not even four days in with only one video and we hit 1 000 subscribers we're already gonna get monetized countless small channels are blowing up on YouTube right now and there's never been a better time to start but what does it actually take to grow a new channel in 2023 six months ago two friends and I started a channel called going Indie and in this video I'll show you everything we did the entire process of how we actually grew this channel how much money we've made so far the biggest problems we faced and how we
solved them because it wasn't always a smooth ride but we learned a lot and I believe the most important things we did to find success so quickly happened before we even started working on our first video here's how the channel came together you see my buddy cam is a founder of a startup and a business professor and since I guess he didn't feel busy enough he started making a video game with some old friends in his spare time that's when he realized a problem yeah building a game is hard but like any product company kind
of only the first step everyone dreams about this great product they'll create but they don't really think about all the nuances once it's met selling marketing taxes but the hardest part about building a business isn't necessarily the product or the game right it's the stuff that comes after that's really hard after he and I had several conversations about the power of YouTube we decided to address the problem and build a business with a video first approach with Cam's expertise and my understanding of how to repackage that information and bring it to a large audience we
got to work I've built channels before and I've worked with many large creators behind the scenes so I knew our next step was crucial first we settled the basics and it took us a couple weeks we talked a lot about what kind of videos we wanted to create why we're creating these videos and who they were for it's honestly so important that we figure out why we're making videos and I really like what we came up with which is that we really love indie games we think they're some of the best games coming out these
days and with the channel we want to empower people making these games to not only make better games but to build better businesses then knowing that the videos would be presented from Cam's perspective we talked about some crucial things like the values we expected to share with the audience how Cam's personality should be injected into the videos to set us apart and what emotions we wanted to convey to viewers then we established the core principles of the channel designed a simple brand and landed on a video style that would work for both of us everything
we did to prepare so far wasn't about getting it perfect otherwise we'd just be stuck in analysis paralysis we just needed to make sure we had a great understanding of the value we would bring to our target audience at some point it was go time and we just had to start making videos and learn from them to improve as we went now we just needed a topic for our first video after chatting for a bit we decided to talk about the differences between the big budget AAA industry and the Grassroots nature of Indie Games up
until this point it's been smooth sailing we've had fun coming up with ideas and we felt like we knew exactly what we were doing this is going to be easy right no of course not it wouldn't be long until we'd start running into our first major problems but first there was one more thing to prepare I've kind of been struggling trying to think of what to do for the title and thumbnail for our first video but I think I finally figured it out because we can't just go with AAA versus Indie like our planning document
calls it that's a little boring what we need is an angle we want to tell a story about the fall of AAA games and the rise of Indy and we want to package it in a way that more than just the core audience will notice from the beginning we set out to make videos for a certain group of people not for an algorithm so we ignored search traffic and keywords and focused on making titles thumbnails and videos that people would be curious to watch for this video I looked at two existing videos on the same
topic and found that their thumbnails were too busy and the titles needed more weight that's when it clicked so we'll focus on the contrast of the story that we'll be telling which is how can a small time indie game with practically no budget possibly be more fun than a game that cost half a billion dollars to make contrast I mocked up a simple thumbnail I chose the most recognizable characters I could think of for both AAA and any games used a steam review icon to communicate negative and positive reception and contrasted the colors then we
wrote A Few dozen titles to try and find one that best represented the concept and in the most intriguing way possible with a few tweaks this is what we ended up with finally we talked about what the core takeaway for the video would be so we had our angle and now it was time to write the video this is when things got bumpy since this was our first video together we hadn't yet fully figured out our style so when that first draft was finished we quickly realized it was way too dense so this first script
isn't working out yet and we're trying to figure it out obviously we want to deliver Cam's information to the viewer except this draft kind of reads like a business lecture not a entertaining YouTube video but there was one simple concept that helped us immensely you see people come to YouTube for these three reasons to learn something to be entertained or to connect emotionally we had the information but there was a little entertainment or connection what we want is there to be nuggets of information baked into an entertaining video looking back yeah it was terrible the
first one was kind of a lecture I remember talking like I was so academic and then for the second drafts I was acting like an Entertainer which is just completely out of my own and the thing is I I'd watched thousands of YouTube videos and I kind of thought it'd be pretty easy but I never really edited I'd never really participated in creating a video before and it showed like right I had no clue how to write for the medium when the first rewrite was done it still felt really off it was way too over
