Publishing quality online content for an extended period of time is hard. The learning curve for my YouTube channel is steep with few external rewards. At first, you may spend 5 hours writing the description of your video or a few hours learning how to create a decent-looking thumbnail. The worst part is that a good description and thumbnail don’t matter because no one will watch your videos. As of this writing, the channel has 55 videos and 45 subscribers. I suspect most of them are my friends and family. I am writing this letter to remind myself of why I do choose to persevere despite the lack of immediate reward.
It is really an act of faith to take on such an arduous journey. Any sane person would not devote 1000 hours to a project just for the potential upside of running a successful YouTube channel. The dropout rate is extremely high. It takes 1000 subscribers and 4000 of watch time (in the last 12 months) to monetize your channel. Ali Abdaal’s video explains what realistic expectations are when it comes to making money on YouTube. Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?
The average account with 1000 to 10000 subscribers had to produce 152 videos. It may not seem like much, but 150 videos multiplied by 3 hours per video is 450 hours or approximately 1.5 hours per day for one year. Note that the video creation process often takes me more than 3 hours per video. Keep in mind that you need to create videos that add value to the world and that turns out to be difficult. Another important note is that most channels post about one video per week and the same 152 videos would therefore take about three years to publish. Many things can happen in three years. I created this Desmos visualization to compare the growth of my channel to the expected growth based on the numbers in the picture above.
In the same video, Ali talks about his formula for success (see picture below). Of course, this formula may not be valid scientifically but I think everyone can agree that these three factors play a role in determining success. I wanted to write down how and where each of them played out with the channel so far.
Work
Work means pumping out useful videos 1 – 2 times per week, learning new skills, upping the production value, spending money on editing videos and social media, hiring a team, and writing blogs. Ali worked 6 hours every evening on YouTube in addition to being a doctor. It did not feel like work to him.
You want to find a job that looks like work to others but feels like play to you.
Naval Ravikant
For me, making math visualizations and applets is fun. Writing, making videos, and teaching, in general, is also fun to me. My goal is not to grow the brand as fast as possible. I don’t plan on regularly spending 6 hours per day on my channel since I value other activities. Nonetheless, I do plan to be posting regularly 10 years from now. I see the work piece of this equation as a marathon instead of a sprint. I don’t want the activities that feel like fun to start feeling like work at the expense of growing the channel faster. The whole point of monetizing the channel is to increase my quality of life. It wouldn’t make much sense to sacrifice my quality of life long-term for the off chance of growing a successful channel.
Luck
With regards to YouTube, a big component of luck happens with the algorithm. According to Ali, there are two types of luck. Type 1: Pure luck. Winning the lottery after buying a single ticket is an example of this type of luck since you can’t control anything after purchasing the ticket. Type 2 would be the kind of luck by winning the lottery where you have been buying many tickets over the span of 30 years. You effectively increased your surface area for luck to land.
It just takes one piece of content to change your life. You just never which one it’s going to be.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Most of your videos will get a baseline number of views and then one will go viral and bring growth to the channel for no obvious reason. Virtually all effort is wasted in the sense that it doesn’t create an immediate reward. However, the 1% that creates all the rewards could not be achieved without the struggle. You can’t show up to work 3 or 4 days per year and expect to hit home runs consistently.
Unfair Advantages
What can I bring to the table that requires effort to learn but I already happen to be good at? I am lucky enough to have math, statistics, and physics knowledge. I won the president’s medal for my grades at Carleton. I learned programming in R during my master’s in statistics. I have 10 years of tutoring experience and went to teacher’s college. I speak both French and English. I enjoy reading non-fiction and listening to informative podcasts. I am proficient with the Microsoft Office Suite, the Google Suite, and many other software products such as Desmos, GeoGebra, OneNote, Kindle, Wacom, and Samsung phones. I am extremely fortunate to have benefited from quality education and to have amassed useful skills along the way. All of us have some unfair advantages that can be leveraged for content creation. I think the key is to combine these advantages in a unique way to make us the best in the world in this specific niche. No one can compete with me trying to be me. The difficult part is to keep refining who you are. A good place to start is to document your life and make it publicly available since you are automatically the best in the world at living your life. You’ll most likely figure out ways to create value from there.
In which areas am I procrastinating?
Writing. I know I can start posting articles on my website, but it scares me for some reason. I am more exposed in YouTube videos, but I feel more judged on my writing. A good place to start when it comes to writing would be to document the books and podcasts I listen to.
Online courses. I know online courses are the way to go for me. I think getting the first course out of the way will unlock this superpower. Desmos is a great place to start for online courses. Udemy and Skillshare seem to be the best platforms for what I am looking for.
Webinar exam and test prep. My tutoring availability is limited and doesn’t scale well. I could make more money with a few exam prep sessions per semester than by tutoring a few hours per week. I enjoy 1-on-1 tutoring and want to keep doing it, but I definitely could do both.
I do not enjoy promoting my content on social media, so I decided to focus on Facebook since I have friends and family who follow the business page. I decided that I will outsource the advertising, the social media management, and potentially the video editing when the time is right. This could be achieved for under 5000$ per year.
This letter can be summarised in one word: Duddhawork! Having the faith and patience that the struggle is worthwhile has been key. Even if nothing comes of this journey, I am confident that I will be able to look back 20 years from now and be proud of the fool who worked regardless of the external rewards. Producing 1 piece of quality content per year and adding value to one person’s life is enough for me.