1 Year later, 17k SUBSCRIBERS. Here's my journey...

Today marks 1 year after I first uploaded my first YouTube video. When I started, I always liked having an idea how other people did on their Youtube journey. I'll share some of my milestones and what I learned. Feel free to ask questions and I'll answer them as best as I can. Btw, I'm in the art/tech niche. Basically I paint 3D printed figures/statues.

  • Took me a bit over a month to gain 100 subs
  • Reached 1k subs after 5 months. Not monetized due to lack of watch hours
  • Highest view count on a single video at this point was about 20k views
  • I uploaded videos on avg 2-3 times a month (it takes time to 3D print, paint and edit)
  • December, 1 video blew up, reached over 100k. At this point, I was at 1.5k subs.
  • Monetized in end of December (that one video gave me all the watch hours i need and more)
  • Started January with 5k subs
  • Start of February 9k subs
  • March, 12k subs
  • April 1st, 16k subs (I haven't uploaded anything in March, cause I had a new born)

Other note worthy things:

  • Companies reached out to me to send me free stuff in exchange for videos
  • Had some paid sponsorship from organizations in my niche
  • Fans wanted to buy my painted art work

So what did I learn and what I think is the most useful for you?

  • Keep making videos, but aim to make better quality videos. Your videos doesn't need to be perfect, but you want to keep improving. This does not only give you experience and valuable data about your audience, but it also leads to my next point.
  • Build a video library! Whenever 1 of your video blows up, I was surprised to see it brought quite a good amount of views to my older videos.
  • Don't be afraid to experiment Either if it's your video format, thumbnail, keep trying things until you find something that works. Look at your views and data, what does your audience like? Focus on that.
  • Your videos isn't for you, but your audience If you want to take youtube as a hobby, go for it! But don't expect growth. If you're serious about youtube and want it to be a business. You need to know what are the elements about yourself that your audience likes and lean into that.
  • Sponsors will come! But don't do it for free! It's exciting when brand reach out and want to send you free stuff, I fell into that trap too. I was so happy when I got sent new gear (even though it's stuff I don't really need) and I promised to make them videos for free. HUGE MISTAKE. It's a lot of work making good quality content, and doing it for free it's a nono. Brands know newbies will say yes to free stuff, so they take advantage of that. The only time it's okay to make free content for brands is when the product they send you is ACTUALLY valuable to you.

That's all I can think of for now. If I ever think of new stuff, I might add more to it.

Feel free to ask me some questions that I didn't touch on here. I'll try my best to answer whenever I can .

Edit: fixed typo