📈 3 Lessons from Graham Stephan
This newsletter helps you grow your channel and create a sustainable YouTube business.
Hey YouTubers,
I’ve been in Austin the last two weeks.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet some inspirational people in the YouTube world, including Graham Stephan (Finance YouTuber), Danny Miranda (Podcaster), Corey Wilks (Creator Coach) and Ethan Chlebowski (Cooking YouTuber).
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m the one on the left.
Meeting these people taught me a few things about YouTube.
How to find your niche.
Everyone I met in Austin had a strange and winding journey into YouTube.
Ethan took the plunge at 900 subscribers and quit his job to go full-time on YouTube. Corey wrote a blog in response to one of Ali Abdaal’s videos to try and win him as a client, and now has his own YouTube channel. Danny Miranda made lots of money drop-shipping only to realise it wasn’t what he wanted, so he started a podcast.
But they all found their niche on YouTube with similar strategies. They got started, and figured it out by making videos.
It’s very rare for people to nail a niche straight out the door. Even Graham (finance) and Ethan (cooking) who both had relatively clear niches from the start, have refined their channels over the years. Look at this video from Graham.
It’s so easy to think these days that you have to be really good straight away, but you have to give yourself time to see what you like making, and what the audience wants from you.
The only thing that helps you figure it out is posting videos for a long time. You’re forced to learn what you like making and what the audience likes watching. That’s your niche.
How to win long term.
Let’s be real. Most people start YouTube because of the money.
But if you really want to win long term, you don’t want to just chase views and money. The risk with this approach is that trying to hack the system and follow trends causes you to build something you hate.
The YouTubers I met who were the happiest had built channels and businesses that they genuinely enjoyed. They’d built them slowly, over time, optimising not just for channel growth, but enjoyment too.
Winning to them wasn’t more and more money, it was the ability to work on things they loved each week.
Your biggest threat as a YouTuber.
Once YouTubers get going and have a self-sustaining channel, the threats to the business aren’t what you might think.
Maintaining views and profit are always front of mind, but the number one thing that forces YouTubers out of business is burnout.
I know, it’s so cliché. But it’s true.
It’s much more likely that the reason your YouTube channel falls apart is because of you, not the audience or the platform.
I won’t name names, but the biggest YouTubers I spoke to were all struggling with it. They had set expectations for their content and for themselves that were exhausting to match.
There’s such a fine balance between being consistent and burning out.
But that’s what being a YouTuber is about, it’s really really hard sometimes.
The solution is somewhere around the area of being aligned with the content you’re making, taking regular breaks, and always keeping the viewer in mind.
Let me know if you figure it out, I’ve not met anyone who has.
Have an epic week!
Tintin 🧑💻
The YouTube Tin
🎙️ Podcast: A new podcast with YouTube guru Paddy Galloway. There’s a great section about quality vs quantity.
🎬 Video: Jay Alto talking about how YouTube is changing.
🛠️ Tool: Tweet Hunter X is a tool that helps you search people’s Twitter profiles and find their best performing tweets. I use it all the time for content ideas.