How I'd Start ANY YouTube Channel in 2024 (6 Steps)

Key Takeaways

in the next 20 to 30 minutes I'm going to show you the exact strategy that we're using to grow our own YouTube channels and help our members grow their channels to the point that they can earn more than they do at their job often times much more success on YouTube doesn't come down to perfecting your editing or having really really great expensive camera gear or even having the best onscreen presence I mean trust me8 years ago when my friend Jim and I started our first YouTube channel I certainly did not have great editing skills wasn't that great at filming and certainly did not have a very great on camera presence success on YouTube is actually quite simple it comes down to creating content that resonates with and engages with a specific audience if you do that YouTube will connect your content with the Right audience that's what's in their best interest and we may actually have a few tricks to help you help YouTube identify who that audience is and make that connection a little bit faster and that's why success on YouTube is so repeatable and over the last eight years we've developed a process that works in fact within about three years of starting that first channel I was able to leave my full-time job and since then we've started several other channels that have gained substantial audiences and earned a great income this strategy that I'm about to walk through is the exact strategy that I would use if I were one starting a brand new Channel right now or two if I were trying to grow a channel that just isn't it's not making any real Headway maybe it just hasn't clicked with the Right audience yet we're not getting anywhere this is the strategy I would use to break through or three if you have a channel that you started that you've neglected or that's completely plateaued I get this question all the time what if I started a channel and I haven't published in a year can I resurrect that channel in this case I would use this exact same strategy to resurrect that channel in fact I actually just started a new channel and I'm still not quite saying what it is so keep keep that a little bit of a secret but this is the exact strategy that I'm following now to grow that new channel so now let's dive into what these strategies actually are our plan our sequence consists of five distinct phases the reason I break it into phases isn't to over complicate things but rather to help you focus on specific aspects of growing your channel and eventually growing this into a great Revenue generating business for you even if that's a business of one even if it's just you that's not what matters but we're going to focus on step by step by step exact how to get there but before we get into phase one I'm actually going to encourage you to start with phase zero within project 24 which is our membership where we go through this entire process in great detail with tons and tons of training a fantastic community and lots of stuff in that we have a phase zero and that's our start phase the reason that we have this is that before you can really get into delving into your topic figuring out exactly what it's going to be before you can really focus on leveling up the quality of your content or improving watch time we need to overcome some initial hurdles we need to create a YouTube channel if that's something that you're not real techsavvy at and you're just like I don't really know what to do we're going to go into that we need to know how to upload a video again if it's not something you're super comfortable with we're going to go into that we also need to record and that's the main thing we need to get the Reps in you need to get in front of a camera you need to get used to looking right into that lens and talking without it being wward that's hard for most of us that's hard and so what we're going to do we are going to not worry about our topic in great detail pick the topic that you think your channel is going to be about but let's not worry about really niching down and finding our approach let's start by just making some videos after you've made some videos you're going to start to pick up on a lot of things about yourself and about the content you like to create and that's going to probably change what plans you we're going to start with in the first place so we're going to overcome those hurdles and we're just going to create content and we're going to publish it to the world and overcome the fears that you may have associated with that I'm actually going to encourage you to stay in that phase and not worry about moving on to new stuff until you have filmed and published somewhere between about 12 and 20 videos honestly it just kind of takes that much to start to get your feet under you if you haven't done this before if you've already created a channel and it's got some reasonable success or you've already created 12 to 20 videos on your existing Channel and hasn't found success yet then you can skip that phase and move right into the main core of phase one in phase one we are actually going to start narrowing in and kind of honing in on what the topic is for our Channel by that again I'm not talking about high level topic if you're making a Channel about action figures action figures as a topic you probably could have started with from the very beginning but if we were going to dive in and maybe say we're going to focus more on collecting action figures the collectible aspect of that well that's kind of a different angle and then you're going to say well and within that we're going to approach that from the angle of you know maybe somebody who's getting into collecting or we're going to approach that from the angle of someone who's been a collector their entire life and who has a whole bunch of stuff whatever is going to be kind of your special unique talent that's going to allow you to stand out from other content on YouTube within the same overall topic of action figures we're also going to start looking at the audience what's the audience that you want to build and like who are the actual people that are watching YouTube that are likely to enjoy your content even if they're not currently directly searching for Content about action figures or maybe it's horseback writing whatever it is I encourage you to look for other YouTube channels that are doing things similar to how you think you want to do