You Can Build a Profitable YouTube Channel in 30 Days (Full Plan)
Two creative directors fill a chalkboard calendar one magnet at a time, turning a vague "start a channel" goal into twenty numbered work days.
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3 days ago
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Format
Tutorial
educational
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10.5K
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57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A channel that makes money is built backwards from a transformation and a funnel, not forwards from a niche and a camera, and the whole setup fits inside twenty working days.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A founder or service business owner who already has an offer and wants YouTube to feed it instead of becoming a second job.
A professional with real expertise who keeps stalling on the first video because the niche question never resolves.
A coach or consultant who posts occasionally, gets some views, and cannot trace a single sale back to a video.
Someone who wants a dated checklist rather than a motivational push, including what to do on the days nothing gets filmed.
SKIP IF…
You want to grow a channel on ad revenue alone with no product or service behind it.
You already run a team with a creative director, editors, and tracked funnel links.
You are looking for short-form or Shorts tactics, because the whole plan assumes weekly long-form video.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
The plan replaces the niche question with a transformation question: which specific person are you taking from point A to point B, and which three problems sit between those points. Week one locks strategy, builds a minimum viable studio, and creates the channel a few days early so the algorithm does not flag it. Week two is pre-production, where packaging gets more attention than editing, built on the three T's of title, thumbnail, and first thirty seconds. Week three is post-production, layered editing, and the first hires. Week four maps a funnel backwards from the payment page, adds tracking links, and ends on three analytics: impressions, click-through rate, and the retention curve.
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The $100K claim, the promise to ignore most YouTube advice, and the four-week structure with weekends off.
01:10 – 03:27
02 · Day 1: Transformation beats niche
Why productivity was the wrong answer, and the three questions that select the problem your channel solves.
03:27 – 04:40
03 · Day 2: Why your audience is searching
Going one level past search terms to the thing actually bothering the viewer, and why personal expertise makes that easier.
04:40 – 09:05
04 · Day 3: Ideation, outliers, and three problems
Validating ideas against over-performing videos before producing anything, then splitting the transformation into one pillar video and three sub-problems.
09:05 – 10:39
05 · Day 4: The minimum viable studio
Order gear on day one, pick a filming location, and prioritize audio over camera for teaching content.
10:39 – 13:20
06 · Day 5: Create and warm up the channel
Name, photo, banner, and about page written from the strategy, plus the warm-up period that keeps a new channel from looking automated.
13:20 – 15:35
07 · Day 6: Find your signature format
Pre-production outweighs editing, and most personal brands should settle on direct-to-camera talking head after scanning what competitors do.
15:35 – 18:20
08 · Day 7: Packaging and the three T's
Title, thumbnail, and the first thirty seconds as one promise, plus why the origin story is the right first video.
18:20 – 20:46
09 · Days 8 and 9: Script it, then film it
Outline versus word-for-word scripts, the three-act origin story, and why a teleprompter beats improvising for beginners.
20:46 – 23:07
10 · Day 10: Thumbnails that look like teaching
Shoot stills in photo mode, use expressions that match your actual demeanor, and favor the mid-sentence look on educational videos.
23:07 – 26:39
11 · Days 11 and 12: Edit in layers, then delegate
Story, sound, and sight as three locked passes, and why hiring an editor is a recruiting system rather than a one-time search.
26:39 – 30:36
12 · Days 13 and 14: Branding and distribution
Building a brand kit from references and a do-not list, why brand is the remaining moat, and treating upload as the start of distribution.
30:36 – 33:10
13 · Day 15: Who to hire first
Staying lean, finding the bottleneck, and pricing your own hours by role to see which work should leave your desk.
33:10 – 38:16
14 · Days 16 and 17: Map the funnel, then track it
Working backwards from the payment step, drawing every box between video and purchase, and installing tracking so conversion rates are visible.
38:16 – 41:54
15 · Days 18 and 19: Calendar and the three numbers
Planning a month at a time at one video per week, then reading impressions, CTR, and the retention curve after seven days of data.
41:54 – 44:47
16 · Day 20: Reflection, and the close
An honest audit of time spent and enjoyment, the milestones that keep people going, and the pitch for the hosts' sprint.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Niche is the wrong question. The useful one is which specific person you take from point A to point B.
If your offer helps people with design or weight loss but your videos are about your calendar, the content is not connected to the business.
Three filters pick your topic: do you like solving this problem, are you good at it, and do people need help with it.
A single video cost $2,500 to produce and got 500 views because the idea was never validated before production started.
Audio matters more than camera on teaching videos, because people cannot learn from something they cannot hear clearly.
Create the channel in week one, not on filming day, because YouTube flags brand new channels that start posting immediately.
Behave like a human on your own new channel while it warms up: watch, subscribe, and comment on channels serving your audience.
The golden rule of YouTube is that if nobody clicks, the editing hours never mattered.
Packaging is three parts working together: title, thumbnail, and the first thirty seconds.
More than half of viewers leave inside the first thirty seconds, usually because the opening does not deliver what the thumbnail promised.
If your script reads like something ChatGPT could have produced, it is too surface level to prove expertise.
The origin story works as a first video because it compresses your whole transformation into one sentence a stranger can evaluate.
Thumbnail photos shot in photo mode beat stills pulled from video footage, especially if AI touch-up comes later.
Edit in three locked layers: story first, then sound, then sight.
In an age where anyone can produce content with AI, brand is the only moat left.
A brand kit needs a do list and a do-not list, and examples beat adjectives for both.
Hire against bottlenecks: the task that eats the most hours at the lowest value per hour goes first.
Price your own hours by role. Editing is a $20 hour, creative direction is a $50 hour, uploading is a $7 hour.
Build the payment step of your funnel first, because every other step is pointless if nobody can hand you money.
Clients making videos with no sales often have no link at all between the video and the sales page.
YouTube analytics will not tell you which topics convert, so track description link clicks with UTM parameters yourself.
Conversion rate between two funnel steps is just the second number divided by the first, and it tells you which page is broken.
Plan one month of content at a time, because batching ten videos before you have feedback produces ten videos of the same early quality.
One video a week is the floor for enough data to learn from.
Only three YouTube numbers matter: impressions test your idea, CTR tests your packaging, and the retention curve tests your storytelling.
Retention above 60 percent through the first thirty seconds means the hook is working on a new channel.
Reaching day fourteen of a plan like this already puts you ahead of about 80 percent of people who start.
Takeaway
Twenty days of decisions, not twenty days of filming
WHAT TO LEARN
Almost every day in this plan is a decision or a system, and the two days that involve a camera only work because the fifteen decisions around them already happened.
02Day 1: Transformation beats niche
Replace the niche question with a transformation: name the specific person and the specific outcome, because a category like productivity hides who the content is for.
If you already sell something, the transformation is already decided, and content that drifts away from your offer is a different business with no revenue attached.
Filter candidate problems with three questions: do you enjoy solving it, do you have results to prove it, and do people need help with it.
03Day 2: Why your audience is searching
Go past what your audience types into search and ask what is actually bothering them, because the algorithm already feeds people based on unspoken intent.
