I started making YouTube videos at 10, Here Are 7 Lessons

Mehdi Mouqtadir

Aug 22 in MarketingSecrets.com

Note this is a video script:

you can watch the loom although it's not more detailed but it will save you time ⏲️

INTRO

yes, i started making youtube videos at 10y old, yet i’m still young, i can say that it was life changing for me
I made many videos in the past, I made lots of mistakes, learned from courses, countless videos, watching stupid yt growth videos, courses, the research, the scripting exeprience, easily over 40h spent on a whole project video,
and in this video i’m going o share with you 7 lessons and more that’ll help you create better content, wether you’re a begginer or more down the line, the video will get advanced

People don’t care: Sacrifice work & creativity

let’s start with the first lessons, (clip dan mace), that guy was dan mace, and he is (clip), and one the most striking things he said is (clip), and many creators can relate, people don’t care, like me spending more than let’s give a rough more than 40h on a single video, it doesn’t matter to people as much as it matters to you.
trust me you might get people in the comments who have never made a single video in their life advising you around editing, but it is not everything.
that cool editing you did in the beginigng of the video doesn’t matter if it’s boring and doesn’t hold attention, you know in this jouney you have to learn to sacrifice hours of work and creativity, it depends on what you’re optimizing which we’ll get to later
but for example the script of this video, like i changed things in it, i rewrote sections, this part right now did not exist, and i probably could delete something that i thought was valuable in the edit, perhaps you’re not good yet, even if you are there is always room to improve.
maybe you’re anxtious about getting in front of the camera, i’m an introvert btw and the fact that young me made those cringy videos I guess you don’t have an execuse.
people only care when you start becoming successful, most people will quit, how do I know that? seems like another generic advice, no like i did quite before and that wasn’t once. just the fact that i’m doing this channel for more than 1.5y is great, i’m not gaining money, in fact i lost money, you know people have to have a job to wake up early, they’re complaining and they’re getting payed, what about the pople who are not getting paid, this a long term jouney, to me that is more powerful, just look at the people, they just spent a lot of time before becoming who they are right now, and people think it’s simple, easy, yeah if you’re selling your body on instagram, i think it’s easy
keeep in midn becoming chosing this path influence is work, but specifically long form youtube videos is the hardest, might as well put instagram because it’s also video, but really youtube has thne bigguest barier to entry, you’ll have to aquire lots of skills which is good, the skills you learn are in demand, you have to be ok with spending hours on a video that at the end got 600 views, it’s undermining, but numbers may not be accurate, there is a better psychologocal aproach to measuring progress, it could spark in you this aha moment when discover it.

