and getting good at making videos, and then he was at the position where he's good enough at making videos, he just needs a few tips to really have his channel explode.

Now, he's at 70,000 subscribers. But what most people do is they quit during that first eight months or something where there's not a lot of traction, not a lot of success. They're putting in the same effort, not getting the results, not making any money, and that's generally the the main problem I see a lot of people fail is quitting too early and then not getting direction on what they're doing wrong and what they need to change.

Real quick, one more is don't wait for every video to be perfect. I make specifically videos in this style on this channel that do not take a lot of time. I can think about something for a little bit, write down my ideas, make a little outline. Sometimes I don't even do that. I can shoot a video where it's just sitting down, I'm not moving all over the place, I'm not doing all this hyperactive stuff. And for this style of video, it totally works.

You don't have to make every video like 10 out of 10 effort. Sometimes you take some easy videos, sometimes you make high-produced videos, but you have a mix so that you can stay consistent. You don't burn yourself out. Not every single video has to be this like this is the one that's going to change my life. You keep it simple, get it good enough, and then ship it. Not every video is going to be perfect. You just need to consistently get in the reps.

If you are kind of like a education channel, something like this channel or my main channel, and you're kind of stuck or you do product reviews or anything like that, you're kind of stuck. I do have a program called the 5-Hour YouTuber. There's a waitlist down below. It is literally built for you. If you're an entertainment channel, it's not for you. But this is proven stuff from 7 years, like I've kind of talked about with like this is just like what works.

There's no fluff. I saw one course that was like 17 hours of material. Who's going to watch that? I just give you all the like the actual useful stuff that is very action-based and like the community around you and feedback and channel stuff which nobody else has. So there's a waitlist down below when we do open it up a couple times a year to get new people in. We only open it up a couple times a year, but if you're interested in that, I wholeheartedly believe that I could charge 10 times more than I do and it would totally be worth it and that generally is not a good offer.

So either way, I hope this video helped you out and I'll see you next week.