Teaching what you have personally lived makes the connection easier, since every story you tell gives the viewer a version of themselves to recognize.
04Day 3: Ideation, outliers, and three problems
Validate an idea against videos already over-performing for other channels before spending money producing it, or you risk a $2,500 video with 500 views.
Split the transformation into three sub-problems: the tools, the core skill, and getting the result seen. Those three slots work in any industry.
05Day 4: The minimum viable studio
Build the minimum viable studio and nothing more, with audio ranked above camera, because nobody learns from a lesson they cannot clearly hear.
Set the room up early and take a test recording days before filming, so the first real shoot is not also the first time you talk to a camera.
06Day 5: Create and warm up the channel
Create the channel in week one so YouTube has warm-up data, since brand new channels that post immediately can get flagged as automated.
Write the about page, name, and banner from the strategy, because visitors decide in seconds whether this channel is serious enough to follow.
07Day 6: Find your signature format
Pre-production outweighs editing, since no amount of editing hours matters if the packaging never earns the click.
Pick one repeatable format and get good at it, matching your industry's norm when it is strong or deliberately breaking it when the space is fragmented.
08Day 7: Packaging and the three T's
Treat the first thirty seconds as part of packaging, not content, and make it deliver exactly what the title and thumbnail promised.
Lead with an origin story as the first video, because it establishes the transformation and why you are the one teaching it.
09Days 8 and 9: Script it, then film it
Outline before writing either way, and rewrite anything that reads like a generic AI answer, since surface-level scripts cannot demonstrate earned expertise.
Structure the story in three acts: the problem, the attempt with its real costs, and the changed person who now helps others.
Use a teleprompter when you have a word-for-word script, because filming from an outline without experience usually turns into rambling.
10Day 10: Thumbnails that look like teaching
Shoot thumbnail photos in photo mode rather than pulling video stills, and keep expressions within your actual range instead of copying exaggerated faces.
11Days 11 and 12: Edit in layers, then delegate
Edit in three locked passes, story then sound then sight, and stop reopening the story once it is cut.
If editing is not your skill, delegate it early, and treat hiring as a continuous intake system because creative contractors turn over constantly.
12Days 13 and 14: Branding and distribution
Build the brand from collected references and a do-not list, since examples brief a designer far better than adjectives do.
Brand is the remaining differentiator when anyone can produce content with AI, which makes it the highest-leverage day in the plan.
Publishing is the start of distribution, not the end, since the same video can feed newsletters, social platforms, and communities that send people back.
13Day 15: Who to hire first
Decide hires by bottleneck and hourly value: offload the work that eats the most time at the lowest rate, and keep the work only you can do.
14Days 16 and 17: Map the funnel, then track it
Build the funnel backwards from the step where someone can pay you, then draw every box between the video and that payment.
Add tracking links to every video description, because YouTube analytics will never tell you which topics produce customers.
Use conversion rate between consecutive steps to locate the broken page instead of guessing at why sales are not happening.
15Days 18 and 19: Calendar and the three numbers
Plan one month of content at a time and aim for one video a week, because batching ten videos before any feedback produces ten videos of the same quality.
Read only three numbers after seven days: impressions judge the idea, CTR judges the packaging, and the retention curve judges the storytelling.
16Day 20: Reflection, and the close
Close each cycle with both an honest time audit and an honest enjoyment check, because a process you dread will not survive six months.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Transformation
The specific change a channel promises a specific person, stated as a move from a current situation to a desired one. It replaces the broader idea of a niche or category.
Outlier video
A video performing far above the normal view count for the channel that published it. Outliers signal that the idea itself has demand, separate from the creator's audience size.
Packaging
The combination of title, thumbnail, and opening thirty seconds that determines whether the right viewer clicks and stays. It is decided before filming, not after.
Minimum viable studio
The smallest gear setup that produces clear audio, clear video, and decent lighting in one chosen filming location.
Hook
The opening stretch of a video, roughly the first thirty seconds, where the viewer decides whether the title and thumbnail were honest.
Retention curve
The graph showing what percentage of viewers are still watching at each point in a video. Flat stretches mean interest held, sharp drops mark the moments people left.
Click-through rate
The share of people who click after seeing your video in their feed or search results. It measures packaging rather than content quality.
Impressions
The number of times YouTube showed your video to someone. Low impressions mean the platform could not find an audience that wanted the topic.
UTM link
A normal URL with tracking parameters attached so analytics tools can tell which video or placement sent each visitor.
Conversion rate
The percentage of people who move from one step of a funnel to the next, calculated by dividing the second step's count by the first.
Creative director
The person who translates a founder's story and audience into a consistent visual and editorial identity, then guides writers, editors, and designers to match it.
Split testing thumbnails
A YouTube feature that serves different thumbnail options to different viewers and reports which one earned more clicks.
“If I had to start a new YouTube channel from scratch, I'd ignore 90% of the advice out there. Because the algorithm is completely different now.”
Contrarian opener that works with no setup.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
01:48
“A better word that we've come to use is not what niche you're in, but what is the transformation of your channel.”
Reframes the single most common beginner question in one line.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
02:30
“Your offer is that you're helping people with design or weight loss, but your content is about you and your calendar.”
Specific, slightly brutal diagnosis most business channels will recognize.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
05:26
“I have spent like 2,500 dollars to produce a single video that got 500 views because I didn't start with this step.”
Hard number plus an admission of failure, which buys credibility fast.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
13:32
“The golden rule of YouTube is that if they don't click on your video, then they're not going to watch it anyway.”
One sentence that justifies the entire packaging-first argument.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
23:12
“If you do not know how to edit videos, then don't do it. Get someone else to do it. That's the best tip.”
Blunt advice that runs against the usual learn-everything-yourself line.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
28:03
“In an age now where anyone can create content easily with AI, the one moat that you have is your brand.”
Timely claim that stands alone as a thesis statement.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
32:30
“When I'm personally editing the videos, I'm treating myself as twenty dollars an hour. Whenever I'm acting as a creative director, that's fifty.”
Converts an abstract delegation argument into arithmetic.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
35:12
“You didn't even put a link from your video to your actual sales page. So how do you expect people to make their way there?”
The failure is so basic that it lands as both a joke and a checklist item.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
40:46
“If your impressions are low, that means the topic and the strategy that you picked, no one cared about.”
Reads analytics as a verdict on strategy, not on effort.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
43:54
“The fact that you made it to day 14, you're already ahead of like 80% of people. That is a huge win.”
Motivational payoff with a number attached.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
The Script
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Our new channel, which got monetized in only 8 videos, and made over 100k in the first 30 days. If I had to start a new YouTube channel from scratch, I'd ignore 90 % of the advice out there. Because the algorithm is completely different now.
It's basically like calibrating your compass so you know which way you're going. they just start making content, they end up building the wrong thing or the wrong kind of channel. So by the end of this video, you're going to have a complete content engine, a fully built professional studio, monetization strategy, and even your first video live on your channel.