them and first of all verify if there's an actual audience for that are there a couple of channels that you would consider successful in your space within your topic if your topic is too narrow you might not want to be the one to sort of trailblaze that new path and create an audience for that these are things that we're going to do here in that very first phase we're also going to focus a lot on developing those core skills for YouTube we need to work on some basics of on camera presence we need to work on some basics of lighting and of sound and make sure that our content isn't painful to consume we want to make it as good as we can but based upon where you're starting so we're going to develop those core skills during that time frame and honestly I want you to make about another 12 or 13 videos in this sort of in this phase which if you're making a video a week I mean that's going to take you about 3 months all right now we're going to move on to phase two now you're going to see here that phase two we expect this is to take a little bit longer in fact about 7 months which is going to be around 31 weekly videos now we spend quite a bit of time in this phase in large part because there are some additional skills we want want to work on developing obviously those core skills were were not going to be perfect at any of those but we're going to focus specifically Beyond those core skills on adding other skills that will improve engagement as well as session duration we want to keep people watching the videos on our Channel as long as possible if somebody watches one video from you and leaves YouTube entirely that's not going to be great for the YouTube algorithm and they're not going to want to promote your video but if people watch your video and then immediately watch another one YouTube loves that session duration is key we have some really specific strategies that we used to have people watching some of our videos and honestly like binging video after video and then often landing on a longer video kind of like this one that you're watching right now and when YouTube sees that they watched another video and then came and watched a lot of this longer video YouTube loves that so what do they do they promote the longer video further push it out to more people but they also push out the videos that you watched that led you to this one because those videos also promoted longer session duration we're going to help teach you how to do those sorts of things in this phase within project 24 I mentioned engagement we're also going to work on ways to get people watching our videos longer getting them to comment on our videos getting them to like And subscribe without necessarily saying please like And subscribe cribe in every one of our videos those kinds of Engagement also send positive signals to YouTube that people are not only viewing your content but that they're engaging with it that they're actively involved in the content which are all really good signs to YouTube once we're doing pretty well there we're going to move on to the next phase and here we're going to spend only about five months this is a long time right I this is called project 24 our whole process is called project 24 because honestly for most people we need to have a realistic expectation that this isn't going to happen overnight but that this is something that you can absolutely do okay so phase three 5 months it's in this phase that most people are going to be accepted into the YouTube Partner program within project 24 this is what we see on a very regular basis for our members it's also in this phase that most people are going to hit the Milestone that we have in Project 24 of earning $100 in one single month but typically what we see is that income going up again because we're not focused on just monetizing through the YouTube Partner program and the ads that they show we're going to be doing from the very beginning we're going to be doing some affiliate marketing we're going to teach you how to do that in a really effective way it's so much easier on YouTube than it is in blogging I I can't even tell you just how much better this is and it works incredibly well and it's a great way to be monetized basically from your very first video if you want to but at this point we're going to focus on continuing to improve our content in a lot of different ways so the things that we do here are going to help improve engagement they're going to help improve session duration they're going to make our videos more interesting more entertaining to watch there's just so much that we can do to continue to improve the way that we present content at this point too you're starting to get Real views on your videos so what do we do we start looking at data on your channel you have access to so much data about how people engage with your content not only which videos they watch and how many views you got but you can really dial down figure out who your audience is and exactly what things are keeping them on your videos and what things are sending them away and we're going to start diving into that data and looking for opportunities to improve we're also going to start really focusing more on the brand that you're building and the community that you're building so not only creating engaging content but engaging more with the people who are consuming your content we may even start looking into other places that we can interact with them which would include other forms of social media potentially even a website if that's the kind of brand that you want to build and there's you know products and things there that you can start to promote on your own website there's a ton of opportunity there and honestly project 24 members you know you have access to a ton of information about how to build websites and how to put awesome content on those websites and synergize with YouTube which is amazing Now we move on to phase four where we're going to spend another uh five months another 22 videos in this phase we're going to hit the $500 a month Milestone very consistently a lot of our members are doing that which is amazing but in this phase we're going to start focusing more on monetization and the different ways we can monetize we actually have several specific approaches that we take to monetization and different ways that we monetize there's not just one way to do it it's not like we just do product reviews and now