How to Start a Successful YouTube Channel in 2022

What is a Successful YouTube? Growing a Successful YouTube Channel in 2022 means getting monetized and getting more subscribers to build your community, so that you can become a Full-Time YouTuber at some point in your career.

What Makes a Successful YouTube Channel?
✅ Getting YouTube Monetization
✅ Earning at least $1000/month on YouTube
✅ Growing a Community to 10,000 Subscribers
✅ Earning a Full-time Income from YouTube

If you are doing at least $1000 a month from YouTube and are on track to grow to 10,000 Subscribers your channel is successful. If you’re a Full-time YouTuber making a living income, you are a successful YouTuber and have built a successful YouTube Channel.

This video will break down how you can best accomplish these goals and grow on YouTube in 2022 and meet the requirements.

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— So you wanna grow a
successful YouTube channel

in 2022, 2023, 2025, guess what?

The foundations of that
are not going to change.

So what do I mean by a
successful YouTube channel?

Well, in this particular case,

a successful YouTube
channel as defined by me

is a YouTube channel
that is fully monetized,

can earn over $1,000 a month or more

beginning to put you in the position

to be a full-time YouTuber.

And another measurement
that I use for success is

can this channel reasonably
get to building a community

of over 10,000 subscribers?

These are my baseline minimum criteria

for a successful YouTube channel.

In my opinion, anybody
who has a YouTube channel

that also allows them to
produce a full-time income.

I don’t care about your views.

I don’t care about your subscribers.

If you’re making a full-time
livable income from YouTube,

then you have a successful
YouTube channel.

So today we’re gonna talk about

how you can make that happen.

How do you grow and build a
successful YouTube channel

and how do you begin the transition

to being a full-time YouTuber?

Now, let me get something out
of the way and off my chest

’cause it’s gonna be a
somewhat spicy video.

YouTube unfortunately as a
culture has largely been reduced

to popularity contest, status
games and clout chasing.

But if you want a serious long-term career

as a content creator, the
healthiest thing that you can do

in terms of a creator mindset
is to ignore that nonsense

and focus on a couple of key things.

How do you put your audience first?

How do you make this financially viable?

And how do you make this
sustainable for your lifestyle?

Everyone has a different situation.

Some of you are in your 20s

and can afford to take
massive amounts of risk.

Some of you are in your 30s,
you have to be responsible.

You might have a full-time job.

You might have a family.

Some of you are in situations where

you might be living with
a very difficult thing.

You might be going
through some life changes

that make it a struggle

and content creation for you right now

represents your escape.

But you’d love it to also
be your exit strategy

from a really crappy job or
an abusive toxic workplace.

Some of you, you have different struggles.

You might have a disability,

you might have a chronic illness.

You might have a family
that is very reliant on you

from a time standpoint.

And you’ve got all the time in
the world to build a channel

or chase your dreams.

Everybody’s got different circumstances,

but these baselines of
success that I came up with

are target goals that will just help you

realize what is realistic,
what’s achievable

and what you can do in
a reasonable timeframe,

do the best you can with what you know,

where you are and with what you have.

Let’s start with your monetization goals.

One of the first and biggest hurdles

to building a successful YouTube channel

is just qualifying for
monetization on YouTube,

’cause you have to do
some very specific things.

You have to get a 1000 subscribers

and you can do that within any timeframe.

But within 12 months you
have to have 4,000 hours

of public watch time.

Now you should also
know that YouTube shorts

while it can get massive views

can go viral even for
smaller YouTube channels,

if that viewing watch time

comes from the YouTube short shelf,

which is where the vitality
comes from, instead of it

being from normal views on
desktops, laptops, et cetera,

is not gonna count towards
your public watch time.

So YouTube shorts might
be able to help you

reach the subscriber count goals,

but it won’t necessarily help you

reach your watch time goals,
and you should know that.

YouTube live streams on the other hand,

it can be very challenging sometimes

to grow that with subscribers,

it could also work out really well.