So this is a roadmap that's going to take you 30 days complete, and we're going to be nice and give you weekends off. But for each of these days, if you want to follow along, you can check the link in the description. where you can find a fully built out calendar each day has exactly what you should be learning and then action steps like a to -do list and all you got to do is learn and then take immediate action so that you can reinforce what you learned we broke it down in four weeks in week one this is all about foundations you are doing things that will basically affect everything else downstream it's basically like calibrating your compass so you know which way you're going so you don't end up going the wrong way They just start making content, end up building the wrong thing or the wrong kind of channel.
So day number one, depending on how you look at it, everybody's most favorite question or their most hated question, which is what niche am I getting into? So when we were first starting out, we decided that we were going to make a YouTube channel in the productivity niche. What do you think?
Would you have still done that now knowing what you know? No, because like when you think of the word productivity, like productivity for who? Productivity for what outcome?
What kind of productivity are we helping people with? The problem with people who just pick niche in categories like that, it's very ambiguous who the person is for. I think a better word that we've come to use is not what niche you're in, but what is the transformation of your channel?
So specifically, how is your content going to help someone transform their life? A specific person achieve a specific outcome. So what's a good way to start?
figuring out what that transformation is like to pick the right transformation it has to come down to what is the purpose of this channel it's easy for like business owners or founders typically this channel is going to help them get more leads or sales for their business if you already have an offer the transformation is pretty obvious it's just the same customer that you help so if you already have an offer i love that angle like just tell people what you do with your offer we have a lot of clients who have some pretty good offers they're helping like a bunch of big companies but then they're making all this random content like how I organize my calendar or like how I'm using AI to be more productive.
Your offer is that you're helping people with like design or weight loss, but your content is about you and your calendar. So let's say that you're not quite a full business yet, but maybe you're a professional and you have a certain set of skills. What we did was we took an audit.
Who are the people that we've helped in our life or in our career? What was the transformation that we already have proof that we are able to achieve? Like for myself, I've treated a lot of patients.
with diabetes and heart disease and so i talked about those in my first few videos one of the simplest things you can do just look at the past five years of your life what problems have you solved for yourself and identify which of those problems you might want to do and then from that you want to ask three questions one do you like solving that problem is that something you could do for years to come number two are you good at that problem did you get good results from it and number three do people actually need help with that problem If you can answer those three questions, I wouldn't even like overcomplicate it.
Just pick the one that immediately in your gut feels right. And then just go with that one. So on day two, now you are looking at who is your audience.
And this, like a lot of people underestimate this. Like for ourself, we could teach YouTube to anybody. But we particularly chose an audience that fits best with our method.
Because if you look at all of our content and our clients. We make educational type videos. So let's say that someone does decide on like this audience.
What do you want to actually know about them? So a lot of people know that YouTube is a really good search engine because it is owned by Google. People go here to look things up.
And so when people are looking things up, you want to be there to answer their questions. And so what you want to know about your audience is what are they looking up? You don't necessarily need to know word for word what they're typing into the search bar.
They may have typed something one time. and the algorithm just knows and just starts feeding them the exact content that they need so what you really need to go is a level deeper than what they're searching for and knowing why they're searching for that and it all comes down to what are the things that are just bothering them that they need help with that's why you should just make a personal brand about stuff that you're good at versus trying to learn something completely different and that works really well because all the stories that you can tell about yourself other people can see themselves in you.
So it's really easy to connect. We know what the transformation is and who we're doing it for. Next is what videos do we actually make on the channel?
How do you usually think about what topics or what ideas to do for your videos? So you can only figure out your channel strategy if you know what the transformation is and who you're actually doing it for. We just have to deeply understand who is this person who is crying and in pain and what are the specific things that they're in pain about.
They're suffering from a few specific... problems this phase here is just like how do we identify what those are what topics are those that they're actually struggling with you've probably heard people talk about how important packaging is those are like the 20 that drive 80 of results for basically every single youtube channel trust me i have spent like 2500 to produce a single video that got 500 views because i didn't start with this step which is finding the idea to package, which is exactly why every single video that we make now is first run through one of 10.
We're also the sponsor of today's video. On one of 10, you can search across different niches on YouTube for outliers, which are videos that are over -performing for specific channels. For example, if I was helping one of my clients who's in like the investing personal finance niche, I could just give a query how to invest in your 20s.
One of 10 will pull only outliers for me to see, and I can actually filter those outliers even deeper if I want to. I can choose how many views those videos have, how many subscribers those channels have, and the publication date for how long ago I want to see those videos for. So let's try two years.
Let's bring the views up to be really high because I only want to see bangers. And I'm going to go ahead and change subscribers from 10K to 250 million. And these are the results that I'm getting.
If I scroll down, if I find any of these ideas that I really, really like, I can just keep going deeper and seeing more iterations and examples. For example, I saw this video right here from Brian Invest. If I started investing in 2026, this is what I do.
i think i want to learn more about this specific video idea so i'm going to click on the dots it allows me to bookmark this for the future i can also generate some ideas based on my channel for it or see similar topics now this is pretty classic and really good data to tell me this concept and idea might be worth pursuing because there are a lot of people who have made this specific video and they're all bangers so if i genuinely have a different perspective or a different opinion about how to start investing in 2026 this might be a video i try to make or let's say like one of these thumbnails really stood out to you you can actually also click on the dots and look for similar thumbnails to that same one that we just saw and it'll give you options again to continue going down this rabbit hole of finding different angles to really make your content this is like the exact research strategy that my creative directors and i use to build strategies that have gotten clients like hundreds of thousands of views off of brand new youtube channels if you are serious about making videos that people actually want to watch then check the description below there's going to be a link for you to try one of 10 for 30 days for just a dollar
and remember that the transformation if you're taking people from point a to point b make one video that covers that entire transformation from a to b and also make a bunch of smaller videos that do like steps along the way typically in every like problem that a business solves it's usually like one big problem but that can usually be broken up into steps for example if you're a music producer and their transformation is i want to help someone make really really good dance music.
I think getting more specific is always better. There's probably a few things they need, right? They might need to know what kind of tech and software they would need.
So that's like a big problem. The next one's going to be like, I don't know anything about music though. So they might need something like music theory or like the music theory to actually make good music.
And the final one would be, okay, now that I have music, how do I get people to listen to it? So it's probably like the distribution and the marketing, because those are the actual things that people need help. Yeah.
Those three, those three steps are not specific to just the music industry though. Like you can apply these three to any industry. So whatever it is you're doing, just take that and apply it to what you're doing too.
You probably have at least three main steps too. There can be more steps. Three is just because it keeps things simple.
And if there's a lot of different problems, just pick the three that you think are like the most painful for people. Just want to identify those three and that's going to form the backbone of your channel. So going on to day four now, this day is...
one of the fun days where you get to actually start building your studio and before we get into it one thing that we left out here is that right when you start the first thing you want to do is actually order your gear so that it has some time to ship and get to you so that by this day you can start putting things together if you don't know what you want to get then you can check the link in description below we'll have a tools and tech database that you can check out with our recommendations on it we're still using most of what we recommend here in our studio But the point of this day is basically building what we call the minimum viable studio.