we're an affiliate for them and it's not just like oh here's a quick product placement uh you know we have a product here you should all buy this product because it's the one I use there are four different distinct strategies that we teach for affiliate marketing that you can use in the appropriate situations with the appropriate type of content that does incredibly well and that feels so incredibly natural and organic that when people watch your content they don't feel like you're just trying to sell to them they feel like you're trying to help them but beyond that there are so many other ways to monetize obviously um on YouTube if you're focused a lot on YouTube you probably know about opportunities for sponsorships we'll talk about that there's opportunities for memberships with things like patreon or YouTube memberships there's courses and information products and there's so many ways to deliver that kind of content uh potentially in the future even directly on YouTube being able to sell your own course and have it served right there on the YouTube platform for paying subscribers but even without that existing today we use lots of different platforms including our own websites to be able to host and sell our own information products our own courses our own memberships all sorts of different things really whatever it is that you want to do as a business we're going to be able to help you do that and be able ble to monetize that and take the audience that you have here on your YouTube channel and show them what it is that you can serve to them that makes you a great income but also that serves them then we're going to move on to phase five phase five is specifically five months worth of time but honestly like this phase sort of goes out into the future in Phase five we're going to focus specifically on how we're going to take this channel that we've started and how we can scale that you'll find that most successful YouTub ERS aren't just a oneperson show anymore a lot of them have at least outsourced some of their work to an editor maybe they've outsourced their email to a virtual assistant and that starts to pick up and if you don't know how to do it or what things that most YouTubers are Outsourcing it can be a bit of a struggle and you find yourself trying to find other people in the YouTube space that you can talk to that are maybe a little further than you that can give you advice on how to do that we have a lot of people in project 24 who are scaling in lots of different ways and we have some specific Direction on things that we recommend that you could do for scaling so you're going to focus quite a bit during this time on how you're going to scale up that business scaling every aspect of it scaling the monetization not necessarily tons more content but but reaching your audience from a lot of different ways and finding ways to own your audience it's during this phase that most of our members are hitting at least $4,000 a month which is the number that we a while ago arbitrarily set as the milestone for a full-time income earner I recognize that what you're earning from your full-time job is probably not exactly this so what your goal is for your YouTube channel that's your own and we want to support that and we do support that here at Channel makers and so we are 100% behind you in helping you to achieve whatever your goal may be for many of our members it's to make a supplemental income and they want to be able to have freedom of time and freedom of income come to be able to live the life that they want to live and that is one of the things that we've helped facilitate for hundreds of people within project 24 and thousands of people who never signed up because they learned all this stuff just from us here on YouTube the other thing that I encourage you to do at the end of every single phase is to take the opportunity to look back at what you've done and see how far you've come and evaluate your channel we're going to look at some of those things like the audience that that we're developing we're going to look at the topics that we're selecting we're going to look at what's working and what's not working we call this the compass we actually have a bunch of content within project 24 basically a whole phase in our YouTube system that's all about the compass and how we can Orient ourselves and there's certain steps that we're going to recommend for each of those phases at the end so that you can go back and re-evaluate things but more than just that I want you to take the opportunity every so of often maybe just every month or every few months to look back at what you've accomplished don't compare yourself to other YouTubers because here's the fact the ideal for you is going to change the closer you get to it it's like a mirage in the desert this is a concept I'm taking from Dan Sullivan uh from a book that I read but it's 100% true the closer you get to your goal the further out you're probably going to push your goal so unless you have very very specific mile posts that you plan to pass one of the best ways to compare yourself is to look back at what you were a month ago 6 months ago and see how far you've come because you are coming a long way if you're already creating content on YouTube I want to encourage you to look back at your very first video and see what it looked like and compare that to the video you just most recently made and I want you to do that again in another few months and just see how far you're coming now that's kind of the the high level of what our strategy is for how we approach a brand new YouTube channel and I would take this same approach whether I was starting a new channel whether I have an existing Channel that's not really doing a lot yet or if I have a channel I started a while ago and that's been sitting dormant I'm going to take the same approach no matter what I do now some of you are going to be able to take this strategy that I've shown you and you're going to be able to run with that and have success growing your YouTube channel that's fantastic and in fact I encourage you to watch this video again and again as you work through each of the phases in this strategy come back and see what are the skills I need to develop what do I need to be focusing on at this stage of my journey and that's going to be enough for you but for most of us success on YouTube requires just a little bit more than a good process