This Is The ONLY Video You Need To Watch To Start Your YouTube Channel

You want to start a YouTube channel but you're lost. There are tons of videos and you're getting overwhelmed. But don't worry, I got you, and by the end of this video, you will exactly know where to start, what to do, and how to do it. This is the only video you need to watch to start and grow your YouTube channel.

So how and where to start? First of all, we need to understand how the algorithm works so that you won't get emotional and blame the algorithm for hating you and not recommending your video to other people, like I used to do initially. It starts by testing your video with a small audience. It observes their reaction—you know how long they watch the video, whether they like it, share it, comment, and so on. Based on the response, the algorithm determines who else to recommend the video to. That's why it sometimes takes time for videos to gain views because YouTube needs time to figure out the right audience.

So for lucky channels, the algorithm might find the right audience immediately, and for those unlucky people, it might take some time. That's why it's important to focus on what you can control and be patient. If you improve your video with each upload and remain patient, you're already ahead of 90% of people. So my advice would be: stop crying, improve your videos, and keep going. I need to remind this to myself too.

So why do most people fail on YouTube? Title, thumbnail, hook, and editing are important for sure, but there is one crucial element most people skip, and that's why most people fail on YouTube—and that is personal branding. There are already established amazing creators out there, so why should people watch someone new, less experienced, and unknown? We need to give people a reason to watch us and remember us. If you were a copy of any other YouTuber out there, you would just be thrown in the content sea.

So how can we differentiate ourselves? In my opinion, it's done through personal branding. Personal branding is the thing that will differentiate you from the crowd. There's a whole depth to personal branding, but the most important thing you need to identify is your main message. So what do you believe in? What are your values? To our life, I know it's hard to answer, so let's make it easier. Let's say you get the chance to scream to the whole world, and everyone is listening to you carefully. What would be something you would say in one sentence?

For example, for me, resilience and not giving up are my main core values for life, and I also try to send that message with my videos too. I've been doing YouTube since 2016, and for the first four years, I didn't even hit 1,000 subscribers. I remember the days where I was getting maybe 36 views or something, and people made fun of me because I was in high school. Like, imagine that environment! But I still kept going because I didn't care, and now we are at 1.3 million. Also, another thing can be: I couldn't get into my dream university on my first try, and even people on my YouTube comments made fun of me. You know, they said that I'm actually lazy and stupid and stuff like that. But I didn't give up and I eventually got in.

Another thing is my dad got scammed by my uncle, and our family almost went bankrupt. I talked about it quite a lot of times, I think, on my channel, but I still decided to keep going and make money online to support my family. I never give up, like no matter what, till the day I die, and that's my core value and also an important part of my personal branding. Whether I'm talking about, like, diet, whatever I'm talking about—exercising, online business, YouTube video creation—I try to give that main message through all of my videos so that my personal branding stays consistent.

So now stop the video and think about yours. What is your core value? Let's talk about an important question that people always ask: how to pick a niche? Do you need to niche down? In my opinion, don't pick a niche. First, identify your target audience. Some YouTubers continue to thrive even after years of publishing, while others blow up and then tank. The difference, in my opinion, lies in focusing on your target avatar rather than a niche. If you stick to one niche, you risk becoming repetitive. However, if you identify your target avatar and create videos that cater to their interest, then you can evolve alongside your audience.

So first, determine who you're making videos for. You need to understand your target avatar, which involves considering their gender, age, location, occupation, fears, goals, and values. One of the most important aspects is identifying your target avatar's problems. Why? It’s based on human psychology. When someone helps us or provides us with something valuable, we naturally want to give back. For example, if somebody compliments you and says, "Oh my God, you're so pretty," then you'll be more likely to compliment them back. Even if you don't think so, you might say, "You look nice too."

So for YouTube, if you solve their problem right, or if you give some sort of value with your videos, in return, you will get more engagement, and maybe they will subscribe to your channel. If they really love your videos and find value, they might become loyal viewers. This giving value first, solving their problems first, is the core principle for building your audience and growing your following—not just on YouTube, but on any platform.

So after you identify your target avatar's problem, try to identify why they're unable to achieve the results they want and what objections they might have. Figure out how you can assist them. Let's say if you have a fitness channel, and you're helping people to lose weight, first you need to identify why your target avatar is not able to lose weight. Is it because they're binge eating? Is it because they have a bad relationship with their body? Is it because they just don't know how to cook healthy food? It can be various reasons, right?

For example, one of the biggest issues my target avatar has is procrastination, task management, and getting overwhelmed because these are the things that I struggled with my whole life too. So first, I experimented with a bunch of stuff, read all the books that you can ever imagine, and shared the things that worked for me. As you can see from all these videos, I always talk about those. I'm kind of like experimenting on myself. If you have already solved the problem that you want to talk about—let's say you are overweight and lost weight and you want to help people—then identify the reason why they are struggling and how you can help them.

