It's not easy to build a successful startup, it takes effort, resilience, courage… and sometimes, a little bit of YouTube…

Mr. Beast or Mr. Baun?

You might be asking yourself, why should I listen to good ol’ Martin and not Mr.Beast the absolute unit?

I hate to break it to ya, but the truth is you are not at Mr. Beast's level… at least not yet. If you're just starting, chances are the lessons he will teach won't work for you.

Let’s just say, if you are between 0 to 1,000 (maybe 3,000) subscribers, this is where you need to be.

I’ll go over how I began my YouTube journey, how it is going, and most importantly, how you can do it yourself to build an audience around your business.

Success on YouTube?

How do you succeed on YouTube?

Well, you start by starting. How do you do this efficiently? By not overthinking or overlearning. A lot of people will spend time learning how to do stuff without realizing that it's a form of procrastination. Instead, focus on doing, failing, and then learning from the outcome. 

It doesn't matter what advice worked for other YouTubers, what does matter is what works for you on your journey.

Experiment.

If anything, I believe it should be very little looking at what other people did, and more of finding your way on how to go about things. Don't pay mind to how perfect everything should be.

Just start.

Initial Boost

I'll be blunt. When you're starting out, you won't get any views or subscribers. 

So it's very important to start with an initial boost.  Don't be shy to ask some friends to reply and like your videos or your other social posts for a little engagement. 

Emphasize to them that replying or commenting is super important. No, it won't make bad content go wildly viral but will give it a little boost. That will help you understand what resonates with your audience, refining your instincts as a creator.

Here’s a little formula I discovered:

7 friends -> 40 views

If you have 7 friends that boot your videos, it could bubble out to 40 views. That's 33 people who resonate with your content, giving you an idea of what trajectory to stick with.

If the content is good, maybe 400 views, or you could even go viral!

You can also boost your videos with shorts by repurposing a bigger video into shorts.

Read: VideoFeedbackr: Record your Screen Well!

Focus on Growth 

Are you not growing on YouTube or other social media? Numbers staying low despite all the tips and tricks? Thinking of starting a YouTube channel?

Let me share a bit of my experience… I’ve had my YouTube channel for a year and some change. Plenty of time in front of the camera. In the first year, I got 70 subscribers with 95 videos. About 40 of those were my friends that I begged to get on. Crazy right? 

Last month I got 100 subscribers with around 10 videos. I more than doubled my subscribers in a month. And it’s only getting better. Just hit 2000 subs!

So don't be discouraged.

Keep going.

But as I said, keep experimenting. You won't grow with the same material or the same approach. Stay switching things up.

Content that won't Work For you.

Some content will not work for new accounts. Namely, Vlogs, and FAQs.

Nobody wants to watch a random person’s ‘get to know more about me’ video. Unless you created an AI bot that has a soul or something outlandish like that, nobody cares. 

Not to mention, you can't make good shorts of this content either. So you’ll mainly get views from your friends which won't be enough to make a difference and you’ll be stuck in a rut.

Save that for when you have a fanbase. 

Read: The Human Touch: Why I Hired a Writer Over ChatGPT in 2023

So, What Will?

Do you want to make content that gets watched? 

I’ll start off by reiterating, experiment. However, I’ll still tell you what worked for me.

Get into things that you're a specialist in and are a bit controversial.

For example, SQLite is Enough got 14k views and 445 likes. Why?

I am a specialist in SQLite, and I have a controversial opinion about how you should run your servers.

How do I record?

Again, the most important thing to do is to get started. Whatever gets started. I've seen big creators with terrible camera quality and bad sound, but they are still popular.

Some really good cameras on affordable phones can get the work done, look into brands like Xiaomi and hook yourself up with a cheap microphone, and more importantly a ring light, and you’ll be good to go!

Remember not to overthink -get something out there as soon as you can and commit to learning as you go. 

Read: The best screen recording software in 2024

Edit Your Videos

Your YouTube content should be well edited and you should put some memes in.

Thanks to the internet, we all have the attention spans of goldfish now. That means we like to be entertained!

So while you make informative content, add in a little humor, and give your viewers a little laugh.

Thanks to the internet again, basic editing is easy you just have to play around with it. Forget about perfection.  The motto is learn as you go. 

If you have the money for it, you could hire an editor as well and spend the time on making better content! You got this!

For these and more thoughts, guides, and insights visit my blog at martinbaun.com.

You can find me on YouTube.