For me on my podcast channel

which I recently got monetized.

I’ll do a breakdown on how
long it takes to get monetized

once you apply to the
YouTube partner program

and all of those details in another video,

but getting the watch time
was actually something

that I was able to
accomplish really quickly

by doing a Monday to Friday podcast.

So I have a separate channel for that,

and I was able to get
some interesting data

on how quickly you can gain watch time

by making long form content.

That’s gonna not suit
everybody’s situation

in terms of making long form content

or doing live streaming.

It may not be what some of you want to do.

I just wanted you to
understand it is an option

and I’ve made several
videos, playlist even,

around the idea of getting
the 4,000 hours of watch time.

And I broke it down into a system

that you can use in almost any situation.

And then finally,

let’s talk about the other
thing you really need

in order to qualify
for you to monetization

and that’s to have no
community guidelines strikes,

it means you have to be following

the YouTube terms of service to a T

even when you starting
out as a small YouTuber,

you need to absolutely make sure

that you are not making
borderline content.

And this is something that probably

does deserve its own video.

Now, in order to get subscribers

and to be able to get the
views and watch time you need,

I recommend that people choose
a niche for their content.

And by choosing a niche,

I know that that makes a lot of you sad

because you wanna make
whatever videos you wanna make,

but it’s really hard to get people

to commit to you making random content.

And you may not have the
experience to pull off being

a personality driven creator

at the very start of your career.

If you want to do YouTube
starting out for fun,

and you wanna do this as a hobby to start,

I recommend that you just
make 100 crappy videos

and by crappy, I mean,
videos you’re using to learn

and get it out of your system.

Mr. Beast made 100 crappy videos

when he first started YouTube

and he didn’t get to a 1000 subscribers

off of his first 100 videos.

It took him more than a 100 videos

to even get a 1000 subscribers.

I made a dedicated video about this,

a link to it in the
description down below,

but the 100 crappy videos philosophy

comes down to the fact
that Marques Brownlee MKBHD

over 15 million subscribers,

his first 100 videos, that’s
78 subscribers out of it.

PewDiePie probably needs no introduction

if you’re trying to do YouTube,
100 million subscribers

has been doing this for like a decade.

His first 100 videos, 2,500 subscribers.

Mr. Beast, arguably the most famous

and successful YouTube content creator.

100 videos, 780 something
subscribers, that’s it.

Most YouTubers do not get massive success

at their first 100 videos.

There are anomalies out there,

but literally some of
the biggest YouTubers

in their own categories with
10s of millions of subscribers,

the first 100 out of the
first 1000 their videos

didn’t even produce 1%

of their overall lifetime career success.

I want you to think about that

when you think about the
patience and the longevity,

the marathon method,
when it comes to YouTube.

I’m about the marathon method.

I’m about the long game.

If you want quick, viral,
easy, overnight success,

which I don’t even believe exists,

you can go somewhere else.

That’s not what I do on the show.

I give you the most realistic
advice, painful as it might be

in achieving your goals

when it comes to the creator economy,

being a full-time content creator,

or making some extra money
using online tools like this.

So now you have a realistic
baseline of what to expect.

If you want to be a
hobbyist and enjoy this,

you can make your first 100 videos

and just learn and practice.

If you’re going into this
with a career mentality

from the very, very beginning,
do not make random videos,

niche down, pick a specific audience.

It’s not about limiting yourself

as much to a specific one
type of video or topic,

as much as it is a specific audience,

who are you trying to reach?

You try to serve everybody,
you serve nobody.

The best intersection of picking a niche

is probably picking something that

you’re passionate enough
about to be consistent at,

and that you are good enough at

to speak confidently to the camera on.

You’re not always gonna be good

at what you’re passionate about,

and you’re not always gonna be passionate

about the thing you’re best
in the world at sometimes.

So find a balance there, find
something you like a lot,

and that you’re good enough at

so that you are excited
enough to make content

’cause it gets to be a grind
so that you can be consistent.