If you haven't achieved the goal that you want to teach the people, then first achieve it and then identify the reasons why they are struggling with and share that knowledge with other people. What equipment and tools do you need? Gear does matter, okay? But now listen to me. You might think that cool transitions and a super high-quality camera are the most important thing when it comes to video production, but it's not.

Even though gear does matter, it's not the camera; it's the audio. For example, if the audio quality is really bad, think about the quality. If it's so bad, okay? You know that if you have bad quality audio, no one cares about your 4k camera or cool drone shots or over-the-top transitions. It doesn't matter. You don't necessarily need to buy a super expensive mic, but make sure to invest in it if you're serious about YouTube.

Here are some of my favorites, and nope, my companies didn't sponsor me—just my pure personal opinion. One of the easiest ways to elevate your content quality is by using the power of music. The music you choose plays a huge role in setting the tone and vibe, and it enhances the overall experience when done correctly. But at the same time, if you use copyrighted music without a license, you risk demonetization. It's also quite difficult to find good quality copyright-free music.

Lick is a unique music platform that allows creators to license mainstream music whilst being protected from copyright claims. With Lick, you can get access to over a million mainstream tracks from artists like Justin Bieber, Lizzo, and Bruno Mars, as well as over 100,000 royalty-free tracks for every situation. The platform is easy to navigate with helpful search filters and curated playlists to help you find exactly what you need. The best part is the benefit of Lick extends beyond just a vast music catalog. Recognizable music can lead to positive sentiment, increase viewer engagement, and watch time and help your channel grow.

So if you're looking to improve your content quality and viewer engagement, I highly recommend trying out Lick so that you can use the best music for your videos. Click the link in my description for a limited-time offer of a 14-day free trial. Sign up now while the offer lasts and elevate your content to the next level. Thank you, Lick, for sponsoring a portion of this video.

Now it's time to talk about camera recommendations. If you own one of the latest smartphones, there is no need to buy a camera if you're just starting out, in my opinion. For example, I began this channel using a Sony ZV1 and continued to use it until I think I reached 300 or maybe even 500k subscribers. Now I use a Sony A7C and have two lenses that I tried. I bought a bunch of lenses, tried them out, but ended up just having these two, and I sold the others that I had.

If I were to choose a camera to start my channel, I would pick something super straightforward, probably something like the Sony ZV1 so that I wouldn't have to worry about lenses. Just ensure that your camera can record more than 30 minutes. Here are some camera recommendations for beginners to consider. For the lighting, I recommend getting a softbox because it simplifies dealing with changes in sunlight, which can be a hassle to manage and distracting for viewers.

In my opinion, you don't need to purchase anything overly expensive. Starting with a random softbox from Amazon, Neewer, or Godox is a good choice. While I'm a fan of Aputure, if you're a beginner, don't stress about investing in premium lighting. You have time.

So how to create a video? Let's talk about the actual video creation process. The first step is idea generation, and for idea generation, you need to capture, capture, capture, and capture. If you can't tell me 10 YouTubers that have similar target audiences like you in 10 seconds, then you're not doing enough market research. You need to know the ins and outs of YouTube because to be a good producer, you need to be a good consumer.

First, you know to get ideas, you need to consume a bunch of videos and combine them. What do I mean by that? Because to get ideas, you should watch a bunch of YouTube videos and combine them. As the Bible of creativity says, creativity is essentially connecting two dots together and creating a relationship with them. Nothing is original; everything you see online is created by combining different things. For example, Apple is created by combining technology and design.

So to be creative, you should be able to connect various ideas together. In the beginning, it might seem quite difficult since most of us don't practice creativity, unfortunately. But let me tell you, if you have ADHD like me or are neurodivergent, this is your time to shine because we're naturally more creative than other people because our minds are always wandering, so it's easy to combine ideas. But if not, don't worry; you can practice and get better at it with time. Creativity really comes with practice.

One tip that I highly recommend is to open a new YouTube account where you only watch videos that your target avatar would watch so that you can see how their homepage looks from their eyes. You'll be able to understand YouTube trends and recommendations from your target viewer. Whenever you see a video that inspires you, save it to a dedicated place so that you can go back and work on it later.

These days, the way that I do it is I save them to my Instapaper because Notion can be slow and it annoys me. But every Sunday, I look at my Instapaper, categorize them, and put them wherever they belong in my Notion.

Now let's talk about thumbnail creation. The title and thumbnail are essentially your pitch to the viewer if they find it interesting. If you have a good title and a good thumbnail, they might click on it. If not, they won’t. You can think that if your video is so valuable and really well-edited, you can have a crappy title and thumbnail. No! If they're not interested in it and if you don't have an audience yet, you can't do that.

