A new content creator overcame an initial period of stagnation by shifting their strategy from attempting to appear as an expert to embracing their newcomer status and documenting their authentic journey, which led to rapid subscriber growth.
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So, for the first six weeks of uploading
to this channel, I was getting almost
zero views and zero subscribers. And it
got to a point where I realized I need
to switch something up. So, after making
just one small change, I reached my
first 1,000 subscribers just 8 days
later, which is absolutely mental. So,
in this video, I want to share with you
how I made that happen using that one
simple change, and how you can also use
it to get to your first 1,000
subscribers as well. Okay, so here we
are inside of my YouTube analytics. And
what we're looking at here is the first
6 weeks of the channel and you can see
there's not really much going on. So
we're getting 10 views, eight views,
some some days were even zero views. And
over the course of that entire 6 week
period, we gained 11 subscribers. And
it's important to note that all new
creators and all new YouTube channels
have a period like this where there's
nothing going on. And I call this the
dead zone. but also because the niche
I'm trying to get into is extremely
saturated, which by the way, if you
don't know who I am, my name is George
and I help earlystage creators to grow
faster and earn more. But this content
creation niche is very saturated, so I
did expect the results to be quite slow
at first. But I'm not sure if I expected
the views to be this low. I mean, there
were some videos that literally got zero
views when I uploaded them. And if
you're in this stage of your journey as
a creator, maybe you can relate to this
because even though the views were very
low, I knew I had something to share and
I knew that I had insights that people
would find valuable. So, I had to keep
going. But having said that, it's still
not a great feeling. Like, let's just be
honest with each other. If you spend
hours or even days on a video and you
put your heart into it and your
creativity into it and it gets like
seven views, it does sting a little bit.
Like, let's just be honest. But then I
posted a video called How Content
Creation Completely Changed My Life in
90 Days. And it's actually pretty likely
that that video is how you found my
channel in the first place. And now if
we look back to the analytics, you can
see that that 6 week period that we were
looking at before, I mean, you can
barely even see those spikes that we
were looking at. And you can see as soon
as I posted that video, the views just
immediately shot up to, you know, about
6,000 views a day. And if we click up
here, you can see that in the 8day
period after I posted that video, we
reached 1,000 subscribers. And I really
wanted to show you this because I really
want you to see that just one video can
literally change everything. And I think
this is so interesting because when it
comes to YouTube, I think a lot of new
creators, they expect to see kind of
slow, linear progression over time. And
they usually expect to see something a
little bit like this. And there's a
reason why we expect this because you
know in life that's usually how we see
results with this kind of slow linear
progression towards our goals. For
example, if you were trying to learn the
piano, you would expect that over time
and over the years with practice, you
would slowly improve and slowly see
results. But when it comes to seeing
results on YouTube, I would say 90% of
the time it's not going to look like
this. it's going to look more like this
where we have this kind of long dead
zone period and then all of a sudden you
post one video and everything changes.
And this actually happens to most of the
big creators. So I remember Hamza back
in the day talking about this where he
was describing this long period where
nothing was going on and then all of a
sudden he posted one video and his
entire channel blew up. This is so
valuable because it means that if you're
not seeing results yet and maybe you're
feeling a little bit disheartened, it
might be because you're expecting to be
here in terms of your results, but you
might actually be here. So, yeah, that's
just something to think about. Now,
let's dive into this then. So, what one
change did I make right here to reach my
first 1,000 subscribers in 8 days? Now,
here's the thing. When you are an early
stage creator, you have a big problem to
overcome. And that's that when people
see your video recommended, they also
see the amount of views. And this could
be a bit of a problem because
unfortunately when people see a video
with low views, they associate it with
low quality and then obviously they're
less likely to click on it. And the most
egregious example of this is if you were
to upload a video called How to Grow on
YouTube and the video had, you know,
like seven views, then it's going to be
very hard to get people to take you
seriously. But this also actually
applies to any niche on YouTube. Because
if people see your video next to a video
that has a ton of views, they're going
to be more likely to click on the video
with high views. because again they
associate it with high quality and I
wish that wasn't the case but it is the
truth. So how do we remedy this issue?
How do we counteract this negative
social proof of having low views and not
many subscribers? Well, what we're going
to do is lean into our newcomer status.
So what on earth do I mean by that?
Well, I think this will make a lot more
sense if I give you an example. So let's
say you're trying to get into the
fitness niche and you know you've got 12
subscribers. You're a brand new creator.
Now, at some point, your videos are
going to start getting recommended next
to the absolute pros. You know, these
are guys with perfect bodies in perfect
lighting. You know, they've got millions
of views. And if you posted a video
called How to Build Muscle Fast or
something like that, it is game over
because people are going to go with the
pros with millions of views every single
time because they're going to assume
that they have more value to give. It's
just the harsh truth. But here's how we
fix this. We need to lean into the fact
that we are new creators. So, we need to
lean into our newcomer status. So,
instead of just posting a broad video
about how to build muscle fast, it would
be way more powerful to post a video
documenting your first year or even your
first 30 days trying to build muscle as
a beginner. And to prove how well this
idea works, this is Joe Faser's channel.
He has around 2 million subscribers and
his first ever video has 31 million
views. And the title and thumbnail looks
like this. Now, the thing is that 31
million people didn't click on this
video because they thought he was a
certified expert. They clicked because
they saw themselves in him and they
wanted to follow along with the early
stages of his journey. So now if we zoom
out, this is so interesting because if
you post a video where you lean into
your status as a new creator instead of
trying to look like an expert, the fact
that the video has low views kind of
compliments the video itself because it
makes people think that they're
discovering something valuable and
something relatable that not that many
people know about. And the crazy thing
is that in all the videos I've watched
about, you know, how to grow a YouTube
channel, they never mention this, which
is mad because it's such a powerful
concept for new creators because again,
this is the concept that I used to start
seeing some real growth on this channel.
So instead of posting videos like how to
grow an audience in 2025 and and things
like that, instead I decided to switch
it up and lean into my newcomer status
and start talking about the struggles
and the successes of my first 90 days as
a content creator. And in that video
that did quite well, I talked about all
my insecurities and all my overthinking
when talking to a camera. And I talked
about my unfiltered experiences as a
beginner. And I think people really
resonated with that because it's
something that everyone goes through and
everyone can relate to when it comes to
getting into content creation. So
finally, how do we apply this to your
own videos? So you want to start off by
asking yourself, what journey are you
actually on right now? Like genuinely,
what are you learning? What are you
building? And what are you struggling
with? Because trust me, these small
moments are so much more powerful than
you think. These are the moments that
make your story real and they make you
more magnetic. And then you can also
think, what is a specific milestone that
you've hit recently, even if it's small,
that others might want to hit as well?
Like for example, this video right now.
So to a lot of people, hitting 1,000
subscribers is not really a big deal,
but to a lot of small creators is a huge
milestone. And these are the aspects of
your journey that you really want to
focus on. And it's so cool because this
is actually your advantage as a small
creator because people don't always want
to learn from the experts or the gurus.
Sometimes they'd rather just learn from
the person who is maybe one or two steps
ahead of them. And I think that's
actually what I'd like to leave you with
because if you're sat there thinking,
you know, I don't have anything to teach
or I don't I don't have anything that
I'm an expert in, then you're probably
the exact kind of creator that somebody
out there needs. And if you are
interested in watching or even
re-watching that video that got me to
1,000 subscribers in 8 days, then there
should be a little box appearing on the
screen somewhere over here. So yeah,
click onto that video and I'll see you there.
there. [Music]
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