There's only a few things you really need. Good lighting, good audio and good video. So now that you order them, what are we actually doing in this day?
Even though YouTube is a video platform first, audio is the most important thing, especially when it comes to videos that teach. Because when people are here to learn something, they need to be able to know what you're teaching them. So if you want to have homework by day four, by the end of the day, what you need to do, find a location.
that you're going to film your content. Spare bedrooms, pretty good options. Offices, pretty good option.
If you have the budget to spend, you can rent out like a warehouse or something for the day. I would physically go and like set up all your gear. And then afterwards, what you want to do, just grab a test recording, have it in your phone or something and just kind of sit on it for a few days and just let yourself think, do I like this shot or not?
and then you still have a few days as we'll get to it before you're going to film your first video but at least you'll have kind of gotten started with the process of i'm putting the reps in of being a creator and just talking to camera and make sure the audio is clear make sure the video is clear make sure the lighting is good and yeah just take a test shot and a lot of people miss that so what's happening on friday end of the first week So Friday is when you create your channel.
And by create your channel, I mean actually create your account on YouTube. And the reason we don't do it immediately on day one is because all of these things that you've figured out for your channel, your transformation, your audience, your topics, all of that is going to be displayed on your about page. So what are the actual things you want to set up?
in your channel the first thing is pick a name there's a lot of ways you can think about this but the easiest way is to just use your name it's just kind of like what we did right mike and maddie pretty simple the next thing is a profile picture right so if you're using your name then might as well use your face too right that's why we have the studio set up so you can take your nice head shots i would not stress out over the banner too much have something there that reflects the topics that you're talking about but when people visit your page they're going to want to know what your channel is about So if you know what topics, you know who the audience you're trying to reach is, then that's what you can do to fill in your about section.
This is kind of underrated, though. I don't know if people pay attention to their profile picture and their banner, though, because you have to remember your YouTube channel, it is like the new website for your business. When people watch your videos for the first time, if they just discover you on the algorithm or on the homepage, they're going to click on your profile and they're going to make a pretty quick decision whether or not they trust you.
They think you take YouTube seriously and there's going to be good content coming. And so the signals that you send. Is your profile picture high quality?
Is it reflecting what the content looks like? Do you actually have a clear message about who this is for? Those are more important than you think.
And that's why we dealt the work up front to decide that. There's also like one more pretty nuanced reason why we're making the channel in the first week. So randomly, YouTube does flag channels that are too new and start posting content right away.
We want to make our channel on the first week to warm it up to the algorithm. and give enough data so that when we post our first video it doesn't flag you as a bot we do recommend that if you're going to start a new channel while it's warming up go and engage with your channel as if you're a human being go and watch other channels like subscribe leave comments as if you're just a regular human interacting with other people so that youtube knows that you're not a bot who are you interacting with yeah good question so basically who are other channels that are serving the same audience as you potentially even the same transformation as you potentially doing the same topics as you.
You want to kind of position your channel to be friends with this general side of YouTube. All right, so by the end of week one, what you should have is your strategy, your studio is set up, and your channel on YouTube is created. So week one is done.
Now we're moving on to week two. So week two is all about what we call pre -production. Everything that you do before you press record.
Why is pre -production so important? Like most beginners will even skip that step entirely and they'll jump right to filming and editing the video. they'll spend all their time editing but if you want your videos to perform well the pre -work or the prep work matters way more so if you consider the 80 20 rule what is the most important thing that you can do for your videos it would be actually in the pre -work not in the video editing because the golden rule of youtube is that if they don't click on your video then they're not going to watch it anyway regardless of how many hours you spend editing or how much time and effort you spent there so the first step here is actually figuring out your format so a format is basically a repeatable structure for your videos whether it's a format for your videos like a talking head or a podcast or vlogs or documentary style or it's a format for your thumbnails some thumbnails will have your face on it with text some thumbnails are ai generated or whether it's a format for how you're writing your scripts some people do like listicle videos where there's like seven tips on how to do something
So what makes a successful YouTube channel is just finding those very few signature formats that you get really good at and just keep doing that over and over again. So what have you found to be helpful in finding your signature format? To be honest, for like 99 % of people building personal brands, you should just pick the simple format of direct -to -camera talking heads.
That's probably the easiest path that I would say you should go. If you wanna get even more nuanced, what you can do is look in your industry. what are all the allies or competitor channels in your space what formats are they doing there's two things you want to look for there everyone is doing like kind of the same format you might want to do the same format because people in this space are going for that reason they like that format in this space if you see a lot of different formats in your industry then you might want to pick one that's not in that list because then experimental formats is more of the direction to go into the whole point here is to create differentiation there's no need to like get too in the weeds with formats we've studied thousands of videos across youtube and we actually created a pretty clever a to z mnemonic for all different formats we'll link it in the description below we can kind of take a look and decide which format you want to do for your channel so now on today's seven we have packaging and packaging is really important because remember if they don't click on your video then they're not going to watch it anyway so we want to do everything we can to make sure that the right target audience that you want to watch your video
are clicking on your video and so the way that we usually teach packaging is the three t's you got your title your thumbnail and the first 30 seconds and you want all three t's to be working together to tell a very cohesive story i mean most people when they think about packaging they think about title and thumbnail but what's so important about the first 30 seconds so the first 30 seconds this is what people typically call the hook of the video the reason the hook is so important if you look into any analytics of youtube more than half of people normally will leave a video or click off to watch something else so they get distracted within the first 30 seconds and so if your hook is not very clearly demonstrating that this is not clickbait the title thumbnail they clicked on actually is giving them what they want they're going to leave that's like kind of human nature the first 30 seconds is when people are still able to make up their mind on whether they want to stay or leave because people haven't paid for your video right it's not like they bought a movie ticket and they now have to watch the whole video
they're still testing out the waters in the first 30 seconds. They find like they're going to waste their time, then they're going to leave. And one of the most overlooked reasons why the hook doesn't work is if it just doesn't match with the title and thumbnail.
Like it just doesn't deliver on the people's expectations. So for example, if your title and thumbnail is how to start a YouTube channel in 30 days, and the first 30 seconds has nothing to do with YouTube in 30 days. then people are going to leave.
So you've got to get to the point as fast as possible. And for the rest of this video, we'll be talking about your first video as if it's going to be your origin story. And the origin story is a great first video to start because you've already figured out what your transformation is and the audience you're trying to serve and all the problems you want to solve.
And so your origin story is really telling the story of how you solve that problem for yourself. You position yourself as the best choice. for people to watch so let's say that we're trying to package our origin story how would you think about that the best way to package origin story video is to try to compress your entire story into one sentence so maybe you've been a music producer for like 25 years and you've discovered a few things that you wish music producers need to know so the title of your video could literally be i've been a music producer for 20 years here's what you need to know about creating house music that's the whole title right there for your thumbnail i wouldn't go too crazy with it at all Because this is the first video on your channel, and this is probably the first time someone's going to see your channel.