QUALITY OF FOCUS: SHORTCUT YOUR PROGRESS

now hey, if you wanna really wanna improve on this path, you gottta take seriously it and focus, even with school, or work, dedicate time.
and trust me focused consistency transforms you, gotta be honest, for the last more than 2y, even before this channel i started a new gaming channel, and i learned is nothing compared to previously, when i actually was dedicating time to learn & applly, it’s like did i even learn something in the past? of course but it doesn’t look like i did, and i think that a large part of that is due to focus, not just consistency, you can be consistent and put a lot of content but not learn much, the most amount of videos i posted was in 2020, don’t worry the next section is about the quality quantity issue .
with this simple yet crucial ability, you can make more progress than others and faster, even if you’re a beginner, the quality of that one hour making the thumbnail, the quality of those 4h intense editing, deep work.
again on youtube you have a lot of roles unlike other platforms, so focusing on mastering something more than another could help you, hopefully with time we reduce what tasks we should do.
And this idea of Deep Work comes from Cal Newport, it became an essential practice many people around the world, it even helped with school, not just grades but even in thriving in a competition
here is a little story that showcases this power:
i participated in my school’s robotics team, it ‘s called FirstLegoLeague, for a competition in 2023, and we made a video, i had idea a very simple mediocre idea, normal editing, but the next competiotion which was like a year later, i already because i was improving for youtube, so of course i wanted to utulize my expertese, i was like look:
we’re gonna make this video that is in an interview format with each one of that, each person will show his interest in what and this and that, basically to fill specific criterias they should and want to see
anyway, long story short by the time the video is ready before regional, like the video was a banger, like the style of forshadowing, alternating normal moments with entertaining ones, i’m sorry about the blur but i don’t wanna show participants, and saw it was shown for us, and even said that the teacher doesn’t see it, she also was in it
so when presenting blahblah blah, play the video, the last section that had the teacher talking, and it was so emotional and the vibe of the stress and fear, that we cryed, i manipulated their emotions, well the judges didn’t cry anyway.
even to the point where even the director hausting the competion heard about it and said that it’d be shown to everyone in the competition, which was very uncomfortable, like have no problem people seeing this, but like in front of a mass audience.
that is the power of focus overall in improving my craft, when you consciously dedicate time for something, the storytelling you learn, the scripting, the editing philosophy, against someone who’se not serious, it’s a loosing battle already.
and remember to appky the core things we’re gonna discusse in minutes because it’s getting advanced, maybe you already have an audience and you decided to solve this very specific problem for them, then you’ll have to focus learning it more, even with this, you don’t disperse yourself accross many things inside the thing, hopefully you get it.

Quantity Vs Quality

Discussing the quality vs quantity problem, i have a somewhat speciall aproach,
somewhat different from the publish one billion videos idea, but we’ll get to that aspect also,
let’s look at my way of explaining it, for example, athlethes train daily, bascket ballers, footballers, they have training days, but also they have performance days, when they actully play the game
in this new online space there is not much distinction between training and performing, you can do them both at the same time, however you can split them to improve, doing reps mattters
you’ll look at what you tought great while ago to thinking “oh that is cringy”
think of it as more repetitions that quantity, or more training and experimentation, the more you do things, the more you get better at it as long as you’re more conscious about it, when i started for example scripting videos for this channel, i didn’t know how to preperly research, i wrote shorter scripts overall, they were like summuries of videos i watched, but the more I practiced the more I improved, now they’re longer, more detailed, storytelling elements, it’s the constant improvement and iterations.
one side tip i’d like to emphasize on, is that you should don’t waste too much time delaying a video, for example i used to script a video, then i go i script another one, then come back to the other, and realize ooh, that is bad, you’re making progress which is great.
just don’t delay projects for too long, this delayed my process, script like 3 videos, film them and edit them.
acknowledge that you made progress, and move on, maybe imrpove again a bit but you don’t wanna get into this rabit whole of scraping a whole project or redowing it all again unless it’s super super important, and even that, just make it, don’t get it into this sort of perfectionist mindset, you’ll always look back and realize how bad you were, which could be benefitial to see your progress
Now as much as i’m a fan of quality over quantity, to be brutally honest with myself and you guys, quantity matters, as in like the quantity of the videos you post, mainly for one crucial aspect, which is experimentation, exploring things that might work, so even me i’m gonna try to be hard on myself and publish 2 videos a month

CTA

seems like you’re enjoying this, currently we’re at 444 subscribers,
my abitious goal is 200k subs or more before the end of the year, i know it’s crazy, but it is not impossible,
seems like you are already enjoying this, if you apreciated and got value from this or my other videos, please could you do me a favor.
you only have to hit that subcribe button, it’ll help the channel more than you know
if you got on this journey early, just imagine what you could expect in the future, thank you so much.

