đYouTube Is Poker, Not Chess
How to YouTube #28
Hey YouTubers,
Annie Duke, a well known author and former professional poker player, wrote a bestselling book called Thinking In Bets a few years ago.
Thereâs a chapter in it called Life is Poker, Not Chess.
She explains that in life weâre often searching for the perfect move as though weâre in a chess game. Because in chess there is in theory a perfect move every single time, and you can play a perfect game.
But with poker, because of the other players and the element of luck with your cards, thereâs no perfect game. You have to analyse the other players and the cards youâve been dealt, evaluate the odds and then make a bet.
The best poker players donât win all the time, they just stack the odds in their favour as much as possible, and learn to make better bets. They know that losing is an inevitability.
And YouTube is just the same.
(apparently Iâm at a stage in my life where I like to find parallels to YouTube with just about everything)
YouTube is a game with many players and everyone has a different set of cards. All you can hope to do is do the best with what youâve got.
Almost all of the YouTubers reading this email have less than 1,000 subscribers. Most have less than 100 (thank you to everyone who filled out a form a few weeks back).
And when youâre at that stage of the journey, the temptation is to think that thereâs a perfect answer out there to all your problems. You think you know the perfect set of chess moves, or that someone else might have the answers to what those chess moves could be for your channel.
But the truth is, there isnât. Even MrBeast wouldnât know exactly what to do for you.
As with poker, YouTube is about stacking the odds in your favour as much as you can with your current resources.
This includes things like researching what people want in your niche, focusing on making great titles and thumbnails and figuring out how to stand out in your niche.
And then crucially, donât hang your dreams on one video, and get crushed when it flops.
Every video is a bet. You can never assume with certainty that it will do well, no matter how much research or effort youâve put in.
I felt so certain this video on Aliâs channel about time management would fly and hit 1m views in around 2-3 months, but itâs languishing at 310k after a very slow start (itâs possibly because it was the 3rd in a 3 video series about time management).
Weâve experimented with all sorts of packaging changes to see if we can get it going, but itâs not budged (fortunately with YouTube, it still could).
Like with poker, you can never be 100% sure that you have a great hand.
The Takeaway
YouTube is a game of trying to make great bets. Itâs about making lots of smaller decisions that stack up so that when you post a video it has the best chance of doing well.
Doing your research into what your audience wants. Making the title and thumbnail first. Cutting out the fluff from your videos. Posting regularly.
These are all actions that increase the odds of your channel doing well. They donât guarantee it, but they make it a hell of a lot more likely.
Sometimes though, youâll lose. In fact, youâll lose a lot. But luckily, success on YouTube is driven by outliers a lot of the time, so you have to just keep taking a seat at the table and making good bets.
Have a great week making videos!
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đ§âđ¨ The YouTube Tin
Here are a few more ways I can help you progress:
đż My YouTube Channel: Join a whopping 600 other subscribers following my YouTube channel where I share unfiltered content about how to build a YouTube based business (Iâm currently pausing uploads whilst working on another project).
đŚ I also write on X posting more tips and behind the scenes content.
âď¸ Popular How to YouTube Posts
To be read with love, care and retention.