And then number two, you need confidence.

If you can be consistent and
you can be confident on camera,

that’s going to be the
majority of what allows you

to have any shot of being successful,

consistency and confidence.

I cannot stress enough

the role that those play
in your success in YouTube

and in online business
and in life in general.

So niching down is good
because what happens is

if you can be consistent,

both in the type of content you’re making

and your frequency of uploads,

you have a reason for someone
to make a commitment to you

as a content creator and to your channel,

and to show up for you
and to share your content

with more people that are
part of the same audience,

the same community, the same culture.

This is how it’s going to work.

You need to pick an audience
so that you understand

the culture of the people that
are watching your content,

what they like, what jokes,
what memes they like,

what would be attractive to them,

what thumbnails you need to make.

It’s gonna be the guiding principle

that helps you develop
a real content strategy.

And then you won’t be
struggling with your ideas

nearly as much,

and you won’t be struggling
with what to make

and why it would be successful.

The next part is, okay,
we have the ad revenue,

we have the monetization there.

It’s very difficult to make
a $1000 a month on YouTube,

just from ad revenue alone.

Especially if you’re not in a niche

that pays very high CPMs and RPMs.

I’ve done a dedicated
video about which niches

pay the most in YouTube.

I’m gonna link to it in
the description down below,

but I’m gonna warn you now,

you should not be making
content exclusively off the idea

that it’s just gonna pay
you a lot in ad revenue.

And there’s a lot of other
compromises you’ll have to make

if you decide to rely on
YouTube ad sense revenue,

I’ve done several videos
around monetization.

I’ve done entire playlist about it.

If you want understand that better

then I definitely recommend
you watch those videos.

So I’m gonna link to those
in the description also

so that you can understand the rules.

What gets your videos demonetized,

what earns the most money.

And then also the fact that frankly,

you need to balance the idea

that when you do
advertising on your channel,

when you have ads on your
channel, that yes can pay you.

You also need to consider
the viewer experience

and what interrupting a video could do

to hurt the performance of your content

and therefore hurt your growth.

Sometimes what gets you views, watch time,

average view duration,

the things that will grow your channel

in terms of engagement might
require you to make less money.

Sometimes you have to make a choice

between growing the channel
and growing the income.

And you need to balance that out.

Now, a good way to get around that

is to expand the ways that you monetize

outside of ad revenue on YouTube.

One of the first things I
did was affiliate marketing.

This does work better in some
niches, rather than others.

If you’re an entertainer
instead of like a tech reviewer

or a beauty channel, then yeah,

obviously tech reviewers
and beauty channels

can do much better on affiliate
links than other people.

Tutorial channels, software channels,

obviously channels and entrepreneurship

can absolutely crush it
and make a ton of money

when it comes to affiliate marketing.

When I first got started on YouTube,

one of the first keys to
making over a $1000 a month

was the Amazon affiliate program

when it came to recommending
camera gear and camera lenses

and budget laptop reviews.

These were things that actually helped me

to start making real
money from my content.

Back then you couldn’t exactly

get brand deals really easily.

It was actually hard
to get paid brand deals

or even free review units,
even at 30,000 subscribers

back in my days everything was harder,

and yeah, no, for real,
it was actually harder.

You could say there’s all the advantages

to starting early as a YouTuber you want,

it was legit hard because no
one took any of this seriously.

The opportunities in
the creator economy now

wildly different, even
for smaller YouTubers,

smaller content creators,
much more opportunity.

More people believe in it,
more people take it seriously.

I really don’t think you have to have this

scarcity mentality of it being too late.

I think it’s still early
enough if you take it seriously

and if you create real value.

The closer you get to 10,000
subscribers in YouTube,

the easier it becomes to
do things successfully

like paid sponsorship and brand deals.

I’ve made several videos about that.

This is how most full time
YouTubers actually make

the majority of their
income in a lot of cases,

it’s not usually the ad revenue,

especially entertainment-based YouTubers

probably get a 10th of a penny per view.