So if you set up an office shot, just take a photo before you film, right after you film, make a few faces. I like more neutral faces these days. They seem to be working well.
And there's your thumbnail. So now we're on to day eight, which is script writing. So there's basically two ways to approach it.
The first way is you script out every single word, right? Like a word for word script. The second way is you have an outline.
And you can speak based on the outline. Either way, you should outline your script first. And by outlining, it also involves doing research, making sure that you are saying things correctly and you actually show that you're putting your many years of earned expertise into your video.
A quick rule of thumb is that if you read through your script and it sounds like something that anybody could have gotten from a chat GPT search or like an AI search, then your script is probably too surface level. So how would you advise someone scripting out their origin story? For an origin story, I would keep it just three body paragraphs or three acts.
It's basically the hero's journey. The hero's journey starts off as first, there's a problem that the hero needs to solve. The second act is the hero sets out to solve that problem.
And the third act is that the hero has solved the problem and now he's a changed person. Think about that problem that you set out to solve, whether it's in your career, in your experience, in your business. Remember the transformation?
setting the stage for the transformation. While you're solving that problem, you're really feeling all the pain points that your audience is going through too. You want to share all those vulnerabilities.
You want to share what you went through, what you sacrificed to get there, and showing the proof of your work. And then the third part here is really talking about how have you changed? Or how has your view of the world changed now that you've gone through all this?
And you'll see that a lot of people, when they solve these problems, it has changed their view on their industry. and so that's why they are now turning around and helping other people before them solve the same problems as them okay so now that you have your script you're ready to go now it's time to film your video so remember how there's two approaches to script writing so if you have your script word for word then we highly recommend that you use a teleprompter so why would someone want to use a teleprompter because what we found after working with so many people if you don't have a lot of experience speaking on camera then you're going to really struggle with filming.
What we found is that when people film with just an outline, they tend to ramble and go way off topic. Whereas with a teleprompter, it keeps them very focused. So if you're new to speaking on camera, then we'd recommend that you try both.
So you know which one that you feel more comfortable doing. So even if it feels bad the first time, that's not enough reason to quit YouTube. Well, once you're filming your videos, make sure to take that opportunity to take some headshots.
so that you can use it for the very next day, which is making your thumbnails. So when it comes to making thumbnails, there's a lot of different options, a lot of different formats that you can do. How would you recommend people think about thumbnail design?
Well, the first thing I'll say is the best. thumbnails come from the best quality images but many people like to just grab screenshots or stills from like a video recording you're gonna get better quality thumbnails if you actually just switch your camera to photo mode and just take pictures so if you have like a self timer or something some way to take photos those are always going to be better than just using your video and for thumbnails what i like to do for sure just grab a bunch of photos of yourself making different facial expressions and if you're going to be filming and making videos in the same place in the same studio you can reuse a lot of those facial expressions over and over.
Having high resolution, high quality photos is pretty underrated. I mean, especially if you're going to want to use AI to touch up your photos, then giving AI good raw materials to work with. is going to make sure that your face actually shows up accurate but to your point about the facial expressions it's also very underrated people don't think about it enough but how you show up in your thumbnails is your personality so if you're not a person who would typically react to something with like a gaping wide open mouth and your hand on your cheeks like that then don't do that even though you think it's going to get more views if that's not who you are as a person, or that's not your demeanor, then I would not recommend doing it.
This one, actually, the one that we put on the thumbnail day is probably the safest one you can do, which we call just like a neutral face. But just having options is always good. And you can actually use, which we'll get to later after we publish the video.
There is a feature where you can split test thumbnails and you can let YouTube and the audience decide which one's better or not. And I'll add one more. pro tip here is that especially if you're making educational videos that teach something what we found to work very well is actually like a mid -sentence kind of mid -speaking thumbnail where like it looks like you're sharing valuable information so it's okay to do that it looks kind of awkward at first but when you put together with the title and the text on the thumbnail and everything it looks like this video is going to be full of knowledge that's the impression you want to give people by the end of week number two The things that you should have your first full video film and you should have all the photos in your first thumbnails designed.
So moving on to week three, the theme of this week is post -production. So everything that happens after you finish filming your video. And from our experience, post -production is the part that takes the most time.
But if we were to start again from the beginning, we would build a post -production system. We would be able to step out of the system and other people would be able to come in and run the system. for you so day 11 here is all about video editing what is the biggest tip that you can give anyone when it comes to video editing the biggest tip yeah if you do not know how to edit videos then don't do it get someone else to do it that's the best tip my best tip is pretty much the same as yours it is to delegate video editing as fast as possible especially if you don't know how to edit videos because that's like a entire skill set that will take you months to years to get good at just think about your transformation like you took years out of your life to be able to get results and outcomes for specific people and so that's the same thing with video editing a lot of people just think that they can step in and just edit the videos themselves now let's say that like you are really bootstrapping it for whatever reason or for some reason you're like i really need to edit my own videos then sure you can edit it i would make sure that i'm using a tool that allows you to edit from a transcript that's going to save you a lot of time so
tools like premiere pro davinci resolve d script riverside all of those tools allow you to pull up a transcript and you can basically just edit by typing in like a word document striking things out and it actually edits the timeline for you that way in terms of editing i like to go in layers so when you're editing a video just think broadly in three layers the first layer is the story so cut out all the rambles cut all the mistakes all the retakes we call them all the mess ups you want to have one clear coherent story for your timeline once that story is locked you don't want to touch it again you move on to the next layer which is going to be the sound so making sure your audio sounds really good if you need to add any kind of like audio effects like compression or eq just to make sure that every single word you say is audible and you can understand them but if you want to put music behind it make sure the music just matches the story you're telling and then the final layer once you have all the sound right i would just make sure that i call it the site the site of your videos needs to be locked in so really just like are you going to use any b -roll
any titles that pop up in graphics any imagery at all just sprinkle it in into your videos and that's it just keep it simple honestly like if you're gonna edit your own videos don't go crazy because it's gonna take you way too long to edit the video but a lot of people will find it very frustrating especially if it's your first time so that's why the next day here is all about hiring you want to delegate this out as soon as you can especially if you're the founder of your company or you're the business owner and you have other things to do like growing your business first of all like where would you go to find a video editor so there are a lot of different job sites that you can go to and we can just throw a bunch of name up on the screen that would probably be my first place that i recommend people go to but what you should always keep in mind and this is not something that i realized until we worked with five or more video editors i didn't realize that you're not going to find the perfect editor to work with
right away and actually we're always constantly looking for editors in this industry when you're working with a lot of creative contractors not just video editors with script writers designers there's going to be a lot of turnover because this is a fast moving fast changing landscape and so the most important thing you can do for hiring a video editor is to actually build a system that will constantly bring in new applicants to your business so the next question becomes If people are coming and going into your team all the time, there needs to be a system to quickly teach them how to edit in your style or how to write your scripts in your style or anything, how to design thumbnails in your style.
