How I got 500 subscribers (so you can copy me lol)

Starting on YouTube is intimidating.

It’s just you, your camera, and endless amounts of doubt.

I recently hit 500 subscribers, which I admit isn’t a lot. But what’s crazy is that this puts me in the top 77.9% of YouTube channels. You’re so close to being there too.

I’ve learned a lot from starting. I’ve had numerous changes in niche and overall quality of my content. So, I want to share with you what worked for me, so you can fast-track to the 500 mark and beyond.

There’s no doubt YouTube is hard. For some people, it requires a lot of upskilling to even get to the point of being able to post a video. Luckily, I made some cringe Star Wars edits when I was a kid. Because of this, I’ve found that it’s best to create what you love until you love to create.

This will keep you from burning out. I know you’re thinking, “I’ll keep going until I make it.” But that’s exactly what countless YouTube channels would have said, who now haven’t posted for months. Making something you want to make gives you some internal motivation to fall back on if things aren’t going as you want. And since you’re focusing on what you enjoy, you’ll probably have a broad range of interests. There’s a lot of experimentation to be done, and this will help you find your niche as fast as you can.

If you noticed, my first few videos were about building an online business. I was doing it because I thought I should, not because I wanted to. Then, there was a hard U-turn into making things that I wanted. I started educating people about things that interest me and talking about some things I’ve done because I figure they can help people, just like this video. That’s when my motivation came back, and making videos became fun again.

Having a goal of reaching 1,000 subscribers, or in this case, 500, is great. But it’s not going to get you there. Having a goal of making two videos per week (and improving one thing with each video) will.

We all want views and subscribers, but they’re not coming if you’re just relying on videos that have already been posted. I’m guilty of refreshing the YouTube Studio app every three seconds to see if a video has blown up. Of course, they can blow up unexpectedly, but you have zero control over that. What you do have unlimited control over is how you spend your time, like making new and better videos.

Down the track, when you have fans and an audience that’s going to watch you no matter what, maybe you can take your foot off the accelerator a little. But we’re at the very start, and it’s the hardest point to get subscribers and views. In point 4, I’ll go more into a strategy to build an audience that I’m going to try from now on. It’s sort of an extension of this point.

This next lesson is a fun one. Humans love underdogs. Instead of this only being seen in scripted movies, you can now do this for yourself in public.

I spoke about this earlier in my first point, how I was making videos about building a business. After posting the first episode of that (don’t mean to brag), I gained 126 subscribers overnight, which was mind-blowing to me. And why did that happen? I believe it was because I gave myself a clear goal, one that is desirable to many people. They subscribed because either:

a) They wanted to see someone with no business experience build a successful business, or
b) They wanted to learn the lessons I learned to build an online business.

Both build a high-quality audience.

Now, I think a lot of you don’t have goals like that immediately. Maybe you just like making videos for the sake of making videos. A good way of finding some goals is to think about some problems you have in your life (wealth, health, and relationships). For me now, I want to get in good shape, so that’s my goal. Then the content becomes how you get there, the lessons you learn, and the problems and solutions you encounter.

The cool thing about this is it takes a while to achieve goals in these categories. By the time you realize these goals, you will have built an audience, and you can get paid to solve your problems. How cool is that?

So, this is the extension of point 2. It’s quite a new revelation to me; it came from reading one of Dan Koe’s posts. It’s the notion that social media (in this case, YouTube) is a skill, not luck.

It opens by talking about travel vloggers and how the majority of them didn’t get their start making travel vlogs. There’s a high chance they started by playing the game of social media—how-to videos, videos that the algorithm and YouTube want to promote. In doing that, they built a loyal following and then gave themselves the platform to spread into making whatever videos they want.

But the how-to videos and algorithm-loving videos are very specific. When a video takes off, you will see hundreds of videos copying the title and loosely copying the thumbnail to try and get into the recommended list. This is a great strategy because, when starting, you don’t have an audience, so you need someone else’s. You do this by making similarly themed videos but putting your unique interpretation on them.

Now, this is something I’m trying to do. Even though I don’t think I’ve achieved anything great, I’ve learned lessons that would be useful to people. So why not tie my learning and experiences to a high-performing idea?

A lot of these points sound like common sense when you hear them, but we are emotional creatures. We forget a lot of these points when we’re down because our videos aren’t performing or we’re not growing as quickly as we’d like. But I can assure you, if you stick to these rules, stay consistent, and don’t give up, you’ll hit your first 500 subscribers in no time.