YouTube is a Business

Goals & systems

[x] Remove the 10x idea/shorten it/speack of goal and use 10x to explain the system
Now here is the more advanced side of the equation, and btw i think I gave a respectable amount of quality advice earlier compared to other people.
The truth is that, youtube is business, this will include golden knowledge that litterally caused me to change the strategy of the channel, so better be taking notes.
but first you gotta have a goal and a vision, you wanna at least have some sort of direction, because the purpose of a goal really is to set a system, which path will you choose if you don’t already know the destination, and you can change your goal or big vision and adjust them along the way.
it doesnt have to be subscribers, maybe a number of videos you wanna post, maybe it’s conversion, you could be one of the people who don’t many views on their videos because you’re trying to sell a program to 7% of business owners who make more than $50M per year, maybe.
it’s like if you wanna become a doctor, you would go to a medical school, and essentially you’re operating based on where you wanna end up in the future, now will actually end up their that’s another thing.
I even talked with a youtuber, and I was helping her, she makes book summury videos, I told her something like to focus more on the educational books, because pople want education and although her channel started as in the begining with fiction books whe she started to make some content arounf educational ones this is before i taked to her, she noticed that people are interested in education, and so i told her other things like since she doesn’t have time, invest more in quality by reading successful educational books, and the target audience.
but she still was still hesitant, you know educational books took a month unlike fiction, and she didn’t like reading popular books anymore, like execuses, and so i noticed that and i was look nah stop, you need to put the goal for the channel, a vision, and she’s been for over 6y, like she was passionate about but she just treated as she said to me as a personal blog, she never taugh of a plan, and it made sense for her, she said that she’ll try put time into that.
and it’s basically common sens, you put a goal to reverse engineer it and take a path,
it depends on what you’re optimizing for, as example there this finance and self improvement youtuber called iman gadzhi his channel has over 5m subs, but lately he’s been pumping out some content about SMMA stuff in his second channel, and they’re a bit long explations,
why doesn’t he pubblish them on his main channel? they could get more views.
the thing is that he’s working for something else, and me knowing Iman, he’s a great marketer, and i made documentary video about him…twice, maybe he’s preparing for another promotion event, he is doing that for a reason, but the main channel has advanced to the point where it doesn’t sense anumore to publish those type of videos on it, if we go back 2-4y earlier it would be good, but now the main channel has a new identity, a new standard
now where my controversial, in fact i’m gonna explain it in a brief, because what you just heard in this section was not written before, because what intended to talk about is having 10x goals, inspired by Dr.Benjamin Hardys book, an organizational psychologist & entrepreneur, relax, i believe it’s valuable to mention it, just this time gonna try to explain it better
we’ve already covered that you need to operate based on the future, well having a 10x goal, makes you expand your thinking, impossible goals are so far that most of what you’re doing now won’t get you their, there are fewer paths to take, so you have to become your future self, work on becoming that person who achieved that thing, it’s the same as setting a normal goal except it’s more advanced
if you wanna get to a 1000 subscribers let’s say, there are many things you can do, if you wanna get to 10k, now that is different, if you wanna get to 200k like me, thaat is different, come on you don’t wanna subscirbe and help this gentlemen yet, although he’s giving stuff you didn’t expect you would learn
the example in the book showcases that going 10x is transformational, it’s like a baby going from crawling to walking, going 2x is lineaire, 10x is exponential, and it means that you’ll fail more because the standard is higher.
for example Jimmy Donaldson ie mrbeast who’se actually mentioned in the book, he wanted to become the biggest youtuber ever, and now look what he’s doing, it’s different by an order of magnitude.
it’s like difficult to set a 10x goal in the first place because the world has no limits, what is impossible and what stupidly impossible.
the book is not perfect of course, and i also did a very bad job applying it in the begining, like a did not try to solve a complexe problem,
but just don’t stess too much about it, there are people who don’t want a 10x goal which is ok, i still shared it because I believed that it’s something great, for now just set a clear direction first and start sailing.