So day 13 is going to be all about branding, right? Like what have you found to be most important when it comes to building a brand? Well, I would say the first thing.
when deciding on what brand you want is just get inspired if you want to go on youtube one of the smartest things you can do is just actually consume and watch youtube and this is why it's also really important to work with a video editor i would not try to come up with the brand on your own just like how you're not coming up with a strategy on your own you're going to probably follow a guide like we have here to make it successful people have spent careers a lot of money a lot of time and effort building cool brands already, your job is to just go out there and just find the ones that you like, get some inspo.
And then instead of trying to build it yourself, work with your video editor and show them what it looks like. Say, I like these brands for these reasons. Can you do something like this for me?
But really, when you want to build out a brand kit, you want to just have two big categories. These are the things that I like that a brand is going to do. And then on the opposite side, these are the things that a brand does not do.
So the things that they do like, what colors, what font, what typefaces, what style of motion graphics or B -roll, like what? imagery do we normally use make sure that's very clear to your editors and your design team those are and then for the things that you don't like to do also make sure that they know those things examples help the most though if you can find examples of what you like and what you don't like your editors will love you a lot more than just saying i don't like this they're going to be really confused but if you show them what you want and what you don't want it's going to be much easier to create a good product and low -key this day is probably the most impactful day because it has such repercussions on your entire YouTube channel.
In an age now where anyone can create content easily with AI, the one moat that you have is your brand. This is how you stand out. I know that you can get lost just like perseverating and overthinking what your brand should be and you never get started.
But at the same time, there's like no end to like how much you can put into your brand because it really is the first thing that people see. So let's say that Again, you're a busy founder, busy business owner, and you don't have time for that.
Who can they hire or find to work on the brand for them? I mean, if you want to go to the highest level, you're probably looking at someone like a creative director who is able to interpret your story, understand who the audience is, understand exactly who they are, what they want, and then knowing who that person is and what kind of brand would differentiate you from everybody else who's making content here so that when you do post content, it doesn't seem like you're copying or blending in with the crowd, but you stand out.
And a good creative director will be able to guide you. and ask you the right questions to figure out what that should be this is what we spend a lot of our time doing we are like fractional creative directors that we plug into a lot of different businesses and companies what we come to realize is that branding isn't just about fonts and colors right it's really about all of these things it's really about being able to extract the story from the business or from the founder and it's also knowing a little bit about everything it's like knowing how to write scripts knowing how to design knowing how to film set up a studio Madden made an amazing video going through like how a creative director thinks.
And we can go ahead and link it down below. So now you've edited your video and you've made your thumbnail. I would say that now is about the earliest time that you could potentially publish your video, depending on how long it takes you to edit.
So this day, I highly recommend that you start learning about distribution. So distribution is basically getting your video in front of people. so they can watch it a very simple way to do it is you just upload it to youtube and then just press publish but in a high performing distribution system that is like the start because you can actually send that video to other platforms you can repurpose it to other social medias your newsletter your community there's a lot of places where you can send the signals out to draw people back to the main piece so we're talking about distribution just for getting started and launching for youtube What are we talking about here?
Is it just uploading or what? So it is uploading, but uploading also involves a lot of different mini steps. So there's the title, there's AB testing, your titles and thumbnails, there's tags, there's all the metadata.
There's a lot of different boxes that you have to check, right? If you're monetized, you've got to set ads and everything. And then final day of week three, day 15.
If you want to build a system that allows you to continually churn out videos at a... high level of quality then you'll want to eventually find the right people to put on your team so this day is all about learning about the different roles that it takes to build such a team so we already mentioned video editor we already mentioned the creative director who's potentially the leader of your team but there's a lot of other roles to hire so from working with a lot of different creative teams already how do you think about who you should hire next well at this stage if you're building a media team for the first time it's likely that you're not going to need to hire yet I guess this day is all about learning the roadmap for the future.
Who could you eventually get onto your team? I'm a big proponent for keeping it lean at first versus over hiring. Because the more people you hire, there's just more people for you to manage.
And creatives are hard to manage if you've never managed creatives before. I always think about hiring in terms of bottlenecks. So where is most of your time going in all those steps?
The lowest leverage, but the most expensive in terms of time is the first person that you should hire. If we're talking about 80 -20, video editing is less important than the packaging, as he talked about. Usually takes the most time.
so that fits both those criteria all right which means a video editor is a great person to hire the next one usually that people would need would be someone designing their thumbnails again this is a skill that is requires you to have design skills you learn something like photoshop or canva which again is a very complicated software that's also something that you can just pay out and get a lot of leverage back so those are probably like the first two people that you might need to hire i think i didn't realize it until i thought about it mathematically but let's say like a video editor's time is worth twenty dollars an hour when i'm personally editing the videos i'm treating myself as twenty dollars an hour but whenever i'm acting as a creative director let's say they're fifty dollars an hour whenever i'm wearing the hat of the person who uploads and publishes then maybe i'm valuing my time at seven dollars an hour when you think about your time relative to the rate
Then you start to see like, who are the first people that I can hire out? Because I want to value more of my time doing the things that only I can do. And when it comes down to it, you are probably the only person who can tell your stories.
Maybe you can write your scripts, but have a script writer and figure out your channel direction because you're the one who knows what problems need to be solved for your audience. So as much time as we can keep ourselves in our zone of genius. that is using your time wisely by the end of week three this is potentially the earliest that you can have your video fully edited and uploaded and live on your channel so now that takes us on to week four during week four i know a lot of you may still be working on your first video which is completely fine but now we want to start thinking about the next video and not just the next video but like how do we make this whole process sustainable And when it comes to sustainability, you're going to need to figure out a way to actually monetize this whole process so that it keeps going.
But even though it's a long -term game, it doesn't mean that you have to wait to make money. You can actually make money on day one if you have an offer or a transformation or you are a business or a founder and you have something to sell, you can start making money right away. As long as you know how to position your videos so that it connects to your business.
So the first day here is really about mapping out your entire funnel. and how it leads from your videos into making sales if for someone who's just starting out here what do you think would be like the simplest way to think about their funnel by funnel really what we're talking about is there a way for someone who's interested in working with you or buying your product to actually get that product for people who are very very new kind of work backwards because if you can't take their money it doesn't matter all the work you do up front is there a way for them to even give you money set that up first well just kind of go backwards in steps to build the funnel There's so many different kinds of funnels that you can build.
Personally, the one that we run right now is a sales call funnel. You can actually, you know, just go click around our funnel down below. You'll click on a link in our description.
It goes to a page with an application form and an ability to book a call with my team. And then if we are a good fit to work together and it makes sense, then we can take your money and then help you build this out yourself. Right.
We intentionally kept it like just three steps like that. If you are a founder or someone who has a fully established business and a funnel running already. then youtube is not like building a new funnel it's just how does this connect to the funnel a good exercise is just to draw out like every single step of your funnel like you were saying too right so just draw boxes like first they watch the video then they click on the link then they go to an opt -in page then they sign up then they put their email every single step that happens between them watching the video and them buying something and if you can map that out you'll see like all the spots that need your attention for example we did have a few clients who are like making videos, but they're just not getting any sales.