YouTubers in higher paid niches,

like entrepreneurship, real
estate, things like that,

get more than a penny per view,

sometimes two cents per view.

So the difference is 10 to 20 X

on certain verticals of
education versus entertainment.

Entertainment requires
massive use and vitality

to make the same amount of money.

I’ll give you a primary example
of what I’m talking about

on the videos on my channel,

which people love to dunk on me sometimes

like the view to subscriber ratio thing,

irrelevant, cash over clapped.

100,000 views on my channel
is worth about $1,500.

I’ve known viral content
creators to get a million views

and not even make $600 on their content

and that’s for normal videos.

YouTube shorts that go viral
can go to 10 million views

and still not even make $500.

So virality does not pay as well

as some people like to think.

Virality is good for brand deals

and leverage on that more
than it is ad sense revenue.

You also have to remember that
the viral style of content

that people wanna make
sometimes makes them vulnerable

to copyright claims,

which means that brands take the money

for using things like,
their videos or their music

or any other intellectual
property sometimes.

And sometimes those are
false copyright claims

and you have to fight them,

but that could mean your money is held up

for 30, 60 or 90 days longer

than it would need to be anyway.

So from a cashflow standpoint,
it’s not even great.

This is why diversifying
is key to your success

in making $1,000 a month
from YouTube or more,

making up to 5,000, 10,000

and being a full-time content creator.

Being able to do things
like hire a team and scale

and things like relationships with brands

in terms of sponsored content
definitely helped with that.

Diversifying your income beyond even that

with things like affiliate marketing,

or selling your own products,

that definitely helps because
from a cashflow standpoint,

then there’s opportunities for
money to come in every day,

potentially outside.

If you have your own product

you can be making money every day

that helps with cashflow a lot,

easier to do when you
have 10,000 subscribers

and you have 100 to 1000 true
fans that will buy something.

So that’s actually really
important in terms of growing

the audience to at least 10,000.

Easier to get brand
deals and sponsorships,

you can get them at lower
levels, but they pay better

and more consistently and reliably

when you have over 10,000 subscribers

and you’re in a position
where a brand deal

might be paying you 5,000 to $1,500,

potentially depending on
what the arrangement is.

So then realistically,

the amount of money
that we’re talking about

you can make it from
maybe even one brand deal

when you’re at that level,

as far as making a $1000
a month from YouTube,

if you have your own products.

And some of them like maybe
you make 20 bucks on them

or something, well, you’re
talking about 50 sales,

it’s not the hardest
thing to do in the world

if you have a large enough audience.

So in terms of realistically

making a $1000 a month on YouTube,

it is something that is doable.

It becomes much more reasonable
as you grow as a creator

by building a relationship
with your audience,

reliable content.

And once you also
understand different avenues

of monetizing your YouTube channel.

If you have three or four ways

of monetizing your YouTube channel,

it becomes much more reasonable

for you to be able to get a
$1,000 a month or $5,000 a month

or $10,000 a month,

if you have multiple ways of doing it,

multiple streams of income
as a content creator

is what will get you to full
time in a more reasonable way.

And as for getting 10,000
subscribers, this will obviously

have another dedicated
video updated for it.

But what I will tell you is,
for me there is one correlation

when it comes to views and subscribers

that I actually do believe in

as the opposite of what people think.

People think that ’cause
you have subscribers

you’re supposed to get views,

but views are what will
give you subscribers

because everything on YouTube
starts with getting the view,

getting the click.

There’s no guarantee that
just ’cause you subscribe

to a YouTube channel that you’ll ever see

that YouTube channel show
up in your YouTube homepage

ever again, just ’cause you hit subscribe.

That’s where niching down can be important

because you’re more likely
if you keep watching

that same type of content at some point,

and that’s in your watch history

to get that promoted to you again.