One of the mistakes I used to make is thinking about the title and thumbnail after I created the video. Even if you might not create the complete thumbnail before scripting, at least have an idea of what you're going to do—like what kind of thumbnail you're going to do, at least. I like doing some rough sketches on my iPad and have a rough idea. I make sure to come up with at least five different titles for each video and put the thumbnail next to other visuals.

Once I create the thumbnail, I put it next to other YouTubers that post similar videos, and I try to compare it so that I can see whether it stands out. Let’s say, when I compare my thumbnail to other YouTubers and it doesn’t really stand out, then I try to improve that thumbnail by trial and error. In my opinion, it’s one of the best ways to improve your thumbnails because if you don’t really know design—I mean, I don’t know design that much—you will need to understand all the rules and principles, but if not, you can do it by trial and error, to be honest.

The more you create, the better you get at it. Some people can record a whole video with just bullet points and fix it in production, but I personally prefer writing my script word by word. For example, I also wrote this script word by word. I sometimes freestyle in between the script, but I make sure that I write the script so that I won’t ramble and I know exactly what I’m talking about. Sure, when you write your script word by word, you spend a good amount of time writing, but when you write things down, it’s so much easier to look back in the future.

Let’s say your video didn’t perform well—you can give feedback to yourself and identify areas you can improve in your script. If it does perform well, you can look back and identify the areas that were good so that you can apply them next time. If you do a freestyle, it can be quite hard to do that because you don’t really know the process of doing that over and over again because it was just a freestyle, you know?

I think it’s completely fine to get help from AI to write, but don’t write the whole thing using AI. I think it's like quite easy to tell when you write the whole script using ChatGPT or Notion AI. I tested it out actually with a couple of videos of mine, and the personal connection wasn’t just there, and they didn’t perform that well. So who knows? Maybe in a couple of years or even maybe months—who knows?—there will be some sort of an update and ChatGPT will be able to replace all of us. But still, since it hasn’t yet, keep writing no matter who you are.

Even if you’re good at public speaking, talking to a lens instead of an actual human being is quite challenging, in my opinion. When you are a beginner, it feels awkward. Sometimes it still feels awkward, but as you keep going and when talking to the camera becomes second nature, guess what? For me, now talking to actual human beings feels awkward! Just kidding, I'm just kidding.

If you want to get confident in front of the camera, you just need to practice. That's it, to be honest. You don’t need to take a camera confidence course or something. Just talk in front of the camera again and again and again. That’s it. There’s no shortcut. I mean, when I started this channel, I was awkward and nervous as well because English is not even my mother tongue; it’s like my third or fourth language. I was not only self-conscious, but I was struggling to articulate my thoughts.

So that’s another level. If I can overcome that, you can for sure overcome your fear of the camera in your mother language. Also, another good news is you’ve got all the time in the world to perfect your video recording skills because let me be real: nobody's going to watch your first few videos—maybe even the first 50, 60, 70, or 100 videos. So you got the opportunity to practice while no one is watching you. Isn’t it a good thing?

I think instead of feeling discouraged by your speaking skills, see it as a chance to improve, an opportunity. Most of us are short on time and learning how to create videos, like coming up with ideas, getting comfortable in front of the camera—there are so many things you will need to learn because making videos is a new skill that we don’t really learn in school.

So during this time, I would recommend you to outsource your editing while you're getting used to other sides of the video production. Because even if you do pretty simple editing, I think it still takes a lot of time. If you know nothing about editing, learning is also going to cost you a lot of time.

Also, if you don’t know anything, even the cheapest editors are probably better at editing than you. For some reason, I used to edit my own videos, even though I knew I could afford them, but I was like, "Oh, it’s time to save money," or something. But our most important asset is time, it’s not money. If you’re not obsessed with editing or you want to create cinematic content or you already have, I would just outsource it. Once you learn other sides of content creation, and if you still want to edit your videos, then you can always learn.

The important part is to start posting because otherwise, you’re going to come up with a billion excuses to stop you from publishing the video. Like, I have an editor and I still procrastinate on creating videos after 8 years of content creation. So trust me, the fewer opportunities you give yourself to make excuses, the better it is.

Once you created your video, it’s time to upload it on YouTube. It’s my favorite part! I can’t explain the satisfaction after publishing a video and seeing it live. Even when I didn’t have subscribers, you know, even when I wasn’t getting many views, I just fell in love with that feeling.

So now, after this video, give yourself a promise or make yourself a promise—I don’t know which one is correct—to publish one video within the next 7 days. If you’re not applying what you learn, then there’s no point in watching this video; you’re just wasting your time and making excuses to not publish. Learning is best done by doing, so get up, start brainstorming ideas, start scripting, and start creating. You got everything you need, and you got this!

And if you enjoyed this video, check out this video of mine where I dive deeper into how to make money on YouTube.