And then when you go and look at their funnel, it's like you didn't even put a link from your video to your actual sales page. So how do you expect people to just make their way to your sales page? But if you just map it out step by step, then it becomes pretty obvious to you what needs to be built.
So now the next day, now that you've mapped out every single step of your funnel, it's time to set up tracking. Every single step can be tweaked. in some way to improve right like if you think about a youtube video itself there are a lot of metrics around a youtube video that can be tweaked to improve you got your ctr your click -through rate right how often are people clicking on your videos and if your click -through rate is really low then you gotta work on your titles and thumbnails or if you have like retention that's really low then you gotta work on your storytelling and then working on the substance in your video but that's just a youtube video the entire funnel itself can be tracked too one thing that we found pretty useful to track is actually how often are people clicking on the links in our description because in our descriptions it will take people from our youtube video to our landing page and once you start to make many videos across many different topics then you can start tracking which are the topics that actually convert and if you don't do this you're not going to know because youtube analytics actually doesn't tell you this so a lot of people ask how do you track
The same thing goes for the opposite. A lot of people have a funnel that's set up. Maybe you can click through it and it seems like it's working, but they'll complain.
Oh, like I'm not just making any sale. And then the obvious question asked next is, OK, let me see some numbers. Let's see the numbers of people moving through this funnel and why they're not getting there.
And if you don't have those numbers, you're not going to have a good picture about what's working, what's not working for. We call that a conversion rate. You want to know the amount of people that show up on the first page and then the second page.
Just divide those two numbers. that's conversion rate the percentage of people that moved across and that's going to tell you which part of your funnel sucks and which part of your funnel is working well for example if you have a video on youtube that gets like a hundred thousand views and then the conversion rate to your landing page is like ten thousand ten percent conversion rate but then from ten thousand people who go to book call with you is like five people that's like a point zero zero one percent or whatever so what that tells me as someone who's auditing the funnel the landing page where they're booking calls probably sucks it's either hard to find There's maybe too much stuff on it.
They can't even figure out how to book call or maybe the call button's not even working. So that's where the problem is. You gotta fix that.
If you don't have those numbers, then you don't know really where to reverse engineer things. And so the first thing is just making sure that you can track the number of people landing on the page or not. For most people, this is something you can use like Google Analytics to track with.
It's called creating a UTM link. Basically, you wanna create special links in your videos, but you need to set that up for all your videos so you know which people are moving from where to where. You can see which videos are converting better for you.
If you don't have that data, you're not gonna know what's working and what's not working. every step of the way now the only way to actually find out is to send traffic through the funnel the next day here you want to really think about your content calendar start planning videos out ahead of time so that you can know that this machine that you've built this content engine is going to pump out videos that are useful for your business for people who are just starting out here they maybe made their first video their origin story Maybe they made a few more videos next.
What would you recommend they go for as like the next videos in their strategy? It's understanding who's your audience and what's transformation. The whole goal based on that transformation, all the videos you make should address one of those three problems, those big problems that people have.
And you're just going to make a bunch of those videos. And all those videos are eventually going to build the brand and train the algorithm for what kind of channel you're going to work on. Personally, I don't like to plan out calendar too far ahead.
But if you're new or you're starting, I guarantee you what you learn from those videos is going to change direction for you. And so. Just plan out like a month at a time of content.
Obviously, like people ask all the time, like how many videos should I be planning for a month? Based on our experience, our data of what's healthy growth for long form content, shoot for at least a video week to start off with. Get that consistency down.
That's enough data and enough time to execute on all these things we talked about. For the next month, I guess you have one video out already. Just what are the next three videos?
you're gonna make and very nicely if you follow that three pillar thing you said up there i can tell what three videos you might want to make just target those three problems yeah that's a good point you make about like not going too far in advance too because if you're like new to this and your videos are not like the best quality they can be and you go and batch 10 videos then they're all going to be like the same quality right you're going to batch 10 bad videos but if you do them incrementally and you make sure to learn from the previous video that you just did then each of those videos will incrementally get better and better that's what you want to shoot for so you've got your calendar set up now and you're going to be sending a lot of volume into this funnel how do you now tell if your videos are actually performing if you followed the system so far and you publish on this day right here one week will have gone by and that's a good thing there's a reason why on this day we are now looking at analytics so for most youtube channels if you're a brand new youtube channel you have zero followers you have zero data on the channel you post your first video onto youtube i almost guarantee you you're not gonna have that many views in your first 24 hours even go to your impressions you'll see it looks like a staircase because it gives like a little people a little tests and then if those people liked it
It'll give it to a few more people and it'll just keep rising that way. After seven days, it should have run through a couple tests. And if it got to a certain point where you have enough impressions and enough views, then you actually have some data to look at.
If you only had to pick, like, let's say two or three analytics to look at, what would you recommend those be? There's only three things that I'm really looking for in YouTube. So you need to look at your impressions, you need to look at your CTR, and then you want to set your retention curve.
Those are pretty much it. And all three of those pieces that I just mentioned, they kind of map perfectly to the stuff that we've done before. If your impressions are low, that means the topic and the strategy that you picked, no one cared about.
That's why we recommend people start with an origin story because it's an idea that a lot of people can get behind. And it's easy for you to figure out, find that audience. But if your idea is like super, super niche and you're talking about how to use like this very specific medical device for surgery, for gastric bypass, for surgeons in like Slovakia, no one's going to know what that is.
YouTube's not going to know what it is. You're going to get like two impressions because it doesn't know who to give it to. ctr is how good is your packaging when people see your video it gets an impression do people click on it or not and the last thing is your retention curve that has to do with your storytelling your script writing and how good your edits are if you have good retention in the first 30 seconds that means you had a good hook and by good retention typically there's no such thing as like perfect numbers but Something above like 60 % for your attention is usually pretty good.
60 % in the first. Yeah. In the first 30 seconds, if the drop off rate is above 60%, especially for like a new channel, you're in good shape.
And then the rest of the attention, you just want to like study that curve. Is it flat line? Is it dropping?
Those are the moments in your videos that people were interested or disinterested and they're going to leave. And so if you're just good at studying those three things. you can get to like a million subscribers.
So this last day really set it aside for reflection. And there's kind of two sides to this. The first side is the more analytical, the more mathematical.
And it's asking questions like, how long did it take me to make this video? How many hours did I spend editing versus writing the script? Did I actually set aside time to work on packaging or did I just do it last minute?
So really putting on the hat of thinking about your YouTube channel as a producer. Then with my next videos, how do I become more efficient? how do i save time and save money and still put out videos of the same quality yeah so definitely don't ignore the numbers especially if youtube is an extension of your business right and it's meant to grow your business so you don't want to just build a channel based on vibes but that's not to say that vibes isn't important because that's actually the other part about reflecting how did you actually feel about this process is this something that you can see yourself doing for a long time If you don't enjoy the craft, the journey of making videos, then you're probably not going to last and you're probably going to quit.
You're going to burn out or quit after some time. If you started out and you don't enjoy it, that's not to say that you cannot one day start to enjoy it. And that does happen for a lot of people.