and a good strategy in fact there are a few key ingredients that are missing so far in this video that I want to share with you right now the first of those ingredients is a support network most successful YouTubers believe it or not have a network of other YouTubers that they communicate with very very regularly but most of us are kind of alone in our YouTube efforts a lot of us don't even have family members that really understand what we're trying to do and what's worse a lot of us don't even have friends or family members that believe in us that we're going to be able to be successful at what we're trying to do that's actually one of the reasons that Gemini originally created project 24 was to help content creators have a group of people that they can work with that they can resonate with and that they can get feedback from we have a very very active Community within project 24 of people who are sharing the thumbnails that they just created or their video outlines or their ideas and people are helping each other identify the things on their channels that are maybe keeping them from having the success that they want to we've had many members tell us that just the community alone has been well worth the cost of entry into project 24 the second key ingredient is guidance most successful YouTubers at some point in their Journey also found a mentor somebody that could help them navigate This Strange World of YouTube even I who have been doing YouTube for over eight years now will sometimes look at my channel and say I need a third-party perspective someone that's not in the middle of the channel who can help me identify maybe some of the things that I'm doing that are preventing me from having greater success that's right even sometimes guides need guides find your guide once again that's one of the purposes of project 24 we've developed a process a sequence that you can work through step by step and always know what the next thing is that you should be working on if you want to learn from our Experience Project 24 is a great place to go ahead and do that the third key ingredient is getting helpful feedback this kind of goes back to having a good support network but it's more than just having supportive people in your corner it's being able to present what you're doing to other people who have experience and who can potentially help you identify the things that are working really well and the things that maybe you should try adjusting in your process I mean it's about being able to show your thumbnail to someone and get their first impression it's about being able to take a video idea and run it past somebody else maybe even in your same industry to get their insights it's about taking your frustrations and being able to share them with other people and get their support and their helpful feedback and project 24 not only has our amazing Community for that but we also have regular Mastermind sessions where you can meet with me or another member of my team as well as other project 24 members and directly ask your questions and get direct feedback on your channel let me show you real quick what project 24 looks like the first thing that's going to happen when you sign up is you're going to get taken to this first welcome sort of directions page it's going to walk you through step byep the things that you should do next it's going to direct you to go over to the course content and you can go into the YouTube system right away it's 100% all available to you from the very first moment that you sign up and you're going going to go ahead and go to the starter phase phase zero and you're going to be able to just work through that and by the end of that have a Channel created and content on your channel the directions page is also going to point you to our podcast we have a premium podcast available to members only where three times a month we get on there and we talk about what's happening right now with YouTube with our strategy what sorts of things we're testing and trying it's the Insiders podcast for YouTubers we also have three other episodes every single month about blogging and business online and those are all available to all project 24 members whether you came in from this YouTube side of things or from the blogging and SEO side of things this directions page is also going to point you where to go to sign up to attend your very first Mastermind session we have masterminds specifically for brand new members to help point you to all of the amazing tools and resources available to you in Project 24 as well as for you to meet other people who are starting this journey at the same time as you it will also direct you on the exact steps to take to get set up in our community so that you can Jump Right In introduce yourself and start asking your questions and helping other people with their channels as well there are also numerous other courses and resources available in Project 24 they're all available to you at noed cost and you can work through them all at your own pace to learn how to do things like build a good brand for your YouTube channel how to monetize that channel in incredible ways and to create the business that you want to create with your YouTube channel at this point with this information you really have two really good options available to you the first one is to take this information that we share with you here on this channel as well as all the information you learn and glean from all other sources and put together your own system your own process for developing your YouTube channel you can also find your own support network find your own Mentor this has been done by a lot of people very successfully and it's a great option for a lot of you who have the time and are really putting a lot of focus and energy in into creating this YouTube channel or you can take my years and my team's years of figuring this out on our own and learning from other amazing sources and the process that we've developed over all of this time and put all of that experience to work for you so that you can right away start using our sequence and our strategies and the skills that we're going to teach you to start growing your channel to success now both options are great and it's just up to you which path do you want to take whatever you choose to do we here at Channel makers are here for you and we want to help you and see you succeed at growing your YouTube channel