content/audience/you fit:

let’s expand on this in the youtube sphere
you wanna make content that is interesting to you, and find that overlap with audience, it could be a multiple interests, you wanna select a niche, be specific, still you can match multiple interest but under the same umbrella, mainly this becomes important it’s hard to compete with the big guys who have more resources, such as highly trained teams, efficient operating systems in place, and even money.
which might sound unconventional, but you gotta do what 99% of the poeple are not doing, if you wanna get to the top 1%
gotta be honest, with the new direction that i’m putting the channel on, it’s been a bit of a headache, because ideally it’s better for me and others to position themselves as an expert in one thing, or 4 topics maximum, focus one ideally, i won’t say now, the more you’ll watch future videos it’ll be clear i guess.
you know what let us start, we only can know if this worked if it worked, neither me or you should let planning become a form of procrastination
idealy you would think of becoming different, better, and become the go to guy for that topic in a niche, and here is the thing, algorithms are getting better at serving niche content, because they wanna keep viewers on platform and make money
just look at rian doris, he is a flow state expert, and he uses neuroscience knowledge and explains stiff, it’s not general productivity,
same we could say for dor.andrew huberman, or Ali Abdaal teaching productivity from books, there is a reason why podcasts get millions of views although the guests talk about things that are so specific, people are lazy, they want things fast, and knowledge is the fuel for the mind, so do the work, filter the fluff and present it in a relevant way, that is synthesising, go deeper, people are not gonna read a book, do it, analysis of smth, do it, you get it.
and to better select, think of solving a specific complexe problem that your specific target audience faces, remember to think like business, except the formula is more like: Content/audience/you fit
people value effort and authority, and you need to understand the audience to know what to create.
maybe people are interested in something, they just know it existed, knowing your audience crucial

CTA: having friends (another shortcut)

wanna take a momment to tell you again, this is gonna be hard, but there is another hack to shortcut the journey
you could get people who never published a single video in their life and tell you to improve your editing or thumbnail, which is like a bit offending, but hey the video is the product they’re consuming,
but what about insider feedback from the industry, even if they were just starting out like you, one of the interesting reasons that MrBeast used to advance is having a group of friends (play clip)
but the question is, if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to start on youtube, or an educational youtuber with and entrpreneur’s mindset, where do you find these people, well i have created a community on this platform called skool, by you and you and you joining we can further build and cultivate this space.
also wanna mention that I have a free content template for you, that has changed and developed for over 1.5, and exclusive content for you to see how things work.
i can clearly see the interest in you since there has been a chance to tell you about this earlier in the video, and that’s what our community should be about, commited individuals, not some person who can’t even watch, a what 20min? and suposedly wanna learn about youtube or content creation.
click the link bellow to join it for free now, because i’m considering that i should charge for it. add urgency

Measuring Progress

to get imidiate feedback and test
now hopefully you’ve been focusing on the system, creating videos, learning, implementing.
but how do you actualy open your eyes and see if you’re making progress or not, the metrics are not that accurate, now imagine your average video hits 1k views, your latest video hit 1500 views, but it’s not what you were expecting and…that is the gap
let me explain, Dr.Benjamin we need you again, he has this concept the gap and the gain, remember it’s mental, "The Gap" refers to comparing oneself to an ideal or future state, which often leads to feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction. "The Gain," on the other hand, involves looking back at where one started and measuring the progress made, fostering a sense of achievement and motivation.
yes i get, it’s disapointing to not see the results you were hoping for, but you are actually making progress, maybe even a video could underperform, see if there is something you improved their, maybe it’s thumbnail, maybe it’s the intro.
this shift in thinking made me see with my own eyes my progress

Don’t do it for the wrong reason

now at the end if you’re gonna make some dumb channel with this knowledge, you wasted your time, and you’re gonna waste other people’s time
there were some reasons why i quite my second channel that was also about gaming, it actually was growing, doing some good numbers as a small channel, one of the causes is that i wanted to make something benefitial, second thing i was thinking long term, my identity before and during that period was going through serious transformation
you don’t wanna be wasting potential, time, or attention of yours and of other people
long term benefit and education
worshiping od aspect
quran quote
i know this vid will attract differnt people, christians, hindus, budhists, atheist
all religions are not the same
but i believe that i should’ve shared that that is why it’s included