Modern Creator
Why Modern Creator?
The Jonny Project · YouTube

If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS

A solo creator answers the zero-views question with a staged checklist: post through the algorithm-training phase, then fix titles, then fix the hook, then play the long exponential game.

Posted
2 months ago
Duration
Format
Talking Head
sincere
Views
70.6K
3.9K likes
Big Idea

The argument in one line.

Zero views has two different causes depending on your stage — under 100 videos it means the algorithm still doesn't know your audience, over 100 videos it means your title/thumbnail or your hook is failing, and growth compounds exponentially so early flat numbers don't predict where a video ends up years later.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…
  • You're posting consistently on YouTube and getting single-digit views with no clear diagnosis of why.
  • You have 100+ videos published and views still haven't moved, and you want a two-branch checklist instead of vague encouragement.
  • You're building a channel from zero with no existing audience on another platform to lean on.
SKIP IF…
  • You're looking for platform algorithm mechanics or data — this is anecdotal creator advice, not analytics-backed.
  • You already have a built-in audience elsewhere and just need cross-posting tactics, not the full framework.
TL;DR

The full version, fast.

If you're new, the fix is volume: keep posting to the same audience for 50-100 videos so the algorithm learns who you're trying to reach. If you're past 100 videos with still no views, the problem is one of two things — titles and thumbnails aren't earning clicks, or your hook loses people once they do click, which stops YouTube from distributing further. A quick title fix is copying the structure other creators in your niche use for the same topic. After the click, engagement (comments, likes, subscribes) is what tells YouTube to push a video wider. Growth is exponential, not linear, so early near-zero numbers on a video don't predict where it ends up — evergreen content can pick up traction years later once your channel proves itself. The actionable conclusion: keep publishing, improve one small thing per video, reply to every comment, and give it a year or two before judging results.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 00:58

01 · The question — and what to do if you're new

Frames the problem: you're posting and getting almost no views. If you're early, this is the algorithm still learning your audience — just keep publishing (50-100 videos).

00:58 – 02:21

02 · Diagnosis past 100 videos

If you're already 100+ videos in and still getting nothing, it's one of two things: weak titles/thumbnails, or a weak hook that loses people after they click. Fix: copy the title structure other creators use for the same topic; then deliver so people engage.

02:22 – 03:14

03 · It's an exponential game

Reframes growth as exponential not linear — most creators won't get much traction early even if the content is good, unless they already have a built-in audience.

03:14 – 04:34

04 · Building from zero + evergreen content pays off later

Two levers: cross-post to an existing audience on another platform, or build from true zero (his own choice, done 'in the dark'). Evergreen content that eventually earns engagement can get resurfaced by YouTube to the same audience years later.

04:34 – 05:26

05 · The compounding checklist + CTA

Get a little better every time: audio, editing, video quality, hook, asking for engagement, replying to every comment. Closes by asking for a subscribe and a comment.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

  • In the first 50-100 videos, low views usually mean the algorithm hasn't learned your audience yet, not that the content is bad.
  • Past 100 videos with still no traction, the problem is almost always titles/thumbnails not earning clicks, or a weak hook losing people who did click.
  • When viewers click but don't watch, YouTube reads that as a signal not to distribute the video further.
  • A fast way to write a better title is to copy the exact title structure other creators use for the same topic and audience.
  • Comments, likes, and subscribes triggered by watching are the engagement signals that tell YouTube to push a video to more people.
  • Channel growth is exponential, not linear — a video getting five views in its first month can pick up real traction years later.
  • Evergreen content that eventually earns engagement can get resurfaced by YouTube to the same audience that liked a creator's other videos.
  • Building a channel without leaning on an existing audience from another platform means starting from true zero and compounding slowly.
  • Consistent small improvements — audio, editing, hook, ask for engagement, replying to comments — compound the same way view counts do.
Takeaway

Zero views means different fixes depending on your stage.

WHAT TO LEARN

Below 100 videos, low views mean the algorithm is still learning your audience — keep publishing. Above that, it's your title/thumbnail or your hook, and growth compounds exponentially over years, not weeks.

