😳 The Reality of YouTube

Helping you grow your channel and create a sustainable YouTube business.

Hey YouTubers,

Welcome to the first email of the How to YouTube newsletter 🥳

The goal is simple.

Every Monday, I want to help you become the best YouTuber you can be in just a few minutes.

I’ll do this by sharing insights from what I have learned and continue to learn about YouTube as the “YouTube guy” on Ali Abdaal’s team (my official job title is YouTube Producer) in his team of 13, but also from my own experience as a YouTuber with two channels.

For this first email, I wanted to highlight the realities of being a YouTuber.

YouTube is extremely hard. Much harder than it’s made out to be. I thought when I joined Ali’s team that I would finally uncover the secrets behind YouTube. But sadly, there are none.

Even with a team of 4 part-time writers, 2 editors, 1 sponsorship person and 1 YouTube producer, we struggle to make videos…

It’s difficult for everyone. You’re not alone.

Being a YouTuber involves so many moving parts, it’s not for the feint-hearted. But if you’re reading this, then I salute you 🫡. You have chosen a challenging but worthwhile endeavour.

But YouTube is a lot easier with consistent help and support, so I hope this newsletter will be one piece in your ongoing journey with YouTube. I aim to share everything I know, week by week.

For now, some simple reminders that I’ve learned over the years:

1. Start, keep going, get better. That’s how you win at YouTube. All three are really hard, so congrats if you’ve already made the first step.

2. Burnout is your biggest threat. You must prioritise a sustainable video making process and a sustainable business model.

3. Success is in finding the overlap between what you want to make, what the audience wants to watch, and what the platform wants. We’ll explore all three in future emails.

In case you’re worried, YouTube isn’t going anywhere. It’s always changing, but it’ll be around for a long while yet. You have time, just keep moving in the right direction.

I cannot wait to get started writing this every week, I have much to share.

I’d love to know, what is your biggest struggle with YouTube right now? I’ll make a note to write about it in future.

Have an epic week!

Tintin 🧑‍💻

The YouTube Tin

🎙️ Podcast: This is an amazing episode from the Tim Ferris Show about working with virtual assistants. VA’s have the potential to be game changing for YouTubers.

🎬 Video: This video has no editing. Let me know why you think it’s taking off (there’s a simple reason).

🛠️ Tool: thumbnailcheck.com - an excellent tool for previewing thumbnails. I like putting opening 3 or 4 tabs, lining up the thumbnails so they are all in the same place on each tab, and then flicking between them to see which one I like best.

Also here’s a meme. Not sure if this will continue each week, but for now I’m running with it :) I quite like the idea of YouTube themed memes each week.