But the only way for you to start enjoying it someday is that you have to treat it like a process of self -improvement. And that's exactly why you say that when you first start out, you're going to be bad. Again, like all these things that we're doing here, talking to a camera, reading a teleprompter, like editing videos, this is not natural.
And so if you take it as like, this is a journey that I can improve over time, as you improve and you build your skills, you're going to get better. But if you just started your channel or any social media for that matter, and you haven't gotten that win yet, it's going to feel bad until you get that win. And so treat it as a game.
And there are certain milestones, like the fact that you made it to day 14, like three weeks into this process, you're already ahead of like 80 % of people. That is a huge win. And then if you get to the point where you're learning from it and you're engaged in that process, that's like a 90th percentile.
And if you do this for six months, there's no reason why it wouldn't work if you have this growth mindset down here. But the reason why people give up after a few videos is because they didn't have this part. They're not reflecting on like, what did I enjoy?
What did I learn from it? And how can I do better? If you're not doing those things, you're not going to do better because you had no baseline.
You're not looking at what was working before. Now, to be 100 % honest, one of the hardest things about sticking to a sprint like this is just staying motivated and accountable. and you're serious about building on YouTube and getting that started for your business, then check the link in the description below.
We're about to kick off our next 30 -day sprint pretty soon, and you can apply to see if you'd be a good fit to work together. But the obvious question that I'm sure a lot of people are asking is what happens after these four weeks, right? How do you continue making videos and optimizing a good strategy for long -term growth?
If you're interested in that, we actually made this video right here. It's our entire YouTube strategy to grow your business and brand that survives the test of time. We'll see you guys over there.
It's going to give you a ton of value.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The proof comes before the plan: a second channel monetized in eight videos and past six figures inside its first month. Then the camera drops to an empty chalkboard grid, five columns wide, and the rest of the video is two people filling it in one day at a time.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:48concept
Transformation over niche
Instead of naming a category like productivity, name the specific person and the specific outcome your content moves them toward. Categories hide who the content is for, and the transformation makes the audience, the topics, and the offer fall out of one decision.
Steal forany positioning exercise where a category label keeps substituting for a customer
03:15list
Three questions to pick your problem
Do you like solving that problem, enough to do it for years
Are you good at it, with results you can point to
Do people actually need help with it
Run every candidate problem from the last five years of your life through these three filters, then pick the one that feels right in your gut rather than over-analyzing the shortlist.
Steal forchoosing a content pillar or a first offer
08:10model
One pillar video plus three step videos
One video covering the full A to B transformation
Problem one: the tools and tech they need
Problem two: the core skill or knowledge gap
Problem three: distribution and marketing of the result
Break the transformation into the three most painful sub-problems, which becomes the backbone of the channel. The three slots are industry-agnostic: tools, skill, and getting the result in front of people.
Steal fora content calendar or curriculum outline for any teachable outcome
09:34concept
Minimum viable studio
Good lighting
Good audio
Good video
Three things only, with audio ranked first because teaching content fails when words are hard to parse. The day's assignment is finding and physically setting up one location, then taking a test recording and sitting with it.
Steal forany first-time recording setup where gear research becomes procrastination
15:40list
The three T's of packaging
Title
Thumbnail
The first 30 seconds
All three have to tell the same story. Most people treat the first thirty seconds as content rather than packaging, which is why hooks drift away from what the thumbnail promised and viewers leave.
Steal forany headline, image, and lead combination, including ads and email subject lines
18:50model
Three-act origin story
Act one: the problem the hero needs to solve
Act two: the hero sets out to solve it, with the sacrifices and proof
Act three: the hero is changed and turns around to help others
The hero's journey compressed to three body paragraphs, used for a first video. Act two is where vulnerability and evidence belong, and act three explains why you are now teaching rather than just doing.
Steal fora founder story, an about page, or a webinar opener
24:22list
Three editing layers
Story: cut rambles, mistakes, and retakes until one coherent timeline exists
Sound: compression, EQ, and music that matches the story
Sight: b-roll, titles, graphics, and imagery sprinkled in last
Each layer is locked before the next begins. Touching story again after sound work means redoing the work downstream, which is where self-editing sessions tend to collapse.
Steal forany edit, including podcast and short-form, where passes keep blurring together
Does not: the specific looks, effects, and references that are off limits
Collect references from brands you like rather than inventing a look, then hand editors and designers both halves. Examples communicate the boundary far better than adjectives do.
Steal forbriefing any contractor whose work has to look like yours
31:40model
Hire by bottleneck and hourly rate
Find where most of your time goes
Rate each role honestly: editing $20/hr, creative direction $50/hr, uploading $7/hr
Offload the highest-hours, lowest-rate work first
Keep the work only you can do: stories, direction, which problems matter
The first hire is usually a video editor, the second a thumbnail designer, because both eat hours at rates well below the value of strategy work. Hiring stays lean because managing creatives is its own skill.
Steal fordeciding the first delegation in any solo operation
33:50concept
Build the funnel backwards
Start with the step where someone can pay you
Work back through the booking or checkout page
Then the opt-in or application
Then the link in the video description
If there is no way to take money, nothing upstream matters. Draw every box between watching a video and buying, and the gaps become obvious, including the common case of a video with no link to the sales page at all.
Steal forauditing any offer that gets traffic but no sales
40:50list
The only three analytics
Impressions: tests whether anyone wanted the topic
CTR: tests the packaging
Retention curve: tests the hook, script, and edit
Each number maps to a specific earlier decision, so a weak number points at the step that needs work rather than at the video as a whole. Wait seven days before reading them, because a new channel's impressions arrive in a staircase of small tests.
Steal fora weekly review of any content channel
42:00model
Two-sided reflection
The math: hours spent per stage, where time leaked, what to make more efficient
The feel: whether you enjoyed the process enough to keep doing it
Looking only at numbers builds a channel you resent, and looking only at feel builds one on vibes. The analytical side asks how to produce the same quality faster, the other asks whether the craft is one you want to improve at.
Steal forany end-of-sprint retrospective on creative work
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
44:18product
“One of the hardest things about sticking to a sprint like this is just staying motivated and accountable. If you're serious about building on YouTube and getting that started for your business, then check the link in the description below. We're about to kick off our next 30-day sprint pretty soon, and you can apply to see if you'd be a good fit to work together.”
Held until the final thirty seconds and framed around accountability rather than information, since the information was already given away day by day. It hands off immediately to an end screen pointing at a long-term strategy video, so the pitch does not get the last word.
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A 19-minute brand-design masterclass using a medical diagnostic framework, competitor positioning, and three visual pillars to build a complete brand kit from scratch.
Two YouTube coaches use their own four channels, plus three overnight-success strangers, to argue that getting monetized takes about 20 deliberately made videos, not a hundred.
A career-focused essay arguing that as institutional trust erodes and AI makes expertise instantly accessible, building a personal audience alongside a credential has become the multiplier that decides how far a career actually reaches.
Mike and Matty argue that fast monetization has nothing to do with how many videos you post — it comes from the credibility you built long before you hit record.
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