  • In the first 50-100 videos, near-zero views usually reflect the algorithm still learning your audience, not a content quality problem — the fix is volume, not a pivot.
  • Past 100 videos with still no traction, the cause narrows to two things: titles/thumbnails aren't earning clicks, or your hook loses people once they've clicked.
  • When people click but don't watch, that tells the platform not to distribute the video further, so fixing the first 10-15 seconds matters as much as fixing the title.
  • A fast way to improve a title is to study what other creators serving the same audience are titling videos on the same topic and mirror that structure.
  • Comments, likes, and subscribes generated by people who actually watched are the signal that gets a video pushed to more people.
  • Treat channel growth as exponential rather than linear — a video with five views in its first month can still gain real traction years later if it's evergreen.
  • A platform can resurface a creator's older, previously flat-performing videos to an audience once newer content proves the channel out.
  • Consistency compounds the same way views do: small per-video improvements in audio, editing, hook, and engagement habits matter more than any single viral swing.
Quotables

Lines you could clip.

00:00
“What do you do if the videos that you're posting aren't getting any views?”
direct cold open, states the exact pain point as a question→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
01:30
“Sometimes the best way to get a good title is just to go out there and see what other people who are trying to reach the same audience you are are titling their videos. Copy their title.”
concrete, slightly contrarian tactical advice→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
03:17
“You may put out a video, and it may get five views the first month, but you don't know what it's gonna get over the next ten years.”
reframes the entire discouragement narrative in one line→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

metaphorstory
What do you do if the videos that you're posting aren't getting any views? K. Maybe you're getting one view, five views, 10 views, 20 views, but you're you're putting your heart into it.
You're spending time creating, editing, uploading, and and you're not seeing any result of it.
Well, there's a couple of things that you might look at. Uh, it depends on where you are in the process. If you're at the very beginning and you're just starting out, what you've got to do is just keep putting out more content, and you ideally are putting out that content to the same audience over and over again.
Because basically, in the beginning, what you're doing is training the algorithm on what you create, on who you're trying to talk to, who you're trying to serve, who you're trying to help. So in the beginning, just keep doing it.
Put out 50 videos. Put out a 100 videos. However long that takes, just keep doing the work.
K? But let's say you've already put out a bunch of content. Let's say you're already a 100 videos in, and you're still not getting anybody watching your videos.
It's one of two things is going on. Either you need to improve your titles and thumbnails so that they are, uh, drawing people to click your content more, or maybe they're clicking, but when they're clicking, they're not watching because your hook in the beginning, your intro, your video really isn't that good, and it's not holding anybody's attention.
And so because when they click, they don't watch, YouTube is again not putting it in front of a lot of people. So in that case, you might want to actually improve your thumbnail.
You want to improve your title. You want to improve your your, uh, focus on your audience so that you know what it is that they're looking for. Sometimes the best way to get a good title is just to go out there and see what other people who are trying to reach the same audience you are are titling their videos.
Copy their title. Just do the exact same title. Do what your take on the same topic, the same idea.
That at the very least could get people to click your video, And then once they click your video, then you gotta make sure you deliver. You gotta make sure that when they click it and they watch it, that they like it so that they come back. If you can create engagement, even better.
If you can if you can get somebody to make a comment, if you can get somebody to like your video, if you can get somebody to subscribe based on the fact that they watched your video, that tells YouTube, this is a good video. We should put this in front of more people.
So those are some of the solutions that you might try, some of the things that you might try. But really for most of us, we need to realize this is an exponential game. So at the very beginning, even if we're fairly good, at the very beginning, we're not gonna get a lot of of hits.
We're not gonna get a lot of people watching our stuff, liking our stuff, commenting our stuff, unless we already have a built in audience. So that brings us to another thing that you could do. You could leverage an existing audience.
Maybe you're on Facebook, maybe you're on Instagram, and you already have a group of people, your friends that follow you there. You can cross post.
Right? So you can share with the world, hey, I'm making YouTube videos over here on my YouTube channel. Feel free to go over there and support me, that kind of thing.
I'm trying to do something completely different. I'm trying to do it in the dark. I'm trying to just kinda create something, build a whole new audience, not build it around my existing, uh, friend base or subscriber base on other platforms, and you have to come up from the bottom, and you have to just put content out over and over and over again.
And you may put out a video, and it may get five views the first month, but you don't know what it's gonna get over the next ten years. It just kinda depends. So if you're making what they call evergreen content, something that's gonna come up over time, eventually, if you make something that YouTube says is good and people like it, comment on it, engage with it, then YouTube's gonna say, what else from this content creator can we share with this person?
And then they're gonna take your old stuff, and they're gonna put it in front of that same audience. And eventually, you may have something that you've created that currently is getting nothing, get some traction later.
So the biggest thing is make a lot of them. Obviously, every time you make something, try to make it a little bit better. Get a little bit better with your audio quality.
Get a little bit better in your editing. Get a little bit better in your video quality if you can. Get a little bit better in your creativity and your hook at the beginning.
Get a little bit better at asking people to engage with your video. Get a little bit better at going into the comments. If anybody ever comments, make sure that you respond to them.
Make sure that you click and and say thank you for coming by. Engage with them. Uh, build out that subscriber base.
And what you'll see is over time, it's exponential. Right? So if you start at one view and you keep making you get one view per video, eventually, you'll be getting two views, and then four, and then and then if you look at the compounding effect of that, eventually, give it a year consistency.
Give it two years. Where are you gonna be if you don't quit? So keep going, keep getting better, keep trying, uh, and and just improve the little things over time, and I think you're gonna see some results in that.
So if you like this journey you want to be with me on it as I build out my brand, my channel, uh, and I help you build out your channel, please subscribe so that my video gets a little bit more traction. And then as you back here, hopefully, I can continue to deliver you more value.
If you did get any value from this, leave me a comment. Let me know. If you had other thoughts beyond what I shared with you, let me know.
We'll see you in the next one.
The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