Plenty of you watching this video,

you have creators you’re subscribed to,

and if you don’t go to
their channel personally

you don’t see their content come up.

And so just remember that
if you’re a content creator,

just remember your viewer experience

that will become important
for your whole YouTube career.

That’ll also help you understand

the YouTube algorithm better.

When it comes to getting
subscribers though,

which can be very good in
terms of marketing yourself,

it can be good in terms of leverage.

When it comes to getting YouTube
subscribers specifically,

I believe in the 1% rule,
I have a video about this

where I talk about this

and getting your first 1000 subscribers

and getting your first 10,000 subscribers

and how long it takes.

What I’ve found is if you want
1000 subscribers on YouTube

typically, if you target getting
a 100,000 views on YouTube,

and if you can get very
high, average view durations

and view percentages on your videos

in terms of retention rate,

the longer you retain
people on your videos,

the more likely they are to subscribe.

If you can hit even 30 to
50% retention rate ratios,

you are more likely to
get someone to subscribe

to your YouTube channel

if they’re watching that long on average.

If you target a 100,000 views

that will help you get your
first 1000 subscribers.

So if you want to get
to 10,000 subscribers,

what I’ve seen consistently
is getting at least

1 million views channel
wide is a better indicator

that your channel can get to
10,000 subscribers on YouTube.

I’ve seen this over and
over and over again.

As for my channel,

I have over 30 million
lifetime video views

as of the making this video
and over 500,000 subscribers.

So this has worked out
because my videos typically

have very, very high average view duration

and retention rates.

And for my situation,

as I’ve been doing this
for a very, very long time,

my ability to convert
viewers into subscribers

is actually a little bit higher.

One of the things I will tell you though,

is the opposite is not true.

Subscribing does not guarantee viewership.

That is the other thing
that people get wrong

about building a
successful YouTube channel,

because mostly this applies to
truly, truly famous YouTubers

over a million subscribers,

but also depends on the type of content.

Education is not entertainment

and entertainment is different,

if it’s news content that’s
a whole different animal.

So just keep in mind
that news and commentary

have a different situation.

Tech reviews have a different situation.

Entertainment has a different situation

and education and tutorial content

has a completely different situation.

So you need to learn more about

how your niche in YouTube works.

When you choose a niche
study how it works,

not only study trending topics,

but study viewer behavior patterns,

study the monetization of that niche.

Study the culture more and
don’t use big YouTubers

as a universal way to look at YouTube.

What I will tell you is the fundamentals

of growing a YouTube
channel from zero to a 1000,

from zero to 10,000, from 1000 to 10,000.

Most of those fundamentals are the same

and you could watch YouTube tips videos,

and best practices and be okay
with what that teaches you

as far as those fundamentals up to 10,000.

But you should also be
studying your specific niche

as well as learning the
fundamentals of YouTube

and the fundamentals
of making money online

and how to do things
like create merchandise,

set up affiliate marketing and links,

working with brands and sponsorships,

and maybe even creating your own physical

or digital products.

These are all very different things

that you will need to learn

long-term for your success
to be a full-time YouTuber

and start making more than a $1000 a month

and making 5,000 or 10,000.

It took me years to figure all this out

and to become good at any of it.

The same way it takes
time to learn your camera,

learn your video editing software,

you have to put in the work
you have to put in the time.

And the thing is, it’s
okay if it takes you longer

than it takes somebody else

’cause they don’t have your situation,

work with what you know,
work with what you have

and work with where you are.

Question of the day, what
was the most helpful thing

you got out of today’s video?

And what is it you wanna learn more about

when it comes to the creator economy,

YouTube or making money online?

Let me know in the comments

and I’ll try to reply to
as many of them as I can.

If you enjoyed this video,

watch my other YouTube tips videos

they will definitely help you.

And I highly recommend
that you watch my video

on the best paying niches in YouTube

if you wanna be a
full-time content creator.

As always, thank you so much
for watching and don’t forget,

go out there and create
something awesome today.

Take care.