An Important Entrepreneurship Lesson I Learned from Starting A YouTube Channel

Introduction

As I mentioned in my observations after starting a YouTube channel, success on it is HIGHLY counter-intuitive and unpredictable. In this post, I will describe two more examples of videos to further prove this. Understand that I am not trying to mock nor maliciously trash too much on these respective YouTubers, but I am simply writing my honest and detailed assessments and impressions about their videos.

Successful Freak Case

Take the following as the first example:

Let’s break down everything bad about it:

  • Video quality is bad
  • Sound quality is bad
  • No editing (although minimal would be required)
  • Room lighting is bad
  • Title is simple, but uninteresting and unclear. “Girl and guitar” could mean a girl reviewing a guitar, a girl sitting and talking next to a guitar, a girl talking to a guitar, etc. We do not for sure if a girl will actually sing a song with a guitar. We do not know the song’s title either or what is going to happen.
  • The video has no attractive thumbnail
  • The channel’s name is just the number 3 which ,although admittedly not all successful YouTube channel names are, is very unoriginal. It feels weird and random. Same for the channel’s profile picture
  • The video has no description.
  • The channel’s about section is just the word “seed” which adds even more confusion about what’s going on with it.
  • There are no details about the channel

Those are all of the bad points I could point out even though I am sure people could keep on going. On the other hand, here are all of the good things about it:

  • The girl can sing decently
  • The girl can play the guitar really well (which by the way, is a difficult instrument to master)
  • The video is not bad content
  • And that is pretty much it…

So as you can see, there are more reasons to believe it should not get any views or likes, but low and behold the results were the following as of July 30th, 2023:

  • The channel received 19 500 subscribers from that video alone
  • There are 1039 comments and most are extremely positive
  • 19 500 people liked the video
  • It got 2.1 million views!!

In the end, it became viral and very successful in only one month after its upload DESPITE all of the stated weaknesses which all appear (to me at least) to be very compelling reasons why it should fail. Just to add one more baffling fact on top of everything, the channel existed since 2005 which was the same year YouTube launched.

Unsuccessful Freak Case

Now that you have witnessed what a successful, but terrible video can look like, here is a polar opposite case of an excellent, but arguably unsuccessful video:

Let’s break down everything bad about it:

  • I find the video description to be a bit too long, it is not irrelevant text, but I am just not sure viewers will read the whole thing
  • That’s pretty much it according to me…

Now let’s break down everything good about it:

  • The title is clear and interesting. It makes me want to click and learn, because of the keywords “self-made”, “billionaire” and the guest’s name “Anne Wojcicki” who is quite popular in my opinion.
  • The video quality is excellent
  • The sound quality is excellent
  • The editing is excellent with just enough
  • There is an introduction and a conclusion with more stuff to look into if anyone wants to learn more.
  • Both people communicate very well and their discussion is interesting and relevant
  • The channel is from a legit organization
  • The channel’s profile picture is straight to the point, pretty and visible
  • The channel has been around since February 15th,2015 (so 8 years total) with 543 videos, 198 000 subscribers and with a dozen videos having more than 500 000 views. It generated a lot of momentum and it acquired a lot knowledge from viewers to improve over the years.
  • The thumbnail is well-designed.
  • The content is trendy and has a lot of potential interested viewers. It is a subject that people want to learn about.
  • The description has links to find out more about them.
  • The channel’s about page is accurate and legit. We know exactly what they are and the whole thing is well organized.

Of course, more can be said, but those were all I could notice. Now, when it comes to results, as of July 30th, 2023, the video got the following:

  • 700 views
  • 29 likes
  • 0 comments

It is by no means a failure, because the organization is still doing well, but it was not a huge hit in istelf compared to the first example. The major difference though is that it had ALL of the reasons to succeed and none to fail. Plus, it was uploaded for more than a year so it had some time to gain some traction compared to the other one that was uploaded only for a month, but it didn’t.

(Views might increase if you watch it from this post though, but nobody reads this blog anyway 😅)

The Main Takeaways

Those are not the only examples of unusual successful (or unsuccessful) videos out there, but it goes to show how even logical and rational assumptions can lead one astray from the truth. To be brutally honest, I would not hesitate to underestimate the first video and I would have gone as far as betting money against it telling myself, no way on Earth this can ever become THAT successful given modern standards. If you disagree with such initial belief that it would fail, I suspect you are just showing off to others pretending like you are part of the bandwagon. If it failed, you would have changed sides and said, “Oh I knew it. It was bad anyway”. I am not embarrassed to admit that I was not just a little, but MASSIVELY wrong. Even for the second video, I am sure the channel worked very hard before delivering it, but still came up short. I would have predicted it to become popular, but would end up so wrong again. We have all encountered mutants who defy the immutable laws and expectations of how a successful profile should be. We often dread seeing someone succeed with apparently minimal effort compared to ourselves and despite all the odds being stacked against them. Even when all the reasons to succeed or to fail are convincing and truthful real-life tangible evidences, life will never fail to remind us that our senses and expectations are never to be trusted so strongly. Do not despair from reading this post though, because those two do not accurately depict reality. I selected them amongst the millions out there and the fact of the matter is, the success and failure scenarios could have easily been reversed had I chosen different examples. I could have made this exact same post and still convince you that a high-quality video is always the key to success. In case you still do not get it, the two videos I picked DO NOT define how the real world works!! They were just case studies I found interesting to talk about and to contrast. If you are working well, hard and consistently, by no means, you should halt everything when seeing someone worse than you become superior. Those are just the outliers that we are bound to encounter no matter what in life. We could be part of them or we could be average, but ultimately the lesson to derive here is that…

Nobody, no matter the level of experience or expertise, knows perfectly what will succeed or not unless it is tried.

Of course, there are a lot of factors that influence everything that I can’t mention such as timing, because otherwise, this post would be too lengthy. It might sound very cliché, but I assert that it was only after going through all of this that I felt like I truly internalized it both theoretically and practically. Especially, because it was part of my attempt at entrepreneurship, even though it can undeniably apply to anything in life. Make no mistake, I have experienced countless instances where I came up short despite giving my very best and I had to witness someone less hard-working succeed easily. It is never that straightforward, because we will never get to know their full stories and there is no such thing as overnight success, but we can’t help, but be puzzled whenever such thing happens. Rest assured, I am not denying that I am indifferent to that feeling at all. However, we can either learn from them ,if possible, or we can be dismayed from even trying anything. The former is what I follow and would recommend in most cases.

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