Zero views isn't one problem, this creator argues — it's a different problem depending on your stage, and he walks through both branches in one unbroken backyard monologue.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

01:04model

Two-branch zero-views diagnosis

  1. Titles/thumbnails not earning the click
  2. Weak hook losing people after the click

Once you're past the early algorithm-training phase (100+ videos) and still getting no views, the cause is narrowed to one of exactly two things.

Steal forany content-diagnosis checklist for underperforming videos
CTA Breakdown

How they asked for the click.

VERBAL ASK
05:08subscribe
“please subscribe so that my video gets a little bit more traction... if you did get any value from this, leave me a comment”

Soft, honest CTA — ties the ask directly back to the video's own thesis (engagement helps distribution) rather than a generic subscribe pitch.

Storyboard

Visual structure at a glance.

open
hookopen00:00
diagnosis
promisediagnosis00:58
reframe
valuereframe03:14
CTA
ctaCTA05:08
Frame Gallery

Visual moments.

open00:00Frame at 00:06 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:06Frame at 00:10 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:10Frame at 00:14 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:14Frame at 00:18 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:18Frame at 00:22 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:22
open00:00Frame at 00:06 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:06Frame at 00:10 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:10Frame at 00:14 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:14Frame at 00:18 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:18Frame at 00:22 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:22Frame at 00:26 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:26Frame at 00:30 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:30Frame at 00:34 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:34Frame at 00:38 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:38Frame at 00:42 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:42Frame at 00:47 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:47Frame at 00:51 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:51Frame at 00:55 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS00:55diagnosis00:59Frame at 01:03 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:03Frame at 01:07 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:07Frame at 01:11 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:11Frame at 01:15 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:15Frame at 01:19 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:19Frame at 01:23 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:23Frame at 01:27 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:27Frame at 01:31 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:31Frame at 01:36 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:36Frame at 01:40 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:40Frame at 01:44 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:44Frame at 01:48 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:48Frame at 01:52 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:52Frame at 01:56 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS01:56Frame at 02:00 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:00Frame at 02:04 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:04Frame at 02:08 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:08Frame at 02:12 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:12Frame at 02:16 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:16Frame at 02:21 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:21Frame at 02:25 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:25Frame at 02:29 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:29Frame at 02:33 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:33Frame at 02:37 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:37Frame at 02:41 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:41Frame at 02:45 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:45Frame at 02:49 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:49Frame at 02:53 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:53Frame at 02:57 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS02:57Frame at 03:01 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:01Frame at 03:05 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:05Frame at 03:10 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:10reframe03:14Frame at 03:18 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:18Frame at 03:22 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:22Frame at 03:26 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:26Frame at 03:30 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:30Frame at 03:34 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:34Frame at 03:38 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:38Frame at 03:42 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:42Frame at 03:46 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:46Frame at 03:50 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:50Frame at 03:55 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:55Frame at 03:59 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS03:59Frame at 04:03 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:03Frame at 04:07 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:07Frame at 04:11 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:11Frame at 04:15 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:15Frame at 04:19 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:19Frame at 04:23 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:23Frame at 04:27 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:27Frame at 04:31 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:31Frame at 04:35 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:35Frame at 04:39 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:39Frame at 04:44 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:44Frame at 04:48 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:48Frame at 04:52 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:52Frame at 04:56 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS04:56Frame at 05:00 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:00Frame at 05:04 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:04CTA05:08Frame at 05:12 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:12Frame at 05:16 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:16Frame at 05:20 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:20Frame at 05:24 from If nobody watches your videos WATCH THIS05:24
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