the top with some out of place jokes but we were a little bit closer third time's a charm with some rewording and trims we were finally ready to move on it no longer had a super long intro and had a bit of personality in there but not too much we could tell it wasn't perfect but for a first video it was finally feeling good now it was time to edit the only problem was the editor had never actually edited a YouTube video before he's a buddy of mine who wanted to learn editing and it was
perfect timing for him to get involved with going Indie so we just got done editing the final draft together and honestly it went a lot better than I expected I'm having him do as much as I can on his own just so he learns quickly on the job again it wasn't perfect but it was really good and what matters heard most was that we all learned from it now it was time to upload we made a brand new channel and posted it on the same night here we go I'm the only subscriber tonight but I'm
really curious to see where we'll be a few months maybe a year I'm honestly pretty nervous and the next day we were shocked to find that we were still the only subscribers okay we weren't shocked at all well this was to be expected it is our first video after all yeah we learned a lot making this video and I already have some notes for the next one same here if we can repeat this process every two weeks I'm sure we could get monetized by hey guys our video got 3 000 views in the last hour
is that good on the third night of the Channel's existence something changed first a few hundred views then 9000 quickly accelerating the next morning before the end of the fourth day on Christmas we'd hit the requirements for monetization and it just kept going we were getting great reception and great metrics followed suit especially the amount of comments we were getting and you know it's a good sign when there's a bunch of copycats as for our video creation process it's a little too dense for a YouTube video so I left a link in the description breaking
it down step by step today six months later not only did our first video hit a million views but half of our videos have over a million for a total of 6.2 million views from that we've earned over thirteen thousand dollars through AdSense so far but none of that money will go to us due to the past experience I've had I've learned that AdSense can be fickle and it's a bad idea for most creators to rely solely on ads instead we use this Revenue to fun to the channel and keep the rest in savings for
rainy days but I'm not done yet because I want to let you in on our next steps in the coming months we hope to expand from one income stream to five AdSense brand deals patreon Affiliates and products with that last one being particularly interesting remember cam teaches people business he consults startups he runs a company and yet this experience has completely changed how he looks at business building now the way entrepreneurship is taught is to First find a problem second validate that problem third build a product for that problem and then fourth build a customer
base with that problem in mind it makes sense but as I said earlier that fourth step really is the hidden Beast the hardest quarter about building a business is driving product awareness and it's time and capital intensive right it's the step that kills most businesses which is what's so fascinating about YouTube you take this entrepreneurship formula and you move step four or to Step One you you build a community first so when you find a problem you validate that problem and then build a product for that problem you have mitigated your risk and you can
go to market with tons of sales because you already have a community next like I said before our core Mission has been to help game makers level up but they need more than a few jokes and Broad industry lessons in order to build a thriving business so we've just announced a patreon which we hope to use to deliver way more value to the core community of game makers by posting deep diving content that would never work well in the YouTube landscape also we're proud to say that half of the revenue from patrons and brand deals
moving forward will go towards a fund to be given away to Indie Studios to help make and sell their games this will really help us directly carry out our mission of helping out Indies on to the next problem and our solution to it at first cam wanted to remain nameless and faceless but that has many down downsides long term as a result the videos so far have been a bit disembodied and just like the triangle from before we aim to address all three reasons why people visit YouTube we want viewers to get to know cam
a little bit more you know it's it's scary to shoot your face to millions of people I'm a pretty private guy but I realize that there's a lot of value in showing who you are people people trust people and if I want people to trust what I have to say then it's important that they see and know who I am so how do you build a successful Channel I believe that at the end of the day building a successful channel is simple just not necessarily easy YouTube wants to show viewers great videos they will feel
satisfied to have watched no algorithm hacks here as for going Indy our videos just fit the needs of a certain group of viewers really well we brainstorm great video ideas we present them with intriguing titles and thumbnails we provide unique insights and content we are you uniquely positioned as the only major YouTube channel I know of to focus on business insights for the gaming industry and I believe we are building a great brand and Community I'm really grateful to have the team of three of us working on this channel and I could not have done
it without them if this video helped you out in any way definitely stick around because I have a lot more coming in the future thanks
